Jackie A. Nelson

African American and European American Mothers' Beliefs About Negative Emotions and Emotion Socialization Practices

Objective . The authors examined mothers’ beliefs about their childrens negative emotions and their emotion socialization practices. Design . A total of 65 African American and 137 European American mothers of 5-year-old children reported their beliefs and typical responses to childrens negative emotions, and mothers’ emotion teaching practices were observed. Results . African American mothers reported that the display of negative emotions was less acceptable than European American mothers, and African American mothers of boys perceived the most negative social consequences for the display of negative emotions. African American mothers reported fewer supportive responses to childrens negative emotions than did European Americans and more nonsupportive responses to childrens anger. African American mothers of boys also reported more nonsupportive responses to submissive negative emotions than did African American mothers of girls. However, no differences were found by ethnicity or child gender in observed teaching about emotions. Group differences in mothers’ responses to negative emotions were explained, in part, by mothers’ beliefs about emotions. Conclusions . Differences in beliefs and practices may reflect African American mothers’ efforts to protect their children from discrimination.

Preschool-aged children's understanding of gratitude: Relations with emotion and mental state knowledge

Developmental precursors to childrens early understanding of gratitude were examined. A diverse group of 263 children was tested for emotion and mental state knowledge at ages 3 and 4, and their understanding of gratitude was measured at age 5. Children varied widely in their understanding of gratitude, but most understood some aspects of gratitude-eliciting situations. A model-building path analysis approach was used to examine longitudinal relations among early emotion and mental state knowledge and later understanding of gratitude. Children with a better early understanding of emotions and mental states understand more about gratitude. Mental state knowledge at age 4 mediated the relation between emotion knowledge at age 3 and gratitude understanding at age 5. The current study contributes to the scant literature on the early emergence of childrens understanding of gratitude.

Longitudinal associations between children's understanding of emotions and theory of mind

Theory of mind competence and knowledge of emotions were studied longitudinally in a sample of preschoolers aged 3 (n=263) and 4 (n=244) years. Children were assessed using standard measures of theory of mind and emotion knowledge. Three competing hypotheses were tested regarding the developmental associations between childrens theory of mind abilities and their knowledge of emotions. First, that an understanding of emotion develops early and informs childrens understanding of others’ thinking. Alternatively, having a basic theory of mind may help children learn about emotions. Third, that the two domains are separate aspects of childrens social cognitive skills such that each area develops independently. Results of hierarchical regressions supported the first hypothesis that early emotion understanding predicts later theory-of-mind performance, and not the reverse.

The Relation Between Maternal Emotional Support and Child Physiological Regulation Across the Preschool Years

Trajectories of baseline RSA (respiratory sinus arrhythmia), an index of reactivity, and vagal withdrawal, an index of regulation, across the preschool period were examined. In addition, maternal emotional support was investigated as a potential time-varying predictor of these trajectories. Physiological measures were obtained during frustration tasks, and a maternal emotional support measure was assessed via maternal report and direct observation. Childrens baseline RSA and vagal withdrawal scores were moderately stable across the preschool period. Growth models indicated that childrens baseline RSA scores changed linearly over the preschool years, and there was significant variability in withdrawal trajectories. Greater maternal emotional support predicted higher initial withdrawal levels and lower emotional support was associated with the greatest increase in withdrawal over time. This suggests that children of higher emotionally supportive mothers reached higher levels of physiological regulation earlier in development and therefore did not show the same increase across preschool as children of less supportive mothers. Maternal emotional support was not significantly related to trajectories of baseline RSA.

Does an Unplanned Pregnancy Have Long-Term Implications for Mother–Child Relationships?:

The effect of pregnancy planning on the quality of mother–adolescent relationships 15 years later was examined among 373 first-time parents and 472 experienced parents using a mediated moderation model. Among first-time mothers only, the experience of an unplanned pregnancy was related to higher maternal depressive symptoms when mothers also experienced high parenting stress over the first three years. High maternal depressive symptoms over those early years were, in turn, related to more conflict and hostility in the parent–adolescent relationship according to mother and adolescent reports. Additionally, interactions between parity and pregnancy planning revealed that experienced mothers with unplanned pregnancies had the most early parenting stress, although an unplanned pregnancy and high parenting stress did not predict higher depressive symptoms for these mothers as it did for first-time mothers. The findings provide support for the importance of early parenting emotions and experiences on later parent–adolescent relationship quality.

The interactive roles of parenting, emotion regulation and executive functioning in moral reasoning during middle childhood

We examined mother–child co-operative behaviour, childrens emotion regulation and executive function, as well as combinations of these factors, as predictors of moral reasoning in 89 10-year-old children. Dyadic co-operation was coded from videotaped observations of laboratory puzzle and speech tasks. Emotion regulation was derived from maternal report, and executive functioning was assessed with the Tower of London task. Moral reasoning was coded during mother–child conversations about morally ambiguous, peer-conflict situations. Two significant interactions indicated that children from more co-operative dyads who also had higher executive function skills had higher moral reasoning scores than other children, and children lower in both emotion regulation and executive function had lower moral reasoning scores than other children. The results contribute to the literature on the multiple and interactive levels of influence on moral reasoning in childhood.

A Compreensão da Gratidão e Teoria da Mente em Crianças de 5 Anos

We examined relations between the understanding of gratitude (GRA) and the development of a theory of mind (TOM). The study was done with 228 5-year-old North American children (53% female). We tested the following hypotheses: (a) there are no sex differences in GRA or TOM, (b) children who perform better on TOM tasks have better GRA, (c) TOM is a necessary condition for GRA. We used three tasks to evaluate TOM: visual perspective taking, first-order false belief, and second-order false belief. The children were read two vignettes about gratitude. GRA was evaluated based on childrens responses to questions asked after each vignette was read. The first two hypotheses were supported. The hypothesis that TOM would be a necessary condition for GRA did not receive sufficient empirical support.

Mothers’ and Fathers’ Reports of Their Supportive Responses to Their Children’s Negative Emotions Over Time

SYNOPSIS Objective. Parents’ emotion socialization practices are thought to be moderately stable over time; however, a partner’s socialization practices could initiate change. Design. We examined mothers’ and fathers’ reports of their supportive responses to their children’s negative emotions when the target child was 7 years old and again at age 10. We tested a dyadic, longitudinal path model with 111 mother–father pairs. Results. Significant actor and partner effects emerged: Parents’ age 7 responses predicted their own age 10 responses and their partners’ later responses. Conclusions. Parents’ reported responses to children’s negative emotions during middle childhood are predicted by their own earlier responses and by their partners’ responses.

Emotional reactivity, self-control and children's hostile attributions over middle childhood

Hostile attribution bias, a childs tendency to interpret ambiguous social information as threatening or hostile, has been discussed as an important point in which social, emotional and cognitive information intersect. This study explores the natural changes that occur in childrens hostile attributions across three grades during middle childhood and examines how emotional reactivity and self-control at third, fourth and fifth grade independently and interactively relate to these trajectories. Participants included 919 children whose mothers reported on their emotional reactivity, whose teachers reported on their self-control and who completed an attribution bias interview, all at grades 3, 4 and 5. Results revealed that among children with a greater tendency to make hostile attributions at third grade, lower self-control at third grade was associated with greater initial hostile attribution bias and less decline in biases over time. Additionally, greater emotional reactivity at fourth grade was associated with declines in these childrens hostile attributions, but only when self-control was also higher at fourth grade.

Relations between mothers’ daily work, home, and relationship stress with characteristics of mother–child conflict interactions.

This study examined whether daily variations in levels of mothers’ work, home, and relationship stress were related to collaborative and oppositional qualities of mother–child conflict interactions across 1 week. Mothers reported on 1 specific conflict interaction with their 5- to 8-year-old child and their work, home, and relationship stress through online surveys each day for 7 consecutive days. Diary data from 142 mothers were analyzed in 6 multilevel models, each including within- and between-family levels of a stressor predicting collaborative or oppositional conflict qualities. Results suggested that families in the sample differed from each other, and also varied during the week, in collaborative and oppositional conflict qualities as well as stress in all 3 domains. Mothers reported a greater degree of oppositional conflict qualities on days characterized by higher perceptions of home chaos. Additionally, mothers who reported higher average levels of negativity in romantic relationships endorsed oppositional conflict qualities to a greater extent than mothers with lower relationship negativity. Two multilevel models including all 3 stressors in relation to collaborative and oppositional conflict revealed that for mothers managing multiple roles, average romantic relationship stress was the most important unique contributor to mother–child conflict qualities and daily relationship stress was particularly influential among mothers with sons compared to those with daughters. Results support the spillover hypothesis of stress within the family system and are discussed in terms of mothers’ coping mechanisms and emotional engagement.