Flexibility and attractors in context: family emotion socialization patterns and children's emotion regulation in late childhood.
Familial emotion socialization practices relate to children's emotion regulation  (ER) skills in late childhood, however, we have more to learn about how the context  and structure of these interactions relates to individual differences in children's ER.  The present study examined flexibility and attractors in family emotion socialization  patterns in three different conversational contexts and their relation to ER in 8-12 year  olds. Flexibility was defined as dispersion across the repertoire of discrete emotion words  and emotion socialization functions (emotion coaching, dismissing, and elaboration)  in family conversation, whereas attractors were defined as the average duration per  visit to each of these three emotion socialization functions using state space grid  analysis. It was hypothesized that higher levels of flexibility in emotion socialization  would buffer children's ER from the presence of maladaptive attractors, or the absence of  adaptive attractors, in family emotion conversation. Flexibility was generally adaptive,  related to children's higher ER across all contexts, and also buffered children from maladaptive  attractors in select situations. Findings suggest that the study of dynamic interaction patterns  in context may reveal adaptive versus maladaptive socialization processes in the family that can  inform basic and applied research on children's regulatory problems.
Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO, USA. erika.lunkenheimer@colostate.edu
Erika S
ES
Lunkenheimer
Tom
T
Hollenstein
Jun
J
Wang
Ann M
AM
Shields
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D012951:Socialization