Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
J Youth Adolesc. 2019 Mar;48(3):495-509. doi: 10.1007/s10964-018-0945-z. Epub 2018 Oct 27.
Parents and children with high negative emotionality may be more likely to provide and receive non-supportive contingencies, respectively. However, no study has examined child and parent negative emotionality in the same study and explored whether the link between child and parent negative emotionality may exist in part because of parental emotion socialization. The present study was designed to explore the link between the negative emotionality of mothers and their adolescent children and the potential mechanisms for this similarity. Maternal emotion socialization was explored as a mediator between maternal and adolescent negative emotionality, and between maternal negative emotionality and adolescent internalizing symptoms. Participants were mothers (M age = 30.47) with their children at two time points: preschool (Time 1; M age = 4.55 years old) and adolescence (Time 2; M = 13.73), with 81 boys and 94 girls. Negative emotionality was measured using a questionnaire, with mothers reporting for herself and her child. Maternal emotion socialization was measured by mothers' self-report of their contingencies to their adolescent child's negative emotions: 1) Punish; 2) magnify; 3) ignore; 4) override; and 5) support. The results revealed that the maternal punishing of the adolescent's negative emotions was a mediator between concurrent mother negative emotionality and adolescent negative emotionality, such that higher mother negative emotionality was associated with more punishing, and more punishing was associated with higher adolescent negative emotionality, controlling for previous levels of maternal and child negative emotionality. Furthermore, being supportive of a child's negative emotions was negatively associated with concurrent levels of adolescent internalizing symptoms, while magnifying a child's emotions held a marginal positive association, controlling for previous levels of internalizing symptoms. The results highlight the importance of considering maternal emotion socialization strategies, even into adolescence, for a more comprehensive understanding of children's emotional well-being. The findings have implications for developing and implementing emotion-based parenting interventions.
父母和情绪消极的孩子可能更有可能分别提供和接受非支持性的反应。然而，没有研究同时考察过儿童和父母的消极情绪，并探讨儿童和父母之间的消极情绪联系是否部分是由于父母的情绪社会化。本研究旨在探讨母亲和青少年孩子的消极情绪之间的联系，以及这种相似性的潜在机制。情绪社会化被探索为母亲和青少年之间的消极情绪之间以及母亲的消极情绪和青少年内化症状之间的中介。参与者是母亲（M 年龄=30.47 岁）和他们的孩子，分两个时间点：学前（时间 1；M 年龄=4.55 岁）和青春期（时间 2；M=13.73 岁），有 81 名男孩和 94 名女孩。使用问卷测量消极情绪，母亲为自己和孩子报告。情绪社会化通过母亲对孩子消极情绪的反应模式的自我报告来衡量：1）惩罚；2）放大；3）忽视；4）忽视；5）支持。结果表明，母亲对青少年消极情绪的惩罚是母亲同时期消极情绪和青少年消极情绪之间的中介，即母亲消极情绪越高，惩罚越多，惩罚越多，青少年消极情绪越高，控制了之前的母亲和孩子的消极情绪水平。此外，支持孩子的消极情绪与同时期青少年内化症状呈负相关，而放大孩子的情绪与内化症状呈正相关，控制了之前的内化症状水平。这些结果强调了考虑母亲情绪社会化策略的重要性，即使是在青春期，对于更全面地理解儿童的情绪健康也很重要。这些发现对于开发和实施基于情绪的育儿干预措施具有启示意义。
