Abstract
Negative emotion is typically associated with avoidance behavior; however, recent advances in the adult literature show that unlike some emotions (sadness, shame), anger predicts both approach and avoidance. Here we propose that socialization to suppress anger will play a role in whether children who express anger respond to a performance challenge with approach or avoidance. Children (N = 79; M age = 11.4 years) reported perceptions of parental use of positive conditional regard (PCR) to socialize anger suppression and worked on four unsolvable puzzles. We measured change in verbalized puzzle-solving strategies during failure, and coded emotion expression on the final puzzle. We examined whether negative emotion type (shame/sadness vs. anger) and PCR for anger predicted change in strategy use, and whether the association between level of PCR for anger and approach-avoidance (change in strategy use) depended on type of negative emotion expressed. Neither emotion expression nor level of PCR anger predicted strategy use; however, type of negative emotion moderated the association between PCR anger and change in strategy use, controlling for NCR anger. For children who displayed anger, low PCR was associated with increased strategy use, and high PCR was associated with decreased strategy use. We discuss the role of emotion socialization in shaping approach and avoidance motivation.
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Support for the research project was provided by Faculty Research Grants from Pomona College to the first and the last authors. We are very grateful to the families who graciously participated in the study and to research assistants in the Child Attachment, Emotion, and Relationships (CARE) Lab at Pomona College who assisted with task development, data collection, and coding
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Smiley, P.A., Buttitta, K.V., Chung, S.Y. et al. Anger in response to challenge: children’s emotion socialization predicts approach versus avoidance. Motiv Emot 40, 923–935 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-016-9583-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-016-9583-5