Emotion © 2015 American Psychological Association

2016, Vol. 16, No. 2, 280 –291 1528-3542/16/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000142

Maternal Emotion Socialization Differentially Predicts Third-Grade

Children’s Emotion Regulation and Lability

Megan L. Rogers Amy G. Halberstadt

Florida State University North Carolina State University

Vanessa L. Castro Jennifer K. MacCormack and Patricia Garrett-Peters

Northeastern University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Numerous parental emotion socialization factors have been implicated as direct and indirect contributors
to the development of children’s emotional competence. To date, however, no study has combined
parents’ emotion-related beliefs, behaviors, and regulation strategies in one model to assess their
cumulative—as well as unique— contributions to children’s emotion regulation. We considered the 2
components that have recently been distinguished: emotion regulation and emotional lability. We
predicted that mothers’ beliefs about the value of and contempt for children’s emotions, mothers’
supportive and nonsupportive reactions to their children’s emotions, as well as mothers’ use of cognitive
reappraisal and suppression of their own emotions would each contribute unique variance to their
children’s emotion regulation and lability, as assessed by children’s teachers. The study sample consisted
of an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse group of 165 mothers and their third-grade children.
Different patterns emerged for regulation and lability: Controlling for family income, child gender, and
ethnicity, only mothers’ lack of suppression as a regulatory strategy predicted greater emotion regulation
in children, whereas mothers’ valuing of children’s emotions, mothers’ lack of contempt for children’s
emotions, mothers’ use of cognitive reappraisal to reinterpret events, and mothers’ lack of emotional
suppression predicted less lability in children. These findings support the divergence of emotion
regulation and lability as constructs and indicate that, during middle childhood, children’s lability may
be substantially and uniquely affected by multiple forms of parental socialization.

Keywords: children’s emotion regulation, lability, emotion socialization, emotion beliefs, parent
reactions

A central task in childhood is to develop the skills necessary for
approaching emotion-related situations, including skills in main-
taining and modulating emotional experience (Eisenberg & Mor-
ris, 2002; Halberstadt, Denham, & Dunsmore, 2001). This task can
be differentiated into two related yet distinct constructs: emotion
regulation and lability (Shields & Cicchetti, 1997). Emotion reg-
ulation, defined as children’s ability to manage their emotional
This article was published Online First December 7, 2015.
Megan L. Rogers, Department of Psychology, Florida State University;
Amy G. Halberstadt, Department of Psychology, North Carolina State
University; Vanessa L. Castro, Department of Psychology, Northeastern
University; Jennifer K. MacCormack and Patricia Garrett-Peters, Depart-
ment of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill.
This work was supported by grants awarded by the National Science
Foundation to Amy Halberstadt and Patricia Garrett-Peters (#1023839 &
#1023977). We thank the Social Science Research Institute at Duke Uni-
versity for the space to conduct our research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Amy
G. Halberstadt, Department of Psychology, North Carolina State Uni-
versity, Poe Hall 755, Box 7650, Raleigh, NC 27695-7650. E-mail:
amy_halberstadt@ncsu.edu
experiences and expressions while fostering an optimal level of
engagement (Dunsmore, Booker, & Ollendick, 2013; Kim-Spoon,
Cicchetti, & Rogosch, 2013; Shields & Cicchetti, 1997), has been
associated with a host of positive outcomes for children, including
improved emotional adjustment (e.g., Alessandri et al., 2014;
Kim-Spoon et al., 2013), friendship quality and social skills (e.g.,
Blair et al., 2014; Monopoli & Kingston, 2012), and academic
success (e.g., Graziano, Reavis, Keane, & Calkins, 2007; Trenta-
costa & Izard, 2007). In contrast, emotional lability, characterized
as a rapid and intense reactivity to emotional situations, as well as
difficulty recovering from negative reactions (Dunsmore et al.,
2013; Kim-Spoon et al., 2013), poses many challenges for chil-
dren, including increased emotional instability, irritability, and
intensity (Oliver & Simons, 2004; Simons, Carey, & Wills, 2009);
a variety of attentional and internalizing disorders (Carthy, Horesh,
Apter, & Gross, 2010; Sobanski et al., 2010); classroom external-
izing behaviors and bullying (Dunsmore et al., 2013; Garner &
Hinton, 2010); and greater risk for substance abuse and risky
sexual behaviors later in life (Oshri, Sutton, Clay-Warner, &
Miller, 2015; Tull, Weiss, Adams, & Gratz, 2012).
With such starkly different behavioral outcomes, it is under-
standable why parents would wish to scaffold children’s emotion
regulation and lability. Although the advantages and disadvantages
associated with children’s emotion regulation and lability are well

280
 MATERNAL SOCIALIZATION AND CHILD REG/LABILITY
established, parental contributions to the development of these
behaviors are unclear. Parental socialization encompasses many
facets and processes, but two constructs—parents’ beliefs about
children’s emotions and parents’ reactions to children’s emo-
tions— have been theorized to be important contributors to chil-
dren’s emotion regulation and lability (e.g., Goodnow, 1988; Gott-
man, Katz, & Hooven, 1997; Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, &
Robinson, 2007). In addition, there is sound theoretical reasoning
to believe that parents’ own emotion regulation skills may be
modeled for children, as parents’ emotional profiles and interac-
tions implicitly teach children how to manage the experience of
emotions and utilize the emotion regulatory styles most visible to
them (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998; Morris et al.,
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2007; Silk, Shaw, Skuban, Oland, & Kovacs, 2006). Thus, the lack
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of empirical validation for these pathways is surprising.
To remedy this gap in the literature, we examined parents’ own
emotion regulatory skills, as well as parents’ beliefs about and
reactions to children’s emotions, in relation to children’s emotion
regulation and lability. Because no research has explored how
parents’ emotion beliefs, parenting reactions, and regulatory skills
jointly predict children’s emotion regulation or lability, we as-
sessed the unique and collective contributions of all three social-
ization processes to children’s regulatory skills. We assessed both
emotion regulation and lability because recent theory and evidence
suggest these are distinct constructs. For example, emotion regu-
lation and lability seem to differentially impact children’s adjust-
ment behaviors, ego resiliency, and academic achievement (Eisen-
berg et al., 2013; Valiente et al., 2013). Regulation may also
modulate components of lability (Rothbart & Bates, 2006), and
may account for relations between lability and internalizing be-
haviors in children over time (Kim-Spoon et al., 2013).
Additionally, although previous research has focused on early
childhood, middle childhood may be a particularly relevant period
for examining these socialization processes. In middle childhood,
children further develop their regulatory skills (Eisenberg & Mor-
ris, 2002) and emotion knowledge (Pons, Harris, & de Rosnay,
2004), and as a result, parents may need to adjust the socialization
strategies used in early childhood in response to these maturational
changes. Thus, whether, and in what ways, parents continue to
socialize emotion regulation in older children remain important
empirical questions.
In the present study, we tested a socialization model in which
mothers’ beliefs about children’s emotions, their reactions to chil-
dren’s negative emotions, and their own regulatory skills could
each contribute uniquely and collectively to third-grade children’s
emotion regulation skill and lability in school. We discuss the
importance of two different instantiations of each of the three
socialization factors in the subsequent sections.
Parents’ Emotion-Related Beliefs:
Value and Contempt
Valuing Children’s Emotions
Parents who value children’s emotions likely show interest in
and engagement with their children’s emotions, and, in so doing,
support children’s awareness and acceptance of their own emo-
tions as well as the role of emotions in their own and others’
281
actions (Halberstadt et al., 2013; Meyer, Raikes, Virmani, Waters,
& Thompson, 2014). In this way, parents may help children
develop the skills for controlling their emotions. Indeed, parents
who reported that they valued children’s emotions had children
who were better able to regulate their emotions in school (Rams-
den & Hubbard, 2002), and who used more adaptive coping
strategies following a series of terrorist attacks, including problem-
solving, emotion-oriented, and support-seeking coping (Halber-
stadt, Thompson, Parker, & Dunsmore, 2008). Similarly, parents
who valued attending to children’s emotions had children who
better utilized problem-solving and emotion-focused strategies to
manage emotions (Meyer et al., 2014). Parents who value chil-
dren’s emotions might facilitate regulation by being more accept-
ing of, and appropriately attentive to, children’s emotions in ways
that scaffold emotion knowledge and skill. Although previous
research has not examined relations between parental value of
emotion and children’s lability, parents’ acceptance of emotions
(compared with rejection) may also reduce lability by being less
dysregulating and, therefore, might promote quicker emotional
recovery in children. As such, we hypothesized that parents’ value
of children’s emotions would relate positively to children’s emo-
tion regulation and negatively to their lability.
Contempt for Children’s Emotions
Parents who believe that expressing contempt toward children’s
emotions is acceptable are likely to be more rejecting and invali-
dating of their children’s emotions (Halberstadt et al., 2013; Line-
han, 1993). Ginott (1956) and Gottman, Katz, and Hooven (1996;
Gottman et al, 1997) conceptualized parents’ contempt as a prob-
lematic but central component of the dismissing parenting style.
Thus, by derogating children’s emotions, parents may inadver-
tently increase children’s arousal and lability (Linehan, 1993).
Although no previous studies examine the impact of parental
beliefs about contempt on children’s outcomes, expressing con-
tempt within the marital relationship relates positively to internal-
izing and externalizing problems in children (Harold, Aitken, &
Shelton, 2007; Katz & Gottman, 1993). Moreover, studies link
parents’ invalidation of children’s emotional experiences with
children’s and adolescents’ emotion regulation challenges and
heightened lability (Buckholdt, Parra, & Jobe-Shields, 2014; Gott-
man et al., 1996), as well as the development of psychopathology
and self-injurious behaviors (Linehan, 1993). Therefore, although
we had little evidence to associate parents’ beliefs about contempt
with emotion regulation, we predicted that parental beliefs about
contempt as acceptable would be positively associated with chil-
dren’s lability.
Parents’ Emotion-Related Behaviors: Supportive and
Nonsupportive Reactions
Supportive Reactions
Parents’ reactions of problem-solving, comforting, and encour-
aging discussion and expression of emotion in response to chil-
dren’s negative emotions are thought to foster children’s ability to
manage the experience and expression of negative emotion, by
reducing distress and supporting children’s development of mul-
tiple regulatory strategies (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Fabes, Poulin,
 282 ROGERS ET AL.
Eisenberg, & Madden-Derdich, 2002), particularly over time
(Blair et al., 2014). When parents’ reactions and children’s coping
skills are tested concurrently, however, relations between these
two are less apparent (Perry, Calkins, Nelson, Leerkes, & Marco-
vitch, 2012). Parents’ supportive reactions may be negatively
associated with children’s emotional lability; supportive parents
are likely to attend more to children’s labile behaviors through
problem- and emotion-focused responses. Over time, such interest
and guidance may reduce dysregulation in children. Thus, we
hypothesized that parents’ supportive reactions will be positively
associated with children’s emotion regulation and negatively as-
sociated with children’s emotional lability.
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Nonsupportive Reactions
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Parents’ reactions of minimizing (devaluing or dismissing) and
punishing (verbally penalizing) children’s expression of negative
emotions are thought to suppress children’s expression of emotion
without providing regulation strategies or guidance (Fabes et al.,
2002). The link between parents’ nonsupportive reactions and
children’s poor emotion regulation and increased lability from
preschool through middle childhood is supported, both when emo-
tion regulation and lability are combined (Eisenberg & Fabes,
1994; Eisenberg, Fabes, & Murphy, 1996) and when examined
separately (Blair et al., 2014; Shaffer, Suveg, Thomassin, & Brad-
bury, 2012). Thus, we hypothesized that nonsupportive reactions
would be negatively related to children’s emotion regulation and
positively related to their lability.
Parents’ Emotion Regulation Skill:
Cognitive Reappraisal and Suppression
Cognitive Reappraisal
Reinterpreting an emotionally eliciting situation to modify its
affective impact is associated with greater positive and less nega-
tive emotion, better interpersonal functioning, and greater well-
being in adults (e.g., Gross, 1998; Gross & John, 2003). Parents’
use of cognitive reappraisal may facilitate children’s emotion
regulation by modeling an adaptive regulatory style that children
can use when confronting their own emotional experiences. In
addition, parents who regularly use cognitive reappraisal to temper
emotional situations may provide a calmer, more stable environ-
ment in which children can effectively regulate their emotions.
Reappraisal may also reduce children’s lability as they learn that
problems and emotional situations can be reframed and actively
approached, handled, and resolved. Thus, we predict that parents’
cognitive reappraisal will be positively related to children’s emo-
tion regulation and negatively related to children’s lability.
Suppression
Suppression involves the inhibition of affective expression
(Gross, 1998; Gross & John, 2003), and, in adults, is associated
with less positive and greater negative emotion, worse interper-
sonal functioning and well-being, and increased sympathetic acti-
vation when experiencing negative emotions (e.g., Gross & John,
2003). Consistent with a modeling hypothesis, mothers who sup-
press their own emotions have children who also utilize this
technique (Bariola, Hughes, & Gullone, 2012). In their reliance on
suppression, mothers may fail to provide children with opportuni-
ties to observe and learn other kinds of emotion regulation skills.
Furthermore, by hampering parents’ well-being, interpersonal
functioning, and working memory, while increasing sympathetic
nervous system activation (Gross & John, 2003), parents’ emotion
suppression may create a more tumultuous environment in which
children struggle to effectively regulate their emotions. Moreover,
if children also suppress emotions, their internal physiological
arousal may increase and paradoxically become stronger than
before their emotions were suppressed, thereby increasing lability
(Wegner, Schneider, Carter, & White, 1987). Thus, we predict that
mothers’ suppression will be negatively related to children’s emo-
tion regulation and positively related to children’s lability.
Additional Characteristics of Potential Influence
In order to determine whether parents’ emotion-related beliefs,
behaviors, and skills are uniquely related to children’s emotion
regulation and lability, it is important to consider additional known
sources of influence. Family income has been directly and posi-
tively related to children’s emotion regulation at home and in
school (Lunkenheimer, Shields, & Cortina, 2007; Samuelson,
Krueger, & Wilson, 2012). Child gender may be relevant, in that
girls are sometimes reported to have greater emotion regulation
and coping skills and lower levels of lability than boys (e.g.,
Kim-Spoon et al., 2013; Samuelson et al., 2012; but sometimes
not, as in Shaffer et al., 2012). Though less studied, some differ-
ences between European American and African American children
have been noted (Supplee, Skuban, Shaw, & Prout, 2009). Thus,
family income, child gender, and child ethnicity were included as
covariates in our analyses.
The Present Study
To inform and maximize parenting practices aimed at enhancing
children’s emotion regulation skills and limiting children’s lability,
we examined pathways by which emotion regulation and lability
are likely socialized by parents. We were interested in identifying
the unique predictive variance associated with specific parental
socialization factors, as well as the collective contribution of all
socialization factors in predicting children’s emotion regulation
and lability, over and above family income, child gender, and child
ethnicity. We included both positive and negative approaches
within each socialization domain in order to gauge their unique
contributions to children’s socioemotional development. Thus, for
beliefs, we assessed the value of children’s emotions and the
acceptability and effectiveness of expressing contempt for chil-
dren’s emotions; for behaviors, we assessed supportive and non-
supportive reactions to children’s negative emotions; and for reg-
ulation, we assessed mothers’ use of cognitive reappraisal and
suppression. We hypothesized that mothers’ belief about the value
of children’s emotions, their supportive reactions, and their use of
cognitive reappraisal would be positively associated with chil-
dren’s emotion regulation, but negatively related to children’s
lability. We also predicted that mothers’ belief about the accept-
ability of expressing contempt would be positively associated with
children’s lability, and that their nonsupportive reactions and use
of suppression would be negatively related with children’s emo-
tion regulation, but positively related to children’s lability.
 MATERNAL SOCIALIZATION AND CHILD REG/LABILITY
We utilized a multimethod and multirespondent approach, with
mothers’ self-report for beliefs and behaviors, and interviews of
mothers’ regulatory strategies in three different emotion-eliciting
situations, combined with teachers’ reports of children’s emotion-
regulatory strategies. We note that our study also crosses contexts,
in that maternal socialization is assessed in the family environment
and children’s emotion regulation is assessed in the school context,
which is a highly conservative approach when estimating potential
influence of family socialization.
Method
Participants
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Participants were 165 mother– child dyads participating in a
study following and supplementing a longitudinal sample that
began with mothers and their infants in a small Southeastern city
(Garrett-Peters, Castro, & Halberstadt, 2015), and included 95
African American children (53.7% daughters), 67 European Amer-
ican children (40.3% daughters), and three biracial children
(33.3% daughters). All children were in third grade and were
between 7.92 and 9.73 years old (M age ⫽ 8.76, SD ⫽ 0.33).
Family income ranged from $1,600 to $420,000 (M ⫽ $84,081;
SD ⫽ $63,059).
Procedure
Prior to the lab visit, mothers completed a questionnaire assess-
ing their supportive and nonsupportive reactions to their children’s
negative emotions. During the lab visit, mothers completed a
questionnaire on their beliefs about children’s emotions and were
interviewed about regulatory strategies regarding three emotion-
related vignettes. All mothers agreed for teachers to be invited to
fill out questionnaires about their child. Mothers received com-
pensation for their time and travel reimbursement, and children
received a toy of their choice.
In the spring of the children’s third grade in school, teachers
received a set of questionnaires in the mail. On average, 3.46
months passed between the mother– child sessions and teacher
return of questionnaire packets. A majority of teachers (82.9% of
the original sample) returned questionnaire packets and were com-
pensated $25 for their time.
Measures
Mothers’ beliefs. The Parents’ Beliefs about Children’s Emo-
tions Questionnaire (PBACE:;Halberstadt, Dunsmore, Parker, et
al., 2008) assesses a variety of parental beliefs about children’s
emotions. Parents respond using a 6-point Likert scale ranging
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Of interest are the
10-item Positive Emotions Are Valuable subscale (e.g., “It is
important for children to share their positive emotions with oth-
ers”; ␣ ⫽ .90), the 12-item Negative Emotions Are Valuable
subscale (e.g., “It is useful for children to feel angry sometimes”;
␣ ⫽ .88), and the eight-item Contempt subscale (e.g., “Making fun
of children’s feelings is sometimes a good way to get them to
change their behavior”; ␣ ⫽ .82). The PBACE has demonstrated
construct validity through relations with parents’ socialization
behaviors (Halberstadt et al., 2008; Perez Rivera & Dunsmore,
283
2011) and with children’s emotion understanding, emotional cop-
ing, and feelings of security (Castro, Halberstadt, Lozada, & Craig,
2015; Halberstadt et al., 2008; Stelter & Halberstadt, 2011). Be-
cause the Positive Emotions Are Valuable and Negative Emotions
Are Valuable subscales are conceptually and empirically related
(Castro et al., 2015), we combined them into a single Value
subscale (␣ ⫽ .86).
Mothers’ supportive and nonsupportive reactions. The
Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes,
Eisenberg, & Bernzweig, 1990; Stelter & Halberstadt, 2011) mea-
sures parents’ reactions to children’s negative emotions. Parents
respond to the hypothetical situations by identifying the degree to
which they would use each of six types of reactions using 7-point
Likert scales, ranging from 1 (very unlikely) to 7 (very likely).
Because the CCNES includes primarily children’s reactions of
sadness, fear, nervousness, and embarrassment (e.g., “If my child
loses some prized possession and reacts with tears, I would . . .”),
two of these items were deleted, and six items were added to assess
parents’ reactions to children’s frustration and anger (e.g., “If my
child yells and kicks the shopping cart when he/she cannot have a
toy when we are grocery shopping, I would . . .”). Confirmatory
factor analyses following the original scale structure revealed that
one item failed to load significantly onto five of the six subscales
and thus was dropped. These results are consistent with recent tests
of the CCNES factor structure that indicate the structure of sub-
scales may require tailoring to a given sample (Nelson, Leerkes,
O’Brien, Calkins, & Marcovitch, 2012).
The supportive reactions (problem-focused, emotion-focused,
and expressive encouragement) include reactions such as “help my
child think of constructive things to do when other children tease
him/her,” “distract my child by talking about a fun activity
we could do later that day,” and “tell my child that it is okay to
have strong feelings when you don’t get something you want,” and
were composited as per Fabes et al. (2002) and others (e.g., Blair
et al., 2014; Shaffer et al., 2012; ␣ ⫽ .75). The nonsupportive
reactions (minimizing and punitive) consist of reactions such as
“tell my child that he/she is being immature and that the toy is
silly” and “tell my child that he/she will be sent to his/her room
when we get home from the store,” and were also composited (see
Blair et al., 2014; Shaffer et al., 2012; ␣ ⫽ .86). The CCNES and
various adaptations have demonstrated good internal consistency,
reliability over time, and construct validity (Baker, Fenning, &
Crnic, 2011; Fabes et al., 2002; Nelson et al., 2012).
Mothers’ regulation strategies. To assess mothers’ regula-
tion skill more fully than possible from currently available self-
report measures, we created a new measure, drawing on vignette
methodology (e.g., Barrett, Lane, Sechrest, & Schwartz, 2000;
Lane, Quinlan, Schwartz, Walker, & Zeitlin, 1990; Subic-Wrana et
al., 2014). Mothers were interviewed regarding regulatory strate-
gies associated with three vignettes (MacCormack, Halberstadt, &
Sibley, 2012). In the first vignette, the mother imagines sitting with
her child in a restaurant when she sees and smells black smoke
coming from the kitchen. In the second vignette, someone who is
usually critical of the mother unexpectedly pays her a compliment.
In the final vignette, the mother and a friend are applying for the
same job; the friend gets it and the mother does not. For each
vignette, the mother reported the emotions she would feel, how she
would know that she had those feelings, and, as the key variable,
what she could do to change her emotions. Mothers were prompted
 284 ROGERS ET AL.

to keep generating responses until they felt their responses were Table 1
complete. Means, Standard Deviations, and Ranges for Maternal
Based on Gross and Thompson’s (2007) process model of Socialization Variables and Children’s Emotion Regulation
emotion regulation, cognitive reappraisal responses included rein- and Lability
terpretation (e.g., “I’d work through it and try to figure out their
intentions”), acceptance (e.g., “accept that I can’t win them all”), Variable Mean SD Range
and seeing the silver lining (e.g., “see it as an opportunity to teach Maternal beliefs
my child what to do in this type of situation”). Emotion suppres- Value 5.06 .47 3.71–6.00
sion responses included ignoring the situation (e.g., “just not think Contempt 2.09 .91 1.00–4.30
about it”) and masking one’s emotional expression (e.g., “be all Maternal behaviors
Supportive 5.76 .80 2.53–6.87
nice and happy to her even though I am so upset”). Responses were Nonsupportive 2.57 .83 1.10–5.40
independently coded by a mixed-ethnicity and mixed-gender team Maternal regulation
of research assistants (Mkappa ⱖ .90). Frequency scores for each Reappraisal 1.25 1.29 .00–6.00
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variable were calculated as the number of times each strategy was Suppression .21 .46 .00–2.00
Child regulation
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generated by mothers throughout across the three vignettes. For

cognitive reappraisal, scores could theoretically range from 0 to 9
(three types of reappraisals for three vignettes), but in fact ranged
from 0 to 6. For suppression, scores could theoretically range from
0 to 6, but in fact ranged from 0 to 2.
Children’s emotion regulation and lability. The Emotion
Regulation Checklist (ERC; Shields & Cicchetti, 1997) consists of
two scales, Emotion Regulation and Lability. Teachers responded
using a 4-point Likert scale (1 ⫽ rarely/never, 2 ⫽ sometimes, 3 ⫽
often, and 4 ⫽ almost always). The Emotion Regulation subscale
(eight items; ␣ ⫽ .82) measures children’s adaptive emotional
control, sociability, and self-awareness (e.g., “Responds positively
when ‘others’ talk or pay attention to him/her” and “Can say when
s/he is feeling sad, angry or mad, fearful or afraid”). The Lability
subscale (15 items; ␣ ⫽ .92) measures children’s reactivity, inten-
sity, and arousal in experiencing negative emotions, as well as
dysregulated affect (e.g., “Is prone to angry outbursts . . .” and
“Displays exuberance that others find intrusive or disruptive”).
The ERC has shown strong convergence with other established
questionnaires assessing children’s regulatory behavior and good
construct validity (e.g., Blair et al., 2014; Dunsmore et al., 2013;
Kim-Spoon et al., 2013).
Emotion regulation 3.19 .51 1.50–4.00
Lability 1.58 .51 1.00–3.40
regulatory skills. Model comparisons revealed that the two-factor
model was a significantly better fit for the data than a one-factor
model (⌬␹2 ⫽ 204.546, ⌬df ⫽ 1, p ⬍ .001), providing empirical
support for the distinction of regulation and lability in our sample.
These constructs were thus examined as separate dependent variables.
To test the collective influence of mothers’ emotion socialization,
we conducted two hierarchical regression models in which teachers’
reports of children’s emotion regulation (see Table 3) and lability (see
Table 4) were regressed onto mothers’ emotion-related beliefs (value
and contempt), behaviors (supportive reactions), and skills (reap-
praisal and suppression). Family income, child gender, and child
ethnicity were entered as controls in the first model step of both
models. Mothers’ beliefs about the value of children’s emotions and
the acceptability of contempt in response to children’s emotions were
entered into the second model step. Mothers’ supportive reactions to
children’s negative emotions were entered into the third model step,
and mothers’ cognitive reappraisal and suppression strategies were
entered into the fourth and final step.

Results Regression Model Predicting Children’s

All variables demonstrated univariate and multivariate normal-
ity (see Table 1 for means, standard deviations, and ranges).
Bivariate correlations are presented in Table 2. Total family annual
income, child gender, and child ethnicity were significantly related
to several variables of interest, providing empirical support for
controlling for these variables.
Correlations between mothers’ value and contempt beliefs, re-
appraisal and suppression strategies, and children’s emotion reg-
ulation and lability tended to demonstrate conceptually expected
patterns, although not always significantly. However, mothers’
supportive reactions were positively related to children’s lability,
and mothers’ nonsupportive reactions were not related to either
children’s emotion regulation or lability. Because nonsupportive
reactions were unrelated to both outcome variables, this variable
was omitted from subsequent analyses.
Before testing the differential influence of mothers’ emotion so-
cialization factors on children’s emotion regulation versus lability, we
first examined whether emotion regulation and lability were suffi-
ciently different constructs. To do so, we conducted confirmatory
factor analyses to compare one- and two-factor models of children’s
Emotion Regulation
The overall model predicting children’s emotion regulation (see
Table 3) was significant, F(8, 134) ⫽ 4.83, p ⬍ .001, R2 ⫽ .22.
The first model step, including family income, child gender, and
child ethnicity, was significant, F(3, 139) ⫽ 10.42, R2 ⫽ .18, p ⬍
.001. Income was positively related to children’s emotion regula-
tion (p ⫽ .022), and remained significant in all subsequent steps
until the final model step, in which it became marginally signifi-
cant (p ⫽ .078). Gender was also related to children’s emotion
regulation (p ⫽ .001), and remained significant in all subsequent
steps, with teachers rating girls as better at regulating emotions
than boys. Ethnicity was initially a significant predictor (p ⫽
.046), with teachers rating European American children as
better at regulating emotion than African American children,
but dropped to marginal significance in subsequent steps (ps ⫽
.053 to .086).
The addition of value and contempt beliefs in the second model
step did not result in a significant change, F(5, 137) ⫽ 6.37, ⌬R2 ⫽
.01, p ⫽ .650. Similarly, the addition of mothers’ supportive
reactions to children’s negative emotions in the third model step
 MATERNAL SOCIALIZATION AND CHILD REG/LABILITY 285

Table 2
Correlations Between Emotion-Related Beliefs, Socialization Behaviors, and Emotion Regulation Skills

Maternal emotion Maternal emotion Maternal emotion Child emotion

Demographics beliefs behaviors regulation regulation
Variable 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Demographics
1. Family income ⫺.08 .46ⴱⴱⴱ .09 ⫺.18ⴱ .02 ⫺.20ⴱⴱ .20ⴱⴱ ⫺.19ⴱ .29ⴱⴱⴱ ⫺.32ⴱⴱⴱ
2. Child gendera .12 ⫺.04 ⫺.10 ⫺.03 .08 ⫺.01 .08 ⫺.29ⴱⴱⴱ .23ⴱⴱ
3. Child ethnicityb .05 ⫺.27ⴱⴱⴱ .01 ⫺.16ⴱ .19ⴱⴱ ⫺.12 .22ⴱⴱ ⫺.22ⴱⴱ
Maternal beliefs
4. Value ⫺.01 .21ⴱⴱ ⫺.19ⴱⴱ .03 ⫺.03 .16ⴱ ⫺.22ⴱⴱ
5. Contempt ⫺.08 .40ⴱⴱⴱ ⫺.11 .19ⴱ ⫺.02 .19ⴱ
Maternal behaviors
⫺.16ⴱ ⫺.05 ⫺.11 ⫺.07 .19ⴱ
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6. Supportive
⫺.03 .16ⴱ ⫺.13
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7. Nonsupportive .07
Maternal regulation
8. Reappraisal .13 .11 ⫺.25ⴱⴱ
9. Suppression ⫺.22ⴱⴱ .19ⴱ
Child regulation
10. Emotion regulation ⫺.48ⴱⴱⴱ
11. Lability
a
0 ⫽ girls, 1 ⫽ boys. b
0 ⫽ African American, 1 ⫽ European American.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01. ⴱⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .001.

did not result in a significant change, F(6, 135) ⫽ 5.59, ⌬R2 ⫽ .01,
p ⫽ .215. In the fourth and final step, the addition of mothers’
cognitive reappraisal and suppression strategies did not result in a
significant change, F(8, 134) ⫽ 4.83, ⌬R2 ⫽ .03, p ⫽ .111.
Mothers’ cognitive reappraisal was not significantly related to
children’s emotion regulation skill (p ⫽ .285). However, mothers’
suppression was significantly negatively related to children’s emo-
tion regulation, over and above family income, child gender, child
ethnicity, mothers’ value and contempt beliefs, and mothers’ sup-
portive reactions (p ⫽ .044).

Table 3
Hierarchical Regression Model Predicting Children’s Emotion Regulation

Predictor variables R2 B SE (B) ␤ 95% CI

ⴱⴱⴱ
Step 1 .18
Family income .00 .00 .20ⴱ [.00, .00]
Child gendera ⫺.29 .08 ⫺.28ⴱⴱ [⫺.45, ⫺.13]
Child ethnicityb .19 .09 .18ⴱ [.00, .37]
Step 2 .19ⴱⴱⴱ
Family income .00 .00 .20ⴱ [.00, .00]
Child gender ⫺.28 .08 ⫺.27ⴱⴱ [⫺.44, ⫺.11]
Child ethnicity .18 .09 .17 [⫺.01, .36]
Value belief .09 .09 .07 [⫺.10, .27]
Contempt belief ⫺.00 .05 ⫺.00 [⫺.09, .09]
Step 3 .20ⴱⴱⴱ
Family income .00 .00 .19ⴱ [.00, .00]
Child gender ⫺.28 .08 ⫺.27ⴱⴱ [⫺.44, ⫺.11]
Child ethnicity .18 .09 .17 [⫺.00, .37]
Value belief .11 .10 .10 [⫺.08, .30]
Contempt belief ⫺.01 .05 ⫺.02 [⫺.10, .08]
Supportive reactions ⫺.07 .05 ⫺.10 [⫺.17, .04]
Step 4 .22ⴱⴱⴱ
Family income .00 .00 .16 [.00, .00]
Child gender ⫺.25 .08 ⫺.24ⴱⴱ [⫺.42, ⫺.09]
Child ethnicity .16 .09 .15 [⫺.02, .35]
Value belief .12 .10 .10 [⫺.07, .30]
Contempt belief .01 .05 .02 [⫺.08, .10]
Supportive reactions ⫺.07 .05 ⫺.10 [⫺.18, .04]
Cognitive reappraisal .03 .03 .09 [⫺.03, .10]
Emotional suppression ⫺.20 .10 ⫺.17ⴱ [⫺.39, ⫺.01]
Note. CI ⫽ confidence interval.
a
0 ⫽ girls, 1 ⫽ boys. b 0 ⫽ African American, 1 ⫽ European American.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01. ⴱⴱⴱ p ⬍ .001.
 286 ROGERS ET AL.

Table 4
Hierarchical Regression Model Predicting Children’s Lability

Predictor variables R2 B SE (B) ␤ 95% CI

ⴱⴱⴱ
Step 1 .16
Family income .00 .00 ⫺.25ⴱⴱ [.00, .00]
Child gendera .23 .08 .23ⴱⴱ [.07, .38]
Child ethnicityb ⫺.10 .09 ⫺.10 [⫺.28, .08]
Step 2 .21ⴱⴱⴱ
Family income .00 .00 ⫺.23ⴱ [.00, .00]
Child gender .22 .08 .22ⴱⴱ [.06, .37]
Child ethnicity ⫺.06 .09 ⫺.06 [⫺.23, .11]
Value belief ⫺.19 .09 ⫺.17ⴱ [⫺.37, ⫺.02]
Contempt belief .10 .04 .18ⴱ [.01, .18]
Step 3 .27ⴱⴱⴱ
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Family income .00 .00 ⫺.22ⴱ [.00, .00]

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Child gender .22 .08 .22ⴱⴱ [.07, .36]

Child ethnicity ⫺.07 .09 ⫺.07 [⫺.24, .10]
Value belief ⫺.25 .09 ⫺.22ⴱⴱ [⫺.43, ⫺.08]
Contempt belief .11 .04 .21ⴱⴱ [.03, .19]
Supportive reactions .15 .05 .24ⴱⴱ [.06, .25]
Step 4 .32ⴱⴱⴱ
Family income .00 .00 ⫺.17ⴱ [.00, .00]
Child gender .19 .07 .19ⴱ [.04, .33]
Child ethnicity ⫺.04 .08 ⫺.04 [⫺.20, .13]
Value belief ⫺.25 .08 ⫺.22ⴱⴱ [⫺.41, ⫺.08]
Contempt belief .09 .04 .17ⴱ [.01, .17]
Supportive reactions .15 .05 .23ⴱⴱ [.05, .24]
Cognitive reappraisal ⫺.08 .03 ⫺.22ⴱⴱ [⫺.13, ⫺.03]
Emotional suppression .19 .09 .17ⴱ [.02, .36]
Note. CI ⫽ confidence interval.
a
0 ⫽ girls, 1 ⫽ boys. b 0 ⫽ African American, 1 ⫽ European American.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .01. ⴱⴱⴱ p ⬍ .001.

Results from the final model step indicate that child gender and
mothers’ suppression skills were uniquely predictive of children’s
emotion regulation skill; overall, girls were rated by teachers as
more emotionally regulated than were boys, and mothers who
utilized suppression strategies more frequently had children who
were rated as less well regulated than mothers who utilized sup-
pression strategies relatively infrequently. These patterns persisted
even when controlling for the effect of children’s lability on
children’s emotion regulation, with only a slight decrease (⌬␤ ⫽
.061) in predictive value for maternal suppression. The overall
model accounted for approximately 22% of the variance in chil-
dren’s emotion regulation.
Regression Model Predicting Children’s Lability
The overall model predicting children’s lability (see Table 4)
was significant, F(8, 134) ⫽ 7.92, p ⬍ .001, R2 ⫽ .32. The first
model step, containing income, child gender, and child ethnic-
ity, was significant, F(3, 139) ⫽ 8.56, R2 ⫽ .16, p ⬍ .001.
Income was negatively related to children’s lability (p ⫽ .005),
and remained significant in all subsequent steps. Child gender
was related to children’s lability (p ⫽ .005), and remained
significant in all subsequent steps, with boys rated as signifi-
cantly more labile than girls. Child ethnicity was not associated
with children’s lability (p ⫽ .264), and remained nonsignificant
in all following steps.
The addition of mothers’ beliefs in the second step resulted in a
significant change, F(5, 137) ⫽ 7.39, ⌬R2 ⫽ .06, p ⫽ .009.
Mothers’ value and contempt beliefs were both negatively related
to children’s lability (ps ⫽ .029 and .023, respectively), and
remained significant at all subsequent steps. The addition of sup-
portive reactions to children’s negative emotions in the third model
step also resulted in a significant change, F(6, 136) ⫽ 8.22, ⌬R2 ⫽
.05, p ⫽ .002. Supportive reactions were significantly and
uniquely related to children’s lability (p ⫽ .002), indicating that
mothers who employ supportive reactions when their children are
distressed or angry have children with higher levels of lability.
This predictor remained significant in the final model step. The
addition of mothers’ cognitive reappraisal and suppression strate-
gies in the fourth and final step resulted in a significant change,
F(8, 134) ⫽ 7.92, ⌬R2 ⫽ .06, p ⫽ .006. Cognitive reappraisal was
negatively and suppression was positively related to children’s
lability, over and above income, child gender, child ethnicity,
value and contempt beliefs, and supportive reactions (ps ⫽ .005
and .026, respectively).
This final model step indicated many significant predictors of
children’s lability. Specifically, children’s lability was positively
associated with children being male, mothers’ belief in the effec-
tiveness and appropriateness of contempt as a response to chil-
dren’s emotions, mothers’ supportive reactions to their children’s
emotions, and mothers’ utilization of suppression as an emotion
regulation strategy, and negatively associated with income, moth-
ers’ belief about the value of children’s emotions, and mothers’ use
of cognitive reappraisal as an emotion regulation strategy. Results
were maintained when controlling for the effect of children’s
emotion regulation on lability, with the exception of a small
decrease in the predictive strength of maternal suppression (⌬␤ ⫽
 MATERNAL SOCIALIZATION AND CHILD REG/LABILITY
.046). The full model accounted for approximately 32% of the
variance in children’s teacher-reported lability.
Discussion
We examined associations between mothers’ emotion-related
beliefs, reactions, and regulatory strategies and their third-grade
children’s emotion regulation and lability, when controlling for
family income, child gender, and child ethnicity. Because recent
theory and research suggest the importance of differentiating emo-
tion regulation from lability, we studied these two components
separately and discovered different socialization patterns for each.
It is noteworthy that children’s emotional lability was predicted
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by maternal emotion socialization factors to a greater extent than
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was children’s emotion regulation, which related only to mothers’
suppression of emotion in the face of challenging emotion-related
events. We expand on these findings throughout this section and
conclude with a discussion regarding the complexity of assessing
diverse emotion socialization factors in association with children’s
emotional skills.
Maternal Socialization of Children’s Lability in
Middle Childhood
Mothers’ beliefs that children’s emotions are not of value and
that expressing contempt for children’s emotions is acceptable, as
well as (surprisingly) mothers’ supportive reactions in response to
children’s negative emotions, and mothers’ reduced use of cogni-
tive reappraisal and reliance on emotional suppression were all
uniquely and concurrently predictive of children’s lability. Par-
ents’ beliefs about children’s emotions likely reflect and predict
broad components of the parent– child relationship, such as
warmth and respect for children. Certainly, value and contempt are
both intertwined with, and direct, parents’ socialization behaviors
(e.g., Eisenberg et al., 1998; Gottman et al., 1997; Halberstadt et
al., 2008; Lozada, Halberstadt, Craig, Dunsmore, & Dennis, in
press), and, as such, tend to have broad impact on children’s
behavior. Family environments in which children’s emotions are
not valued and/or in which contempt for emotions is expressed
may convey to children that their emotions are inappropriate or
unworthy, leading to maladaptive emotion management. Children
may then attempt to inhibit their emotion-related thoughts and
displays (Fabes, Leonard, Kupanoff, & Martin, 2001), which could
paradoxically induce a rebound effect, in which thinking more
about the emotional situation may intensify the emotions (Gross &
John, 2003; Wegner et al., 1987). Such a process would further
challenge children to find ways of engaging with and shifting their
arousal, thus exacerbating emotion lability.
Furthermore, when parents model less successful regulatory
strategies themselves, by suppressing and not reappraising when
reappraisals are possible, children may have fewer opportunities to
develop emotion-related skills. In contrast, by modeling reap-
praisal of emotional events for their children, parents may be
supporting children’s reduction in lability by providing them with
opportunities to directly observe strategies (i.e., reappraisal) for
reframing and dampening or minimizing the impact of negative
emotional situations. Parental modeling of effective regulatory
strategies and discussion of emotion regulation strategies may also
help children gain a sense of regulatory efficacy, leading to greater
287
socioemotional confidence and lower emotional reactivity or la-
bility when confronting emotionally challenging situations. To-
gether, these results suggest that when contempt is deemed an
acceptable response to children’s emotions, and when parents fail
to model appropriate emotional displays and recovery strategies,
children may behave in a more emotionally labile manner.
Contrary to predictions, mothers’ supportive reactions to chil-
dren’s negative emotions were positively associated with chil-
dren’s emotional lability.1 This finding was initially surprising,
given that supportive parental reactions have been shown to facil-
itate children’s attempts to regulate their emotions and reduce their
lability in early childhood (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1994; Meyer et al.,
2014; Shaffer et al., 2012). However, in middle childhood, re-
search is accumulating to suggest that mothers’ supportive reac-
tions may be either causally problematic, by reducing older chil-
dren’s opportunities to develop their own strategies and emergent
autonomy, or alternatively, an adaptive response to children’s
lability, with mothers responding more frequently to what they
recognize as developmentally inappropriate volatile emotional ex-
periences and expressions (Castro et al., 2015; Dunsmore, Her,
Halberstadt, & Perez-Rivera, 2009; Wray-Lake, Crouter, &
McHale, 2010). These findings suggest the importance of a devel-
opmental perspective and cross-sequential longitudinal designs to
tease apart whether mothers’ supportive socialization practices are
more likely a cause or an effect of children’s lability.
Maternal Socialization of Children’s Emotion
Regulation in Middle Childhood
Although we predicted associations between maternal socializa-
tion and children’s emotion regulation, few significant effects
emerged. It may be that when children are well-regulated, parents’
emotion-related beliefs and behaviors are not particularly impor-
tant, and that socialization processes may matter more when prob-
lems exist. In addition, ratings of less emotion regulation on the
ERC measure include being “less cheerful” and “not responding
positively to peers or adults”; these are low-affect behaviors rather
than the intense emotional displays associated with lability. That
is, children who are not cheerful may not be depressed or sad, but
may be neutral in affect, and children who are not responding
positively to others may be somewhat disengaged, rather than
disagreeable or unpleasant toward others. Thus, these behaviors
may not activate as much parental concern. Regarding cognitive
reappraisal, again, it may be that when children are well regulated,
mothers need not scaffold children’s regulatory skills as much, and
when they are not cheerful or not interacting positively with peers,
1
Because we were initially surprised by the positive association between
mothers’ supportive reactions and children’s lability, we ran three regres-
sion models with each individual supportive reaction (problem-focused,
emotion-focused, and expressive encouragement reactions), to attempt to
elucidate the direction of effects. For example, if the association is driven
by mothers’ problem-solving behaviors, it may be more likely that mothers
are responding to children’s high levels of lability rather than promoting
them; if mothers’ supportiveness is driven, however, by mothers’ emotion
encouragement behaviors, it may be more likely that mothers are encour-
aging lability rather than encouraging autonomy or control. Significant
associations between each type of supportive strategy and children’s labil-
ity emerged in all steps including the final models, suggesting a pervasive
effect across strategy types.
 288 ROGERS ET AL.
parents may be reappraising those behaviors rather than reacting to
them.
Maternal suppression, on the other hand, was the only social-
ization variable that significantly (and inversely) predicted chil-
dren’s emotion regulation. Mothers who use suppression are likely
modeling this strategy for their children; such modeling may thus
be considered a proximal socialization factor, as children are able
to observe maternal suppression. In contrast, emotion beliefs are
internal processes that may not always be visibly modeled in
mothers’ behaviors. These factors may thus be considered distal
socialization factors that act to influence children’s emotional
skills more globally, perhaps through indirect associations with
other socialization factors. Future research would benefit from
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considering ways in which proximal and distal processes interact
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to shape children’s regulatory development over time.
Given the known negative consequences of suppression, includ-
ing the rebound effect mentioned previously (Wegner et al., 1987),
this strategy is likely costly to children. Suppression may halt
children’s opportunities to experiment with and explore the nature,
cause, consequences, and appropriate regulation of their emotions.
Finally, mothers who suppress their emotions may be struggling
with their own regulation (and may even be more labile them-
selves), making it more difficult for them to teach their children
how to successfully navigate and regulate their emotions.
Consideration of the Two Models Together
The two models tested in this study demonstrate a difference in
the strength of relations between parental socialization variables in
predicting children’s emotion regulation and lability. Overall,
emotional lability seems more amenable to socialization in middle
childhood compared with emotion regulation; five parental social-
ization factors, embedded in three socialization domains, were
each uniquely predictive of children’s lability, whereas only one
factor was predictive of children’s emotion regulation. These re-
sults further highlight the distinction between emotion regulation
and lability, which has recently been differentiated in theory and
research (e.g., Cole, 2014; Dunsmore et al., 2013). This distinction
also implies that children may have different developmental tra-
jectories for regulation and lability. If, as suggested, the difference
between emotion regulation and lability relates to the difference
between effortful and reactive control, respectively (Eisenberg et
al., 2013), lability may be particularly challenging for children in
middle childhood who have likely accumulated reactive responses
over time, and thus must employ greater cognitive effort to inhibit and
control any involuntary reactive responses. Instead, it may be com-
paratively easier for older children to exert effortful control in select-
ing appropriate regulation behaviors at this age, given advancements
in executive function that support effort control (Prencipe et al.,
2011). Parents may thus target scaffolding their children’s reactive
control rather than effortful control responses, as issues with reactive
control may persist into middle childhood more so than issues with
effortful control. Moreover, impulsive and uncontrolled behaviors
similar to those demonstrated in lability have been associated with
subcortical brain regions involved in approach and avoidance, and
reward and punishment, systems (Pickering & Gray, 1999). Social-
ization efforts that are approach oriented (such as valuing chil-
dren’s emotions) or punishment oriented (such as expressing con-
tempt at children’s emotions) may thus be particularly relevant to
children’s lability, as such efforts may, over time, shape children’s
developing recruitment of both the brain regions and distributed
neural networks that support lability.
In line with recent suggestions regarding the reconceptualization
of emotion regulation in general (Cole, 2014; Eisenberg et al.,
2013), we also note some divergence between definitions of emo-
tion regulation and its operationalization in questionnaire form.
The emotion regulation scale on the ERC includes items relating to
general positivity, sociability, and emotion understanding (e.g.,
“responds positively when adults talk to or pay attention to her/
him” and “is empathic toward others; shows concern or sadness
when others are upset or distressed”), rather than definitional
components of emotion regulation, such as “initiating, maintain-
ing, and modulating” emotional experience and expression
(Thompson, 1994) or “strategies used to increase, maintain, or
decrease one or more components of an emotional response”
(Gross, 1998). Thus, this scale may need further refinement toward
the specific components of emotion regulation, in a manner similar
to the emotional lability subscale.
The Complexity of Emotion Socialization
Finally, the present study demonstrates the complexity of emo-
tion socialization. Five different forms of emotion socialization
uniquely predicted children’s lability. This highlights the impor-
tance of including multiple dimensions of emotion socialization
when predicting children’s socioemotional outcomes. In addition,
whereas parents’ beliefs may predict their emotion socialization
behaviors and potentially their own regulatory strategies, our cur-
rent findings as well as previous research suggest that parents’
beliefs, reactions, and regulatory strategies each provide unique
contributions to the familial environment and children’s outcomes
(Baker et al., 2011; Halberstadt et al., 2013). Furthermore, as
mothers’ belief that children’s emotions are less valuable and
mothers’ supportive reactions to children’s negative emotions both
positively predicted children’s lability, this strange pairing may
suggest that parents’ beliefs and behaviors do not always work
together, contrary to predictions from meta-emotion research,
which tends to couple emotion beliefs and behaviors (Gottman et
al., 1996; Katz, Wilson, & Gottman, 1999; Meyer et al., 2014).
These results accentuate and reaffirm the importance of nesting
children’s abilities within a fuller framework of parental emotion
socialization factors.
Emotion socialization is complex in part because it is dynamic
and transactional. The socialization strategies that parents used
when children were young may no longer be relevant for middle
childhood. As the child changes, so, too, must parents adapt their
parenting style and reactions to that child’s evolving emotions and
behaviors. Parents’ own emotion beliefs and regulation strategies
may even shift with time as parents learn more about emotions
through socialization behaviors. For example, a mother seeking to
teach her child how to regulate his or her emotions may realize
more explicitly what regulatory strategies she uses and how effec-
tive they are. This knowledge, gained through the experience of
emotion socialization, may improve parents’ emotion expertise.
However, the difficulties that a parent with a highly labile child
faces could present unique socialization challenges that may also
shift parents’ emotion-related beliefs and behaviors. For example,
parents of children with higher emotional lability report greater
 MATERNAL SOCIALIZATION AND CHILD REG/LABILITY
parental stress, and research suggests that this stress may impact
parents’ socialization behaviors (Graziano, McNamara, Geffken,
& Reid, 2011). Recent findings emphasize the potential for chil-
dren to elicit parental socialization responses by way of children’s
regulatory skills (Premo & Kiel, 2014). Future research should
explicitly test these transactions to precisely identify how parent-
ing beliefs and behaviors change in response to the socialization
needs of the child, and how, in turn, these parental shifts could
benefit or exacerbate children’s regulatory development.
Limitations and Strengths
Assessing emotion beliefs with anything other than self-report
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would be difficult; however, variables such as socialization behav-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
iors and regulatory strategies could be assessed with alternative
methods. We note, however, that as children get older, observa-
tional methods become more intrusive to children as well as
mothers, as both become aware of the observational process.
Furthermore, mothers’ regulation skills were assessed through
coded vignettes that were specific and reasonably complex, rather
than global self-reports, and children’s emotion regulation and
lability were assessed by teachers within the school context, thus
contributing to an overall mixed-methods approach. Although this
provided a rich multirespondent (parent and teacher), cross-
contextual (home and school) assessment, it is important for future
research to replicate our models using additional perspectives,
including children’s own self-reports and additional nonintrusive
observational measures.
Now that these findings show clear impact of parental social-
ization upon children’s regulatory abilities, future work should
examine the socialization of regulation and lability as directed
toward specific emotions. Parents may have very different social-
ization strategies regarding sadness, anger, and fear, for example,
and their strategies may have different implications for children’s
regulatory abilities when feeling these different emotions. It would
also be useful to study children’s perceptions of their mothers’
socialization practices, because children’s interpretations of their
parents’ socialization behaviors may be as important as parents’
assessments of their own behavior, particularly as children age.
Perhaps most importantly, although teachers’ reports were col-
lected 3.5 months after mothers’ reports, and thus suggest some
linkages over time, we cannot determine causal associations be-
tween maternal factors and children’s emotion regulation skill and
lability. However, our study is an important first step in establish-
ing that such factors are in fact related at one point in time and
serve as a foundation for future longitudinal work in this area.
Despite these limitations, our study also demonstrates unique
strengths. First, the factors we tested accounted for nearly one
fourth of the variance in children’s emotion regulation and approx-
imately one third of the variance in children’s emotional lability.
Collectively, these results support previous claims that multiple
parental factors contribute to children’s emotion regulation and
emotional development (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Morris et al.,
2007). As noted before, our mixed-methods approach (self-report
questionnaires, interviews using vignettes, and observer ratings)
helps buffer our results from self-report biases. Although the
inclusion of parent data would also have provided a rich assess-
ment of children’s regulation and lability, given that parents
uniquely view their children in a multitude of contexts (e.g., home,
289
school, peer settings), that we found associations across contexts—
that is, associations between maternal socialization processes oc-
curring at home in the family context and children’s behavior
occurring with peers and teachers in the school context—suggests
some robustness of the effects of maternal socialization. Finally,
by including an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample,
our results may be more generalizable across populations.
In sum, our findings suggest that children’s emotion regulation
and, especially, lability are collectively and uniquely influenced by
a variety of maternal socialization factors. As children’s emotion
regulation and lability are strongly linked to peer social compe-
tence and problem behaviors (e.g., Blair et al., 2014; Monopoli &
Kingston, 2012), it is important for research to identify factors
within the family context that promote school-age children’s emo-
tion regulation and decrease lability. Our findings suggest that
emotional lability may be more malleable to socialization practices
than regulatory control, and future research should test this hy-
pothesis, as it has implications for children’s flourishing at both
home and school. Our study also suggests the possibility that
children who are struggling with their emotions may have parents
who are also struggling emotionally. Future interventions should
thus target both parents and children to help them learn how to
better navigate their emotional lives together.
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Received February 10, 2015
Revision received September 4, 2015
Accepted October 12, 2015 䡲