Premium
Maternal anxiety and toddler inhibited temperament predict maternal socialization of worry
Author(s) -
Kiel Elizabeth J.,
Price Natalee N.,
Buss Kristin A.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/sode.12476
Subject(s) - worry , toddler , psychology , temperament , developmental psychology , anxiety , socioemotional selectivity theory , socialization , shyness , distress , empathy , clinical psychology , personality , social psychology , psychiatry
Parent emotion socialization refers to the process by which parents impart their values and beliefs about emotional expressivity to their children. Parent emotion socialization requires attention as a construct that develops in its own right. The socialization of child worry, in particular, has implications for children’s typical socioemotional development, as well as their maladaptive development toward anxiety outcomes. Existing theories on emotion socialization, anxiety, and parent–child relationships guided our investigation of both maternal anxiety and toddler inhibited temperament as predictors of change in mothers’ unsupportive (i.e., distress, punitive, and minimizing) responses to toddler worry across 1 year of toddlerhood. Participants included 139 mother–toddler dyads. Mothers reported on their own anxiety and their emotion socialization responses to toddler worry. We assessed toddler inhibited temperament through a mother‐report survey of shyness and observational coding of dysregulated fear. Maternal anxiety but not child inhibited temperament predicted distress reactions and punitive responses, whereas maternal anxiety and toddler dysregulated fear both uniquely predicted minimizing responses. These results support the continued investigation of worry socialization as a developmental outcome of both parent and child characteristics.