Poster #93 - Indirect Pathways Between Sociodemographic Risk and Mothers’ Supportive Emotion Socialization Through a Serial Mediation Model

• In Event: Poster Session 14

Abstract

Economic hardship is associated with higher levels of psychological distress which is known to undermine parenting (Conger & Conger, 2002). Further, prior research demonstrates that higher maternal psychological distress (i.e., depressive symptoms) is associated with more negative and self-oriented beliefs about infants’ crying (Leerkes et al., 2010) which in turn is associated with less sensitive maternal behavior (Haltigan et al., 2012). However, little is known about the process by which economic hardship may undermine early parental emotion socialization (Leerkes et al., 2020). Given early emotion socialization is an important predictor of subsequent child outcomes such as emotion regulation and behavior problems (Eisenberg et al., 1998), this is a significant knowledge gap. Thus, we examined whether the association between socio-demographic risk and supportive emotion socialization is mediated via maternal psychological distress and mother-oriented cry processing. The sample included 259 mothers (128 White, 131 Black) and their infants (52% female). A latent factor of prenatal sociodemographic disadvantage was constructed using three indicators: low maternal age, education level, and income-to-needs ratio. At 6 months, a latent measure of psychological distress was created based on mothers’ reported depressive symptoms (CES-D; Radloff, 1977), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation (Gratz & Roemer, 2004), and trait positive and negative emotions (Differential Emotions Scale, Izard et al., 1993), all reported prior to a lab visit. A latent variable of mother-oriented cry processing was created based on three indicators: negative and minimizing causal attributions about crying, and negative/mother-oriented cry beliefs assessed at the 6-month visit. Supportive emotion socialization was assessed at 14 months using a multi-method latent variable with four indicators of observer rated maternal sensitivity during two distress-eliciting tasks and maternal self-reports of their supportive and non-supportive responses on the Coping with Toddlers’ Negative Emotions Scale (Spinard et al., 2007). The hypothesized model was tested with structural equation modeling using Mplus, see Figure 1. The model fit the data well; RMSEA= .05, 95% CI [.04, .06], SRMR = .06, and CFI = .92. There was a significant direct effect of higher sociodemographic disadvantage on lower supportive emotion socialization. Additionally, sociodemographic risk predicted higher psychological distress and mother-oriented cry processing, both of which in turn predicted lower supportive emotion socialization. Further, higher psychological distress was associated with higher mother-oriented cry processing. Psychological distress did not have a significant direct effect on emotion socialization. Consistent with our hypotheses, socioeconomic disadvantage also had indirect effects on maternal emotion socialization via two pathways: (1) sociodemographic disadvantage to lower supportive emotional socialization via higher mother-oriented cry processing, β = -.22, B = -.22, SE = .10, 95% CI [-.038, -.005] and (2) socio-demographic risk to lower supportive emotion socialization via heightened psychological distress which in turn predicted higher mother-oriented cry processing, β = -.03, B =, -.03, 95% CI [.009, .000].In sum, mothers with higher sociodemographic disadvantage are at greater risk of psychological distress which is linked with negative/self-oriented beliefs about crying and undermines mothers’ supportive emotion socialization. These findings lend more evidence for providing preventive intervention service to promote maternal mental well-being.

Authors

• Shourya Negi, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Esther M. Leerkes, UNC Greensboro

• Kierra Marie Pettit Sattler, University of North Carolina at Greensboro