Suchergebnisse

AbstractUsing a multi‐informant approach, this study examined emotion regulation within the social context of White and Black adolescent peer groups by assessing two aspects of sadness expression management (i.e., inhibition, disinhibition) and their linkages to peer acceptance and social functioning as a function of gender and ethnicity. Seventh‐ and eighth‐grade adolescents (N = 155, 52 percent female, 54.8 percent Black) completed self‐reports and peer nominations of sadness management and sociometric ratings of peer acceptance. Parents rated their child's social competence and social problems. Results revealed specific patterns of sadness regulation across informants that were associated with social functioning and varied by gender, but not ethnicity. Boys were more likely than girls to minimize sadness displays; boys who violated this pattern had lower peer acceptance and higher parent‐rated social problems. In contrast, although girls were rated as displaying overt sadness more frequently than boys, this was unrelated to peer acceptance.

AbstractMothers' (N = 60) and fathers' (N = 53) perceptions of and desire for change in their 6‐ to 11‐year‐old daughters' (N = 59) and sons' (N = 54) sadness regulation behaviors (i.e., inhibition, dysregulation, coping) were examined in addition to parental responses to children's hypothetical sadness displays. Results of multivariate analyses of variance and regression analyses suggest that parental perceptions of and desired change in children's sadness behavior differ as a function of parent gender, child gender and child age (younger (grades 1, 2), older (grades 4, 5)), and predict the likelihood of contingent responses to children's sadness behavior. Overall, fathers reported being likely to respond to sadness with minimization whereas mothers reported being likely to respond with expressive encouragement and problem‐focused strategies. These parent‐reported socialization response tendencies, however, were more fully explained by the interaction between perceptions of children's sadness regulation behaviors and satisfaction with these behaviors. These findings highlight the need to include parent gender and parental cognitions as important variables in emotion socialization research.

AbstractThe current study examined associations between peer nominations of children's expression of negative emotions and psychological, social, and behavioral correlates in a sample of 523 first graders. Children (85 percent African‐American) completed a peer nomination measure for expressing negative emotions. In addition, three other domains of functioning were assessed using multiple raters: internalizing symptoms (self, parent), externalizing behavior (parent, teacher), and social competence (parent, teacher). Regression analyses indicated that peer nominations of negative emotions predicted higher levels of teacher‐rated externalizing behavior and lower levels of teacher‐rated social competence. Peer nominations of emotions were significantly associated with teacher ratings but unrelated to self‐ and parent‐report measures. Adding to a small but growing literature, our findings underscore the importance of assessing peer perceptions of children's emotional expressivity and their associations to social and psychological functioning in an urban, predominantly African‐American sample.