Parental Socialization of Emotion and Academic Motivation in U.S. College Students: The Role of Emotion Regulation

Learning is increasingly understood to be an emotional experience, and research is needed to better understand how students develop emotion regulation abilities to support academic motivation. The current study addresses these questions by applying theory of parent influence on the development of emotion regulation to the context of academic motivation in college students. A sample of 377 U.S. college students (80.3% female) completed surveys of mother and father emotion socialization (supportive and nonsuppurative reactions to child negative emotions), emotion regulation and academic motivation. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test relations among these variables. Results indicated that mother and father supportive reactions were associated with significantly lower difficulties in emotion regulation among college students, which in turn was related to higher academic motivation In addition, mother supportive reactions were directly associated with higher intrinsic motivation, and father supportive reactions were directly associated with higher intrinsic motivation and lower amotivation. Findings offer initial evidence that parent emotion socialization may promote academic success over the long term by enhancing student emotion regulation and fostering academic motivation.