Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: The main goal of this study was to examine gender differences in patterns of children's emotion regulation from preschool to school age.Participants were 199 three-year-old boys and girls who were reassessed at age 6.At both times, children participated in a disappointment task to assess emotion regulation, and mothers and fathers completed a temperament questionnaire.It was hypothesized that there would be main effects of gender and age on emotion regulation of children but no gender x age interaction.Multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) with repeated measures were used to determine age and gender differences in children's emotion regulation skills, and subsequent analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were used to explore age and gender effects on each emotion.Six-year-old children displayed more task incongruent positive affect but less sadness and anger than 3-year-old children.Parents reported their children as less shy at age 6 than at age 3. Gender differences only appeared upon interaction with age.Certain gender differences (girls displaying more positive affect and boys displaying more anger) were apparent at age 3 but not at age 6, but only in laboratory settings.The main finding was the lack of gender differences in parent reports compared to apparent gender differences in observed behavior.Thus, gender differences in children's early emotion regulation were partly in the eye of the beholder and were most likely to be elicited by mildly stressful events in controlled situations.Future research on this topic must take into account not only the age of the child, but also the specific situational contexts in which emotional behavior is measured.
Author: Samantha Goldstein
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2306006593