Constructing emotional and relational understanding:

Lehigh University, Bethlehem PA

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Abstract

[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent research has linked both mother-child discourse about emotion and mother's expression of emotion with aspects of a child's socioemotional development (Brown & Dunn, 1996; Laible, in press). Despite this, however, important questions remain unanswered. First, for the most part, longitudinal research is lacking and thus the direction of the relations between emotional discourse, affect, and socioemotional development remains unclear. Second, researchers have tended to examine discourse or affect independently, without examining whether the two interact to produce socioemotional competence. This is unfortunate, because it seems likely that the quality of mother-child affect influences the child's internalization of messages constructed in the context of discourse. Third, researchers have yet to examine whether children are learning to talk openly about emotional experiences from mothers. Finally, factors that predict the quality of mother, child, and dyadic discourse remain, for the most part, unexamined. Therefore, this study plans to examine longitudinally the links between expressed affect, mother-child discourse about emotion, and a child's socioemotional development. In addition, this study also is intended to examine factors that might contribute to the quality of discourse about emotional experiences. At 42-months of age, the quality and affect of mother-child discourse will be examined in two emotion-laden contexts (during a storybook reading and a past events conversation). At the same time, the mother's ability to openly discuss emotion independent of the child will also be assessed using a shortened version of the Parent Development Interview (PDI). Finally, children will also complete measures of socioemotional development and mothers will complete measures of maternal and child temperament and attachment. At 48-months, mothers and children will repeat the dyadic discourse tasks (the storybook reading and past events conversation) and children will again complete measures of socioemotional development. More specifically, this study will address three issues. First, this study will examine how the mother's attachment style and temperament relate to her ability to speak openly about emotion during the PDI. Second, this study will examine factors that relate the quality of dyadic discourse in the dyad, including attachment and temperament. Finally, this study will examine how both affect and discourse during two discourse tasks predict a child's subsequent emotional understanding. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]