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The Relations of Parenting, Effortful Control, and Ego Control to Children's Emotional Expressivity
Author(s) -
Eisenberg Nancy,
Zhou Qing,
Losoya Sandra H.,
Fabes Richard A.,
Shepard Stephanie A.,
Murphy Bridget C.,
Reiser Mark,
Guthrie Ivanna K.,
Cumberland Amanda
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8624.00573
Subject(s) - expressivity , psychology , developmental psychology , id, ego and super ego , self control , social psychology , genetics , biology
The relations of observed parental warmth and positive expressivity and children's effortful control and ego control with children's high versus low emotional expressivity were examined in a 2‐wave study of 180 children ( M age = 112.8 months). There were quadratic relations between adults' reports of children's emotional expressivity and effortful control; moderate expressivity was associated with high effortful control. Structural equation models supported the hypothesis that children's ego overcontrol (versus undercontrol) mediated the relation between parental warmth or positive expressivity and children's emotional expressivity, although parenting at the follow‐up did not uniquely predict in children's expressivity after controlling for the relations in these constructs over time. The alternative hypothesis that children's ego overcontrol elicited positive parenting and expressivity also was supported.