Linking Maternal Emotion Socialization to Boys' and Girls' Emotion Regulation in Korea

Abstract

This study investigated whether Korean mothers' emotion socialization beliefs are related to emotional functioning in children differing across gender. We interviewed Korean mothers (N = 100) of first graders (55 boys; 45 girls) about their sensitivity, their reactions to children's distress, and children's emotion regulation. Two components of emotion regulation were distinguished: regulation and negativity. Results revealed that mothers' proactive sensitivity and their supportive reactions were related to their children's regulation, whereas unsupportive reactions were related to children`s negativity. Child gender moderated the associations between mothers' socialization beliefs and children's emotion regulation: mothers' proactive sensitivity was more strongly associated with competent regulation in girls than in boys. Mothers' unsupportive reactions were related to increased negativity only in girls. Results are discussed from a cultural perspective, focusing on gender differences in the links between maternal socialization and children's emotional outcomes in Korea.

Parent emotional regulation: A meta-analytic review of its association with parenting and child adjustment

“…In emotion socialization research, the focus is often on parents' responses to children's negative emotion, and parents who report more supportive responses in these situations have children with more emotion regulation skills, fewer conduct problems, more prosocial behavior with peers, and fewer internalizing symptoms. In contrast, nonsupportive parental responses to children's negative emotions have been associated with poorer child adjustment (Hurrell et al, 2015;Song & Trommsdorff, 2016).…”

Cross-Cultural Affective Neuroscience

“…As stated in the first paragraph of this section, CAN claims that cultures do not influence only the level of emotional interdependency and relatedness, but the qualities of affect regulation as well. Cross-cultural emotion socialization studies show that parents promote or inhibit different emotions of the child, depending on their cultural norms and the gender of their child (Friedlmeier et al., 2011; Song and Trommsdorff, 2016). In a way, culture influences how parents will reinforce or suppress the basic affective systems of their boys/girls.…”

Household chaos, parental responses to emotion, and child emotion regulation in middle childhood

“…There may be cultural differences in how these processes operate—for example, the ways in which parents and children interact, how children express their emotions, and how parents and children alike interpret and react to each other's emotions (Emde et al., 1991; Morris et al, 2007; Saarni, 1990). In particular, studies that focus on African American (Nelson et al., 2013; Smith & Walden, 2001), Latinx (Pintar Breen et al, 2018), and Korean (Song & Trommsdorff, 2016) families have observed different distinct patterns of supportive and non‐supportive emotion socialization behaviors and associations with children's ER development.…”

“…Parents' coping with and responses to their own child's negative emotions have been identified as a key feature of the family context, because it consistently relates to children's developing ER skills and deficits (Fabes et al, 2002;Morgan et al, 2010;Pintar Breen et al, 2018;Song & Trommsdorff, 2016). Parents play an important role in emotion communication and socialization of ER skills in childhood, from the time children first begin to express their needs and desires (Eisenberg et al, 1996(Eisenberg et al, , 1998Fabes et al, 2002;Pintar Breen et al, 2018).…”