Socialization of Children’s Vicarious Emotional Responding and Prosocial Behavior: Relations With Mothers' Perceptions of Children's Emotional Reactivity

We examined mother-child emotion-related interactions and how these interactions related to mothers’ perceptions of children’s emotional reactivity. Mothers of 49 kindergartners and 54 2nd graders told their children 2 stories about distressed others. Children’s emotional, physiological, and prosocial responses were also obtained. Mothers rated children’s tendencies to become emotional when exposed to distressed others. For kindergartners, mothers’ perceptions of children’s emotional reactivity were positively related to her use of positive facial expressions. Mothers’ perceptions of 2nd graders’ emotional reactivity were inversely related to maternal responsiveness. For both age groups, children’s skin conductance was inversely related to helpfulness. These fi ndings suggest that mothers may “adjust” their interactions with their children based on their perceptions of children’s emotional tendencies. Richard A. Fabes and Mariss Karbon, Department of Family Resources and Human Development, Arizona State University; Nancy Eisenberg, Jane Bernzweig, Anna Lee Speer, and Gustavo Carlo, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University. This research was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BNS-8807784) to Richard A. Fabes and Nancy Eisenberg and by a Research Scientist Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (K02 MN00903) to Nancy Eisenberg. We wish to express our appreciation to the administrators, teachers, students, and parents at Laird, Rover, Evans, and Hudson Elementary Schools for their assistance and participation. We also wish to thank Neil Bechtel, Joseph Campos, and Ernest Lindholm for their advice regarding technical matters, and Debra Troyer, Galen Switzer, Beth Haley, Richard Klein, Qhyrrae Michelieu, Tiffany Beggs, Joe Wright, Lorena Polazzi, and Sandy Burke for their assistance in data collection and coding.