About this srcd poster session

---

Panel information
Panel 9. Family Context & Processes

Abstract

---

Caregivers’ responses to children’s negative emotions influence their emotional and social competence (Eisenberg, 2020). Research primarily on European American families has been conceptually dividing these responses as either supportive or non-supportive (Fabes et al., 1990). However, recent studies have questioned this dichotomous conceptualization, showing that what is considered supportive depends on factors such as the child’s age (Mirabile et al., 2018; Nelson & Boyer, 2018), ethnic values (Raval et al., 2018), and experiences of racial discrimination (Dunbar et al., 2022). Currently, no research has examined the interrelations between Asian American mothers’ beliefs about preschoolers’ emotions, mothers’ responses to preschoolers’ negative emotions, and preschoolers’ socioemotional skills or explored the relation between emotion and ethnic-racial socialization in Asian American families. This study aims to extend the current literature by examining ethnic beliefs and racialized experiences as contributing factors to the cultural meaning reflected in emotion-related caregiving practices and child outcomes.
It is hypothesized that mothers’ beliefs that preschoolers should control their displays of emotions and, if not, that there will be social consequences will positively relate to their non-supportive responses. The beliefs and non-supportive responses will positively relate to children’s socioemotional skills. The relationship between mothers’ emotion-related beliefs and experiences of discrimination will also be explored.
78 Asian American mothers (Mage = 35.4 years, SD = 5.7) of preschoolers (46.2% female; Mage = 4.1 years, SD = 1.1) were recruited, with data collection ongoing to reach N = 221 at the time of the conference. They completed an online survey on their experiences of discrimination (Asian American Racism-Related Stress Inventory; Liang et al., 2004), beliefs about preschoolers’ display of emotions (adapted from Matsumoto, 1993), beliefs about social consequences of emotions (Nelson et al., 2012), responses to negative emotions (Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scales; Fabes et al., 1990), and children’s emotion regulation (Emotion Regulation Checklist; Shields & Cicchetti, 1995).
Preliminary results show that mothers who believe preschoolers should control their emotional expressions and that there are social consequences for showing emotions tend to respond in non-supportive ways. These beliefs significantly correlated with the mothers’ responses (r = .41, p <.05). However, preschoolers’ ability to regulate their emotions was not related to the mothers’ non-supportive responses or their beliefs about controlling emotion expressions. A negative correlation was found between preschoolers’ emotion regulation and the belief in social consequences for expressing emotions (r = -.24, p = .04), suggesting that children aware of these consequences may struggle more with managing their emotions. Interestingly, the mothers’ experiences of discrimination did not relate to their beliefs about controlling emotion expression or the social consequences of emotions.
With the full sample, latent regression analyses with covariates of child age, gender, mothers’ ethnic identity, and SES will be conducted to examine the study aims. Responses to the open-ended questions about the reasons behind caregiving practices will provide deeper insights into the findings. Implications regarding what culturally sensitive socioemotional learning support may look like for ethnic minority children in the US and how to adapt these programs to support families navigating such developmental landscape will be discussed.

Author information

Author	Role
Hojin Han, Clark University	Presenting author
Ana K. Marcelo, Clark University	Non-presenting author

⇦ Back to session