The Relationship Among Mothers´ Meta-Emotion Philosophy, Mother-Adolescent Emotion Flexibility, and Adolescents´ Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors Author:Yih-Lan Liu, Yi-Chen Tong
Research Article
Adolescence is a developmental phase marked by changes in the mother–adolescent relationship. From early to middle adolescence, the number of mother–adolescent conflicts increases and maternal support and power decrease. Changes in the mother–adolescent relationship are accompanied by changes in the range of emotional states involved in these dyadic interactions (De Goede et al., 2009). From a dynamic system perspective, dyadic variability is regarded as an essential factor in relationship changes that allows for the reorganization of interaction patterns (Fogel, 1993). High levels of dyadic flexibility might facilitate relationship change adaptations in mother–child dyads as well as the provision of opportunities that arise during adolescence (Granic et al., 2003). By contrast, low levels of dyadic flexibility might be associated with problems in the mother– child relationship (Granic et al., 2007). Furthermore, dyadic variability in mother–adolescent interaction has been found to be related to both emotion regulation competence and behavioral adjustment in adolescents (Lougheed & Hollenstein, 2016; Van der Giessen et al., 2013).
According to Gottman et al. (1996), how mothers interact with their children is strongly affected by their emotional socialization philosophy. In that study, the researchers introduced three types of parental metaemotion philosophy: emotion coaching, emotion dismissing, and emotional dysfunction. Yeh (2002) added a fourth type in a study of emotional uninvolvement among Taiwanese parents. Studies have demonstrated that children who grow up with supportive, emotioncoaching parents tend to have better self-regulation skills and fewer externalizing problems (Shortt et al., 2010; Stocker et al., 2007). By contrast, children with emotion-dismissing parents were more likely to have internalizing and externalizing behaviors as well as emotional regulation difficulties (Gottman et al., 1996). Through a dynamic system approach, this study explored the relationships among the flexibility of mother–adolescent emotional interactions, maternal metaemotion philosophy, and adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing problematic behaviors. The first objective was to examine whether mothers’ metaemotion philosophy was related to internalizing and externalizing behaviors in their adolescent children by way of emotional flexibility in mother–adolescent interactions. The second objective was to identify the characteristics of attractors in the system of emotional interaction between mothers and adolescents.
Participants comprised 118 pairs of junior high school students and their mothers from northern and central Taiwan. Data collection proceeded either at a home visit or at the university’s laboratory room. The protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee for Human Subject Protection. Observation and questionnaire completion lasted approximately 120 minutes. Observation was performed on the basis of methods used in the study by Hollenstein and Lewis (2006) on dyadic parent–child interaction patterns in conflict-resolution situations. Before observation, the participants were instructed by a research assistant to resolve the conflict as best as they could within 6 minutes. After a discussion on their resolution, the participants completed a series of questionnaires, namely the parental meta-emotion philosophy scale (Yeh, 2002), child behavior checklist (Achenbach, 1991), and the youth self-report (YSR; Achenbach, 1991). Two trained assistants rated the emotional interactions within the pairs on the basis of the specific affect coding system (Gottman & Krokoff, 1989). State space grid analysis was conducted on the flexibility of emotional interactions between mothers and adolescents. The flexibility was defined by the combination of three flexibility indexes: total number of unique cells, total number of cell transitions, and dispersion. Adolescents’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors were defined by using a combination of the mothers’ reports on the CBCL and the adolescents’ reports on the YSR.
The results of the mediation analysis indicated that emotional flexibility did not mediate the relationships between maternal metaemotion philosophy and internalizing or externalizing behaviors. However, emotion-dismissing parenting predicted externalizing behaviors. To further examine whether internalizing and externalizing behaviors varied with emotional flexibility, the adolescent participants were divided into high flexibility and low flexibility groups (based on one standard deviation above and below the mean, respectively) and subjected to a t test. The adolescents in the high flexibility group exhibited lower levels of externalizing behaviors. To identify the characteristics of the attractors in the emotional interaction system, a winnowing procedure was conducted. Two significant attractors were established: mother negative engagement–adolescent negative disengagement and mother positive engagement–adolescent positive engagement.
The results did not support the mediation hypothesis—that is, maternal metaemotion philosophy did not predict internalizing or externalizing behaviors by way of emotional flexibility. This can be partly explained by the relatively low variances of the flexibility indexes and the internalizing versus externalizing behaviors, which prevented the clarification of intervariable relationships. This might be due to the small size and unrepresentativeness of the sample. The participants, who were volunteers, might share specific characteristics. For example, they had a higher-than-average socioeconomic status; approximately 50% of the mothers had a university or graduate degree. The mothers also tended to participate actively in their children’s lives and are concerned about their children’s academic performance. Thus, coming from such a high socioeconomic family, the adolescents in this study displayed fewer behavioral problems. This may account for the similar interaction patterns observed in this study. Notably, emotional interactions were only observed in conflict-resolution situations; features of discussion topics (positive or negative), which may affect emotional flexibility, were not considered. In general, maternal metaemotion philosophy basically reflects the emotion socialization process, which is rooted in daily interactions. Given that the present observation was only 6 minutes long, we likely captured only part of the picture of emotional interactions between the pairs. In addition, we focused on emotional flexibility within mother–adolescent interactions. Maternal metaemotion philosophy might affect adolescents’ behavioral adjustment through other interaction patterns within this relationship, but these were not addressed in the study.
Mother negative engagement–adolescent negative disengagement and mother positive engagement–adolescent positive engagement were identified as salient attractors in the emotional interaction system, with mother negative engagement– adolescent negative disengagement being stronger. The mothers most frequently exhibited dominant attitudes and interest, and the adolescents most frequently exhibited defensive attitudes and interest. Further examination of the videos revealed that the majority of the mothers and adolescents were interested in their conversations. However, when disagreements occurred, the mothers often asked their children to obey them in either a tough or gentle manner. In general, the adolescents responded by either staying silent or passively protesting by saying “Yes, but……” In Taiwanese society, where filial piety is strongly emphasized, even as adolescents advocate for autonomy and independence, they tend to manage conflicts with their mothers passively or avoidantly instead of aggressively.
In conclusion, we investigated mother–adolescent emotional interactions from a dynamic system perspective. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate relevant topics in Taiwan through this approach. Although our findings did not support the hypothesized mediation model, high dyadic flexibility in mother–adolescent interaction demonstrated a preventive effect on externalizing behaviors. Two implications for parenting are presented as follows: First, parents should be aware of their emotional socialization practices toward their children and understand its possible impacts on their children’s behavioral adjustment. Second, parents should be more flexible but less rigid in emotional expression when interacting with their children.
The Relationship Among Mothers´ Meta-Emotion Philosophy, Mother-Adolescent Emotion Flexibility, and Adolescents´ Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors
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