Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 27, 2026
07:56
Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
Parental Expressiveness as a Moderator of Coparenting and Marital Relationship Quality
Amy M Kolak1, Brenda L Volling
1Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043. ;
Family Relations
|December 17, 2008
Summary
Parents' positive emotional expressiveness, particularly fathers', significantly improves coparenting and family functioning, even in distressed marriages. This highlights the importance of emotional communication in family dynamics.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Family Studies
- Communication Studies
Background:
- Family functioning is influenced by marital quality and parental emotional expressiveness.
- Understanding the interplay between marital dynamics and coparenting is crucial for child development.
- Emotional communication within families significantly impacts relationship quality.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how marital quality and parents' emotional expressiveness affect coparenting.
- To examine the moderating role of parental emotional expressiveness on the marital quality-coparenting link.
- To identify specific emotional expressiveness patterns beneficial for family functioning.
Main Methods:
- Study involved 57 couples with young children.
- Analyzed marital quality and parents' emotional expressiveness (positive and negative).
- Examined these factors as predictors and moderators of coparenting behavior.
Main Results:
- Parents' positive emotional expressiveness uniquely contributed to coparenting.
- Fathers' positive expressiveness played a significant interactive role, buffering negative coparenting in less supportive marriages.
- Negative emotional expressiveness did not significantly predict coparenting when considered with marital quality.
Conclusions:
- Positive emotional expressiveness, especially in fathers, is beneficial for family functioning and coparenting.
- Practitioners should consider the role of emotional communication in distressed marriages to improve coparenting.
- Interventions focusing on positive emotional expression can enhance family well-being.
Related Concept Videos
01:27Parenting Styles
Diana Baumrind's four parenting styles — authoritarian, authoritative, neglectful, and permissive — each influence children's socio-emotional development differently.
Authoritarian Parenting
This style is strict and controlling, with little room for open dialogue. Authoritarian parents demand obedience and often enforce rules with minimal warmth. Children raised this way may lack social skills and initiative, usually comparing themselves to others unfavorably.
Authoritative Parenting
This...
Authoritarian Parenting
This style is strict and controlling, with little room for open dialogue. Authoritarian parents demand obedience and often enforce rules with minimal warmth. Children raised this way may lack social skills and initiative, usually comparing themselves to others unfavorably.
Authoritative Parenting
This...
01:28Relationship with Parents: Attachment
Parent-child interactions lay the foundation for how we understand relationships throughout life. These interactions are not uniform across families; instead, they are shaped by a range of environmental, emotional, and behavioral factors unique to each caregiver-child dynamic. Social psychologists study these early relationships to understand how patterns formed in infancy influence social functioning and interpersonal behavior in adulthood.Attachment Theory and Early Relational ModelsJohn...
01:29Relationship with Other Adult Family Members and Siblings
Other adult family members and siblings play a crucial role in shaping children’s social and emotional development. While parents or primary caregivers are often the central figures in early attachment and socialization, other adults in a child’s life, such as grandparents, aunts, and uncles, can significantly influence developmental outcomes. These influences depend on each adult’s personality and may help compensate when a primary caregiver is emotionally distant or inconsistent. For...
03:00Self-Evaluation: Self-Enhancement and Self-Verification
Social psychologists have documented that feeling good about ourselves and maintaining positive self-esteem is a powerful motivator of human behavior (Tavris & Aronson, 2008). In the United States, members of the predominant culture typically think very highly of themselves and view themselves as good people who are above average on many desirable traits (Ehrlinger, Gilovich, & Ross, 2005). Often, our behavior, attitudes, and beliefs are affected when we experience a threat to our...
01:18Sources of Self-Esteem I: Family Experience
Self-esteem, a crucial component of psychological development, is significantly shaped by familial experiences. The early parent-child relationship serves as a foundational influence on a child's self-concept, with long-lasting effects extending into adolescence and adulthood.Parental Behaviors and Early Self-Esteem FormationEmpirical studies have identified four principal parental behaviors that foster healthy self-esteem in children. These include expressions of acceptance, affection, and...
03:34Theory of Romantic Attachment in Adulthood
Attachment is a long-standing connection or bond with others. While Attachment Theory was conceived in developmental psychology to describe infant-caregiver bonding, it's been extended into adulthood to include romantic relationships.