socialization of emotion: pathway to preschoolers ...

SOCIALIZATION OF EMOTION: PATHWAY TO PRESCHOOLERS' EMOTIONAL AND SOCIAL COMPETENCE Susanne A. Denham and Leslie Grout

ABSTRACT: Aspects of 47 preschoolers' emotional competence—their pdtterns of emotional expressiveness and reactions to others' emotion displays—were observed in two settings, with mother and with peers, and iheir general social competence was rated by their preschool teachers. Intrapersonal and interpersonal (I.e., socialization correlates of children's ennotional competence were identified, and a causal model incorporating direct and indirect influences on social competence was evaluated. Maternal patterns of expressiveness, reactions to children's emotion displays, and self-reported affective environment were associated with children's emotional competence in the preschool. Children's emotional competence with mother predicted their emotional competence in the preschool somewhat less strongly, suggesting that emotional competence may differ according to the interpersonal relationship studied. Taken as a whole, findings reassert the importance of the domain of emotional expression to the development of social competence. Preschoolers' ability to regulate their own ennotional expressiveness and their nonrandom, often empathic responses to other persons' emotions are important facets of their developing emotional competence (Denham, 1986; Kopp, 1989; Saarni, 1989; Strayer, 1980). They are developing emotional communicative styles via facial, gestural, and vocalic means, and these styles begin to fit family and cultural expectations (Halberstadt, 1991b). Further, ability to manage emotional expressiveness and reactions to others' emotions are important regulators of social interaction (Barrett, Reprint requests can be sent to the author. Department of Psychology, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, Grateful acknov^'ledgment goes to the mothers and children who so clearly expressed and reacted to emotions; thanks also are due to Christine Alban, |oanne Ayyash, Michael Casey, Elizabeth Couchoud, Huynh Dung, Merlina Hemingway, Soueang Lay, Vanna Nguyen, Emilianne Slayden and Kimberly Sproul, as well as the director and leachers of the Project for the Study of Young Children, An earlier version of this material was presented at the 1991 Biennial Meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle, WA, University support from Grants #2-10150, 2-10176 and 2-10073 also made the research possible. lournal ol NDnve-rbal Behdvror J7(J), fall 1993 O 1993 Human Sciences Press, Inc. "

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206 lOURNAL OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR

this issue; Barrett & Campos, 1987; Patterson, 1991): Links are being discovered between these aspects of emotional competence and evaluations of preschoolers' general social competence (Custrini & Feldman, 1989; Denham, McKinley, Couchoud, & Holt, 1990; Feldman, Phillppot, & Custrini, 1991). In this study we investigated interpersonal and intrapersonal influences on the development of such emotional competence with both mothers and peers. We also evaluated, via causal modeling techniques, the direct and indirect contributions of these intrapersonal, interpersonal, and emotional competence factors to more general social competence within the peer group.

Individual Differences in Emotional Competence

What factors are related to preschoolers' management of their own emotional expressiveness and their abilities to react optimally to others' emotions? Certainly individual differences exist in these key features of preschoolers' emotional development: Some young children are more skilled than others in expressing and reacting to emotions in ways that culminate in satisfying social interaction. How do these individual differences arise? In part, these differences may reflect enduring intrapersonal characteristics, such as temperament, but different patterns of family socialization also certainly play a contributing interpersonal role in their development (Barrett & Campos, 1987; Halberstadt, 1986, 1991b; Malatesta-Magai, 1989). That is, children may be biologically predisposed to certain "persistent patternslsl of exhibiting emotional expressions in a variety of socioemotional situations . . . over time and across situations" (Halberstadt, 1991b, p. 107), but they also may internalize their families' communicative style with respect to expressing specific emotions and valuing expressiveness per se. Thus, children's demonstration of emotional competence within social situations may depend on their own thresholds of arousal and habitual modes of expressiveness, but also on cognitive-affective expectancies based on socializing interactions with parents (Patterson, 1991). We assessed children's own emotional expressiveness in two settings, in interaction with their mother and their peers. Mothers are likely to assist their children in maximizing positive expressiveness and minimizing negative expression (Thompson, 1989; Tomkins, 1963, 1991). Such support is absent in the peer setting, and children's varying cognitive-affective expectancies within different social relationships may mask cross-situational continuity (Dunn, in press). Conversely, if in fact there is continuity of expres-

207 SUSANNE A. DENHAM, LESLIE GROUT

sive styles, then children's emotional expression with mother and reactions to mothers' emotions should be associated with similar patterns with peers. We focus on three possible mechanisms of socialization of emotion (i.e., modeling, contingency, and affective environment; Halberstadt, 1991b; Thompson, 1991). Mothers' emotion displays and contingent reactions to their children's emotion displays are highly salient to their preschoolers, forming important foundations for children's emotional competence. Observing mothers' particular profiles of expressed emotions may teach children which emotion displays are likely or acceptable in specific situations, and how to express and manage them (Izard, 1991). And, the child whose mother typically responds in an optimal way to her anger (i.e., calmly and without answering anger; Tomkins, 1991), may be less prone to negative emotion in the preschool, and also may be learning to respond to peers' negative emotion more prosocially. We operationalized these family socialization correlates of preschoolers' expressiveness and reactions to others' emotion displays by collecting mothers' emotion displays and their reactions to their children's emotion displays. Both were studied during structured and unstructured play. 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 (Thompson, 1991). For example, if mothers often feel angry or sad, children may internalize these states and experience them in a variety of situations. They may learn less affective reactions to others' emotions, because of their own emotional dysregulation. We operationalized overall affective environment via maternal selfreport of "typical" emotions.

Prediction of General Social Competence

How are the individual differences in emotional competence, as well as intrapersonal and interpersonal socialization factors, related to more general social competence in this age range? During the preschool period, children become more and more skilled in the peer arena. Their emotional competence is related to their peer status, and to teachers' evaluation of their friendliness and aggression (Denham et al., 1990). In the present study general social competence was operationalized by teachers' evaluations of behavioral, rather than overtly emotional, peer skills. For example, positive affect is important in the initiation and regulation of social exchanges, and for communication during socially directed

208 JOURNAL OF NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR

acts; sharing positive affect may facilitate the formation of friendships (Sroufe, Schork, Motti, Lawroski & LaFreniere, 1984). Conversely, negative affect can be quite problematic in social interaction (Rubin & Clark, 1983). Preschoolers who show larger proportions of negative affect, particularly anger, are often seen by both teachers and peers alike as troublesome and difficult (Denham et al., 1990). Overall emotional expressiveness (i.e., a broad range, but not incapacitating or overly negative, emotional expressiveness) also may allow young children to recognize others' feelings and empathize with them, and may facilitate prosocia! reactions to others' emotions (Denham, 1986; Hoffman, 1982; Strayer, 1984). Thus, in the proposed model, intrapersonal and interpersonal factors correlate with specific aspects of etnotional competence assessed in the peer setting, which in turn mediate general social competence. Direct pathways from intrapersonal and interpersonal socialization factors are also tested. In summary, the first problem question in this study involves prediction of emotional competence. Contributors to variation in children's expressiveness and reactions to emotions with mothers and in the preschool are evaluated. The second problem question involves prediction of genera/ social competence in the preschool. A causal model is evaluated which takes into account indirect effects of mother-child emotional interaction, as well as direct effects of both this interaction and emotional competence in the preschool. , ^•

Method Subjects Subjects were 47 preschoolers (M age = 44.30 mos, 22 boys and 25 girls) who participated in a larger, longitudinal study of preschoolers' social-emotional development (e.g., Denham etal., 1990; Denham & Grout, 1992). These subjects included 92 percent of possible participants, and no subjects were lost during the study. All children were of middle socioeconomic status (M = 49.97, range = 41.5-62; Hollingshead, 1975). All but four were Caucasian. Procedure Children's emotions and reactions to peer emotion displays were observed in the preschool over an eight-month period. Teachers rated children's social competence at approximately the middle ofthe period, when they had known the children for four months.


During the last five months of the period, mothers and children visited the laboratory for approximately one and one-half hours. The laboratory was set up for play, with carpeting, sofa, table, and many table toys, such as puzzles. Legos, and pretend kitchen and doctor role-play items. During the visit, an initial free play period was followed by a more structured play period, in which mothers were asked to assist their child in completing verbal, Etch-a-Sketch, formboard, and block tasks. A picture book reading period and examination of emotion pictures followed, in counterbalanced order across subjects. All interaction was videotaped. At the end of the session, self-report measures were given and explained to mothers, and picked up at a home visit in which an interview about maternal emotions was conducted. The following measures were extracted for use in the current study (see Table 1 for a summary of measures).

TABLE 1

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Measures Utilized in the Study

Measure

Means of measurement

Age, gender, SES Maternal emotion displays with child Maternal self-reported emotions Child emotion displays with mother Maternal reactions to child emotion displays Child reactions to maternal emotion displays Child emotion displays with peers^' Child reactions to peer's emotion displays General social competence*^

Archival data Observation, laboratory DES Observation, laboratory Lag sequential analyses Lag sequential analyses Observation, preschool Observation, preschool Teacher questionnaries

Note. SES = socioeconomic status, , , 'Happy, sad, angry, tense/afraid, tender, and neutral, ''Happy, sad, angry, tense/afraid, and other (focus on happy and angry for child positivity), 'Friendliness + cooperativeness + tractability - aggression

Measures Maternal and child emotion displays: hteractional setting. Continuous, second-by-second recording of onsets and offsets of maternal and child emotion displays was made, via an exhaustive and mutually exclusive system (see Denham, 1989, 1993). Occurrences of happy, sad, angry.


tense/afraid, tender, neutral, or "other" emotions were noted, as indexed by facial, vocal, gestural, and/or postural indicators. For example, happiness was indexed by smiles, singing, laughter, and voices with "pearly," relaxed pitch. Sadness, in contrast, was marked by hypotonicity, possible crying, inner corners of eyebrows lifted and corners of lips down, and slow, steady-pitched speech. Anger was evidenced behaviorally by throwing, pushing, hitting, facially by brows shoved down, tense lower lips, staring; speech was clipped, abrupt, possibly yelling. Fear or tension was shown behaviorally by jumpiness, worried looks, uncertainty and muscular tension (or even tension bursts, as in tapping feet or fingers), with vigilant posture. Tense children often stayed near mothers, sucked their thumbs, or trembled. Tense/fearful subjects' brows were tight, raised, and drawn together, and their voice was high pitched, with rapid speech. Finally, tenderness {which Izard, 1991, has called a combination emotion pattern) was evidenced physically or verbally by hugs, kisses, snuggles, pats or strokes which were more than functional, a caring tone of voice (i.e., falling "awww" tone), or empathic verbal statements (Denham, 1985, 1989). Emotional display data were coded for the entire videotaped session (M = 103 min). Four coders were trained by the author to perform continuous recording according to the operational definitions of the coding system. For interobserver reliability, they each then coded maternal and child emotions for nine randomly selected subjects. Mean kappa across observers equalled .90 (Cohen, 1960). Mean percentage agreements for happiness, sadness, anger, tension/fear, tenderness, and neutrality were .98, .72, .88, .75, .80, and .90, respectively. Almost all errors were ones of omission; one rater would code a specific emotion as occurring, and the other rater would code neutral. Agreement did not differ substantially for mothers' and children's emotions. Measures used in this study for each emotion were Its percerilage of total emotion events. Reactions to emotions: Interactional setting. Event lag sequential Zs were derived for each dyad member and each emotion. These Zs show whether one person's emotion display followed the other's emotion display at a probability significantly greater or less than its unconditional probability (Sackett, 1979, 1987). Thus, for example, if the lag Z for one mother's happy display following her child's was > 1.64, it could be concluded that the mother matched her child's happy displays more often than expected by chance. Conversely, if the lag Z for the mother's anger following her child's happiness were > - 1 . 6 4 , it could be concluded that she responded to her child's happy displays with angry displays less often than expected by chance.


Next, these Zs were used to create aggregates of reactions to child and maternal emotion displays, for use in prediction of children's emotional competence with mother and peers (and to minimize type I error and pool error variance; see Rushton, Brainerd, & Pressley, 1983). Choice of content of these aggregates was guided by earlier theorizing and empirical findings (Denham, 1993; Denham & Grout, 1992; Izard, 1991; Malatesta etal., 1989; Tomkins, 1963, 1991). Appropriate maternal responsiveness to happy displays would normally be considered matching of the child's happy display, a sharing of positive affect (Thompson, 1989). Smiles which occur too soon after the child's happy display, however, can be nervous or false (Fkman & Friesen, 1982; Malatesta, Culver, Tesman, & Shepard, 1989). Moreover, such contingency has been found to be overstimulating for young children (Malatesta, Culver, Tesman, & Shepard, 1989). Children's optimal reaction to maternal happy displays was operationalized as matching of happiness, without answering sadness, anger, or fear. Optimal reactions to sad displays would be to behave tenderly, but not negatively or happily (i.e., to not ignore or belittle the other's distress; Tomkins, 1963, Izard, 1991). A child responded to in this "rewarding" manner could come to trust others and act helpfully toward them (Tomkins, 1963). Appropriate reactions to child angry displays were calm neutrality (e.g., following the social learning tenet of ignoring negative behavior) or cheerful displays (i.e., helping the child to "look on the bright side"), whereas non-optimal reactions were maternal matching angry, sad, tense, or over-placating tender displays, which could prolong the anger episode. This aggregate was formulated to follow Tomkins' (1991) notion of "rewarding" socialization of anger, in which the child is taught to both tolerate and control anger, while expressing it and coping with its source, in contrast, in punitive socialization of anger, the focus is on minimizing the child's anger at all costs, whether by counterproductive matching anger or other expressions of disapproval or placation. The children's aggregate of optimal reaction to maternal angry displays was similar, except that children's happy displays after maternal angry displays could be seen as defiance, and so were weighted negatively. Appropriate responsiveness to displays of fear was seen as calm, cheerful caretaking (e.g., following the social learning tenet of modeling appropriate, nonfearful behavior). An emotionally available parent assists the child in tolerating, confronting and managing fear, rather than minimizing its expression (Izard, 1991; Tomkins, 1991). Non-optimal reactions to fear included tense, angry, and sad displays, which could prolong the fear episode. Thus, although the content of each aggregate differed some-


what across cbild emotions, optimal maternal reactions were generally seen as calm, positive, possibly tender, but not sad, angry, or tense reactions.' Self-reported maternal emotion: Affective environment. Tbe Differential Emotions Scale (DES; Izard, Dougberty, Bloxom, & Kotsch, 1974) was used to index motbers' patterns of typical or "trait" emotions. Tbe DES consists of 30 items rated on 1- to 5-point scales, three each for interest, enjoyment, surprise, sadness, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame/shyness, and guilt. Mothers were instructed that ". . . The DES is a list of words that you can use to show how you feel . . . tell us how often you generally feel each of these feelings in your everyday life . . ." Three aggregates were created for this study: (a) the maternal internalizing trait, the sum of sadness, guilt, shyness, and fear items (Cronbach's alpha = .46); (b) the maternal externalizing trait, the sum of anger, scorn, and disgust items (Cronbach's alpha ~ .75); and (c) the maternal positivity trait, the sum of the happiness and interest items (Cronbach's alpha = .65). Child emotional displays: Preschool setting. Children's emotion displays, operationally defined as above, were observed via focal event sampling during free play (Denham, 1986; Denham et al., 1990; Strayer, 1980). Each observer, who was blind to all other measures, worked from a randomly ordered roster for each class, observing focal children in turn for 5-mln periods. Children were observed for a mean total of 37.80 min {SD = 15.19 min) over the six-month period. A fourth observer (the first author) coded approximately ten percent of observation periods at the beginning, middle, and end of the months of observation. For the entire system, the mean kappa was .74. Because of their relative frequency and meaningfulness during social interaction, happiness and anger scores were used for this study; mean agreements across observers were 92 and 81 percent, respectively. Overall emotional expressiveness was expressed in rate per minute. Happy and angry measures were expressed in percentage of total emotion displays. Given the high degree correlation between percentage happy and percentage angry scores (r = - .74, p < .001), an aggregate was created, hereafter called child positivity (the standardized score for percentage of happy displays minus the standardized score of percentage of angry displays; see also Denham et al., 1990). Child reactions to emotions: Preschool setting. Subjects' reactions to peers' emotion displays were observed in the classroom by the same observers. After emotion displays emitted by focal children were noted, ob-


servers then scanned target peers (those within approximately three feet of the focal child) from left to right, coding their reactions, if any, to the focal child's emotions. After the scan was completed, they returned to observation of the focal child to see whether the same, new, or no emotion was being displayed. A mutually exclusive and exhaustive coding system for target children's reactions to peers' emotions was devised. On average, children were observed for 78.68 minutes (SD = 32.98 min) as target peers in the presence of focal children. Kappa for the total system was .78. The following codes were used in this study: (a) reinforcing emotion, 90% agreement; (b) helping (verbal or physical, including defending, stopping an offensive activity, giving information or strategies, assistance with tasks, or getting, giving, or moving an object not in one's previous possession; 75% agreement); (c) carelconcern (physical comforting, questioning, reassuring, or looking quite concerned; 83% agreement); (d) sustained neutral attention, or "looking" (> 3 sec; 83% agreement); and (e) ignoring (89% agreement). Reactions to peer emotion displays were divided by the number of peer emotion displays each child observed (M = 26.86; SD = 13.50). The aggregate of reactions to peer emotion displays used in these analyses included the sum of reinforcing, helping and concern reactions, minus just looking at or ignoring (see also Denham & Grout, 1992). Teacher-rated prosocial behavior: Preschool setting. Teachers completed the Baumrind Preschool Behavior Q-Sort (BPB; Baumrind, 1968, 1971) and Behar Problem Behavior Questionnaire (PBQ; Behar & Stringfield, 1974). For the BPB, teachers sort 72 cards bearing descriptions of child social behaviors into nine piles, to indicate how well each describes the child. Scales for friendliness, cooperativeness, and tractability (e.g., nondomineering, mindful of rules) were used in this study. On the 30-item PBQ, the teacher indicates the relative frequency of problem behaviors by a score of 0 to 2. Only the well validated 5-item aggressiveness scale of the PBQ (Hoge, Meginbir, Khan, & Weatherall, 1985) was used. The overall prosocial rating was derived; this equals the sum of standardized scores for BPB friendliness, cooperativeness, and tractability scales, minus the standardized score for the PBQ aggression scale (alpha = .91; see also Denham et al., 1990). Its test-retest reliability over nine months was .69 (one-tailed p < .001). Teachers, who were blind to the hypotheses of the study, attended workshops led by the author. During these workshops, measures' item content (e.g., detailed descriptions of what items meant and did not mean [see, e.g., Baumrind, 19681) was discussed, as well as appropriate settings and times, and total times, to observe the children.


Results

Descriptive Data Motber-cbild interaction was predominantly neutral/positive for tbe group as a whole (as might be expected in a laboratory experience, where both were on their best bebavior), but there was adequate variation across tbe discrete emotions to proceed with correlational analyses (see Table 2). Similarly, mean maternal positivity scores were higb; although their internalizing and externalizing scores were lower, mothers appeared to be acknowledging the presence of negative emotion in their lives (see Table 3). Children were predominantly positive in the preschool, and relatively expressive, showing more than three emotions in every five-minute observational period (see Table 4). Prosocial behaviors such as helping and concern were low, as others have found (e.g., Radke-Yarrow, Zahn-Waxler, & Chapman, 1983). Teachers rated the children as moderately friendly, cooperative, and tractable, and low in aggression. Predicting Emotional Competence With Mother Analytic strategy. We first formulated a multiple regression strategy to search for correlates of children's emotional competence with mother.

TABLE 2 Means and Standard Deviations for Maternal and Child Emotion Displays During Interaction

Mother Measure Happy Sad Angry Tense/afraid Tender Neutral

Child

M

SD

M

SD

.240 .023 .023 .022 .038 .645

.067 .027 .022 .049 .044 .099

.258

.072 .031 .028 .058 .018 .079

xm

.024 .060 .017 .603

Note. Data represent proportion of lotal emotion displays for each dyad member; these do nol !.um to 1,00 due to rounding.


TABLE 3

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Means and Standard Deviations for Maternal Self-Reports of Their Own Emotions (DES)

Measure Internalizing Traif' Externalizing Trait'' Positivity^

M

SD

29.87 20.21 25.10

4.88 4.04 2.84

•'Tbis scale is the sum of sadness, guilt, shyness, and fear items, maximum score 60; Cronbach's alpha = .46. ''This scale is the sum of anger, scorn, and disgust items, maximum score 45; Cronbach's alpha = .75. 'This scale is the sum of the happiness and interest items, maximum score 30; Cronbach's alpha = .65.

Three criterion variables of children's emotional competence with mother were chosen, an aggregate similar to the child positivity score (i.e., the difference between standard scores for happy and angry displays), an aggregate of children's responsiveness to maternal negative emotion displays (i.e., to parallel the aggregate of reactions to peers' emotions), and neutrality. Given the relatively small sample size, and relatively large number of independent variables, spurious inflation of R^ 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 zero-order correlations with the criterion variables had been significant at the p < .10 level or better. Potential predictors for step one were age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Maternal emotions (both emotional displays during interaction and self-reported) were considered for entry on the second step, with responsiveness aggregates examined for the third. Thus maternal emotions' contributions to R^ were evaluated over and above demographic variables, and responsiveness' contributions were evaluated with both demographic and indices of maternal emotion partialled. Pos/(/v;fy with mother. Because of their association with this criterion variable, maternal happy, angry and tense displays were entered first (see Table 5). Optimal maternal reaction to child fear displays and maternal matching child happy displays were entered on the second step. Signifi-


TABLE 4 Means and Standard Deviations for Child Emotional and Social Competence in Preschool Measure

M

SD

Emotion displays Happiness 0.72 Anger 0.14 Expressiveness" 0.68 Reactions to peers' emotion displays Concern 0.02 Help ' ' 0.01 Reinforcement 0.04 Looking 0.24 Ignoring 0.35

0.03 0.03 0.07 0.20 0.22

Measure

SD

M

General social competence Friendliness 2.98 Cooperativeness 12.60 Tractability 23.32 Aggression 2.55

0.24 0.13 0.31

9.42 11.15 9.37 2.93

.

Possible Range - 33 to 23 - 33 to 23 - 4 to 44 Oto 10

•'Total number of emotions per minute.

cant beta weights suggested that children showed more positivity during interaction with mothers who appeared happier, less negative, and were emotionally responsive to their fear (but not responsive to their happy displays). Neutrality. Because of their association with this criterion variable, maternal happy, tender, and neutral displays were entered first, with maternal reaction to child happy displays entered on the second step. Again, significant heta weights suggested that children were calmer and more task-oriented in this new environment when their mothers were calm, not tender, and did not match their happy displays. Reactions to mothers' emotion displays. No demographic, child, or maternal variable significantly predicted this aggregate.


TABLE 5 Prediction of Child Emotional Competence with Mother Zero-order Step

Predictor

Criterion: Positivity 1 Maternal anger displays Maternal fear displays Maternal bappiness displays 2 Maternal reaction to cbild fear displays Maternal reaction to cbild happiness displays Criterion: Neutral displays 1 Maternal bappiness displays Maternal tenderness displays Maternal neutral displays 2 Maternal reaction to child bappiness displays

r

-.34* -.33*

.25 +

beta'^ -.33* -.28*

.24 +

.35* -.26^

.263**

'.403*** ,. -.22^

1

1

1 .38** -.24^ -.28' -.24***

.14 -.38* -.36^ -.54***

.246** 1 1

.517***

'Sisnificance reported at variable's entry. '"Cumuliitive. •p < .10. 'p < .05. " p < .01- ' " p < .001.

Other child emotional displays with mother. Although not part of emotional competence as defined here, child sad, tender, and tense displays during interaction with mother did correlate significantly with several demographic and maternal variables. Children showed more sadness during interaction if their mothers showed sadness, r(45) = .30, p < .05. They showed less sadness if their mothers were neutral, and when their mothers reacted optimally to their fear, r5(45) = - . 3 5 and - . 3 1 , p < .05. Thus, children more often looked sad if their mothers expressed more sadness, whereas where mothers were calmer and emotionally responsive to tense/fearful displays, children showed less prevalent sadness. Children behaved more tenderly if their mothers were also tender, r(45} = .32, but less tenderly if their mothers responded optimally to their fear, r(45) = - . 3 3 ps < .05. The expression of tenderness in children appeared to be part of not only their sharing of positive affect, but also their allaying of fear.


TABLE 6 Prediction of Emotional Competence in the Preschool Classroom

Zero-order r

Beta'

^2b

Criterion: Positivity 1 Child neutral displays Child tenderness displays 2 Maternal externalizing (DES) 3 Child reaction to maternal anger displays

.35* -.42** -.24^ .28*

.29* -.37** -.23^ .24^

.259**

Criterion: Overall emotionality 1 Age 2 Child anger displays 3 Maternal fear displays Maternal externalizing {DES) Maternal positivity (DES) 4 Maternal reactions to child sadness displays

.38** -.24^ -.26^ .24^ .41** .27*

.38** -.21 -.02 .24^ .35** .22^

.142** .188** .359**

.24^ -.31* -.33* .26 .24 .27* -.05

.056^ .150* .455***

Step1

Predictor

Criterion: Reactions to peers' emotion displays 1 Age .24^ 2 Child neutral displays -.30* 3 Maternal fear displays -.55*** Maternal tenderness displays .23^ Maternal neutral displays .26^ Maternal externalizing (DES) .32^ 4 Maternal reactions to child .28* anger displays

.312*** .367***

.401**

.457***

'Significance reported at variable's entry. ""Cumulative. > < .10. 'p < .05. "p < .01. " V < .001.

Children were more tense/fearful during interaction if their mothers were showed fewer happy displays or reported less positivity on the DES, rs(45) = - . 3 0 and - . 3 2 , ps < .05. They showed more fear and tension when their mothers matched their happy displays r(45) = .53, p < .05. Children's expression of fear was associated with mothers' potentially overstimulating reaction to their happy displays and lack of positivity.

219 SUSANNE A. DENHAM, LESLIE GROUT I

Prediction of Child Emotional Competence in Preschool

;

,

Analytic strategy. We formulated a similar multiple regression strategy to search for correlates of children's emotional competence in the preschool. Our new criterion variables were children's positivity, overall emotional expressiveness, and reactions to peer emotion displays in the preschool. After demographic variables, child emotion displays with mother were considered for entry. These were added because of the possibility that individual differences in emotional variables reside in the child. Then, on the third step, maternal emotions (both emotion displays during interaction and self-re ported) were examined. On the fourth and fifth steps, respectively, children's responsiveness to maternal emotion displays and maternal responsiveness during interaction were considered for entry. Thus, maternal contributions R^ were tested conservatively, with children's own contributions always partialled first. , • Positivity in preschool. Because of their association with this criterion variable, child neutrality and tender displays were entered on the first step, self-reported maternal externalizing on the second step, and child optimal reaction to maternal angry displays on the third step (see Table 6). Even with these intrapersonal contributors partialled, maternal self-reported externalizing made a negatively weighted marginally significant contribution to R^. Even with both child and maternal emotion displays partialled, children's optimal reactions to maternal angry displays during interaction added to the prediction. Children who showed neutrality, but not tenderness, with mother were more affectively positive in the preschool.

.;: I Overall emotional expressiveness. Because of its association with this criterion variable, age was entered on step one. Child angry displays with mother were entered on the second step. Maternal tense displays during interaction and self-reported maternal externalizing and maternal positivity were entered on the third step, with children's optimal reactions to maternal sadness displays entered on the fourth step. Children who were older, with mothers who reported higher intensity emotions on the DES, and who reacted optimally to their children's sad displays during interactions, displayed more frequent emotions in the preschool classroom. Reactions to peers' emotions. Because of Its association with this criterion variable, age was entered on the first step. Child neutrality with mother was entered on the second step, with maternal tense, tender, and neutral displays during interaction, as well as self-reported maternal exter-


nalizing, on the third step. Finally, mothers' optimal reactions to child angry displays were entered on the fourth step. Children who were older, less neutral with mother, and who had mothers who showed less tension during interaction, but reported more externalizing, were more prosocial in reaction to peers' emotions. -. ' Prediction of General Social Competence A LISREL analysis was conducted to evaluate the model we considered probable to summarize covariation among the variables (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1981). Again, following the lead from significant zero-order correlations, indices of maternal emotion were used to predict child emotion displays during interaction with mother, with both used to predict child positivity in preschool. This variable then was used to predict general social competence. Direct effects of maternal emotion indices on emotional and social competence in preschool were also assessed. LISREL's coefficients for each significant pathway are depicted in Figure 1, along with the ts and betas for each. The coefficients for all pathways were significant except from maternal tender displays to child neutrality. Thus, children who showed tenderness during interaction had mothers who also showed tenderness, but reacted nonoptimally to the children's fear. Mothers who showed more happiness overall, but matched their children's happy displays less often than expected, had calmer, more neutral children during interaction. Children who were calm and showed less tenderness during interaction with mother, who reacted optimally to mothers' angry displays, but who were exposed to a less externalizing maternal affective environment, were more affectively positive in the preschool. In turn, girls and those who were more affectively positive, as well as those whose mothers exhibited more overall happiness during interaction, were evaluated by teachers as more prosocial (i.e., friendly, cooperative, tractable, nonaggressive). LISREL's overall test of goodness-of-fit of the model tests discrepancies between observed covariation among the variables and covariation that would be expected on the basis of the model. As hoped, it was nonsignificant, x^ (22, N= 14.43), p > .10. LISREL's goodness-of fit index, which indicates the percent of covariation described by the model (similar to R^), equalled .948, adjusted to .843. Both indices suggest that the model describes these data very well. Discussion Aspects of preschoolers' emotional competence—their patterns of emotional expressiveness and reactions to others' emotions—were observed in

Figure 1. LISREL analysis predicting general emotional competence from maternal emolions, maternal reactions to child emotions, child emolions in two settings, child reactions to maternal emotions, and gender.

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two settings, with mother and with peers, and children's general social competence was rated by their preschool teachers. Maternal patterns of expressiveness during interactions with their children, their reactions to children's emotion displays, and the self-reported maternal affective environment predicted indices of children's emotional competence during interaction with mother and in the preschool. Children's emotion displays with mother were correlated less strongly with similar indices in the preschool, suggesting that children's emotional competence may differ according to the interpersonal relationship studied (Dunn, in press). Taken as a whole, findings reassert the importance of emotional expression to the development of social competence.

Emotional Competence With Mothers Interpersonal correlates. It is important to remember that effects are bidirectional in dyadic systems. Difficult interactive partners elicit negative emotional reactions; we respond in kind to pleasant interactive partners. Because this is a nonverbal interactive system, it is not reasonable to assume that one partner's emotion displays necessarily always cause the other's. Nevertheless, our findings on child positivity during mother-child interaction support and extend earlier research on the negative correlates of maternal expression of anger and tension, and the positive correlates of maternal expression of happiness (Cummings & Cummings, 1988, Cummings, Zahn-Waxler, & Radke-Yarrow, 1981; Denham, 1989; Denham & Grout, 1992; Halberstadt, 1991a). Mothers are the adult "experts" at emotional competence, and over time children undoubtedly learn the timing, form, and function of expressive patterns from them. In our work, the expressed emotions modeled by mothers were related to those expressed by their children. Moreover, socialization of emotion via maternal reactions to children's emotions also was related to children's emotion displays with mother; contingent emotional responding has now been discovered in mothers of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers (see also Denham, 1993; Malatesta & Haviland, 1982; Malatesta et al., 1989). Many signs of children's tension are quite subtle (e.g., eyes veering slightly to the oneway mirror, self-comforting through fingersucking). Those mothers who were able to read this subtlety and react optimally to their children's tense/fearful displays had children who were generally more affectively positive during mother-child interaction. More fearful children also may elicit such responsiveness.


Mothers' matching of their children's happy displays was negatively associated with emotional competence during mother-child interactions. This initially counterintuitive finding has been discovered previously using the same methodology (Denham, 1993). The quick happy response to the child's smiles may indeed be what Ekman and Friesen (1982) found to be nervous or false, or what Malatesta et al. (1989) termed "overcontingent." This socially desirable but rather strained reaction to children's communication of joy may, of course, be setting-specific; we are currently collecting similar data in homes, which may recapture the positive side of parents' matching their children's happy displays. • i' Mothers' responsiveness at times of children's distress appears to be the more important contributor to optimal child functioning during motherchild interactions. These findings on the primacy of parental assistance with negative affect management fit well with theoretical accounts of both attachment and emotion socialization (Thompson, 1989; Tomkins, 1991). Its relatively greater centrality over positive affect management also has been empirically documented within other relationships (Dunn & Munn, 1985; Gottman, 1980).

Emotional Competence With Peers Intrapersonal correlates. We did not find cross-situational patterns of children's specific emotion displays that endured from the supportive interaction with mother to the new challenges of regulating emotion with peers. This finding underscores the dyadic nature of nonverbal interaction: Different partners elicit different patterns of expressiveness. Neutrality while interacting with mother was associated with emotional competence in the peer setting. Calmness and task orientation during interaction with a supportive adult may translate across contexts into more animated, but still positive, emotions with peers. Children who were most tender to mothers were less affectively positive with peers. Much child tenderness occurred during mother-child interaction when children comforted mothers' real or simulated distress. Thus, it may have been motivated by their own distress. Alternatively, such tenderness could reflect unhealthy role reversal in caregiving the mother. One contingent child reaction, optimal reaction to maternal anger displays, predicted child positivity with peers. Because displays of maternal anger are a threat to child positivity during mother-child interaction, it is possible that those children who learn effective coping strategies also present a socially appropriate positive demeanor during play with friends.


When young children experience "rewarding" anger socialization they may come to know (with mother) "the way back to the pre-anger self and the pre-anger relationship" (Tomkins, 1991, p. 225). Children and mothers who reacted optimally to each others' anger fit this description. Such basic trust may pave the way to more positivity with and positive reactions towards peers. Interpersonal correlates. The most potent maternal socialization correlates of emotional competence in the preschool, even after first partialling intrapersonal child contributors, were those maternal self-reports indexing the more wideranging maternal affective environment and contingent responding to children's emotions, rather than the emotions mothers displayed in the situationally more restricted one-on-one interaction with the child. When searching for cross-situational associations, broad self-report measures of emotionality may have value over and above the context-specific observed displays. Further, maternal reactions to the child's own displays may be particularly salient aspects of nonverbal interaction with mother, which children generalize to their own expressiveness and prosocial reactions to peers' emotion displays. Mothers who self-reported higher levels of either externalizing or positive emotions had children with greater overall emotionality in the preschool, and children of externalizers were less able to interact in an affectively positive way in their preschool (see also Denham & Grout, 1992, for convergent results involving other maternal self-reports of emotion). Mothers' reports of internalizing were not associated with children's emotional competence, perhaps because young children would have more difficulty reading the less clearcut displays of these emotions, or because of the scale's lower internal consistency. Children who had experienced a more externalizing affective environment also were, however, more often able to react prosocially to peers' emotion displays. Mothers' negative expressiveness can motivate young children's sympathy and reparations when they later witness others' distress (Eisenberg et al., 1992; Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, & King, 1979), perhaps because of their experience with empathy towards mother and guilt over transgressions which made her angry (Hoffman, 1982). Viewed in conjunction with the association of maternal negative emotion displays during interaction, these findings point to a delicate balance of mothers' own negative affect management: Mothers' actual display of negative emotion during interaction is dysregulating for children, but mothers' experience of negative emotion, paired with less tension displayed during interaction, appears to expose the child to potentially useful socialization. It is worth further study to determine how mothers high on


self-reported externalizing deal with emotion regulation around their children. Our data allow speculation that mothers who control negative emotion aimed directly at their child, while at the same time highlighting and affirming their own emotional needs, may be promoting empathy. Social Competence With Peers The larger mode! predicting social, rather than solely emotional, competence confirmed earlier studies' findings: Patterns of emotion expressiveness were related to ability to get along with preschool teacher and peers (Custrini & Feldman, 1989; Feldman, Phiiippot, & Custrini, 1991). Ability to show pleasure and modulate hostility apparently "greases the cogs" of relationship building and maintenance with peers (Halberstadt, 1991b). Intrapersonal and interpersonal variables from mother-child interactions also indirectly contributed to social competence, reasserting the importance of mother-child interaction. Moreover, maternal happiness during interaction with the child made a direct contribution to social competence. This combination of both indirect and direct effects of maternal emotion socialization on social competence is important: Elements of emotional competence and its family socialization are related to preschoolers' successful interaction with peers (Cassidy, Parke, Butkovsky, & Braungart, 1992; Halberstadt, 1991b). 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. • i

Note Although an earlier study with toddlers (Denham, in press) and maternal interview data from the current sample (Denham & Grout, 1992) lend empirical support to our definitions of "optimal" reactions to children's emotions, it is important to emphasize the role that cultural assumplions and values have in determining parents' healthy responses tci their children's emotions. For example, in some groups encouragement of anger may be valued because it "toughens" children to "stick up for themselves" (e.g.. Miller & Sperry, 1987).

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