Abstract
Parents are key protective systems in the lives of children experiencing homelessness. Evidence suggests that parent emotional reactivity, expression, and regulation play a critical role in promoting adaptive parenting behaviors. Studies of emotional reactivity in parents utilize different methods, including selfreport, observations, and physiological measures. However, these methods are rarely evaluated together, particularly among disadvantaged families. The present study examined how subjective (i.e., self-report), observed, and physiological measures of parent emotional reactivity relate to each other and to observed parenting behaviors in problem-solving and teaching parent–child interaction tasks. Participants included fifty 4 to 7-year-old children and their caregivers staying in an emergency homeless shelter. Observed and subjective emotional reactivity were largely uncorrelated, except for positive emotions during problemsolving tasks. Adaptive parenting behavior was related to lower scores on measures of subjective and observed negative emotions and higher observed scores for positive emotions during problem-solving tasks, as well as higher observed scores of positive emotions during teaching tasks. Physiological reactivity was not related to parenting behaviors.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 636-641 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Journal of Family Psychology |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 9 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank the children and families who participated in the research as well as Daniel Berry for his contribution to data collection and cleaning. This research was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Health (T32 MH015755 to Alyssa R. Palmer), the University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Fellowship (Alyssa R. Palmer), the Irving B. Harris Professorship in Child Development (Ann S. Masten), and the Institute of Child Development Graduate Student Small Grants Program. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. None of the authors have any conflicts of interest to declare. Data and analytical code can be made available upon request. A preprint of this article was posted on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/3x29w) and these data were presented as a conference poster at the Society for Research in Child Development 2021 Biennial Meeting. This study was not preregistered.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Psychological Association
Keywords
- Emotion
- Homelessness
- Parenting
- Rsa