The Relationship between Maternal Socialization, Attachment Representations, and 4-Year-Olds' Emotion-Regulation

Abstract

The present study focuses on 4-year-old childrens emotion-regulation. Children by age 4, show substantial gains in their emotional competence such as knowing that certain types of situations evoke particular emotions, emotions influence behavior, and more (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995). However, the factors that influence its development remain an important research topic. Previously, it was suggested that attachment history and maternal behavior may influence emotion-regulation development. However, which specific aspects of attachment and maternal behavior that predicts emotion-regulation in the preschool period where rapid socio-cognitive development occurs is a matter of debate. Therefore, the predictability of attachment and maternal socialization on preschoolers emotion-regulation were examined in 69 mother-child dyads. Furthermore, specific emotional behaviors were examined to provide a deeper understanding of emotion-regulation. The experimental results showed significant gender differences in 4-year olds attachment and emotion-regulation. Girls, in general, represented parents as supportive and articulated emotions in more coherent ways. Conversely, weak gender effect was found in the specific aspects of preschoolers expressive control, where girls expressed happier affect than boys. Multiple regression results indicated that specific aspects of attachment narratives such as parental support and weak coherence and maternal behaviors such as comforting and emotion labeling predict preschoolers expressive control. Corroborating previous findings, the specific aspects related with secure attachment and positive maternal behaviors were related with effective regulation of distress in preschoolers. Thus, it can be concluded that relations between maternal socialization, preschool attachment, and emotion-regulation are meaningful. This research provides a renewed discussion to preschool emotion-regulation development and presents a theoretical basis for future emotion-regulation studies.