Adult’s beliefs about children’s emotions: a proposal for exploration in contexts of cultural diversity

Las creencias que los padres tienen sobre las emociones de los niños subyacen a los patrones de socialización emocional. La cultura mediatiza esta socialización; sin embargo, este proceso es habitualmente ignorado asumiendo un patrón común de ideales afectivos para todos los niños aun en contextos de alta migración y de alta presencia de culturas originarias. Así, el saber sentir ha sido históricamente mantenido al margen y su estudio desde una visión que reconoce las expectativas y creencias de las familias de grupos minoritarios es incipiente. Son pocos los estudios en Latinoamérica que dan cuenta de las variaciones culturales en las creencias de la emoción y menos los instrumentos que permitan hacerlo. Este trabajo recoge la necesidad de una evaluación de las creencias de los padres sobre la emoción de los niños en contextos de diversidad cultural y principalmente de grupos minoritarios de la IX región de La Araucanía en Chile. Participaron 307 adultos mapuches y no mapuches madres, padres y profesores de niños entre 4 y 10 años de edad. Se realizaron análisis de invarianza de medida, integrando las dimensiones originales del PBACE y nuevas dimensiones propuestas para el instrumento. Los resultados indican buenos índices de confiabilidad y un buen ajuste de las dimensiones analizadas, todas las dimensiones alcanzan al menos la invarianza escalar parcial, exceptuando una de ellas. El manuscrito finaliza analizando las limitaciones y proyecciones del estudio al campo de la educación y psicología en escenarios de diversidad cultural migratoria y con presencia de pueblos originarios

Grateful parents raising grateful children: Niche selection and the socialization of child gratitude

Given that children’s exposure to gratitude-related activities may be one way that parents can socialize gratitude in their children, we examined whether parents’ niche selection (i.e., tendency to choose perceived gratitude-inducing activities for their children) mediates the association between parents’ reports of their own and their children's gratitude. Parent-child dyads (N =101; children aged 6-9; 52% girls; 80% Caucasian; 85% mothers) participated in a laboratory visit and parents also completed a seven-day online diary regarding children’s gratitude. Decomposing specific indirect effects within a structural equation model, we found that parents high in gratitude were more likely to set goals to use niche selection as a gratitude socialization strategy, and thereby more likely to place their children in gratitude-related activities. Placement in these activities, in turn, was associated with more frequent expression of gratitude in children. We describe future directions for research on parents’ role in socializing gratitude in their children

The Role of Husbands’ and Wives’ Emotional Expressivity in the Marital Relationship

The current investigation was designed to examine the role of positive and negative emotional expressivity in the marital relationship. Data from 58 married couples were used to assess spouses’ levels of emotional expressivity and how these levels predicted reports of marital functioning. Regression analyses indicated that positive emotional expressivity had limited influence on marital functioning. Negative expressivity, however, had a strong impact on marital love, conflict, and ambivalence. Post-hoc analyses revealed significant differences between pairings in which the husband was high in negative expressivity, irrespective of wives’ negative emotional expressivity, and pairings in which both partners were low in negative emotional expressivity. These findings are discussed with respect to previous research that suggests that wives’ emotional expressivity is the major determinant of marital functioning.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45641/1/11199_2005_Article_3726.pd

Incidental retrieval of prior emotion mimicry.

When observing emotional expressions, similar sensorimotor states are activated in the observer, often resulting in physical mimicry. For example, when observing a smile, the zygomaticus muscles associated with smiling are activated in the observer, and when observing a frown, the corrugator brow muscles. We show that the consistency of an individual's facial emotion, whether they always frown or smile, can be encoded into memory. When the individuals are viewed at a later time expressing no emotion, muscle mimicry of the prior state can be detected, even when the emotion itself is task irrelevant. The results support simulation accounts of memory, where prior embodiments of other's states during encoding are reactivated when re-encountering a person

Beliefs About Children's Emotions in Chile

To learn more about Chilean emotional beliefs related to emotion development, 271 Mapuche and non-Mapuche parents and teachers in urban and rural settings reported their emotion beliefs using a questionnaire invariant in the Chilean context (Riquelme et al., in press). Included are six beliefs previously found to resonate across three United States cultures (i.e., beliefs about the value and cost of certain emotions; control of emotion; knowledge of children's emotion; manipulation of emotion; and emotional autonomy), and five others distinctive to the indigenous people of this region (i.e., value of being calm; controlling fear specifically; interpersonality of emotion; learning about emotion from adults; and regulation through nature). MANOVAs were conducted to examine these beliefs across culture (Mapuche, non-Mapuche), role (parent, teacher), and geographical location (rural, urban). For United States-derived beliefs, there were no main effects, although two interactions with culture by role and location were significant. For all five Mapuche-generated beliefs, there were significant main effects for culture, role, and location. Results highlight both similarities and differences in beliefs across cultures, roles, and geographical location. Implications for the Chilean context include the importance of non-Mapuche teachers' sensitivity to the values and emotion-related beliefs of Mapuche families. Implications for the global context include an expanded view of emotion-related beliefs, including beliefs that children can control fear and be calm, that emotion-related values include attending to the needs of others, and that two ways of controlling emotion are through learning by listening to/watching elders, and by being in nature