Beliefs About Children’s Emotions in Chile

Abstract

To learn more about Chilean emotional beliefs related to emotion development, 271 Mapuche and non-Mapuche parents and teachers in urban and rural settings reported their emotion beliefs using a questionnaire invariant in the Chilean context (Riquelme et al., in press). Included are six beliefs previously found to resonate across three United States cultures (i.e., beliefs about the value and cost of certain emotions; control of emotion; knowledge of children's emotion; manipulation of emotion; and emotional autonomy), and five others distinctive to the indigenous people of this region (i.e., value of being calm; controlling fear specifically; interpersonality of emotion; learning about emotion from adults; and regulation through nature). MANOVAs were conducted to examine these beliefs across culture (Mapuche, non-Mapuche), role (parent, teacher), and geographical location (rural, urban). For United States-derived beliefs, there were no main effects, although two interactions with culture by role and location were significant. For all five Mapuche-generated beliefs, there were significant main effects for culture, role, and location. Results highlight both similarities and differences in beliefs across cultures, roles, and geographical location. Implications for the Chilean context include the importance of non-Mapuche teachers' sensitivity to the values and emotion-related beliefs of Mapuche families. Implications for the global context include an expanded view of emotion-related beliefs, including beliefs that children can control fear and be calm, that emotion-related values include attending to the needs of others, and that two ways of controlling emotion are through learning by listening to/watching elders, and by being in nature.

Relationships between maternal beliefs and reactions to children’s negative emotions

“…This study has limitations. First, Halberstadt et al (2020) draw attention to the risk of assessing parental beliefs using questionnaires, such as the one adopted in this study. The instrument's statements may not be precisely equivalent to the respondents' cognitions, since they may want to provide the "right answer", leading to a mismatch between their answers and beliefs regarding children's emotions.…”

“…and parental responses to it. However, most studies addressing this topic were conducted in Asian or European countries or the United States; hence, it has been seldom investigated in Latin American countries (Halberstadt et al, 2020). Furthermore, only a small and growing number of studies address emotion socialization considering other cultures, ethnicity/races, socioeconomic classes, or nationalities.…”

“…Furthermore, only a small and growing number of studies address emotion socialization considering other cultures, ethnicity/races, socioeconomic classes, or nationalities. For instance, Halberstadt et al (2020) investigated the beliefs of Mapuche and non-Mapuche parents and teachers regarding children's emotions. The findings revealed that the groups share some similarities regarding negative consequences when children's positive emotions are not under control.…”

Relações entre crenças e reações maternas às emoções negativas dos filhos

“…Em resumo, a articulação entre a Teoria dos Modos (Beck & Haigh, 2014;Beck et al, 2020), a FMP (Gottman et al, 1996) e o Modelo da Socialização Emocional (Eisenberg, 2020;Eisenberg et al, 1998) conduz à noção de que as crenças (incluindo as expectativas e as atribuições de significados) dos pais sobre os processos emocionais infantis medeiam a relação entre a expressividade emocional dos filhos, situação ativadora do modo, e as reações parentais de socialização emocional, que constituem a resposta comportamental para lidar com o evento. Todavia, a maioria das pesquisas existentes sobre a temática foi realizada em países da Ásia e da Europa e nos Estados Unidos, sendo ainda pouco investigada na América do Sul (Halberstadt et al, 2020 No Brasil, o que se sabe acerca das crenças parentais relacionadas às emoções das crianças é insuficiente (Mendes et al, 2018). Ademais, compreender a associação entre as crenças e as reações dos adultos de referência das crianças no processo da socialização emocional parece ser um passo importante para o planejamento e aprimoramento de intervenções com foco no desenvolvimento da competência emocional infantil.…”

Desregulación emocional en la formación inicial de profesores de Pedagogía en Educación Física (Emotional dysregulation in the initial teacher training of Physical Education Pedagogy)

“…En consecuencia, hay que considerar que la regulación de las emociones está directamente vinculada a la sociedad y cultura en que los estudiantes están inmersos (Lim, 2016;Riquelme, Miranda-Zapata & Halberstadt, 2019;Stefoni, Stang & Riedemann, 2016). Es así que, la educación de la regulación emocional se vuelve indispensable en los estudiantes, teniendo como objetivo adecuar los comportamientos para la buena convivencia y las interacciones sociales dentro de su contexto sociocultural (Gordillo et al, 2015;Halberstadt, Oertwig & Riquelme, 2020;Mesquita, Boiger & Leersnyder, 2017;Riquelme et al, 2016).…”