Despite many positive outcomes associated with emotion coaching, factors related to individual differences in emotion coaching have yet to be explored. The current study examined cultural differences in the role of maternal characteristics, specifically emotional awareness and emotion regulation, as determinants of emotion coaching. These findings will facilitate culturally desired emotion socialization practices leading to optimal emotional development of children. In the current study, I translated two English-based questionnaires into Chinese to assess maternal emotional awareness and emotion coaching. Next, I examined relations of reappraisal, suppression, and emotional awareness to maternal emotion coaching. I also investigated the role of maternal emotional awareness as a mediator in the relation of maternal use of reappraisal and suppression to maternal emotion coaching in both Chinese and American cultures. Participants included American (n=164) and 163 Chinese (n=163) mothers. Maternal emotional awareness was measured using subscales of Toronto Alexithymia Scale 20 and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Emotion regulation strategies were assessed using Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. To measure emotion coaching, mothers completed Parents' Beliefs about Children's Emotions questionnaire. Structural equation models were estimated to examine how maternal emotional awareness and emotion regulation related to emotion coaching. Results confirmed the reliability and validity of the Chinese questionnaires. Maternal emotion coaching did not include mothers' views about negative emotions because equivalence could not be established across Chinese and American cultures; therefore, the emotion coaching discussed in this study is different from previous research on emotion coaching that typically involves responses to negative emotions. Maternal emotional awareness was associated with their emotion coaching in both samples and the strength of the association was not different across cultures. However, relations of reappraisal and suppression to emotional awareness and emotion coaching were different across Chinese and American samples. Emotional awareness mediated the relation of reappraisal to emotion coaching only in the American sample. Additionally, emotional awareness was a mediator of the relation of suppression to emotion coaching in both samples. Overall, the findings of this study supported that maternal emotional awareness and use of emotion regulation strategies are important determinants of maternal emotion coaching in both cultures. / Ph. D.

The relationship between female undergraduate students’ (n = 151) reports of parental emotion coaching in childhood and their reports of emotion regulation, romantic attachment, and romantic intimacy in young adulthood was investigated. The female undergraduate students completed additional questionnaires about their mood, personality characteristics, and relationship satisfaction in young adulthood, and parental warmth in childhood. Remembered supportive emotion coaching (comprised of Emotion-Focused Reactions, Problem-Focused Reactions and Expressive Encouragement) was significantly and positively correlated with healthier emotion regulation (reappraisal), and was significantly and negatively correlated with less healthy emotion regulation (suppression). Remembered unsupportive emotion coaching (comprised of Minimizing Reactions, Punitive Reactions, and Distress Reactions) was significantly and positively correlated with romantic avoidant and anxious attachment. Romantic intimacy was not significantly correlated with remembered supportive or unsupportive emotion coaching. Emotion regulation mediated the relationship between remembered emotion coaching and avoidant and anxious attachment, but not romantic intimacy. Emotion regulation continued to mediate the relationship between remembered emotion coaching and avoidant attachment after mood, personality characteristics, relationship satisfaction, and parental warmth were entered into the model as covariates, but emotion regulation did not continue to mediate the relationship after covariates were entered into the model when anxious attachment was the predicted variable.

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Parents of children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have been shown to experience increases in stress, depression, and anxiety, which are also associated with child behavior problems related to ASD, such as aggressive behaviors and tantrums. Literature examining potential mechanisms that underlie the relationship of child behavior problems and parental anxiety/depression are scarce. The current study seeks to examine the roles of parental stress, parent self-efficacy, and emotion coaching as mediators between child behavior problems and parental anxiety/depression. Using a sample of 134 mothers who completed an online survey, these potential mediators were tested with regression analyses. Parental self-efficacy was found to mediate parental stress and parental depression/anxiety. Parental self-efficacy was also found to moderate child conduct problems and parental emotion coaching. There was a positive relationship between conduct problems and emotion coaching for mothers with high self-efficacy. Implications and future research will be discussed. / Master of Science

Children's self-regulation has been found to be related to optimal developmental outcomes; however, researchers are still investigating how cognitive and emotional regulation work together to explain development of self-regulation. This study investigated how children's private speech interacted with emotion regulation, conceptualized as effortful control, to predict children's emotionality. I also examined how private speech and effortful control may be different strategies of self-regulation that more fully explain the relation of parental emotion coaching philosophy to children's emotionality. Preschool-aged children (n = 156) and their primary caregivers participated in this study. Parental emotion coaching was observationally measured as encouraging of negative emotion when discussing a time when children were upset. Children's non-beneficial private speech was transcribed and coded during a cognitively-taxing task. Children's effortful control (attention shifting, attention focusing, and inhibitory control) and negative emotion (anger and sadness) were measured using parent-report on the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ). It was found that children's parent-reported effortful control significantly mediated the relation between parent's observed emotion coaching philosophy and children's reported negative emotionality. Parents who did more emotion coaching had children reported to have greater effortful control and in turn were reported as less emotionally negative. While parental emotion coaching did not predict children's non-beneficial private speech, children who used less of the non-beneficial private speech were reported as less emotionally negative. Lastly, children's private speech and effortful control interacted to predict children's negative emotion. When children were low in effortful control they were high in negative emotion, regardless of how much non-beneficial private speech they used. However, children with higher levels of effortful control were reported as less negative when non-beneficial private speech was low. This research supports the importance of considering both cognitive and emotional development together, because private speech and emotion regulation interacted to predict children's negative emotionality. In addition, parents who support and encourage negative emotions may aid children's effortful control. This research further supports the importance of children's use of private speech in the classroom because non-beneficial private speech may be an additional cue for teachers and caregivers to know that a child needs assistance. / Ph. D.

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This research was undertaken to analyse and evaluate the nature and quality of the role of parents in terms of the development of emotional intelligence in their adolescents. The results of this study indicate that emotional intelligence does appear to be higher in adolescents who have been exposed to a caregiver whose predominant style of parenting is that of an emotion coach. Parenting style therefore, appears to be related to a nurturant interaction with open communication and empathy. The adolescents who displayed less of the characteristics of emotional intelligence and experienced a low self-concept, perceived their primary caregivers as less empathetic, as communicating their emotions less effectively and as less able to put strategies into place to deal with their emotions. The researcher recognised limitations of the research and made recommendations on ways in which parents and adolescents can create more suitable environments for the development of emotional intelligence. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)

This research was undertaken to analyse and evaluate the nature and quality of the role of parents in terms of the development of emotional intelligence in their adolescents. The results of this study indicate that emotional intelligence does appear to be higher in adolescents who have been exposed to a caregiver whose predominant style of parenting is that of an emotion coach. Parenting style therefore, appears to be related to a nurturant interaction with open communication and empathy. The adolescents who displayed less of the characteristics of emotional intelligence and experienced a low self-concept, perceived their primary caregivers as less empathetic, as communicating their emotions less effectively and as less able to put strategies into place to deal with their emotions. The researcher recognised limitations of the research and made recommendations on ways in which parents and adolescents can create more suitable environments for the development of emotional intelligence. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Guidance and Counselling)