Impact of Parental Meta-emotion On Children and Adolescents
There have been many studies examining the impact of different parental meta-emotion philosophies on adolescents. For example, researchers have studied the relation between meta-emotion philosophy and adolescent depression, as well as the impact of parental meta-emotion on adolescent affect and coping skills. Other psychologists have examined the impact of maternal meta-emotion philosophy on children's attachment inclination.
Gottman et al. (1997) highlighted two specific aspects of parental meta-emotion that impact children and family outcomes: 1) emotional awareness, and 2) emotion coaching. Gottman, Katz, & Hooven— among the leading psychologists regarding meta-emotion— firmly believe in the significant impact of parental meta-emotion on many aspects of their children’s lives: "There is evidence that from the beginning of a child’s life, parents’ interaction with the child has implications for the child’s ability to self-regulate, focus attention, share intersubjective meaning, for the essential affectional bonds with parents, and be able to interact with a changing environment" (87).
There has been a growing interest in examining the impact of the various types of parental meta-emotion philosophies on children’s emotional states and depressive symptoms. For example, Hunter et al. (2011) examined the associations between the meta-emotion philosophies of fathers, mothers, and adolescents. They found that when parents held an emotion-coaching philosophy, the adolescents tended to have fewer behavioral and emotional issues. They concluded that: "The quality of the meta-emotion philosophy developed by adolescents may have implications for their mental health. In particular, evidence suggests that beliefs about emotion are relevant to depressive disorders, with negative beliefs associated with an increased risk for adolescent depression." Similarly, Katz & Hunter (2007) examined the effects of maternal meta-emotion on adolescent depressive symptoms. The authors found that adolescents with high levels of depressive symptoms tended to have mothers who were less accepting of their own emotions. Mothers who were more accepting of their own emotions tended to have adolescents with higher self-esteem, fewer externalizing problems, and fewer depressive symptoms. In conclusion, this study demonstrated a strong correlation between maternal meta-emotion philosophy and adolescent depression. Thus, these authors suggest that meta-emotion philosophy is related to adolescent depression and affect.
Another study found that mothers with a meta-emotion philosophy that is higher in both awareness and acceptance were correlated with fewer negative social behaviors during mother-child interactions. This suggests that maternal meta-emotion philosophy also influences the interactions between the mother and her adolescent. It would be interesting to examine whether or not this holds true for fathers and their adolescents as well.
Aside from examining the impact of parental meta-emotion on children’s affect and depressive symptomatology, some psychologists have researched the influence of meta-emotion on the development of children’s coping strategies. Lagacé-Séguin & Gionet (2009) were interested in studying the nature versus nurture debate regarding children’s development of coping strategies. To do so, they examined the impact of both temperament (nature) and parental meta-emotion philosophy (nurture) on the development of coping skills in early adolescents. The authors found many interactions between parental meta-emotion and the adolescent’s temperament. For example, they found that emotion-coaching parenting was related to distraction coping strategies for children with lower negative affect and higher surgency. The authors concluded that parental meta-emotion philosophy styles can interact with a child’s temperament and predict the adolescents’ coping styles.
Read more about this topic: Meta-emotion, Research By Gottman
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