AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION: THE ADAPTIVENESS OF EXPRESSIVE SUPPRESSION IN PARENTING

Abstract

The influence of Emotion Regulation (ER) cuts across many domains of functioning including parenting. Despite an accumulating number of cross-sectional studies supporting the role of maternal ER in parenting behaviour, investigation into their causal relationship has been lacklustre. The present study employs an experimental paradigm to examine the effects of maternal ER on two parenting behaviours which shape the development of ER in children: overreactive parenting and positive expressivity. Expressive suppression, a generally maladaptive emotion regulation strategy, was chosen to examine its adaptiveness in the parenting context. Sixty mothers with their toddlers ranging from 24 to 48 months old were recruited through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to the expressive suppression condition or control condition. Mother-toddler dyads engaged in three video-recorded interaction tasks for which their behaviours were coded by trained research assistants. Results indicated an overall beneficial use of expressive suppression where mothers displayed less overreactive parenting and increased positive expressivity during tasks that involve limit setting and guidance respectively. Mothers who expressively suppressed their negative emotions also showed a favourable trajectory of subjective positive emotions from pre to post interaction when compared to those under the control condition. Meanwhile, the two conditions did not differ in their subjective negative emotions. Findings from this study affirm the causal relationship between maternal ER and parenting behaviours. These findings also expand knowledge on the contextual efficacy of expressive suppression.