Latent transition analysis of parent emotion socialization profiles

Few studies have used a holistic, person-centered approach to identify the stability of distinctive profiles across multiple elements of parent socialization. We aimed to test consistency, stability, and predictors of longitudinal emotion socialization profiles. Data collected in 2019 (N = 869) and 2020 (N = 567) were drawn from The Child and Parent Emotion Study, a longitudinal cohort study of multinational families. The present study included parents of children aged 4-10 years (M = 7.3, SD = 1.9). We tested whether three emotion socialization profiles (emotion coaching, emotion disengaged, and emotion dismissing) derived from a previous person-centered study (https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1161418) remained evident 12 months later. Stability and consistency of the profiles from 2019 to 2020 were tested via a latent transition analysis. Using binary logistic regression, we tested whether contextual factors were associated with profile stability. The 2019 profiles were evident in the 2020 data and were largely stable over time, with the majority of parents assigned to the same profile at both timepoints (87%). Parents with an emotion coaching profile were least likely to change profiles. Parents who changed from emotion coaching to disengaged or to dismissing reported higher levels of stress. There was also evidence that parents who changed from emotion coaching to dismissing also reported lower levels of psychological distress, although this effect was small. These findings suggest that parents' experience of stress/psychological distress may be a factor associated with less stability in their emotion socialization. In the future, person-centered studies should focus on more diverse samples of parents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).