Emotion Regulation and Personality as Predictors of Mothers' Emotion Socialization Practices

• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Author: Sarah Cabecinha‐Alati,Hagit Malikin,Tina C. Montreuil
• Date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12501

S C-A, H M,  T C. MMcGill University

Emotion Regulation and Personality as Predictors

of Mothers’ Emotion Socialization Practices

Background: Parental emotion regulation (ER)

and emotion socialization have been identied

as key factors contributing to children’s emo-

tional competence; however, only a handful of

studies have assessed the relationship between

these constructs.

Objective: The goal of the present study was

to determine whether parental ER would pre-

dict parents’ self-reported emotion socialization

practices above and beyond the inuence of per-

sonality.

Method: Parents completed a series of

self-report measures online.After data cleaning,

104 mothers of children between the ages of 8

and 12 years were retained for analyses.

Results: Hierarchal regressions revealed that

mothers who reported higher levels of ER skills

and more frequent use of cognitive reappraisal

were more likely to report engaging in sup-

portive response behaviors when controlling

for personality. Moreover, maternal reappraisal

was signicantly and inversely associated with

reports of unsupportive emotion socialization.

Conclusion: Findings provide evidence to sup-

port the association between maternal ER and

emotion socialization behaviors.

3700 McTavish Street, Department of Educa-

tional and Counselling Psychology, McGill Uni-

versity, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 1Y9

(sarah.cabecinha-alati@mail.mcgill.ca).

Key Words: emotion regulation, emotion socialization, par-

enting, personality.

Implications: Results are discussed with respect

to their implications for emotion-focused inter-

ventions aimed at promoting supportive parent-

ing practices.

Emotion regulation (ER) is broadly dened

as a series of processes through which emo-

tional awareness and experiences are monitored,

evaluated, maintained, and modied (Thomp-

son, 1994). These processes allow individuals to

inuence which emotions they have, when they

have them, and how they experienceand express

these emotions (Gross, 1998). Learning how

to regulate one’s emotional responses in exi-

ble, adaptive, and socially appropriate ways is

thought to be one of the key factors contributing

to successful social and emotional functioning

(Denham et al., 2003; Eisenberg et al., 2002).

Parental Emotion Socialization and Emotional

Development

According to attachment theory, the

child–caregiver relationship serves as the

context for the development of infants’ affect

regulation and children’s subsequent ER abil-

ities (Sroufe et al., 1999; Thompson, 2001).

Existing models attempting to elucidate the role

of parenting in children’s emotional develop-

ment have provided a framework that describes

the ways in which parents inuence children’s

ER abilities through various socialization pro-

cesses. For example, Eisenberg et al. (1998)

proposed that three aspects of parenting con-

tribute to children’s emotional competence:

Family Relations 69 (December 2020): 1055–10721055

DOI:10.1111/fare.12501

1056 Family Relations

parental modeling, which involves parents’ reg-

ulation and expression of their own emotions;

parents’ reactions to their children’s emotions;

and parents’ discussions pertaining to their

children’s emotions. Similarly, Morris and col-

leagues (2007) introduced a tripartite model

of emotion socialization whereby children’s

ER skills are inuenced by observation and

modeling,emotion-related parenting practices,

and the emotional climate of the family.Of

these various socialization mechanisms, direct

instruction from parents is thought to be one of

the primary pathways through which children

learn the consequences of expressing their emo-

tions and develop techniques for self-regulation

(Thompson, 1994).

In support of this notion, Gottman

et al. (1997) proposed that parents who dis-

miss or invalidate children’s distress may instill

the belief that negative emotions are “bad,”

thereby creating an environment that is less

conducive to the development of adaptive ER

skills. Concomitantly, unsupportive responses

(i.e., punitive or minimizing reactions to chil-

dren’s negative emotions) have been associated

with maladaptive coping strategies (Fabes

et al., 2001) in toddlers and young children;

lower levels of socioemotional competence

(Jones et al., 2002) and behavioral problems

(Lunkenheimer et al., 2007) in middle child-

hood; and the development of psychological

difculties, such as depression and anxiety, in

middle childhood (Hurrell et al., 2015; Sanders

et al., 2015; Suveg et al., 2008) and adolescence

(Buckholdt et al., 2014).

In contrast, supportive parental responses are

thought to facilitate the development of adaptive

ER and are characterized by the tendency to dis-

cuss children’s emotional experiences, comfort

children when they experience negative emo-

tions, and engage in problem-solving strategies

aimed at reducing the child’s distress (Eisenberg

et al., 1998; Fabes et al., 2002). Accordingly,

parents’ use of supportive responses has been

associated with higher levels of socioemotional

competence in young children (Brophy-Herb

et al., 2011; Warren & Stifter, 2008). How-

ever, ndings pertaining to middle childhood

are mixed in that some studies have found

a positive relationship between supportive

emotion socialization and adaptive ER in chil-

dren (Blair et al., 2014; Gentzler et al., 2005),

whereas others suggest that emotion-focused

and problem-focused responses may have the

unintended effect of thwarting successful ER

during a time when children should be striving

for greater self-sufciency (Castro et al., 2015;

Mirabile et al., 2018). Nonetheless, the notion

that parental response behaviors are important to

emotional development is unequivocal, making

it vital to consider how parental characteristics

might inuence their emotion socialization

practices.

Parental Emotion Regulation and Emotion

Socialization

Both models of emotion socialization described

in the preceding paragraphs recognize parental

ER as a determinant of parents’ emotion social-

ization practices (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Morris

et al., 2007). However, conceptual models of

ER should be distinguished from one another

depending on whether they focus on ER strate-

gies or ER abilities (Tull & Aldao, 2015).

Strategy models, such as Gross’s (1998) pro-

cess model of ER, describe specic tactics that

individuals use to regulate their emotions. In

contrast, models that focus on ER abilities, such

as Gratz and Roemer’s (2004) model, describe

specic skills that may underlie the ability to

select and deploy a particular ER strategy (Tull

& Aldao, 2015).

Parental emotion regulation skills and emotion

socialization. Most of the research that has

focused on the relationship between parental

ER and emotion socialization has used Gratz

and Roemer’s (2004) model of ER, which

encompasses skills such as emotional clarity,

awareness, and acceptance, as well as the ability

to inhibit impulsive behaviors, behave in ways

that are congruent with one’s goals, and apply

appropriate regulatory strategies depending on

the context of the situation. Evidence suggests

that parents who experience decits or dys-

regulation in these domains are more likely

to engage in problematic patterns of emotion

socialization. For example, parental emotion

dysregulation has been negatively associated

with parents’ use of supportive response behav-

iors and positively associated with parents’

use of unsupportive response behaviors in

middle childhood (Han et al., 2015; Morelen

et al., 2016) and adolescence (Jones et al., 2014).

Similarly, parents who reported higher levels

of ER difculties were more likely to invali-

date their adolescents’ emotional expressions