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Updated: Jun 28, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
[Family predictors of moral internalization in childhood]
María José Ortiz Barón1, Pedro Apocada Urquijo, Itziar Etxebarria Bilbao
1Facultad de Psicología, Universidad del País Vasco, San Sebastián, Spain. pbporbam@sc.ehu.es
Abstract:
This study aimed to analyze the relationship between parents' affection, acceptance, emotional communication, the transmission of values and moral intervention, on the one hand, and children's moral emotions and behaviors on the other (empathy, guilt, internalized behavior and reparation). It also aimed to identify the family variables that influence moral internalization in children. The sample comprised 485 children (244 boys and 241 girls) aged between 6 and 8. The results showed that the principal variable to predict internalized behavior in girls was maternal affection, whereas for boys, the principal variables were maternal emotional communication and transmission of values. The family variables that explain moral internalization in extreme groups of children are basically parents' affection, emotional communication, the transmission of values and moral intervention.
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