Abstract
Objectives
The present study examined the indirect effect of emotion regulation in the relationship between Maternal Reactions to Preschoolers’ Negative Emotions (MRPNE) and aggression, and explored the gender difference in this mediational mechanism.
Methods
We used questionnaires to survey 271 dyads of four- to five-year-olds and their mothers. To measure the research variables, Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scales (CCNES), Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC), and Preschool Social Behavior Scale-Teacher Form (PSBS-TF) were used. SPSS 24.0 and Mplus 5.12 were used to analyze.
Results
Preschoolers’ emotion regulation was found to mediate the relationship between supportive/non-supportive maternal reaction to preschoolers’ negative emotions and aggression. A significant gender difference was observed. In the case of boys, only non-supportive maternal reaction showed a significant effect on preschoolers’ aggression via emotion regulation, and the indirect effect was significantly higher. In the case of girls, both supportive and non-supportive maternal reactions showed a significant effect.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that the effect of maternal emotion-related parenting behaviors may differ by gender. Thus, gender differences should be considered when developing intervention and prevention programs for preschoolers’ aggression.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bae, Y. J., & Lim, J. Y. (2014). Preschoolers’ effortful control according to paternal and maternal parenting behaviors: focusing on the interaction effect between gender and parenting Behaviors. Journal of Korean Home Management Association, 32(2), 77–97. https://doi.org/10.7466/JKHMA.2014.32.2.77.
Brody, L. R., & Fischer, A. (2000). The socialization of gender differences in emotional expression: Display rules, infant temperament, and differentiation. Gender and emotion: Social psychological perspectives. (pp. 24–47). New York: NY: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511628191.003.
Brown, G. L., Craig, A. B., & Halberstadt, A. G. (2015). Parent gender differences in emotion socialization behaviors vary by ethnicity and child gender. Parenting, 15(3), 135–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295192.2015.1053312.
Cassano, M. C., Zeman, J. L., & Sanders, W. M. (2014). Responses to children’s sadness: mothers’ and fathers’ unique contributions and perceptions. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 60(1), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.13110/merrpalmquar1982.60.1.0001.
Chang, H., Olson, S. L., Sameroff, A. J., & Sexton, H. R. (2011). Child effortful control as a mediator of parenting practices on externalizing behavior: Evidence for a sex-differentiated pathway across the transition from preschool to school. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39(1), 71–81. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-010-9437-7.
Crick, N. R., & Grotpeter, J. K. (1995). Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment. Child Development, 66(3), 710–722. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1995.tb00900.x.
Crick, N. R., Casas, J. F., & Mosher, M. (1997). Relational and overt aggression in preschool. Developmental Psychology, 33(4), 579–588. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.33.4.579.
Davies, P. T., Martin, M. J., Coe, J. L., & Cummings, E. M. (2016). Transactional cascades of destructive interparental conflict, children’s emotional insecurity, and psychological problems across childhood and adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 28(3), 653–671. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0954579416000237.
Denham, S. A., Zoller, D., & Couchoud, E. A. (1994). Socialization of preschoolers’ emotion understanding. Developmental Psychology, 30(6), 928–936. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.30.6.928.
Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., & Spinrad, T. L. (1998). Parental socialization of emotion. Psychological Inquiry, 9(4), 241–273. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli0904_1.
Eisenberg, N, Spinrad, T. L, Valiente, C, Balter, L., & Tamus-LeMonda, C. S. (2016). Emotion-related self-regulation, and children’s social, psychological, and academic functioning. Child psychology: A handbook of contemporary issues. (pp. 219–244). New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119362081.ch14.
Eisenberg, N., VanSchyndel, S. K., & Hofer, C. (2015). The association of maternal socialization in childhood and adolescence with adult offsprings’ sympathy/caring. Developmental Psychology, 51(1), 7–16. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038137.
Fabes, R. A, Eisenberg, N., & Bernzweig, J. 1990). Coping with children’s negative emotions scale (CCNES): Description and scoring. Temple, AZ: Arizona State University. https://doi.org/10.1037/t36591-000.
Gower, A. L., Lingras, K. A., Mathieson, L. C., Kawabata, Y., & Crick, N. R. (2014). The role of preschool relational and physical aggression in the transition to kindergarten: Links with social-psychological adjustment. Early Education and Development, 25(5), 619–640. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2014.844058.
Han., J. A., Cho., Y. J., & Kim, H. J. (2014). Effects of preschool children’s gender, temperament, emotional regulation and maternal parenting stress on children’s overt aggression and relational aggression. Korean Journal of Human Ecology, 23(4), 599–611. https://doi.org/10.5934/kjhe.2014.23.4.599.
Hay, C., Meldrum, R. C., Widdowson, A. O., & Piquero, A. R. (2017). Early aggression and later delinquency: Considering the redirecting role of good parenting. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 15(4), 374–395. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541204016631805.
Hoeksma, J. B., Oosterlaan, J., & Schipper, E. M. (2004). Emotion regulation and the dynamics of feelings: A conceptual and methodological framework. Child Development, 75(2), 354–360. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00677.x.
Hwang, Y. S. (2009). A validation of the emotional regulation scale for Korean preschool children. The Journal of Korea Open Association for Early Childhood Education, 14(5), 25–40. uci:G704-000666.2009.14.5.003.
Hyde, J. S. (1984). How large are gender differences in aggression? A developmental meta-analysis. Developmental Psychology, 20(4), 722–736. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.20.4.722.
Jin, Z., Zhang, X., & Han, Z. R. (2017). Parental emotion socialization and child psychological adjustment among Chinese urban families: Mediation through child emotion regulation and moderation through dyadic collaboration. Frontiers in Psychology, 2198(8), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02198.
Johnson, A. M., Hawes, D. J., Eisenberg, N., Kohlhoff, J., & Dudeney, J. (2017). Emotion socialization and child conduct problems: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 54, 65–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2017.04.001.
Lau, R. S., & Cheung, G. W. (2012). Estimating and comparing specific mediation effects in complex latent variable models. Organizational Research Methods, 15(1), 3–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428110391673.
Lim, E. J., & Kim, S. Y. (2011). A structural relationship analysis between young children’s social competence and emotion regulation ability and related variables according to gender. Korean Journal of Early Childhood Education, 31(4), 5–29. https://doi.org/10.18023/kjece.2011.31.4.001.
MacKinnon, D. P., Lockwood, C. M., & Williams, J. (2004). Confidence limits for the indirect effect: distribution of the product and resampling methods. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39(1), 99–128. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr3901_4.
Mileva-Seitz, V. R., Ghassabian, A., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., van den Brink, J. D., Linting, M., Jaddoe, V. W., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2015). Are boys more sensitive to sensitivity? Parenting and executive function in preschoolers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 130, 193–208. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2014.08.008.
Mirabile, S. P., Oertwig, D., & Halberstadt, A. G. (2016). Parent emotion socialization and children’s socioemotional adjustment: When is supportiveness no longer supportive? Social Development., 27(3), 466–481. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12226.
Morales, S., Beekman, C., Blandon, A. Y., Stifter, C. A., & Buss, K. A. (2015). Longitudinal associations between temperament and socioemotional outcomes in young children: The moderating role of RSA and gender. Developmental Psychobiology, 57(1), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21267.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. (2010). Mplus: The Comprehensive Modeling Program for Applied Researchers (version 5.21). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Oh, J. H. (2015). The effect of mother’s reactions to children’s negative emotions on children’s peer relations: The mediating role of children’s empathy and emotional regulation type. Korean Journal of Child Studies, 36(2), 17–37. https://doi.org/10.5723/kjcs.2015.36.2.17.
Piotrowska, P. J., Stride, C. B., Croft, S. E., & Rowe, R. (2015). Socioeconomic status and antisocial behaviour among children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 35, 47–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2014.11.003.
Raval, V. V., Raval, P. H., & Deo, N. (2014). Mothers’ socialization goals, mothers’ emotion socialization behaviors, child emotion regulation, and child socioemotional functioning in urban India. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 34(2), 229–250. https://doi.org/10.1177/0272431613485821.
Sala, M. N., Pons, F., & Molina, P. (2014). Emotion regulation strategies in preschool children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 32(4), 440–453. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjdp.12055.
Sarkisian, K., Van Hulle, C., Lemery-Chalfant, K., & Goldsmith, H. H. (2017). Childhood inhibitory control and adolescent impulsivity and novelty seeking as differential predictors of relational and overt aggression. Journal of Research in Personality, 67, 144–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.07.011.
Shahaeian, A., Razmjoee, M., Wang, C., Elliott, S. N., & Hughes, C. (2017). Understanding relational aggression during early childhood: an examination of the association with language and other social and cognitive skills. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 40, 204–214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2017.04.002.
Shields, A., & Cicchetti, D. (1997). Emotion regulation among school-age children: The development and validation of a new criterion Q-sort scale. Developmental Psychology, 33(6), 906–916. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.33.6.906.
Shin, Y. (2012). A longitudinal study on the developmental relationship between preschoolers’ relational aggression and peer rejection using the autoregressive cross-lagged model. Journal of Early Childhood Education, 32(3), 101–115. https://doi.org/10.18023/kjece.2012.32.3.005.
Song, J. H., & Trommsdorff, G. (2016). Linking maternal emotion socialization to boys’ and girls’ emotion regulation in Korea. Child Studies in Asia-Pacific Contexts, 6(2), 47–57. https://doi.org/10.5723/csac.2016.6.2.047.
Stenseng, F., Belsky, J., Skalicka, V., & Wichstrøm, L. (2015). Social exclusion predicts impaired self‐regulation: a 2-year longitudinal panel study including the transition from preschool to school. Journal of Personality, 83(2), 212–220. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12096.
Sulik, M. J., Blair, C., Mills‐Koonce, R., Berry, D., & Greenberg, M. (2015). Early parenting and the development of externalizing behavior problems: longitudinal mediation through children’s executive function. Child Development, 86(5), 1588–1603. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12386.
Thompson, R. A. (1994). Emotion regulation: A theme in search of definition. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59(2–3), 25–52.
Tømmeraas, T. (2016). Social gradients and participant characteristics in child behavior problem interventions. Children and Youth Services Review, 70, 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.09.010.
Werner, N. E., Eaton, A. D., Lyle, K., Tseng, H., & Holst, B. (2014). Maternal social coaching quality interrupts the development of relational aggression during early childhood. Social Development, 23(3), 470–486. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12048.
Author Contributions
B.L.S. designed the study, collected and analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. M.J.K. collaborated with the conceptualization of the study, provided feedback in data analyses and interpreting, contributed on revising and editing of the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of Yonsei University, the Center for Research Ethics Information in Korea, and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.
Informed Consent
Mothers and teachers were provided with written information about the study and informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study before the survey started.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Suh, B.L., Kang, M.J. Maternal Reactions to Preschoolers’ Negative Emotions and Aggression: Gender Difference in Mediation of Emotion Regulation. J Child Fam Stud 29, 144–154 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01649-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-019-01649-5