This research studies the relations between maternal meta-emotion philosophy, children's interpersonal problem solving ability and peer competence of early childhood children aged from 4 to 5 and their mothers and teachers. The main research topics ar...
This research studies the relations between maternal meta-emotion philosophy, children's interpersonal problem solving ability and peer competence of early childhood children aged from 4 to 5 and their mothers and teachers. The main research topics are the following- : 1. the tendencies of maternal meta-emotion philosophy, children's Interpersonal problem solving ability and peer competence according to their social demographic backgrounds; and, 2. the correlations between the variables of maternal meta-emotion philosophy, children's Interpersonal problem solving ability and peer competence; and, 3. the effect of maternal meta-emotion philosophy on children's Interpersonal problem solving ability and peer competence, and also the effect of children's Interpersonal problem solving ability on their peer competence.
The participants in this study were 54 children with the age range between 4 and 5 from 24 kindergartens, and their mothers and teachers were physically residing either in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi-do in South Korea. The measurements used in the study are the following: maternal meta-emotion philosophy was measured with, ‘Parental Meta-Emotion Interview(PMEI)’ developed by Katz and Gottman(1986) and ‘Parental Meta-Emotion Coding System’ developed by Katz, Mittman and Hooven(1994) and translated by Nahm(2006), preschooler's interpersonal problem solving ability was measured with, ‘WALLY Social Cognitive Problem Solving Test’ invented by Webster-Strattron and Hammond(1990) and translated by Kwon and Park(2004), and children's peer competence was measured with, ‘Teacher's Ratings of Peer Competence Scale’ developed by Park and Lee(2001). The collected data were analyzed with t-test, Pearson correlations and multiple regressions using PASW Statistics program 18.0.
Results suggested that maternal meta-emotion philosophy exerts a positive effect on children's interpersonal problem solving ability and their peer competence, and children's interpersonal problem solving ability exercises influence on their children's peer competence. The main results were as follows- :
First, children's interpersonal problem solving ability differed depending on the sex and age among demographical variations.
Second, maternal meta-emotion philosophy, children's interpersonal problem solving ability and children's peer competence showed positive correlation patterns. First of all, maternal awareness and acceptance of their own emotion were found to be positively correlated with awareness and acceptance of their children's emotion. And maternal regulation of their own emotion showed positive correlation with acceptance, coaching and regulation of their children's emotion. Secondly, Mothers' awareness demonstrated positive correlations with children's interpersonal problem solving ability. Also significant positive correlations were found between mothers' acceptance, coaching and regulation of their children's emotion and children's interpersonal problem solving ability. Futhermore, maternal awareness of their own emotion and awareness of their children's emotion demonstrated positive correlations with children's leadership in peer relations. Also mothers' acceptance, coaching of their children's emotion positively correlated with children's sociability and leadership in peer relations. Regulation of their children's emotion was significantly associated with all sub-scales of children's peer competence. Lastly, children's interpersonal problem solving ability was positively related to leadership in peer relations.
Third, children's interpersonal problem solving ability was found to be influenced by the maternal child-directed meta-emotion philosophy, not by maternal self-directed meta-emotion philosophy. With a higher level of maternal awareness, coaching and regulation of their children's emotion, children yielded greater level of interpersonal problem solving ability.
Forth, maternal meta-emotion philosophy was found to have a partially meaningful influence on children's peer competence. Especially, with a higher level of mothers' acceptance and coaching, children showed a greater sociability. And also with more regulation of their children's emotion, children were found to have greater prosocial behavior. With a higher level of mothers' awareness, acceptance and coaching of their children's emotion, children showed a greater ability of leadership in peer relations.
Fifth, correlation was found between maternal self-directed meta-emotion philosophy and children's interpersonal problem solving ability as well as maternal self-directed meta-emotion philosophy and their peer competence, but not revealed significant causal relation of these factors.
With the above results, several strengths of the study are also worth noting.
First, the meta-emotion philosophy was an underlying basis to study the mechanism of that maternal meta-emotion philosophy which constrains and directs parenting behavior and leads to child outcomes(Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996; Katz & Stettler, 2012). Second, unlike many other previous researches, various way of the procedures and methods were applied in the study so that each of the variables can be measured with well controlled standards. The mothers were interviewed by the researcher to measure their meta-emotion philosophy and then the children were interviewed by the researcher to measure their interpersonal problem solving ability with the picture cards, and to measure their peer competence, preschooler's assessment questionnaires were completed by their teachers. Third, it was found that maternal child-directed meta-emotion philosophy has a profound influence on the children's outcomes. Lastly, findings from this study and future work in this area may also inform intervention programs focused on maternal meta-emotion philosophy and their emotion socialization would play a significant role in identifying the mechanisms leading to children's