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Emotion socialization in mothers with mood disorders: Affective modeling and recollected responses to childhood emotion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2020

Madelyn H. Labella Open the ORCID record for Madelyn H. Labella [Opens in a new window] ,
Sarah K. Ruiz ,
Susan J. Harris  and
Bonnie Klimes-Dougan
Madelyn H. Labella*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, 108 Wolf Hall, Newark, DE19716, USA Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, 51 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN55455, USA
Sarah K. Ruiz
Affiliation:
Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, 51 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN55455, USA
Susan J. Harris
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The Catholic University of America, O'Boyle Hall, Washington, DC20064, USA
Bonnie Klimes-Dougan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Elliott Hall, 75 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN55455, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Madelyn H. Labella, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, 108 Wolf Hall, Newark, DE19716. E-mail: mlabella@psych.udel.edu
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Abstract

Growing evidence suggests that emotion socialization may be disrupted by maternal depression. However, little is known about emotion-related parenting by mothers with bipolar disorder or whether affective modeling in early childhood is linked to young adults’ recollections of emotion socialization practices. The current study investigates emotion socialization by mothers with histories of major depression, bipolar disorder, or no mood disorder. Affective modeling was coded from parent–child interactions in early childhood and maternal responses to negative emotions were recollected by young adult offspring (n = 131, 59.5% female, M age = 22.16, SD = 2.58). Multilevel models revealed that maternal bipolar disorder was associated with more neglecting, punishing, and magnifying responses to children's emotions, whereas maternal major depression was associated with more magnifying responses; links between maternal diagnosis and magnifying responses were robust to covariates. Young adult recollections of maternal responses to emotion were predicted by affective modeling in early childhood, providing preliminary validity evidence for the Emotions as a Child Scale. Findings provide novel evidence that major depression and bipolar disorder are associated with altered emotion socialization and that maternal affective modeling in early childhood prospectively predicts young adults’ recollections of emotion socialization in families with and without mood disorder.

Keywords

bipolar disorderemotion socializationmaternal depression
Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , October 2021 , pp. 1156 - 1169
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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