Jason J. Bendezu , Angela M. Burke, Jaclyn Jenkins, Evan Martinez, & Lisa W. Coyne Tufts University, Suffol

1. Maternal Avoidant Emotion Regulation: Impacts on Early Childhood Emotion Regulation Jason J. Bendezu, Angela M. Burke, Jaclyn Jenkins, Evan Martinez, & Lisa W. Coyne Tufts University, Suffolk University 2010 Association for Contextual Behavioral Science World Conference VIII, Reno, NV

2. Young Children’s Emotion Regulation and Related Factors • What is Emotion Regulation (ER)? • ER skill development is a critical milestone for preschool-aged children (Cole, Michel, & Teti, 1994; Fox, 1994). • ER development difficulties place children at risk for internalizing and externalizing problems, psychopathology, and poor social competence through middle childhood (Calkins, Gill, Johnson, & Smith, 1999; Cole, Teti, & Zahn-Waxler; 2003; Eisenberg et al. 2001) .

3. Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Emotion Socialization Practices • Young children of mothers experiencing elevated levels of depressive symptoms are at particular risk for problematic ER development (Kovacs & Devlin, 1998). • Social learning theory and mothers’ intense negative emotional displays (Goodman & Gotlib, 1999; Parke, 1994) • Depressed mothers may engage in punitive and/or minimizing responses towards children expressed negative emotions.

4. Maternal Emotional Avoidance in Low, SES Populations • Experiential Avoidance: attempts to escape or avoid the experience of private events, which can include thoughts, feelings, or sensations (Hayes, Strosahl, Bunting, Twohig, & Wilson, 2004) • Contextual risk factors associated with low SES place mothers at-risk for suppressing their children’s as well as their own emotional experiences (Coyne & Wilson, 2004). • Deconstructing Experiential Avoidance

5. Our Questions • Question 1: What family contextual factors either augment or thwart ER skills in preschool-aged children? • Question 2: How is maternal avoidance of negative internal states related to preschool-aged children’s ER skills?

6. The Current Study • Hypothesis 1: Maternal emotion avoidance and depressive symptoms will have a positive relation with emotional dysregulation in preschool aged children. • Hypothesis 2: Maternal negative emotion socialization practices will better explain the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and child emotional dysregulation. • Hypothesis 3: Maternal emotion avoidance will better explain the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and maternal negative emotion socialization practices.

7. Conceptual Model

8. Conceptual Model

9. Method • Participants and Demographics • 60 Head Start mothers (Mage = 32.58, SD = 7.4) • 78.9% self-identified with a minority ethnicity. • Only 23.3% were married. • 64.4% reported having 1-2 children, 36.6% reported having 3+ children. • 13.4% less than high school education, 45% had a high school diploma or GED, 41.6% had post secondary education • 60 Head Start children (Mage = 4.16 years, SD = .65) • 56.7% male and 43.3% female

10. Participant Ethnicity

11. Method • Parent Study Variables and Measures • Maternal Depressive Symptoms • Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) Depression Subscale Score • Maternal Negative Emotion Socialization • Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes, Eisenberg, & Bernzeig, 1990) Punitive and Minimization Subscale Score • Maternal Emotion Avoidance • Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) Suppression Subscale Score • Behavioral Inhibition System/ Behavioral Approach System (BIS/BAS; Carver & White, 1994) Behavioral Inhibition Subscale Score • Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire (BEQ; Gross & John, 1997) Positive Expressivity and Impulse Strength Subscale Score

12. Method • Child Study Variables and Measures • Child Emotion Dysregulation • Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC; Shields & Cicchetti, 1997) Negativity/Lability Subscale Score • Child Verbal Ability (covariate) • Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Fourth Edition (PPVT-IV; Dunn & Dunn, 2007) Raw Score

13. Results

14. Results • Hypothesis 1: We expect that maternal emotion regulatory strategy and depressive symptoms will have a positive relation with mother rated emotional dysregulation in preschool aged children. • Simple linear regression elucidated a positive marginally significant association between maternal depressive symptoms and child emotion dysregulation controlling for child verbal ability and age ( = .24, p = .056). • Additionally, higher levels of maternal emotion avoidance were associated with greater mother-reported child emotional negativity ( = .37, p < .01).

15. Results • Hypothesis 2: We expect that maternal negative emotion socialization practices will better explain the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and child emotional dysregulation. • A two-tailed Sobel test utilizing unstandardized regression coefficients determined the mediating effect to be significant (z = 2.33, p = .02).

16. Results • Hypothesis 3: We expect that maternal avoidant regulatory strategy will better explain the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and, both, maternal negative emotional expressivity and emotion socialization practices. • As per Baron and Kenney’s (1986) model for mediation, there was insufficient evidence to support our hypotheses regarding the mediating role of maternal emotional avoidance. • Post-hoc exploratory analyses investigated the potential moderating role of mothers’ emotional avoidance on the relation between their depressive symptoms and negative emotion socialization practices.

17. Results • For mothers with low emotional avoidance, no relation between maternal depressive symptoms and negative emotion socialization. • However, for mothers with high emotional avoidance, depressive symptoms were positively associated with negative emotion socialization. • Aiken and West (1991): Low EA (B = -.01, p = .49), High EA (B = .07, p < .01).

18. Summary of Findings • Maternal depressive symptoms and emotional avoidance were positively associated with child emotional dysregulation. • Negative emotion socialization mediated the relation between maternal depressive symptoms and child emotional dysregulation. • Post-hoc analyses revealed maternal emotion avoidance moderated the relation between depressive symptoms and negative emotion socialization.

19. Limitations • Small sample size • Post-hoc analyses • Measurement reliability • Self-report measures • High-risk community sample • Basic correlationaldesign

20. Future Directions • Large sample size • Multiple measurement modalities • Observational measures of mother-child dyadic interactions • Elucidate causal models between the variables of interest through prospective designs.