Premium
A tale of two countries: Singaporean and Chinese parents' emotion socialisation during childhood and the relation to adolescents' emotion regulation
Author(s) -
Yeo Geck H.,
Cheah Charissa S. L.,
Sim Tick N.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1002/ijop.12576
Subject(s) - psychology , cognitive reappraisal , expressive suppression , developmental psychology , socialization , cognition , distress , clinical psychology , neuroscience
This study examined the conceptualisation of Singaporean and Chinese parents' emotion socialisation in childhood and the relation to adolescents' emotion regulation with 601 adolescents aged 12–15. For both Singaporean and Chinese parents, we examined the factorial structure underlying six parental reactions to children's negative emotions, and the relations between the established factors with adolescents' cognitive reappraisal and response suppression. The findings revealed differences in the conceptualisation of parental reactions for Singaporean and Chinese parents, with the three‐ and four‐factor models indicating good fit, respectively. For Singaporean parents, the factor comprising Expressive Encouragement, Emotion‐Focused and Problem‐Focused reactions was positively correlated with male adolescents' cognitive reappraisal, and the factor comprising Punitive and Distress Reactions was positively related to female adolescents' response suppression. For Chinese parents, the Expressive Encouragement factor was positively correlated with male adolescents' cognitive reappraisal. These findings on cultural differences in the factors underlying parental reactions and their relations with adolescents' emotion regulation support the emotion competency framework for understanding parents' emotion socialisation across cultures.