Determinants of Parental Emotion Socialization Behaviors: Insights From a Large-Scale Population-Based Family Study

Parental emotion socialization behaviors (ESBs) are essential for child development and are typically understood as influenced by factors related to three domains: the parent, the child, and the family context. However, it remains unclear how parents' childhood experiences with ESBs should be represented within these conceptual frameworks. Addressing the complexity of ESBs, the present study examined predictors across three theoretically derived domains and additionally included parents' recollected ESBs as a parent-level factor. Questionnaire data were collected from a large population-based cohort of Norwegian mothers and fathers (n = 4207; 2460 mothers) with children aged 3 to 13 years (M = 7.4 years). Supportive and non-supportive ESBs were examined separately through hierarchical regression models incorporating parent, context, and child factors. The three domains collectively accounted for 28% of the variance in supportive ESBs and 29% in non-supportive ESBs. The results clearly emphasized parental factors, with parent gender and recollected ESBs being the most influential predictors. Other parent factors, such as perceived parenting stress, alcohol use, and the personality traits agreeableness and openness, also showed unique effects across both types of ESBs. Among contextual factors, education, income, and country of birth predicted non-supportive ESBs but not supportive ESBs. Child age and birth order were linked with supportive ESBs, whereas only child age predicted non-supportive ESBs. Findings highlight the importance of parent characteristics, particularly gender and recollected emotion socialization from the family of origin, in predicting current parental ESBs beyond contextual and child-related factors.