Caregivers’ positive emotion socialization tendencies are associated with positive affect in preschool age children

Abstract

Longstanding theories of emotion socialization postulate that caregiver emotional and behavioral reactions to a child's emotions together shape the child's emotion displays over time. Despite the notable importance of positive valence system function, the majority of research on caregiver emotion socialization focuses on negative valence system emotions. In the current project, we leveraged a relatively large cross-sectional study of caregivers (N = 234; 93.59% White) of preschool aged children to investigate whether and to what degree, caregiver (1) emotional experiences, or (2) external behaviors, in the context of preschoolers’ positive emotion displays in caregiver–child interactions, are associated with children's general positive affect tendencies. Results indicated that, in the context of everyday caregiver–child interactions, caregiver-reported positively valenced emotions but not approach behaviors were positively associated with child general positive affect tendencies. However, when examining specific caregiver behaviors in response to everyday child positive emotion displays, caregiver report of narrating the child's emotion and joining in the emotion with their child was positively associated with child general positive affect tendencies. Together, these results suggest that in everyday caregiver–child interactions, caregivers’ emotional experiences and attunement with the child play a role in shaping preschoolers’ overall tendencies toward positive affect.