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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
08:09

Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood

Published on: February 11, 2017

Influences of parent and child negative emotionality on young children's everyday behaviors

Richard B Slatcher1, Christopher J Trentacosta

  • 1Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA. slatcher@wayne.edu

Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
|March 7, 2012
PubMed

Insights

Parental negative emotionality predicts child problem behaviors. Maternal negative emotionality, especially when combined with low positive or high negative emotional expressiveness, is linked to increased child behavioral issues.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Child Behavior
  • Parent-Child Relationships

Background:

  • Negative emotionality is associated with adverse life outcomes.
  • Limited research explores parental and child negative emotionality's impact on daily child behaviors and emotion word use.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the influence of parent and child negative emotionality on children's problem behaviors and negative emotion word use.
  • To examine the interactive effects of parental and child negative emotionality.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized the Electronically Activated Recorder for naturalistic data collection.
  • Studied 35 preschool-aged children at two time points, 1 year apart.
  • Assessed parent and child negative emotionality and child behaviors (whining, arguing/fighting, negative emotion word use).

Main Results:

  • Fathers' negative emotionality predicted child whining.
  • Mothers' negative emotionality predicted child negative emotion word use and increased arguing/fighting.
  • Child negative emotionality moderated the link between maternal negative emotionality and child arguing/fighting.
  • Maternal emotional expressiveness moderated the association between maternal negative emotionality and child problem behaviors.

Conclusions:

  • Parental and child negative emotionality are linked to everyday child behaviors.
  • Maternal emotional expressiveness plays a crucial role in moderating the relationship between maternal negative emotionality and child behavioral problems.

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