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Maternal regulation of children's emotions

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Abstract

This study investigated maternal regulation of children's emotional behavior and feelings. Mothers and their children ages 3, 5, 7, and 9 were interviewed concerning how the children would feel and act and how the mothers would intervene in 12 prototypical situations that elicit joy, anger, sadness, or fear. Mothers reported many regulatory strategies for each type of emotion situation. Children's age was a significant factor in regulation of angry and sad situations. Children's gender influenced some maternal predictions concerning their children's responses, but did not affect regulation of those responses. Agreement between mothers' predictions and children's self-reported responses was greater for older than younger children. Mothers were better at predicting their children's internal emotional experience than their emotional behavior, with mothers typically expecting verbal responses, whereas children more commonly reported nonverbal behavior. Children's negative temperament influenced maternal anger regulation and overall accuracy of mothers' predictions. Negative family expressivity influenced maternal responses to happy and angry situations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, 48202, Detroit, MI

    Rita J. Casey

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  1. Rita J. Casey
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  2. Laura L. Fuller
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Additional information

Our thanks to David Witherington for preparation of stimuli, to Stephanie Reiter, Toni Johll, and Laura Nelson for assistance in piloting the project, and to Lisa Cunningham, Kristine Hart, Kathy Horan, Wendy Kincaide, Kris Maiers, Pat Nelson, Mary Passehl, Kim Pidgeon, Sonya Vander Schaaf, Pam Skafidas, and Deborah Walters for their assistance in executing this study. We are also grateful to Grazyna Kochanska, Carolyn Cutrona, Allen Hart, Amy Halberstadt, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

This work was supported by a NIH/University of Iowa Basic Sciences Research Grant to Rita J. Casey. A portion of this project was the Master's thesis of the second author, who was assisted by a grant from the University of Iowa Student Association.

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Casey, R.J., Fuller, L.L. Maternal regulation of children's emotions. J Nonverbal Behav 18, 57–89 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02169079

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