Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Barton, Michelle

Keywords

Socialization, Children, Emotions, Caregivers

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

While previous literature has examined relations between how parents treat children’s emotions and children’s outcomes, the manner in which these emotional socialization characteristics are internalized and then verbalized by children has not been studied. To this end, this study examined how the main caregivers (mother, father, head teacher, assistant teacher) in preschoolers’ lives treated emotions, and then how, in turn, children believed they would respond to emotional situations with those caregivers. Children from a local daycare were read vignettes and asked questions about their coping strategies and their expectations following their emotional expression. Each child’s caregivers completed questionnaires on their own emotional expression and their beliefs about children’s emotions. Results found that mothers had higher positive expressiveness and valued anger more than fathers. While children did not differ in their expectations based on caregivers, several relations were found between children’s and caregivers’ responses. Children preferred a problem-approach coping strategy more often than other types of coping strategies, and coping strategy choice was also related to parent responses. Overall, these findings shed light on the nuanced role of parent emotional socialization behaviors in children’s conceptualizations of emotional situations.

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