Parental Contributions to Preschoolers' Emotional ... - Springer Link

Motivation and Emotion, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1997

Parental Contributions to Preschoolers' Emotional Competence: Direct and Indirect Effects1 Susanne A. Denham,2 Jennifer Mitchell-Copeland, Katherine Strandberg, Sharon Auerbach, and Kimberly Blair George Mason University

The present study examines the contributions of (1) parental socialization of emotion and preschoolers' emotional interaction with parents to their emotional competence, and (2) parental socialization and child emotional competence to their general social competence. Both observational and self-report techniques were used to measure emotion socialization, emotional competence, and social competence of preschoolers (average age = 49.8 months) from 60 middle-socioeconomic-status families. Data were collected in both classroom and home settings. In general, the results suggest that parental modeling of expressive styles and emotional responsiveness to child emotions are important predictors of preschoolers' emotional competence and their overall social competence. Children whose parents were more affectively positive tended to display more positive emotion with peers, whereas children whose parents were more negative appeared less socially competent in the preschool. Parents who were better coaches of their children's emotions had children who understood emotions better. Age and sex moderated several of the study's key findings. The results are consistent with earlier research

1

Preliminary results of this project were reported at the meetings of the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, July 1994, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and The Emotional Development Conference, Yachats, Oregon, June 1995. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation Research Opportunities for Women and Research Experiences for Undergraduates. We wish to thank the Vienna Baptist Children's Center and Teddy Bear Day Care—directors, teachers, parents, and children alike—for their enthusiastic participation in this project. 2 Address all correspondence, including requests for reprints, to Susanne A. Denham, Department of Psychology, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, Virginia 22030-4444.

65 0146-7239/97/D300-006SJ12.50A) O 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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indicating that parental socialization of emotion impacts the child's emotional and social functioning both at home and in the preschool.

Emotional competence is crucial to children's ability to interact and form relationships with others (Parke, 1994; Saarni, 1990). As Saarni (1990) stated, “. . . we are talking about how [children] can respond emotionally, yet simultaneously and strategically apply their knowledge about emotions and their expression to relationships with others, so that they can negotiate interpersonal exchanges and regulate their emotional experiences (p. 116)." Although these abilities continue to develop throughout the lifespan, preschool-aged children already are surprisingly adept at several component skills of emotional competence: discerning one's own, and others', emotional states; using the vocabulary of emotion; empathic involvement in others' emotions; and coping with aversive or distressing emotions. All of these constituent elements of emotional competence are important in their own right, but also insofar as they contribute to a central developmental task of the preschool-age period, moving into the peer arena. Our main goals in this study were to (1) assess the contribution of parental socialization of emotion and preschoolers' emotional interactions with parents to their own emotional competence; and (2) examine the prediction of more general social competence by both parental socialization of emotion and children's own emotional competence.

Prediction of Emotional Competence Certainly individual differences exist in preschoolers' management of key features of emotional competence (i.e., emotional expressiveness, abilities to react optimally to others' emotions, and understanding of emotions). Some young children are more skilled than others in comprehending, expressing, and reacting to emotions in ways that culminate in satisfying social interaction. How do these individual differences arise? In part, children are biologically predisposed to certain "persistent patterns of exhibiting emotional expressions . . . over time and across situations" (Halberstadt, 1991, p. 107). But parents' emotion displays, contingent reactions to emotion, and teaching about emotions also are highly salient to their preschoolers, forming important foundations for children's emotional competence. Children will learn much from parents regarding the appropriate expression of emotions, possible reactions to others' positive and negative emotions, and the nature of emotional expressions and situations (Eisenberg, Fabes, Carlo, & Karbon, 1992; Halberstadt, 1991).

Parental Contributions

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Such socialization can be conceptualized as operating via modeling, contingency, and coaching mechanisms (Halberstadt, 1991). The modeling hypothesis suggests that parents' own particular profiles of emotional expressiveness may implicitly teach their children those emotions which are acceptable in the family, and how certain situations evoke specific emotions. The overall affective environment to which a child is exposed, particularly if it is consistently negative, also may impact emotional competence via the contagion of affect induction. Thus, parents' positive emotions are likely to be related to children's positive emotions; and, conversely, parental negative emotions are associated with their children's negative emotions, even when parents are absent (Denham, 1989, 1993; Denham & Grout, 1992). Parental emotional expressiveness of moderate breadth and intensity is also likely to be related to children's understanding of emotions; when parents freely show a wide range of emotions, children are given information about emotions' appropriate depiction and likely eliciting situations. In contrast, more frequent, intense, negative emotions from parents may merely disturb and dysregulate children, so that little is learned about emotions (Crockenberg, 1985; Denham & Grout, 1992; Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994; Dunn & Brown, 1994; Hoffman, 1984; Parke, Cassidy, Burks, Carson, & Boyum, 1992). According to the contingency hypothesis (Malatesta & Haviland, 1982), parents' behavioral and emotional encouragement or discouragement also may assist their children in maximizing positive expressiveness and minimizing negative expression (Fabes, Eisenberg, & Bernzweig, 1991; Tomkins, 1963, 1991). In rewarding socialization of emotion, the child is taught to both tolerate and control emotions, while expressing them and coping with their sources. Conversely, punitive socialization of emotion focuses on minimizing child emotion at all costs, whether by counterproductive parental emotional response or other expressions of disapproval or placation. Parental reactions to their children's emotions may shape children's subsequent emotional responses and affect the children's mobilization of emotional resources in social situations where they are on their own. Hence, the child whose parent typically responds optimally to emotions (i.e., calmly and supportively; Tomkins, 1991), may be less prone to negative emotions with peers. Empirical work corroborates these theoretical notions (Denham, 1989; Denham & Grout, 1993; see also Eisenberg & Fabes, 1994). Parents’ optimal behavioral and emotional reactions contingent on the child's emotions also may help the child in differentiating among emotions (Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994). For example, different reactions to

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the child’s expressions of anger could suggest to the child those situations when anger is appropriate and those when it is not (e.g., the parent could respond neutrally to the child's mild anger at a falling block tower, but with intense displeasure to the child's high-level anger at a sibling). According to the coaching hypothesis, emotion-related parental didactic practices (e.g., using emotion-laden explanations in disciplinary encounters and conversing about their own and their children's emotions) contribute to children's overall expressiveness, patterns of specific emotion expression, and reactions to peers' emotions. Parents may fit two types: They may be "coaches," who are aware of emotions, particularly negative ones, talk about them in a differentiated manner, and assist their children in experiencing and regulating them, when necessary; in contrast, they may be “dismissers,” who want to be helpful, but ignore or deny their children's experience of emotions, distracting them from emotions, which are "to be dealt with" (Katz & Gottman, 1995). We have found that mothers who are coaches rather than dismissers have children who show greater emotional competence on a variety of indices (Denham, Renwick-De Bardi, & Hewes, 1994). More specifically, talk about emotions may give the child a new tool to use in modulating overt expression of emotions (Bretherton, Fritz, ZahnWaxler, & Ridgeway, 1987; Dunn, Bretheron, & Munn, 1987; Kopp, 1989). In our work, parents who used more frequent, more sophisticated language about emotions had children who were more able to regulate negative emotions (Denham, Cook, & Zoller, 1992). These emotion-related parental didactic practices should also aid children's active attempts to link expressions, situations, and words into coherent, predictable scripts about emotional experience (Bullock & Russell, 1986). Several researchers have found that parental talk about their own and their child’s emotions relate to the child's growing causal reasoning about the common situations in which emotions occur (Denham et al., 1992; Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994; Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991; Dunn, Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, & Youngblade, 1991). Parents' emotions and behaviors are important to the development of emotional competence. Prediction of General Social Competence During the preschool period, children also become more and more skilled in the peer arena. In fact, their movement into independent interactions with agemates is a key developmental task of the period. How are individual differences in emotional competence, as well as socialization factors, related to more general social competence in this age range?


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Accumulating evidence suggests that emotional competence contributes to success in interacting with one's peers (i.e., social competence): For example, positive affect is important in the initiation and regulation of social exchanges; sharing positive affect may facilitate the formation of friendships (Sroufe, Schork, Motti, Lawroski, & LaFrenere, 1984). Conversely, negative affect can be quite problematic in social interactions (Rubin & Clark, 1983; Rubin & Daniels-Byrness, 1983). Children who are able to balance their positive and negative emotions well are rated higher by teachers on dimensions such as friendliness and assertiveness and lower on dimensions such as aggressiveness and sadness, respond more prosocially to peers' emotions, and are seen as more likable by their peers (Denham, 1986; Denham & Burger, 1991; Denham, McKinley, Couchoud, & Holt, 1990; Denham, Renwick, & Holt, 1991; Eisenberg et al., 1993). Children who understand emotions also are rated as more likable by their peers (Denham et al., 1990). Children's emotional competence clearly is an important underpinning of their social competence. It is possible that parental variables exert direct effects on general social competence, along with indirect ones via emotional competence. In fact, significant direct contributions of positive maternal emotion to indexes of children's social competence have been found (Denham, 1989, 1993; Denham & Grout, 1992; Denham et al., 1991; Parke et al., 1992). Parents’ contingent responsiveness to children's emotions also may directly predict general social competence, such as friendliness and empathic involvement with peers (Denham, 1993; Denham & Grout, 1993; Denham, Renwick, & Hewes, 1994; Eisenberg, Fabes, Carb, & Karbon, 1992; Eisenberg, Fabes, Carlo, Troyer, et al., 1992; Zahn-Waxler, RadkeYarrow, & King., 1979); where mothers show certain benevolent reactions to children's negative emotions, children have templates for sympathetically responding to others' distress. Further, parents who use affectively clear explanations in response to their young children's transgressions promote the children's prosocial response to others' emotions (Zahn-Waxler et al., 1979). When parents highlight their own and others' feelings, and their child's responsibility for them, their child is more capable of empathic involvement with peers (Denham & Grout, 1992; Denham, Renwick-DeBardi, & Hewes, 1994). All aspects of socialization of emotion, then, could directly contribute to social competence in the affect-laden world of preschool peer relationships. Goals of This Study More empirical work is necessary to better highlight and specify these critical emotional competence milestones and their socialization, particu-

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larly in order to make findings useful for parents and early childhood educators. To begin to fill this need, we examined young children’s emotional competence in a multisetting, multimethod design. We collected data on both mothers' and fathers' emotions and reactions to child emotions during naturalistic interactions in their home (as well as children's emotions and reactions to parental emotions), and both interviewed and observed children and teachers in peer settings to view various aspects of the preschoolers' emotional and social competence. Given these data, we attempted to assess the contribution of parental socialization of emotion and preschoolers' emotional interaction with parents on their own emotional competence, and to examine the prediction of more general social competence by both parental socialization of emotion and children's own emotional competence. Further, we evaluated whether parental socialization of emotions made direct contributions to emotional and social competence, or whether the contributions were indirect through their mediation via the abilities children practiced with them. Finally, because earlier research has hinted at age and sex differences in the impact of socialization on emotional competence (e.g, Fivush, 1989; Hops, 1995), the effects of these moderators were examined. This effort extended our earlier work by its focus on even more naturalistic indexes of parent-child emotional interactions, inclusion of fathers, and the modification of our data collection system to more broadly tap parents' reactions to children's emotions.

METHOD

Participants Sixty middle-socioeconomic-status (middle-SES) families, including 60 mothers (8 single mothers) and 49 fathers, participated in the study. The average age of the children in the group, which included an equal number of boys and girls, was 49.8 months (SD = 10.6 months, rage = 31 to 74 months at the initial home visit; at the time of the initial home visit, five children had not yet reached 3 years, and only one child was over 5 years 6 months). The average level of education for both mothers and fathers was graduation from college. Procedures We have used both observational and self-report methodologies to measure socialization of emotional competence. Parent-child interactions


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were observed during two visits to each family's home. Parents were encouraged to "go about their business." The only restriction on normal interactions was that the "parent of the day" and the child were to be in each other's presence during the period. Despite the variability in families' routines, the exigencies of parenting preschoolers while maintaining such routines formed a common overarching context for our visits. Microanalytic coding during parents' interactions with the child, collected via laptop computer, yielded important information on parental expression of emotions, as well as their reactions to the child's emotions. Parental beliefs about their own expression of emotion were also collected via self-report. Parental emotion language collected during in-home reminiscences about family emotions tapped coaching about emotion. In the preschool setting, we assessed children's emotional competence: their understanding of emotions' expressions and situations, as well as observing their reactions to others' emotions, and their regulation of their own emotional expressiveness (using the same observational system utilized during home visits). Teachers completed two questionnaires on the children's social competence. Predictor Measures Socialization of Emotion, Modeling. The parent-of-the-day and the child alternated as the focal participant. (Children's emotions while they were the focal participants were coded to index their emotional expressiveness within the social situation at home.) During 5-min periods, occurrence of discrete emotions of the focal participant were tallied. Happy, sad, angry, afraid/tense, tender, neutral, and "other" emotional displays of the focal participant were coded, using facial, vocal, postural, and behavioral indicators of emotion (for details regarding operational definitions, see Denham, 1986; Denham & Grout, 1992). Software created by Roberts (1992) was used to code emotion and reaction to emotion data. The process of coding during each 5-min focal period was as follows: Observers entered an emotion's code at its onset, observed the target person's reactions, entered them as they occurred, and then looked back to the focal person; if the same emotion continued, reactions were again searched for, but if no emotion was being displayed, the observer reentered the "neutral" code. In this study, the number of displays for a specific emotion/total emotional displays, or percentage of emotions, was the metric used for parental and child emotional expressiveness during interactions. We have standardized training to use this coding system and laptop technology. Kappas for coding family emotions averaged .85.

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Robust negative correlations were found between percentage happy and percentage angry scores (rs = -.80 for mothers, -.61 for fathers, -.60 and -.68 for children's emotions with mothers and fathers, respectively, ps < .001; see also Denham & Grout, 1993; Denham et al., 1990). Accordingly, affective balance aggregates, which equaled standard scores for percentage of happy displays minus percentage of angry displays, were created. Because the components of affective balance aggregates correlated, on average, .28 across parents and .41 across children's emotions with each parent (ps < .05), these initial aggregates were then collapsed across parents to form mega-aggregates, parental affective balance and child affective balance with parents. Alphas were .67 and .78, respectively. Next, standard scores for percentage sadness and percentage fear/tension were summed for parents' internalizing negative emotions and children's internalizing negative emotions with parents. A measure which taps parents' emotional experience as well as their expressive patterns was administered as an important adjunct to purely observational data. The 40-item Parent Affect Test (PAT; Linehan, Paul, & Egan, 1983) measures parents' affect when confronted with specific examples of their children's positive and negative behaviors (e.g., "My child acts respectful toward me," "My child gets into some things that don't belong to him/her"). For each hypothetical situation, the parent rates six possible affective reactions on a 7-point scale (e.g., feel angry vs. pleased, want to yell vs. praise). Higher scores denote more positive affect experienced toward the child and are scored for potentially anger-provoking (PAT-a) and pleasure-provoking (PAT-p) items. Because mother and father PAT-a and PAT-p scores were substantially intercorrelated in this study (mean r = .80, p < .001), we created aggregates by summing standard scores for mothers and fathers. Alphas for PAT-a and PAT-p parent aggregates were .92 and .84, respectively. Because the two aggregates themselves were highly intercorrelated, r = -.88, p < .001, only the more internally consistent PAT-a aggregate was used as a predictor: parents' ability to maintain positive affect during difficult childrearing moments. Contingency: Reactions to the Child's Emotions. Roberts' system also is specifically created to facilitate not only the observation of focal participants, but also the reactions of nonfocal participants. Frequencies of the following parental reactions to children's emotions were coded (children's reactions to focal parent emotions also were coded to index their emotional responsiveness within the social situation at home): matching positive or negative emotions, inappropriate affective reaction (e.g., smiles when someone else is hurt), hurt feelings, positive reinforcement (e.g., touches, complies, praises, acknowledges, approaches), negative reinforcement (e.g., verbal discouragement of emotional display, distracting, punishment, leave


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to "get away" from the emotion), help or concern, looking, ignoring, or antisocial reactions (e.g., exacerbation of the emotion by physical, verbal, or behavioral means) (see also Denham, 1986). These reactions were considered mutually exclusive, but could be coded successively. Kappas for coding family reactions to emotions averaged .82. Frequency of each reaction was divided by number of emotions emitted by the child (or parent). Because scores were correlated on average of .32 for mothers' and fathers' reactions to children's emotions and .30 for children's reactions to mothers' and fathers' emotions, ps < .05, reactions were then summed across parents. Coaching: Language About Emotions. To sample the emotion language used by the parents with their children, each parent-child dyad was given a seminaturalistic task (see also Denham et al., 1992). The parent of the day was asked to sit down with the child, and, in whatever way was natural, reminisce about four occurrences in which s/he showed four specific emotions in the child's presence, and four occurrences in which the child showed the emotions in the parent's presence. All conversations were coded for frequency and function of each parent or child emotion utterance, as follows (see Zahn-Waxler, Ridgeway, Denham, Usher, & Cole, 1993). Emotion words were tallied separately for naturalistic emotion language and the seminaturalistic task. These referred to positive or negative discrete emotions, as well as to behavioral expressions of emotion (e.g., hitting, crying, hugging). Repetitions of the other's emotion word also were tallied, separately. Words denoting volition (e.g., want) other internal states (e.g., hungry) were not counted. Functions of utterances containing emotion words were noted as follows: (a) commenting—noting someone's feeling without further explanation or clarification; (b) explaining or clarifying explaining the causes and/or consequences of feeling states, or rectifying misunderstandings; (c) questioning; (d) attempts to guide behavior; (e) socialization of emotion—confirmation, disconfirmation, or denial. Interrater reliability analyses of this coding system for two coders across six participants yielded agreement for emotional utterance occurrence of 95%; kappa was .90. Observed function category agreement was 92%; kappa was .90. In this study, the total utterances of both parents (summed) and the child, as well as function categories of parents' and child's explaining/ clarifying, and socialization/guiding (summed), were used. Criterion Measures Previously developed observational methodologies were used to examine (1) the emotions expressed by children; and (2) the emotion language

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children used with their parents. Semistructured interviews were used to assess children's knowledge about their emotions. Care was taken for assistants familiar to the children (but not those who observed them in the home) to administer all measures in the classroom. Emotions. Children's emotions and their reactions to peers' emotions were assessed in their preschool or daycare, by observers using the computer technology described above. Observers obtained twenty-four 5-min observations for each child (12 with the child as focal, counting his/her emotions, and 12 with the child as target, counting his/her reactions to peers' emotions). Kappas for interrater reliability averaged .80. Affective balance and internalizing negative emotions aggregates were obtained in this context just as in the home. Alpha for the affective balance aggregate was .90. Understanding of Emotion. Children's understanding of emotion (nonverbal recognition and verbal labeling of emotional expressions, identification of emotions unequivocally appropriate to certain situations, and inferences of emotions in equivocal situations) was first assessed using puppets with detachable faces that depicted happy, sad, angry, and afraid expressions. Second, puppets with emotional expressions already affixed were used in a more open-ended interview about the causes of emotions. Both measures were embedded within play sessions. Because these measures have been described in detail elsewhere (Denham, 1986; Denham & Couchoud, 1990a, 1990b; Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994), we will just summarize them here as follows: Children were first asked to identify happy, sad, angry, and afraid facial expressions verbally, by naming them, and then nonverbally, by pointing. In the next two emotional situation identification tasks, the puppeteer made standard facial and vocal expressions of emotions while enacting an emotion-laden story. The child was asked to place on the puppet the face which depicted the puppet's feeling in the situation. The first emotional situation identification task explored how well children know others' feelings in eight common situations that elicit unequivocal emotional reactions, such as happiness at being given an ice cream cone, or fear at having a nightmare (Borke, 1971; Denham, 1986). The second emotional situation identification task measures how well children identify others' feelings in situations where the "other" feels differently than the child. All situations could elicit one of two emotions, as in feeling happy or afraid to get into a swimming pool (Denham, 1986; Denham & Couchoud, 1990b). Children's mothers had reported, via forced-choice questionnaires, how their children would feel in 12 such vignettes. For each vignette, their response determined the emotion expressed by the puppet.


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For the open-ended measures, children viewed and discussed four puppets with happy, sad, angry, and fearful expressions. The tester first asked the child to identify the emotion displayed by each puppet. If the child's answer was incorrect, he or she was corrected before continuing. Then, pointing at each puppet in random order, the tester said, "What made the puppet feel this way?" The generation of elaborated causes for each emotion was encouraged by standardized prompts and play procedures. All responses were audiotaped and transcribed. Repetitive responses were counted only once. The score used for each emotion in this study, then, was the number of accurate, independent reasons given; as such, fluency of causal elaboration of emotions was measured. Standard scores for each item of the first puppet task and numbers of causes given for each emotion in the second puppet task were summed for the emotion knowledge aggregate. Alpha for the aggregate equaled .90. Children's emotion language, coded from the reminiscence procedure described above, also was utilized as an index of emotion knowledge. Social Competence: Observed Prosocial Behavior. Participants' reactions to peers' emotions also were observed in the preschool/daycare using the previously described laptop computer methodology. Measures of reaction to emotion were divided by the number of peer emotions the child observed. As with family reactions to emotions, helping and concern reactions were noted as prosocial responses others' emotions. Next, for the positive attention aggregate, standard scores for matching positive emotions minus the standard scores for just looking or ignoring, antisocial reactions, hurt feelings, and inappropriate affective reactions, were summed. Kappas for interrater reliabilities averaged .78. Alpha for the positive attention aggregate was .68. Social Competence Teacher Ratings. Teachers/daycare providers rated the children's social competence via questionnaires. They were uninformed of the study's hypotheses, and completed the questionnaires after they had known children for at least two months. They completed the Olson Preschool Competence Questionnaire (Olson, 1984, 1989), which yields scales for Positive Peer Relations, Cooperativeness, and Empathy. These scales were chosen because they include emotion-related themes (e.g., positive initiations, distress relief, conflict resolution). Example items include, for the six-item Positive Peer Relations scale, initiating play positively and responding to positive overtures. Cooperativeness was marked by nine items, such as sharing, expressing anger positively, resolving conflicts, and taking turns. The Empathy scale included seven items, such as responsiveness to peers' distress, affection, laughing at humor, offering help when a peer is distress, and not becoming frustrated at not getting one's own way.

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They also completed the Preschool Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ; Behar & Stringfield, 1974). On the 30-item PBQ, the teacher indicates the relative frequency of problem behaviors by a score of 0 to 2. Well-validated scales for Aggressiveness and Sadness/Anxiousness were used. Standard scores for these scales were subtracted from the sum of standard scores for the Olson Empathy, Positive Peer Relations, and Cooperativeness scales. Cronbach's alpha for the final aggregate of social competence with peers equaled .83. RESULTS Analytic Strategy

We first formulated a multiple-regression strategy to predict children's emotional and social competence in the preschool. Three criterion variables of children's emotional competence were chosen: emotion knowledge, affective balance, and internalizing negative emotions. Three criterion variables of children's social competence were chosen: positive attention to peers' emotions, prosocial reactions to peers’ emotions, and the teacher index. Given the relatively small sample size, and relatively large number of independent variables, spurious inflation of R-squared was a concern. We chose to reduce the large number of independent variables available by considering for inclusion in the regressions only those variables whose zeroorder correlations with the criterion variables were significant at the p < .10 level or better. On the first step of each regression equation predicting emotional competence, age and/or sex were entered first if either showed a relation with the criterion. Next, parental variables were considered for entry on the second step. Last, children's emotions with parents and reactions to parents' emotions were considered for entry on the third step. For families where only mother was present, maternal variables were substituted for the mother/father aggregates. When predicting social competence, the same strategy was followed, except that indices of emotional competence in the classroom were examined for inclusion in Step 1. The results are shown in Tables I and II. To show mediation effects, a multiple-regression procedure stipulated by Baron and Kenny (1986) was used. In one equation, the predictor would be shown to affect the mediating variable (p < .05, for a conservative test). In the second equation, this predictor is shown to affect the dependent variable (p < .10, as stipulated above for overall regression equations). In the last equation, the dependent variable is regressed on both the mediator


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Table J. Prediction of Child Emotional Competence Seep predictor

Zero-order rs Betasa

R2b

Criterion: Emotion knowledge 1 Child age 2 Parent negative reinforcement of child emotions Parent matching positive emotions Parent ignoring child’s emotions Parent emotion talk, total PAT-a 3 Child positive reinforcement of parents' emotions Child ignoring parent emotions Child emotion talk, total

.5of -.44f -2Ad .21c 39f .24d -.24d

.502f -.371f .21C -.014 .079 .196d -.070 -.069 .20c

.252f .506f .081

.295d -.326e .290d .27d

.087d .293f

.230e .322e .30a .120 .316e .228d

.053C .239e .198

.5l6f .084

Criterion: Affect Blanace in Classroom 1 Parents' affective balance 2 Child negative reinforcement of parents' emotions Child positive reinforcement of parents' emotions Child locking at parents' emotions

.29e -.34e .26d

.263d

Criterion: Internalizing negative emotions in classroom

1 Sex 2 Parent emotion language, guiding and socializing Parent prosocial reactions to child emotions Parent ignoring child's emotions 3 Child emotion language, explain/clarify Child ignoring parents' emotions

.23d .36* .21C .30d .32e

.388f

a

Significant reported at variable's entry. Cumulative. < .10. p < .05. e p < .01. p < .001.

b

c p a

and the original predictor; the mediator must affect the dependent variable (again, p < .10). If all these conditions hold in the predicted direction, the effect of the predictor on the dependent variable must be less in the third equation than in the second in order to assume mediation. Moderator effects were also assessed via Baron and Kenny's (1986) methodology. Hence, age and gender differences in prediction were evaluated via hierarchical regression equations, as follows: child sex or age and each predictor were entered on the first step; their interaction term was entered on the second step. If the interaction term’s contribution to Rsquared was significant in this equation (p < .10), separate regression equations for girls and boys, or younger and older age groups group (as divided at median, 48 months), were created. These equations were used to assess

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Denham et al. Table II. Prediction of Child Social Competence Step predictor

Zero-order rs Betasa

R2b

Criterion: Prosocial responses to peers' emotions 1 Child age 2 Child ignoring parents' emotions Child matching positive emotions

.25d •26d -.21C

.250d .230d -.030

.062d .134d

.278d –.311d – .103

.194e

–.362e –.272c .144 e

.131e .326e

.239d -.128 -.151

.429f

Criterion: Positive attention to peers' emotions 1 Parent looking at child emotions Parent emotion language, guiding and socializing 2 Child emotion language, explaining and clarifying

.32e -.34e -.24C

.201e

Criterion: Overall social competence, teacher-rated 1 Child's negative emotions in preschool 2 Parents' internalizing negative emotions Parent positive reinforcement of child emotions Parent emotion language, guiding and socializing 3 Child positive reinforcement of child emotions Child ignoring parent emotions Child looking at parent emotions

–.36e –.32e .28 –.39^ •39' -.32e –.22C

–.307

a

Significance reported at variable's entry. Cumulative. p < .10. d p < .05. e p < .01. f p < .001. c

differences in the unique contribution of each predictor of emotional competence. Prediction of Emotional Competence. For emotion knowledge as assessed by the puppet measures (see Table I), the child variables of age was a significant predictor in Step 1; not surprisingly, older children demonstrated more emotion knowledge. Parent negative reinforcement and ignoring of child emotions and parents' self-reported positive affect during difficult childrearing moments (PAT-a), their matching of positive emotions, and total emotion talk were zero-order predictors entered in Step 2; only negative reinforcement and the PAT scores were significant predictors after age was entered. And, although children's positive reinforcement of their parents’ emotions and total emotion talk, as well as ignoring of parental emotions (weighted negatively), were significant zero-order predictors, their entry after parent socialization predictors did not significantly increase Rsquared. The overall regression equation suggested that older children whose parents did not discourage their children's expressiveness, and who


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were more affectively positive during trying times, better understood emotions. There was no indication of mediation of socialization effects via child effects. However, age did moderate the effect of parental negative reinforcement [F(3, 56) for interaction term = 8.87, p < .01, Rchange2 = -073]: Younger children's emotion knowledge scores were more affected by this aspect of socialization than were those of older children (Byounger = -.649, p < .0001, vs Bolder = -.444, p < .01). Older children whose parents used guiding and socializing emotion language showed more emotion knowledge [F(3, 56) = 3.29, p < .10, Rchange2 = .041; Bolder = .358, p < .05]. Boys who used more total emotion language with their parents and ignored parents' emotions less often also showed greater emotion knowledge [Fs(3, 56) = 3.97 and 3.07.ps < .05 and .10, Rchange2 = .063 and .048, respectively; Bboyss = -300 and -.345, respectively, ps < .10]. Regarding affective balance in the classroom (see Table I), parent affective balance, internalizing negative emotions, and positive matching of child emotions were all zero-order socialization of emotion predictors. Since these parental predictors were moderately correlated, however (mean r = .50, p < .001), only parent affective balance was entered in step one of the regression equation. Given this procedure, parent affective balance was a significant predictor. On Step 2, children's negative reinforcement of their parents' emotions (weighted negatively), positive reinforcement of parents' emotions, and looking at parents' emotions were all significant predictors which as a group added significantly to the explained variance. The final regression results suggest that, where parents were affectively positive and children do not show discomfort with their parents' emotions (i.e., more actively attending to, accepting, and "taking them in"), children showed more happiness and less anger with peers. Mediation was not tested because parent predictors were not correlated with child predictors, but effects were moderated by child sex. Parent affective balance and internalizing negative emotions were significant predictors of girls’, but not boys, affective balance [Fs(3, 56) = 4.81, p < .05, R2 = .070 and 3.52, p < .06, Rchange2 = -052; Bgirlss = .453 and -.459, ps < .01 and .05, respectively]. Younger children's affective balance with parents, but not older children's, also predicted their affective balance in the classroom [F(3, 56) = 3.39, p < .10, Rchange2 = -054; Byounger = .402, p < .0.5]. Parents' matching of children's positive emotions also predicted affective balance in younger, but not older, children [F(3, 56) = 2.83, p < .10, Rchange2 = .045; B = .340, p < .07]. Internalizing negative emotions in the classroom were predicted by child sex (see Table I); girls showed a higher percentage of these emotions than did boys. Even given this demographic predictor, parent and child

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variables each added to the explanation of variance. Specifically, parent guiding and socializing emotion language added to prediction, as did children's own explaining/clarifying emotion language and their own ignoring of parent emotions. Final regression results suggest that where parents used emotion language in a certain way, and where children also focused on emotion language but at the same time were averse to attending to their parents' emotions, more dysregulation was seen with peers. Although there was no evidence of mediation, these effects were moderated by child sex. Parent antisocial reactions to children's emotions were a significant predictor of girls', but not boys', internalizing negative emotions [F(3, 56) = 2.99, p < .10, Rchange2 = -073; Bgirls = .333, p < .07]. Furthermore, children's own internalizing negative emotions with parents, and antisocial reactions to the emotions of parents, predicted internalizing negative emotions in the preschool for girls only [Fs(3, 56) = 12.57 and 3.61, ps < .001 and .10, Rchange2s = .168 and .056, respectively; Bgirlss = .561 and .339, ps < .001 and .10, respectively]. Prediction of Social Competence. Predictors of children's prosocial responses to peers' emotions included children's age, as well as child ignoring of parents' emotions and matching of parents' positive emotions. These effects were moderated by child age, however. Parents' prosocial reactions to children's emotions were significant predictors of older, not younger, children's prosocial reactions to their peers' emotions [F(3, 56) = 6.31, p < .01, Rchange2 = .088; Bolder = .404, p < .05]. Positive attention to peers' emotions was predicted by parents' looking at their children's emotions, but not using guiding and socializing emotion language. These regression results suggest that where parents showed a pattern of benign attention to children's emotions without an active teaching focus on emotions, children also showed a relatively benign pattern of reactions to peers' emotions. Mediation was not tested because predictors were unrelated, and moderation was not present. Children's and parents' own negative emotions, parents' guiding and socializing emotion language, and positive reinforcement of child emotions were zero-order predictors of teacher-rated social competence in the preschool classroom. After entering children's expression of internalizing negative emotions in the classroom (which could admittedly affect teachers' assessment of overall social competence), parental predictors added significantly to jR-squared, with parents' own negative emotions and use of socializing emotion language making negative contributions. Child predictors also even after that of their own emotionality in the preschool and their parents' socialization were entered. Although their positive reinforcement of parents' emotions and their ignoring of emotions (both weighted negatively) were all zero-order predictors of overall social competence, only


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their positive reinforcement of parents' emotions remained a unique predictor in the regression equation, The final regression results suggest less negative children whose parents were also less negative and used guiding emotion language less often, and ho were themselves accepting of their parents' emotions, coped more successfully with the varied challenges of getting along with peers. This overall pattern, however, was modified by mediation effects of parents' internalizing negative emotions. The contribution of this parental predictor was at least partially indirect, mediated by children's positive reinforcement of parents' emotions. With respect to Baron and Kenny’s (1986) requirements for mediation, both predictors were related to the criterion (Bs = -.318 and .387, ps < .01. respectively). Next, parents' internalizing negative emotions also predicted children's negative reinforcement of parents' emotions (B = -.360, p < .01). Finally, when both parents' internalizing negative emotions and children's reinforcement of parents' emotions were entered in a regression equation predicting teacher-rated social competence, the contribution of parents' internalizing negative emotions was reduced to nonsignificance (but not to zero, p = .205, n.s.). Thus, parents' negative emotions made it more difficult for children to be open to emotional experience within the parent-child dyad, and this lack of openness bore on their overall social competence. DISCUSSION Parental modeling of expressive styles, as well as an instrumental effect of parental emotional responsiveness to child emotions, and coaching about emotions, appear to be important predictors of preschoolers' emotional competence and their overall social competence. Thus, socialization of emotions appears to exert an influence that extends beyond the immediate interactional setting. Moreover, the premise that aspects of children's emotional competence predict their children's general social-emotional competence was again supported. The expressed emotions modeled by parents were related to the children's ability to succeed in the preschool classroom. Specifically, children with more affectively positive, balanced parents were more affectively balanced themselves; conversely, children with more negative parents were rated as less socially competent in the preschool classroom. And parents who reported maintenance of positive affect during challenging circumstances had children who were more adept at understanding emotions. These results are consonant with much of our earlier work which, unlike this study, did not include aspects of paternal socialization of emotion

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(Denham, 1989, 1993; Denham & Grout, 1992, 1993; Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994). In future research, fathers' potentially unique influence on emotional competence should be highlighted. Socialization of emotion via parental reactions to children's emotions also was related to children's emotional and general social competence. Parents' appropriate responsiveness to children's positive affect and distress appear to be important contributors to optimal child functioning. Parental reactions to the child's own displays may be particularly salient aspects of children's nonverbal interactions with parents, which they generalize to their own expressiveness and use in building emotion knowledge. For example, negative reinforcement or discouragement of a child's emotion (e.g., by saying "Stop that crying!!”) may be a powerful deterrent of self-reflection regarding emotions, and, hence, a barrier to emotion knowledge. On the other hand, paying attention to and positively reinforcing children's emotions by accepting them, acknowledging them, and responding to meet the child's pragmatic needs may pave the way for children to learn more about the emotions of themselves and others, as reflected in their social competence. The predictive power of these specific behavioral reactions to children's emotions fleshes out the more global, emotional reactions to children's emotions which were potent predictors in Denham, Zoller, and Couchoud (1994). Regarding parents' coaching about emotions, total frequencies of both parent emotion language and child emotion language with parents predicted children's emotion knowledge, but these associations were only marginal and did not hold up in regression analyses. Parents' use of guiding and socializing emotion language was a more robust, albeit negative, predictor of both emotional and social competence. It may be that parents do use guiding language (e.g., "You really made me sad that time. I wish you wouldn't scream like that") and socializing language (e.g., "Big kids don't cry so much") with children who most actively need such tutelage, such as those who are more prone to exhibit sadness and fear, react immaturely to others' emotions, or experience more difficult social relations. These results are consistent with our earlier work (Denham et al., 1992), and accent the need to examine the functions of emotion language rather than merely sheer output. As we conjectured in Denham et al. (1992), it could be that these contemporaneous associations may differ from crosstime prediction; perhaps parents' consistent prosocial reactions to children's distress would, in the long run, augment both their affective balance and their understanding of emotion. Our results on the prediction of teacher-rated social competence also confirmed earlier studies' findings: Patterns of children's emotion expressiveness were related to the ability to get along with peers in the preschool,


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and parents' emotional expressiveness was an indirect contributor (Denham & Grout, 1993). The ability to show pleasure and modulate hostility apparently "greases the cogs" of relationship building and maintenance with peers, and the parent-child relationship is a rehearsal stage for these abilities. Although parents are the adult experts at emotional competence, it is important to remember that effects are bidirectional in dyadic systems (i.e., difficult interactive partners elicit negative emotional reactions; we respond in kind to pleasant interactive partners). Thus, our regression results support and extend earlier research on the correlates of parental expressiveness, but also show that children's own emotional competence with parents is important to consider (see also Denham & Grout, 1993). For example, the children’ reactions to parents emotions were added explanatory factors in the prediction of their own affective balance, internalizing negative emotions in preschool, and social competence. That is, children who managed to be open, attentive, and positively (and not negatively) reinforcing of their parents' emotions showed, at least in zero-order correlations, better adjustments on both the emotional and social competence indexes. In fact, children's openness to parent's emotions mediated the effect of parents' emotions on their social competence. Accordingly, the children's own contributions to their social-emotional competence should be underscored. It is important to note that several key findings were moderated by age or sex. First, parents' modeling of prosocial reactions to emotions appeared to be more useful to the promotion of prosocial reactions in children 4 years and older. These results are consistent with Grusec and Goodnow’s (1994) notion that children's internalization of parental socialization is dependent upon the children's own perception, understanding, and acceptance of the message. It seems reasonable that older children are more ready to understand and accept their parents' emotion coaching, and more able to accurately model their prosocial actions specifically in response to emotion. Moreover, the affective balance of the younger children benefitted more than that of their older counterparts from the contribution of their own affective balance with parents, and parents matching of these positive emotions. Perhaps the younger children were most affected by a cross-situational contagion of their own emotions and parental emotion-matching. Parents' negative reinforcement especially stymied the growth of the younger children's emotion knowledge, stifling their willingness to deeply consider emotional events and issues. Again, the older children may have more correctly perceived the messages inherent in negative reinforcement,

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and the younger children may only have registered its affectively negative aspect. Girls' ability to regulate negative emotions was especially vulnerable to the detrimental effects of familial internalizing negative emotions and antisocial reactions to emotions, and to the positive effects of their parents' own affective balance. These results are conceptually similar to those of Eisenberg, Fabes, Carlo, Troyer, et al. (1992), who found that only daughters' vicarious emotions were related to their mothers'. Daughters' sensitivity to parental socialization of emotional expressiveness, and the generalization of their own reactivity, may be seen as both a blessing and a curse. As Hops has stated (1995, p. 420), “. . . girls are more sensitive to interpersonal factors . . . which may be problematic in some situations." The greater salience of the family context for girls' behavior, and girls' greater sensitivity to parental influences, need to be studied more explicitly in the realm of emotional competence. Overall, the combination of both indirect and direct effects of parental emotion socialization on social competence, and child effects, is an important one: Elements of emotional competence and its family socialization are related to preschoolers' successful interactions with peers. Continued naturalistic, prospective research on this connection is warranted in order to elucidate the direction of the effects of socialization variables on the developmental course of emotional and social competence. In particular, now that joint effects of maternal and paternal socialization of emotion have been uncovered, more parent-specific effects should be delineated. Last, the possibility that contemporaneous and crosstime predictions of child outcomes differ needs to be further substantiated.

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