University of Amsterdam
Pedagogische Wetenschappen
Bachelors thesis
The Influence of Parental Emotion Socialisation Behaviour on Emotion Regulation in Children
Danielle van der Giessen
28 January 2019 Madeleine Rothwell, 10851828 Word count: 5611
Abstract
This review aims to explore the effect of parental emotion socialisation on emotion regulation in children. It appears that when parents model adaptive regulation strategies it encourages emotion regulation in children. Furthermore, it seems that parents when express positive emotions it can encourage their children’s emotion regulation. Parents can also
encourage emotion regulation in their children when they respond to their children's emotions in a supportive way. When parents respond to their children’s emotion in a supportive way it helps children recognize and generate appropriate regulation strategies. When parents apply a more emotion coaching style of emotion socialisation they are more likely to have children with adequate emotion regulation abilities. Limitations within the literature and practical implication of the data are discussed.
The Influence of Parental Emotion Socialisation on Emotion Regulation in Children
When infants are in the early stages of foetal development, everything ranging from their body temperature to the exact flow of nutrients is regulated by the mother. Once infants are born, they must learn to regulate their own physiology, behaviour and emotions (Rigter, 2013). Infants are unable to do this independently and can only express an instantaneous reaction to changes in their environment. For example, infants can express physical needs by crying and can often be overwhelmed by emotions such as fright and fear. However, infants can also respond to environmental changes with interest and excitement. Since infants are largely unable to regulate themselves, they rely greatly on the caregiver’s ability to respond to these cues (Rigter, 2013).. Parents can either choose to soothe their children in the case of fear or choose to stimulate their exploration in the case of interest and excitement. In this way, parents can teach their children to regulate their own behaviour and emotions (Rigter, 2013).. As the child ages, more complex emotions begin to develop and more explicit guidance is needed from the parent.
By the end of the first year of life, children have learnt to suppress their own intuitive response to an experience by first observing the caregiver’s response and then adapt their own response. By the time children reach the age of five they have learned to anticipate the emotions of others and adapt their behaviour even more rigorously, being able to suppress or hide their emotions when necessary (Rigter, 2013). It is crucial that children learn to regulate their emotions because when they do, they will be less likely to throw tantrums or show other aggressive behaviours (Rigter, 2013). Children who are able to regulate their emotions
effectively, find it easier to make friends, perform better in academic settings and are at less risk for psychiatric disorders. However, when children are unable to regulate their emotions, this
often can lead to problems in social skills and psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression later in life (Rigter, 2013).. Thus, the manner in which parents respond and direct children’s behaviour has a large impact on their overall emotional development
To describe the process in which parents teach their children to regulate, express and understand their emotions, Eisenberg and colleagues (1998) first coined the term ‘emotion socialisation’ back in 1998. Furthermore, Eisenberg (1998) identified three ways how parents influence their children’s emotional development, namely by; how they regulate and express their own emotions; how they react to their children’s emotions and how they discuss emotions with their children (Eisenberg et al., 1998).
The way parents express their emotions contributes to children’s ability to regulate emotion through social modeling. For example, when parents express their own emotion it provides children with information about what is socially acceptable and what isn’t (Campos, Mumme, Kermoian, & Campos, 1994) When parents do express their own emotion, children can learn how to express their own emotions in appropriate ways. Parents can also model specific regulation strategies. This way implicitly teaches children which strategies to use in certain situations (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). There are different strategies that people use in order to regulate their emotions. These strategies can be considered either adaptive or maladaptive. Adaptive emotion regulation strategies include reappraisal and distraction, while maladaptive strategies include suppression and discouragement. Each strategy can both positively as well as negatively affect developmental outcomes (Eisenberg et al., 1998)..
Parents not only indirectly teach their children about emotions through social modelling, but they can also directly instruct their children by how they respond to their children’s emotions or by how they discuss emotions with their children. For example, parents can respond to their
Comment [1]: Ff kijken welke
strategieen ik in mijn middenstuk bespreek en dan hier verder toelichten.
children’s emotions in a way that either encourages (supportive responses) or discourages (non-supportive) the expression of emotions (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1997). Parents encourage the expression of emotions by comforting children, encouraging discussion and helping them express their own emotions (Eisenberg et al., 1998). On the other hand, parents discourage the expression of emotions by devaluing, dismissing or punishing the children’s expression of emotion (Eisenberg et al., 1998). When parents respond to their children’s emotions in a supportive manner, it allows their children to explore their own emotions and learn to understand and effectively regulate them during difficult situations (Denham et al., 2007; Eisenberg et al. 1998). Non-supportive responses to emotions, on the other hand, can increase the amount of emotional arousal children experience, while undermining their ability to process and regulate their emotions in the long term (Bryant & Eisenberg, 1987; Eisenberg et al., 1998). How parents discuss emotions with their children is often part of how they respond to their children’s emotions, but can sometimes occur independently of children’s expression of emotions (Eisenberg et al., 1998).
Gottman extended on Eisenberg’s definition of emotion socialisation by identifying four different types of socialisation styles: the dismissing parent; the disapproving parent; the laizze-faire parent and the emotion coach (Gottman). The emotion coach is considered the ideal emotion socialization style, because it has been shown to have the most positive outcomes for children (Gottman). For example, parents employing the emotion coach style are aware of children’s emotions, listen and validate children’s feelings, help children label emotions and help children deal with upsetting situations (Gottman). On the other hand, the dismissing style is considered a negative socialisation style because it has been shown to have more negative outcomes for children. An emotion-dismissing style is characterised by who parents are unaware
of low-intensity emotions, view negative emotions as toxic or overwhelming, invalidate or criticize their children’s emotions and want to avoid or protect their child or themselves from these negative emotions. Extending on Gottman et al.’s (1996) and Eisenberg et al.’s (1998) work, Morris et al. (2007) conducted an empirical literature review to develop the tripartite model of the impact of the family on children’s emotion regulation. The tripartite model posits that the variables influencing children’s healthy emotion regulation development are dynamic and interact with each other.
Despite evidence for a link between the different parental emotion socialisation behaviours and the development of emotion regulation in children, no comprehensive review has been published. It is important to acquire more information about how parents can facilitate their children’s emotion regulation as it’s a crucial developmental process that predicts success in later life. This review will attempt to explore the effect of specific emotion socialisation behaviours on the development of emotion regulation in children. In order to answer this question, this review will first evaluate how parents indirectly socialise their children’s emotion regulation by modeling their own regulation strategies and how they express their emotion. Secondly, this review will consider how parents explicitly instruct their children with how they respond to their children’s emotions and how they discuss emotions with their children. Lastly, this review will evaluate how parents who have an emotion coaching socialisation style affect their children’s emotion regulation.
Parental Modeling and Emotion Regulation in Children
Emotion socialisation is a multifaceted process that includes direct and indirect processes. In order to evaluate how emotion socialisation practices influence emotion regulation in children, it’s important to take a closer look at how parents may indirectly socialise their children. Parents
may influence children’s emotion regulation indirectly through modeling their own emotion regulation strategies when dealing with emotion-inducing situations. One study consisting of a group of mothers and their third-grade children used several different methods of measurement and respondents to investigate how the parent’s choice of regulation strategies affects their children’s emotion regulation. Mothers completed self-report measures of their own beliefs surrounding their child’s emotions and their emotion socialisation behaviours. The mothers then participated in a semi-structured interview which investigated their use of regulatory strategies in three different emotion-eliciting situations. Lastly, teacher reports were collected concerning the children’s emotion regulation. A significant negative relationship was found between the use of suppression as a regulation strategy by mothers and emotion regulation in children. It is possible that mothers who use suppression may be modeling this maladaptive emotion regulation strategy for their children and this may lead their children to be less effective in regulating their own emotions. (Rogers, Halberstadt, Castro, MacCormack, & Garrett-Peters, 2016).
If it’s true that when parents use maladaptive emotion regulation strategies themselves it leads to their children having more difficulty regulating their own emotions, it is plausible that parents who use adaptive regulation strategies are more likely to have children who are good at regulating their emotions. For example, evidence for the effect of parent’s use of adaptive regulation strategies on emotion regulation in their children was found during a structured laboratory‐based disappointment task (Shih, Quiñones-Camacho, & Davis, 2018). In this study, both parents and children completed self-report measures concerning their own emotion regulation. Besides the parent and child reports, physiological measurements of emotion regulation (i.e. heart-rate) were taken throughout the study. The children were then asked to engage in a disappointment task. During this task the children were presented with five toys. The
children were then asked to rank the toys according to their preferences and were told that they would receive a toy as a gift at the end of the study. At the end of the study, the children were actually presented with the least favourite toy. The toy was also intentionally broken, rendering it useless. The parents were then asked to interact with the disappointed children in a normal fashion. The results showed that parents’ physiological regulation of emotion, use of reappraisal, and coaching of reappraisal use in children, predicted changes in children's physiological measurements of emotion regulation. This suggests that parents with good physiological regulation of emotion who use reappraisal themselves, might be more effective in teaching their children how to regulate their own emotions (Shih, Quiñones-Camacho & Davis, 2018).
The results suggest that the strategies parents use to regulate their emotions may have an affect on their children’s emotion regulation. However, in order to thoroughly explore how parents affect their children's’ emotion regulation through modeling, it’s also important to consider how parents express their own emotions. For example, parental expression of negative emotion appears to affects children's emotion regulation (McCoy & Raver, 2011). In this study, the authors took self-reports of parental expression of positive and negative emotions. Teacher reports were also examined to determine the children’s levels of internalizing and externalising behaviours. Children in this study participated in a set of tasks designed to elicit emotion while the researchers simultaneously scored the intensity and frequency of both positive and negative emotions. Results indicated that when parents express a greater amount of negative emotion, it can lead to lower levels of emotion regulation and more internalizing behavior in children. Furthermore, when parents express more positive emotion, their children have less externalizing behavior problems (McCoy & Raver, 2011).
Most studies have investigated parental regulation and parental expressions of emotions separately. However, it is possible that these two elements of emotion socialization are related to each other and work together to shape children’s emotion regulation. How well parents are able to regulate their emotions, could influence the way they express their emotions, which in term affects the children’s emotion regulation. Are and Shaffer (2015) examined positive and negative parental expressiveness as potential mediators of the relationship between parental emotion regulation and child emotion regulation. In this study, parents were asked to fill in self-report measures concerning their own emotion regulation and emotional expression. They also completed a questionnaire in which they reported on their children’s emotion regulation. A significant indirect effect was found between maternal emotion dysregulation and child adaptive regulation through positive family expressiveness. This suggests that mothers who experience few emotion regulation difficulties are more likely to create a family environment in which more positive emotion is expressed. This may also lead to better emotion regulation in their children (Are & Shaffer, 2015).
In conclusion, the literature appears to indicate that parents who are able to effectively regulate their own emotions are better at teaching their children to manage their own emotions by means of modeling of adaptive regulation strategies. Furthermore, the literature also indicates that parents when express positive emotions it can encourage their children’s emotion regulation. It appears to be unlikely that parental emotion regulation and expressions of emotions operates separately in influencing the children’s emotion regulation. Rather, parental expressions of emotions may mediate the relationship between parental emotion regulation and children’s emotion regulation. This in practice means that the strategies that parents use to regulate their
own emotions influences the amount of positive and negative emotions they express which in turn impacts how well the children learn to regulate their own emotions.
Parental practices and emotion regulation in children
Parents not only influence their children’s emotion regulation through modeling, they can also directly socialise their children by how they respond to their children’s emotions. When parents react to their children’s emotions in a supportive way, it can facilitate their child’s emotion regulation. Evidence for this hypothesis was found using parental and child self-reports (Mirabile, Oertwig, & Halberstadt, 2018). In this study, parents and children completed
questionnaires assessing the parents responses to children's negative emotions and the children's emotion regulation. For younger children, parent’s supportive responses predicted better emotion regulation and less internalizing problems, such as anxiety and externalizing problems, such as anger (Mirabile, Oertwig, & Halberstadt, 2018). This suggests that when parents comfort their children, encourage discussion, and express their own emotions, it may encourage better emotion regulation in children. However, for older children, these associations were reversed, suggesting that responses which were supportive for younger children may fail to foster healthy emotion regulation in older children (Mirabile, Oertwig, & Halberstadt, 2018).
In a corresponding study, parents were asked to complete a questionnaire concerning how they respond to their children’s emotions while the children completed a computer task designed to elicit emotion (Williams & Woodruff-Borden, 2015). During the task, physiological
measurements of emotion regulation were taken of the among the children (Williams &
Woodruff-Borden, 2015). The study found that parents reporting higher degrees of unsupportive responses were more likely to have children with fewer abilities in emotion regulation (Williams & Woodruff-Borden, 2015). These results suggest that parents who respond to their children’s
emotions by devaluing, dismissing or punishing the children’s expression of emotion, may limit their children’s emotion regulation.
Collectively, the evidence indicates that how parents respond to their children’s emotions, influences how their children learn to regulate their own emotions. However, there is also evidence that this is not a direct relationship and is moderated by the children’s physical regulation of emotions. One study found that children’s physiological regulation moderated the association between parental response to negative emotions and the children’s emotion
regulation (Perry, Calkins, Nelson, Leerkes, & Marcovitch, 2012). In this study, parents reported on their reactions to children's negative emotions and children's emotion regulation. To measure emotion regulation in children, physiological measurements were taken and use of adaptive strategies were observed, while the children attempted to solve an unsolvable puzzle. Results indicated that children's physiological regulation moderated the association between mothers' non-supportive responses and children's use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies (Perry, Calkins, Nelson, Leerkes, & Marcovitch, 2012). Non-supportive responses to children’s negative emotions predicted lower observed usage of adaptive regulation strategies when children displayed lower levels of physiological regulation. No interaction was found between supportive parental responses and physiological measures for children's emotion regulation. (Perry, Calkins, Nelson, Leerkes, & Marcovitch, 2012). This suggests that when parents respond to their
children’s emotions in a supportive way, this increases the odds of their children adopting adaptive regulation strategies, even when they have difficulties with physiological regulation. However, when children have difficulties with physiological regulation while their parents simultaneously respond to emotions in unsupportive ways, it may limit their use of emotion regulation strategies
While most studies measuring the effect of parental supportiveness on children’s emotion regulation is in agreement with each other, Cole, Dennis, Smit-Simon and Cohen (2009) found inconsistent results. The authors measured children's ability to generate and recognise strategies for regulating anger and sadness in relation to supportive and unsupportive responses from their parents. The children’s ability to verbally generate regulation strategies was assessed with a puppet interaction task. The children’s ability to regulate their own emotions was assessed by and observed frustration task. Lastly, the supportive or unsupportive responses from the parents were measured using a parent-child interaction task. Results indicate that the parents
supportiveness in response to their children’s distress was not related to strategy recognition and generation (Cole, Dennis, Smith-Simon, & Cohen, 2009).
In conclusion, these results suggest that parents who respond to their children’s emotions in a supportive way, may encourage their children’s development of emotion regulation. On the other hand, parents who respond to their children’s emotions in an unsupportive way, may limit their emotion regulation development. Supportive responses from parents therefore encourage adaptive emotion regulation, because it helps children recognize and generate appropriate regulation strategies. While unsupportive responses hinder the development of adaptive emotion regulation in children, the children’s physiological regulation mediates this relationship. Evidence also suggests that good physiological regulation can act as a buffer for unsupportive emotion socialization.
Emotion socialisation style and emotion regulation in children
It has become clear based on the discussed literature that parents can teach their children how to regulate, understand and express their emotions through a variety of emotion
socialization behaviours. These behaviours contribute uniquely to how children learn to regulate
Comment [2]: Evidence or just stick
their own emotions when studied separately. However, according to Gottman, these emotion socialisation behaviours very rarely occur independently as described earlier. To give an adequate account for and thorough overview of emotion socialisation, it is therefore crucial to explore how these behaviours affect emotion regulation in children when studied together as a style (Gottman). This paragraph will therefore discuss the effects of specific styles on emotion regulation in children and will also discuss factors that affect parents’ emotion socialization style(s).
One study investigated the effect of an emotion coaching style of emotion socialisation in comparison to an dismissing style of emotion socialisation (Lunkenheimer, Shields & Cortina, 2007).. The parents participated in an interview and filled out questionnaires concerning their children’s emotion regulation. Teacher reports were used to corroborate the parent reports about the children’s emotion regulation. Both the child and the parent participated in family narrative task in which they discussed a positive family memory, a negative family memory and a time when the child misbehaved. Trained observers coded instances of emotion coaching behaviours and emotion dismissing behaviours (Lunkenheimer, Shields & Cortina, 2007).. The results showed that when parents showed emotion dismissing behaviours it contributed to poorer emotion regulation in their children. When parents showed emotion coaching behaviour it did not necessarily have a direct effect on the children’s emotion regulation. Emotion coaching behaviours did however interact with emotion dismissing behaviours in that it protected children from the negative effect of emotion dismissing behaviours. However, this protective effect was only found when parents emotion coaching behaviours were in response to their children’s negative emotions, but not positive emotions (Lunkenheimer, Shields & Cortina, 2007).. These
Comment [3]: Emotion coaching
leads to more ER whereas emotion dismissing leads to less ER.
Comment [4]: Emotion coaching
leads to more ER whereas emotion dismissing leads to less ER.
Comment [5]: Emotion coaching
leads to more ER whereas emotion dismissing leads to less ER.
results suggest that emotion coaching and emotion dismissing behaviours interact in complex ways to influence children’s emotion regulation (Lunkenheimer, Shields & Cortina, 2007).
Further evidence for the protective effect of an emotion coaching style of emotion socialisation was found amongst a sample of children with severe behaviour difficulties (Dunsmore, Booker, & Ollendick, 2013). In this study, an emotion coaching philosophy was characterized when the parents showed an accepting attitude toward their child’s emotions, active acknowledgement of their child’s emotions, and verbal coaching to help their child understand, appropriately express, and cope with his or her own emotions (Dunsmore, Booker, & Ollendick, 2013). Parents completed questionnaires relating to their own emotion socialisation behaviour and emotion regulation. Both parents and children participated in a discussion task similar to the one used by Lunkenheimer, Shields and Cortina. The results showed that the emotion coaching philosophy was associated with greater emotion regulation in the children and lower self-report scores of their own behavioural problems (Dunsmore, Booker, & Ollendick, 2013). Even when children had lower levels of emotion regulation, parental emotion coaching philosophy was associated with less behavioural problems (Dunsmore, Booker, & Ollendick, 2013).
The emotion socialisation style that parents apply appears to affect their children’s emotion regulation. However, the question still remains what influences parents in their choice of emotion socialisation style. It’s possible that emotion socialisation behaviours act as a mediating factor between the parents’ own emotion regulation and the children’s emotion regulation (Morelen, Shaffer, & Suveg, 2016). Evidence for this possible association between parental emotion regulation and their emotion socialisation style was found using a conflict discussion task (Morelen, Shaffer, & Suveg, 2016). In the present study, parents completed
questionnaires regarding their own emotion regulation, their children’s emotion regulation and their emotion socialisation styles. Both parent and child also participated in a discussion task to evaluate the parent’s emotion socialisation style (Morelen, Shaffer, & Suveg, 2016). The results showed that the observed maternal emotion regulation was negatively associated with a dismissive emotion style, whereas self-reported maternal emotion dysregulation was positively associated with dismissive style and child emotion dysregulation and negatively associated with child’s adaptive emotion regulation (Morelen, Shaffer, & Suveg, 2016). These results indicate that that mothers with emotion regulation difficulties are more critical about children’s emotions than mothers who do not have emotion regulation difficulties. Furthermore, mothers who are able to regulate their emotions may not necessarily be more likely to having a supportive emotion socialisation style. Rather, it seems that they are less likely to engage in minimizing, punitive, and critical emotion socialisation styles (Morelen, Shaffer, & Suveg, 2016).
While parental emotion regulation may influence the parent’s emotion socialisation style, evidence indicates that the parent’s personality traits better explains individual differences in emotion socialisations style(s) (Hughes, & Gullone, 2010). In one study, parents completed self-report questionnaires concerning their own personality, their emotion regulation and their emotion socialisation style (Hughes, & Gullone, 2010). The results showed that all five personality factors were related to parenting, with openness and agreeableness being most pertinent to socialisation practices. Although there were some significant associations between parental emotion regulation and emotion socialisation style, parental emotion regulation contributed to very little of the variance in emotion socialisation style after controlling for personality (Hughes, & Gullone, 2010). These results suggest that parents’ personality traits influences their emotion socialisation style more than their own emotion regulation.
Comment [6]: Whilst the parents
ER affects socialisation practices parent personality may be more important.
Comment [7]: Whilst the parents
ER affects socialisation practices parent personality may be more important.
In conclusion, Lastly, it appears that the parents emotion socialisation style affects their
children’s emotion regulation. When parents apply a more emotion coaching style of emotion socialisation they are more likely to have children with adequate emotion regulation abilities. On the other hand, when parents have a more emotion dismissing style it is likely to lead to emotion regulation difficulties in their children. The socialisation style that parents apply is influenced by the parents own emotion regulation abilities, but perhaps even more strongly by their personality traits.
Discussion/conclusion
The aim of this review was to explore the effects of specific emotion socialisation behaviours on the development of emotion regulation in children. It appears that parents indirectly socialise their children’s emotion regulation by both modeling their own regulation strategies as well as via how they express their own emotions. Firstly, it appears that when parents use adaptive regulation strategies themselves they are likely to have children who are effective at regulating their own emotions. When parents express a lot of negative emotion, it has the potential to limit their children’s development of emotion regulation. Secondly, it appears that parents explicitly instruct their children with how they respond to their children’s emotions and how they discuss emotions with their children. When parents encourage the expression of emotions by comforting the child, encouraging discussion and helping them express their own emotions, it facilitates healthy emotion regulation in their children. On the other hand, when parents discourage the expression of emotions by devaluing, dismissing or punishing the children’s expression of emotions, it limits their children’s emotion regulation abilities. Lastly, it appears that the parents’ emotion socialisation style affects their children’s emotion regulation. When parents apply a more emotion coaching style of emotion socialisation, they are more likely
to have children with adequate emotion regulation abilities. On the other hand, when parents have a more emotion dismissing style, it is likely to lead to emotion regulation difficulties in their children. The socialisation style that parents apply is influenced by the parents’ own emotion regulation abilities, but perhaps even more strongly by their personality traits. For example, parents with high levels of emotion regulation are more likely to apply an emotion coaching style of emotion socialization. However, the parents’ personality traits appear to be more predictive of emotion socialization style than solely parents’ own emotion regulation.
There are some limitations in the literature that must be discussed. First of all, most studies only included mothers in the sample. Therefore, the specific effect of fathers’ emotion socialisation style is still insufficiently researched. This is concerning, considering evidence that fathers have an unique impact on their children’s development in both similar and other relevant domains. Moreover, the few studies that did included fathers when investigating the development of emotion regulation in children suggests that fathers play an unique role in the socialization of their children’s emotion regulation development (Cassano et al. 2007; McDowell et al. 2002). For example, in a study of children aged six to eleven years old, Cassano et al. (2007) found that parental responses to their children’s expressions of sadness were related to children’s use of the maladaptive emotion regulation strategy: inhibition, emotion dysregulation and coping with sadness. In this study, differences between emotion socialisation behaviours between mothers and fathers were also found. Fathers seemed more likely to respond to their child’s expression of sadness by minimizing the problem and discouraging the expression of emotions, whereas mothers were more likely to respond with problem-solving strategies and were more likely to encourage the expression of sadness. The results also differed depending on the child’s gender,
where parents were more likely to encourage expression in their daughters rather than their sons (Cassano et al. 2007).
Another limitation of the literature surrounding emotion socialisation is that it mostly concentrates on children aged eight years old and up until the end of adolescence (John and Gross 2004). This is a considerable limitation to the literature, considering that children undergo a large amount of neurological and cognitive growth in late adolescence. This is because the period of growth allows for the development of more sophisticated emotion regulation strategies (Eisenberg & Morris, 2002). During this period of growth, adolescents are likely to be more susceptible to possible risks associated with emotion regulation development (Steinberg, 2005).
Finally, the last limitation within the literature surrounding emotion socialisation concerns how emotion regulation was defined within the studies. A large diversity in measurement and conceptualisation of emotion regulation makes the results difficult to compare the data. For example, some studies consider good emotion regulation as the ability to decrease negative affect (Garner & Power, 1996), whereas other studies define effective emotion regulation based on the participants use of coping strategies (Contreras et al. 2000). However, the majority of research surrounding emotion regulation investigates differences in the amount of emotion regulation that is displayed (Garner, 1995; Greenberg et al., 1999). However, it is possible that simply the amount of emotion regulation one shows is not a valid representation of how effective one is at emotion regulation. This is because evidence exists that suggests that different styles of emotion regulation vary in their effectiveness depending on the context of the given situation (Bridges et al., 2004; Gross, 1998). For example, emotion regulation strategies that are considered maladaptive in one situation might actually be adaptive in another. It appears that a person’s flexibility in their use of regulation strategies is more conducive to positive
developmental outcomes than solely the use adaptive vs maladaptive strategies (Cheng, Lau & Chan, 2014).
Based on these discussed limitations future researchers are advised to focus on the specific role of fathers in socialising their children’s emotion regulation. Also the role of the children’s gender and how it affects emotion socialisation behaviours should be considered. To further complete this representation it should also be considered how the parent’s gender interacts with the children’s gender to determine the parent’s choice of emotion socialisation style. Furthermore, more research is needed to consider the parent’s role in socialising their children’s emotion regulation in late adolescents. Due to the important developmental processes that occur in this period the effect of emotion socialisation behaviours on emotion regulation in adolescents could differ from earlier childhood. For example, Mirabile, Oertwig, & Halberstadt (2018) found that responses which were supportive for younger children may fail to foster healthy emotion regulation in older children. Lastly, due to the large variety of definitions and conceptualisations of emotion regulation, future research should approach these concepts using a theoretical framework that conceptualises emotion regulation as the ability to match regulation strategies to the appropriate emotional context (Cheng, Lau & Chan, 2014).
The results found in this review have some implications for the theory and practice. It appears that effective parental emotion socialisation styles are needed to teach children how to regulate their emotions. This is crucial because children who are unable to regulate their
emotions, often have problems in social skills and are more likely to develop psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression later in life (Rigter, 2017). Therefore, interventions designed to reduce emotion regulation difficulties in risk groups should focus on teaching parents effective emotion socialisation styles.
Comment [8]: Elaborate more.
What kinds of problems in social skills? Maybe how it can contribute to anxiety and depression.
Comment [9]: Elaborate more.
What kinds of problems in social skills? Maybe how it can contribute to anxiety and depression.
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