Parent, Family, and Child Characteristics: Associations With Mother- and Father-Reported Emotion Socialization Practices

Maria S. Wong, Nancy L. McElwain, Amy G. Halberstadt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The present research examined parental beliefs about children's negative emotions, parent-reported marital conflict/ambivalence, and child negative emotionality and gender as predictors of mothers' and fathers' reported reactions to their kindergarten children's negative emotions and self-expressiveness in the family (N = 55, two-parent families). Models predicting parents' nonsupportive reactions and negative expressiveness were significant. For both mothers and fathers, more accepting beliefs about children's negative emotions were associated with fewer nonsupportive reactions, and greater marital conflict/ambivalence was associated with more negative expressiveness. Furthermore, interactions between child negative emotionality and parental resources (e.g., marital conflict/ambivalence; accepting beliefs) emerged for fathers' nonsupportive reactions and mothers' negative expressiveness. In some instances, child gender acted as a moderator such that associations between parental beliefs about emotions and the emotion socialization outcomes emerged when child and parent gender were concordant.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)452-463
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Family Psychology
Volume23
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 2009

Keywords

  • beliefs about emotions
  • child emotionality
  • child gender
  • emotion socialization
  • fathers

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Psychology

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