Emotion Dialogues Between Mothers and Children at 4.5 and 7.5 Years: Relations With Children's Attachment at 1 Year (original) (raw)
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Two studies examined the influence of maternal discourse style and security of attachment, and their interaction, on preschoolers' emotion understanding. The first, with 3year-olds, unexpectedly found no significant prediction of emotion understanding from attachment and discourse, and the interaction of the predictors yielded theoretically unpredicted associations with emotion understanding. Consequently, measures of attachment and emotion understanding were obtained again on these children at age 5 in a second study. At this age, consistent with expectations, secure attachment predicted higher emotion understanding, especially in the context of maternal use of elaborative discourse from the earlier assessment. The findings suggest that during the period of significant representational advance between ages 3 and 5, the influence of maternal discourse and attachment security are developmentally transformed as children's conceptions of psychological states rapidly change. By age 5, however, maternal elaborative discourse in the context of attachment security fosters deeper emotion understanding in preschoolers.
Attachment & human development, 2014
Research on the attachment-dialogue link has largely focused on infant-mother attachment. This study investigated longitudinal associations between infant-mother attachment and maternal attachment representations and subsequent mother-child emotion dialogues (N = 50). Maternal attachment representations were assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview when children were 3 months, infant-mother attachment was assessed using the Strange Situation Procedure at 13 months, and mother-child emotion dialogues were assessed using the Autobiographical Emotional Events Dialogue at 3.5 years. Consistent with past research, the three organized categories of infant-mother attachment relationships were associated with later mother-child emotion dialogues. Disorganized attachment relationships were associated with a lack of consistent and coherent strategy during emotion dialogues. Autonomous mothers co-constructed coherent narratives with their children; Dismissing and Preoccupied mothers creat...
Social Development, 2002
Two studies examined the influence of maternal discourse style and security of attachment, and their interaction, on preschoolers' emotion understanding. The first, with 3year-olds, unexpectedly found no significant prediction of emotion understanding from attachment and discourse, and the interaction of the predictors yielded theoretically unpredicted associations with emotion understanding. Consequently, measures of attachment and emotion understanding were obtained again on these children at age 5 in a second study. At this age, consistent with expectations, secure attachment predicted higher emotion understanding, especially in the context of maternal use of elaborative discourse from the earlier assessment. The findings suggest that during the period of significant representational advance between ages 3 and 5, the influence of maternal discourse and attachment security are developmentally transformed as children's conceptions of psychological states rapidly change. By age 5, however, maternal elaborative discourse in the context of attachment security fosters deeper emotion understanding in preschoolers.
Research in Human Development, 2006
In this study, we examined characteristics of the mother-child context that may support young children's emotion expressions and emotion regulation. We observed children (N= 154) in four emotion-eliciting episodes to measure their emotion expressions and mother-focused regulation strategies. Mothers reported on the toddlers' attachment security. Lower levels of maternal controlling behaviors and higher levels of attachment security were associated with more adaptive emotion expressions by toddlers, and more maternal positive behavior was associated with more mother-focused regulation. Toddlers' use of mother-focused regulation was also associated with decreased levels of negative affect in positive and fear emotion-eliciting tasks but not in frustration tasks. The associations differed for boys and girls and differed depending on the context of the specific emotion elicited. Article: Recently, the definition of emotion regulation and its relation to emotion expressions has been a topic of debate (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004). Given that children learn styles of dealing with emotions from early parent-child interactions (Calkins, 1994; Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998), it seems clear that relationships play a strong role in children's emotional development. Emotional self-regulation is one component of children's self-regulation (Grolnick & Farkas, 2002) and is a major developmental task during toddlerhood (Kopp, 1982, 1989). Children's emotional self-regulation has been identified as important to later optimal development because problems with emotionality and emotion regulation play a significant role in young children's behavior problems (Calkins & Dedmon, 2000; Cole, Michel, & O'Donnell, 1994). As Panneton, Kitamura, Mattock, and Burnham (this issue) discuss, emotion communication in the parent-child context begins early in child development. During toddlerhood, children are further expected to learn to control their emotions in a socially acceptable manner, and toddlers rely on parents to help them master emotional self-regulation (Kopp, 1982, 1989). Examining the links among children's emotion expressions, emotion regulation, and the characteristics within the parent-child dyad is important to identifying potential antecedents to more serious problems later in development.
Social Development, 2001
Data from the six-year follow up of a longitudinal study investigating intergenerational patterns of attachment and the effects of early relationships upon subsequent social, emotional and cognitive development are presented. Around the time of their sixth birthday, 63 children participated in an affect understanding task, involving cartoon diagrams depicting social and emotional dilemmas. As predicted, performance on this task, assessed in terms of mixed-emotion understanding, was predicted by security of the infant-mother attachment relationship (as assessed in the Strange Situation at oneyear) and security or autonomy in the mother's representations of, and reflections upon, her attachment history (as assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview of AAI-during pregnancy) prior to the child's birth. Regression analyses suggested that the infant-mother attachment data significantly enhanced the prediction of an advanced understanding of mixed emotions at six-years, even after controlling for variations in the children's age at time of testing, as well as child and parent verbal skills. The inclusion of earlier assessments of the child-father Strange Situation assessment (at 18months) did not enhance the model; nor did the attachment status of the mothers or fathers as observed in their prenatal AAIs. Discussion concerns the contributions of early attachment processes, including family conflict, to the ability to verbally express an understanding of mixed emotions in a task depicting hypothetical social and emotional dilemmas.
Social Development, 2007
Mothers' mental state language in conversation with their preschool children, and children's preschool attachment security were examined for their effects on children's mental state language and expressions of emotional understanding in their conversation. Children discussed an emotionally salient event with their mothers and then relayed the event to a stranger. Compared to mothers of insecurely attached children, mothers of securely attached children used more mental state language and had children who used more mental state language with both mother and stranger, and who expressed more emotional understanding in the mother-child conversation. Maternal mental state language and attachment security made shared contributions to children's mental state language with their mothers. Maternal mental state language accounted for the effects of attachment security on children's expressions of emotional understanding in the mother-child conversation. Mothers' mental state language to their children may enhance secure attachment and foster children's understanding of mental states in self and others.
Infant Behavior and Development, 2013
This study investigated the relationships between children's secure base and emotion regulation, namely their behavioral strategies and emotional expressiveness, during different situational and social contexts in naturalistic settings. Fifty-five children ranging in age from 18 to 26 months of age and their mothers participated in this study. Children were exposed to three situational (fear, positive affect and frustration/anger) and two social (maternal constraint and involvement) contexts. Toddlers' behavioral strategies differed as function of emotion-eliciting context, maternal involvement and attachment quality. Emotional expressiveness varied as function of an interaction involving situational contexts, maternal involvement and children's attachment security.
Developmental Psychology, 2004
The goal of this study was to examine whether attachment security and child temperament predicted differences in the elaboration and emotional content of mother-child discourse in 2 contexts and whether those differences were related to a child's socioemotional development. Fifty-one preschool children and their mothers were videotaped reading a storybook and discussing the child's previous behavior. These conversations were coded for maternal elaboration and emotional content. Mothers also completed reports of child temperament, attachment security, and social behavior. Children completed measures of emotional understanding, behavioral internalization, and representations of relationships. The findings suggested that both aspects of mother-child discourse were related to attachment, temperament, and socioemotional competence, although the findings varied depending on the context of the discourse.
The goal of this study was to examine whether attachment security and child temperament predicted differences in the elaboration and emotional content of mother-child discourse in 2 contexts and whether those differences were related to a child's socioemotional development. Fifty-one preschool children and their mothers were videotaped reading a storybook and discussing the child's previous behavior. These conversations were coded for maternal elaboration and emotional content. Mothers also completed reports of child temperament, attachment security, and social behavior. Children completed measures of emotional understanding, behavioral internalization, and representations of relationships. The findings suggested that both aspects of mother-child discourse were related to attachment, temperament, and socioemotional competence, although the findings varied depending on the context of the discourse.
2006
Despite its prevalence in low-income populations, there has been little attention paid to how maternal depression influences mother-child conversations about emotions and low-income preschool children's developing emotion understanding. The importance of a secure attachment as a positive influence on emotion understanding has also been infrequently studied in lower-income families. This longitudinal study examined attachment security and maternal depression when children were age 2 as predictors of mother-child references to emotion in conversations, and children's emotion understanding when children were three. Maternal depression at age 2, but not at age 3, showed a direct, negative relation to children's emotion understanding at age 3, independent of mother-child references to emotion and attachment security. More securely attached dyads made more references to emotion in conversation, which, in turn, promoted children's emotion understanding. It was concluded that secure attachment relationships support children's emotion understanding by promoting mother-child discussion of emotions, while emotion understanding in preschoolers is directly impaired by maternal depression.