Cultural, Relational, and Individual Moderators in Bidirectional Links Between Chinese Immigrant Mothers’ Emotion Socialization and Their Children’s Emotional Expressions

SYNOPSISObjective. This study examined cultural, relational, and individual factors that may influence emotion socialization processes in Chinese immigrant mother-child dyads. Design. Participants included 80 Chinese immigrant mother-child dyads (Mmotherage = 40.25 years, SD = 3.71; Mchild-age = 6.54 years, SD = 0.98; 55% girls) in the United States. Mothers’ emotion socialization strategies were coded during mother–child interactions after children’s disappointment was experimentally induced. Mothers reported on their acculturation levels, their children’s temperament, and family demographic information. Results. Children’s expressions of sadness, anger, and anxiety were associated with mothers’ greater use of both emotion coaching and emotion dismissing in the next moment, and both strategies contributed to more emotional expression in children in the next moment. In response to children’s expressions of sadness, anger, and anxiety, mothers who had lower levels of behavioral acculturation toward their heritage Chinese culture or perceived their children to be higher in temperamental sadness were more likely to engage in emotion coaching. However, mothers who reported higher levels of psychological acculturation toward their Chinese culture or perceived their children to be lower in temperamental sadness were more likely to use emotion dismissing. More positive mother–child interaction dynamics, marked by greater physical proximity and a warmer interaction climate, led children to respond with less sadness, anger, and anxiety when mothers used emotion coaching but not emotion dismissing socialization. Conclusions. These findings highlight the importance of considering parents’ cultural values, overall family climate, and children’s temperament when attempting to foster parents’ positive emotion socialization practices in immigrant families.