This research investigates the relationships between maternal meta-emotion philosophy, children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness, and severity of depression, targeting at preadolescent children of 5thto6thgraders in elementary school and th...
This research investigates the relationships between maternal meta-emotion philosophy, children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness, and severity of depression, targeting at preadolescent children of 5thto6thgraders in elementary school and their mothers.
To fulfill the objectives, this study examines the correlations among variables of the maternal meta-emotion philosophy, the children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness, and the children’s severity of depression.
In addition, this study is aimed to inquire into what effect the maternal meta-emotion philosophy has on children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness and severity of depression, and also what effect the children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness has on their severity of depression.
To examine above hypothesis, this study conducted correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis of the collected data from questionnaires and semi-structured interview about emotion using PASW Statistics program 18.0.
Forty-five preadolescent children of 5thto6thgraders in elementary school and their mothers were recruited from eight elementary schools located in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, Daegu and Gyeongsangbuk-do in Korea. The measurements used in the study were the following : to measure maternal meta-emotion philosophy, ‘Parental Meta-Emotion Interview(PMEI)’ developed by Katz and Gottman(1986) and ‘Parental Meta-Emotion Coding System’ proposed by Katz, Mittman and Hooven (1994), to measure children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness, ‘Ambivalence over Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire(AEQ)’ developed by King and Emmons(1990), and t measure children’s severity of depression, ‘Reynolds Child Depression Scale(RCDS)’ suggested by Reynolds and Richmond(1985).
The study results are summarized as follows:
First, maternal meta-emotion philosophy, children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness, and children’s severity of depression show correlations with one another. First of all, maternal awareness of their own emotion is positively correlated with acceptance of their own emotion as well as with awareness and coaching of their children’s emotion. Secondly, mothers’ self-acceptance is positively correlated with their emotional regulation and their awareness of their children’s emotion. And also there are significant positive correlations between mothers’ self-regulation and their emotional acceptance of their children as well as between mothers’ self-regulation and their emotional regulation, and their children’s emotional regulation of their children. Thirdly mothers’ awareness of their children’s emotion demonstrates positive correlations with children’s emotional coaching. Also mothers’ acceptance of their children’s emotion demonstrates positive correlations with children’s emotional regulation. Fourthly Mothers’ self-acceptance is negatively correlated with children’s positive ambivalence over emotion expressiveness and severity of depression. Lastly, children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness is positively related to their severity of depression.
Second, children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness is influenced by the maternal self-directed meta-emotion philosophy, not by child-directed meta-emotion philosophy. Higher level of mother’s self acceptance refers to children’s positive ambivalence over emotion expressiveness.
Third, Mother’s meta-emotion philosophy has a partially meaningful influence on their children’s severity of depression. Especially, higher level of mother’s emotional acceptance correlates with lower level children’s severity of depression.
Forth, Children’s severity of depression is influenced by their ambivalence over emotion expressiveness.
In conclusion, preadolescent children’s ambivalence over emotion expressiveness and severity of depression are affected by their mothers’ meta-emotion philosophy. These results suggest the necessity of a parental education program for meta-emotion philosophy. Furthermore, the result can be used as an important basic maternal in developing such parental education programs for them.