Date of Graduation
5-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts in Psychology
Degree Level
Undergraduate
Department
Psychological Science
Advisor/Mentor
Tan, Lin
Committee Member
Brown, Mitch
Second Committee Member
Lisnic, Rodica
Third Committee Member
Geisler Wheeler, Jill
Abstract
Maternal emotion socialization plays a crucial role in children's social and emotional development (Chan et al. 2024). Previous studies have consistently shown that maternal emotion coaching is positively associated with children's social competence (Chan et al., 2024; Perkins et al., 2022; Rogers et al., 2016). However, less is known about how maternal emotional characteristics influence their emotion coaching and dismissing practices. The current study investigates whether maternal emotional clarity is associated with children's social competence through its relationship with maternal emotion coaching and dismissing behaviors. Mothers (N = 163) completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Maternal Emotional Style Questionnaire, and the Early School Behavior Scale to report maternal emotional clarity, maternal emotion coaching and emotion dismissing practices, and child social competence, respectively. Structural equation modeling tested the hypothesized mediational relationships among these variables. Results indicated that mothers who had greater difficulty describing their own emotions were more likely to engage in emotion dismissing behaviors. Additionally, maternal emotion coaching was positively related to children's social competence. Interestingly, maternal emotion coaching and emotion dismissing behaviors were positively associated, suggesting that mothers who frequently use emotion coaching might simultaneously exhibit higher levels of dismissing behaviors.
Keywords
Social competence; emotion coaching; emotion clarity; emotion dismissing
Citation
DuLaney, A. N. (2025). Maternal Emotion Socialization on Children's Social Competence. Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses Retrieved from https://scholarworks.uark.edu/psycuht/70
