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The Structure of Emotion Dialogues: Maternal Reminiscing Factors Differentially Relate to Child Language and Socio-Emotional Outcomes

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Abstract

Mother–child reminiscing about past emotional experiences is one aspect of emotion socialization that facilitates child socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes. To advance understanding of the multidimensional nature of this clinically significant transdiagnostic process, the current investigation examined the structure of maternal reminiscing and how emergent factors related to child outcomes across two diverse samples (total N = 337). Sample one included 102 mothers and their preschool-aged children from community agencies, and sample two included 235 mothers and their preschool-aged children, the majority of whom had experienced substantiated maltreatment. Dyads completed a reminiscing task coded for multiple aspects of maternal reminiscing style (frequency and scale-based coding), assessments of child receptive language and internalizing and externalizing problems, and measures of parenting. Factor analyses confirmed that maternal reminiscing was best defined by three factors: (1) structural elaborations, (2) emotional attributions, and (3) sensitive guidance, and this three-factor structure was invariant across samples, maltreatment, maternal race, and child sex. When controlling for other dimensions of caregiver-reported parenting behavior, reminiscing sensitive guidance was significantly positively associated with child language and negatively with child internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In contrast, emotional elaborations were associated with higher child internalizing concerns. When controlling for caregiver-reported parenting and observed maternal sensitivity, structural elaborations negatively and emotional attributions positively related to child internalizing symptoms, whereas reminiscing factors did not significantly predict child externalizing symptoms nor child language. Distinct aspects of maternal reminiscing behavior are differentially related to child outcomes. Limitations and implications for understanding and measuring emotion socialization interactions are discussed.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under grant R01HD071933-01A1 (PI K. Valentino), and the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts at the University of Notre Dame.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, 82071, USA

    Christina G. McDonnell

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, 78249, USA

    Monica Lawson

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, United States

    Ruth Speidel, Kaitlin Fondren & Kristin Valentino

Authors
  1. Christina G. McDonnell
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  2. Monica Lawson
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  3. Ruth Speidel
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  4. Kaitlin Fondren
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  5. Kristin Valentino
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Correspondence to Christina G. McDonnell.

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Ethical Approval

The data for the current study are drawn from research projects approved by the University of Notre Dame Institutional Review Board, and were performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

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All caregivers provided informed consent for their and their child’s participation, and signed release forms granting access to their DCS records (for the second sample involving maltreating families).

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The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest.

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McDonnell, C.G., Lawson, M., Speidel, R. et al. The Structure of Emotion Dialogues: Maternal Reminiscing Factors Differentially Relate to Child Language and Socio-Emotional Outcomes. Res Child Adolesc Psychopathol 50, 837–851 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-021-00889-8

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