The socialization of emotional expression: Relations with prosocial behaviour and competence in five samples

This paper reports on five studies that focused on the socialization of emotions and children's prosocial behaviour and ego resilience in preschool. Parents reported their socialization practices using a 99-item version of Block's Child Rearing Practices Q-sort, and teachers assessed children's competence using Baumrind's Preschool Behavior Q-sort. Meta-analytic techniques were used to combine correlational results across samples (3 from Ontario and 2 from British Columbia). In all, 150 families participated; children's mean age = 4.2 years; 57% were girls. Nearly 79% of all comparisons replicated across samples, 18% with mean rs > .30. Consistent with the cognitive-emotional processing model (Roberts & Strayer, 1987), (1) children's ego-resilient and prosocial behaviours were related to parents' tolerant, non-punitive responses to emotional distress; (2) partial correlations supported the contention that emotional socialization practices affect outcomes independently of other dimensions of parenting; and (3) longitudinal data (available for one sample) indicated that greater emphasis on emotional control was related to declines in boys' friendly, ego-resilient behaviours 2VS years later. However, consistent with emotion regulation models, parenting practices that emphasized the control of emotional expression were sometimes positively related to contemporary measures of competence.