Maternal Attitude To Emotion Regulation, Attachment, And Children's Emotional Regulation: Exploring Maternal Emotional Socialization

Some researchers suggested that the association between mothers'control of their children's expressiveness and infant-mother attachment may be reflected an emotionally hyper-controlled style. The present research will focus on maternal implicit attitude to emotion regulation and explore the relationship among maternal implicit attitude to emotion regulation, mothers'control of their children' expressiveness, infant-mother attachment and children's early socioemotional development.The research concerning emotion socialization highlights two guiding principles. First is the principle that the socialization of emotion includes both heightening and suppressing processes—socialization practices that systematically encourage and discourage children's emotional expressiveness. Second is the principle that healthy emotion socialization is defined neither by exclusive heightening nor exclusive suppression but by acceptance of positive and negative emotions and parents'moderate control of children's expressiveness.Eighty-five preschool-aged children (43 boys and 42 girls) and their mothers participated. Principal assessments included ER-IAT, the Parent Attitude Toward Child Expressiveness Scale (PACES; Saarni,1985), "infants' attachment behavior"(with 21 items; MaLin,2007), and'Beat the Bell,'a measure designed for this study to elicit children's emotional expression, sharing, and suppression in the presence of their mothers. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of maternal emotion socialization in children's early socioemotional development.The major findings are as follows:(1) There was a significant positive correlation between maternal implicit attitude to emotion regulation and control of their children's expressiveness.(2) Children who had been classified insecure-avoidant expressed less negativity than other children, and children who had been classified insecure-ambivalent expressed more negativity than other mothers. The mean scores for the secure children were consistently between those of the two other groups. (3) Mothers of avoidant children reported greater D than other mothers, and mothers of ambivalent children reported less D than other mothers. The mean scores for the secure mothers were consistently between those of the two other groups.(4) There was no association was found between maternal implicit attitude to emotion regulation and children's expressiveness in the 'Beat the Bell' emotion regulation assessment.(5) Mothers of avoidant children reported significantly greater control of their children's total expressiveness, negative and positive expressiveness than all other mothers. Mothers of ambivalent children reported significantly less control of their children's total expressiveness expressiveness, negative and positive expressiveness than all other mothers. The mean scores for the secure mothers were consistently between those of the two other groups. This pattern of findings implies that the mothers of the secure children were neither heightening nor suppressing of their children's negativity but rather accepting and moderately controlling.(6) There was a significant positive correlation between maternal control of their children's expressiveness and children's expressiveness in the'Beat the Bell'emotion regulation assessment.