1. Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients for the ERPS
The Meta-Emotion Interview, used to evaluate meta-emotion philosophy (i.e., thoughts
and feelings about emotions), has been associated with parental emotion socialization
practices. Based on the interview, long and short form Likert-type measures of emotion-
related parenting styles have been developed. The purpose of the present study was to
evaluate the construct validity of the short-form questionnaire in conjunction with the
original interview. Archival data included 33 mothers with a child between ages 3 to 5
years. When mothers’ scores on the emotion-related parenting style subscales correlated
with dimension scores on the interview, the coefficients were in the expected directions,
suggesting further evidence for the construct validity of short-form measure. Findings
and study implications are discussed.
• Parental meta-emotion philosophy refers to parents’ thoughts and feelings about
emotions pertaining to themselves and their children (Gottman, Katz,& Hooven, 1996).
• Meta-emotion philosophy translates to emotion socialization practices, which involves
teaching children how to understand, express, and cope with emotions (e.g., Katz,
Maliken, & Stettler, 2012; Meyer, Raikes, Virmani, Waters, & Thompson, 2014).
• Parents’ emotion socialization behaviours have been found to predict children’s
emotion regulation and depressive symptoms (Sanders, Zeman, Poon, & Miller, 2015).
• The Meta-Emotion Interview (MEI; Katz & Gottman, 1986) has been described as the
gold-standard measure of meta-emotion philosophy.
• Because the MEI is time intensive, the Emotion-Related Parenting Styles (ERPS;
Gottman & DeClaire, 1997, modified by Paterson, Babb, Camodeca, Goodwin, Hakim-
Larson, Voelker, & Gragg, 2012) questionnaire was developed.
• Purpose: To assess the construct validity of the ERPS in conjunction with the original
MEI. Construct validity would be demonstrated if scores on the ERPS correlate with
scores on the interview in the directions predicted by meta-emotion theory.
Participants
• Archival data included 33 mothers (Mage = 30.97 years, SD = 5.83) of children ages 3
to 5 years (Mage = 3.91 years, SD = .84), including 16 girls and 17 boys.
Measures
• Meta-Emotion Interview (MEI) produces scores on parents’ awareness, acceptance,
coaching, and regulation of their children’s sadness and anger.
• Emotion-Related Parenting Styles (ERPS) is a 20-item, 5-point Likert-type self-
report measure of the following emotion-related parenting styles: emotion coaching,
parental rejection, parental acceptance, and uncertainty/ineffectiveness (Table 1).
• Average scores for each subscale were computed whereby a higher score indicated
greater endorsement of that emotion-related parenting style. To date, the ERPS has
been examined in terms of internal validity and convergent validity (Paterson et al.,
2012).
Procedure
• Mothers completed a long-form measure of emotion-related parenting styles from
which the ERPS items were derived, and were invited to complete the MEI.
• Interviews were transcribed and coded according to the Meta-Emotion Coding System
Coding Training Manual (Katz, Mittman, & Embry, n.d.).
• MEI inter-rater reliability, calculated on 30% of the sample, was adequate (r = .80).
Measuring Mothers’ Emotion-Related Parenting Styles:
Construct Validity and Meta-Emotion Philosophy
Shawna A. Scott, M.A., Mahdieh Najafi, B.A., and Julie Hakim-Larson, Ph.D.
University of Windsor, Canada
Introduction
• Partial correlational analyses (controlling for child age, child sex, and family income) were
conducted between the ERPS and MEI (Table 2).
• Emotion coaching was positively related to children’s regulation of anger, r(26) = .34, p = .037.
• There was a negative association between parental rejection and coaching of children’s anger,
r(26) = -.32, p = .050.
• Parental acceptance on the ERPS was positively related to awareness of children’s anger, r(26) =
.36, p = .032; acceptance of children’s fear, r(26) = .37, p = .029; and children’s ability to regulate
anger, r(26) = .33, p = .042.
• Mothers high in uncertainty/ineffectiveness rated their children as having greater difficulty
regulating anger, r(26) = -.36, p = .028.
Table 2
One-Tailed Partial Correlations between MEI Child Dimensions and ERPS Subscales Controlling for
Child Age, Child Sex, and Family Income
Method
Results
Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
• When mothers’ scores on the ERPS correlated with scores on the MEI, the coefficients were in the
expected directions, suggesting partial support for the construct validity of the ERPS.
• With a well-validated and parent-friendly measure of meta-emotion, researchers can better
examine emotion socialization processes that contribute to emotional development in children.
Discussion
Abstract
American Psychological Association, 123rd Annual Convention
Toronto, ON, August 2015
ERPS Subscales (Average)
Child Dimensions
Emotion
Coaching
Parental
Rejection
Parental
Acceptance
Uncertainty/
Ineffectiveness
Awareness
Sadness
Anger
Combined
.14
.16
.17
.22
-.21
-.01
.14
.36*
.29
.20
-.02
.09
Acceptance
Sadness
Anger
Combined
-.02
.22
.14
-.22
-.19
-.23
.22
.30
.31
-.19
-.16
-.20
Regulation
Sadness
Anger
Combined
.23
.34*
.35*
.27
-.11
.03
-.22
.33*
.11
-.12
-.36*
-.30
Coaching
Sadness
Anger
Combined
.12
-.12
-.05
-.15
-.32*
-.29
.22
.25
.27
-.28
-.05
-.14
Note. “Combined” refers to the summed scores of sadness and anger for that dimension. *p < .05.
Name of ERPS Subscale Subscale Description Number of
Items
Average
Likert-type
score
M (SD) Alpha
Coefficient
Emotion coaching High in emotional awareness, acceptance,
regulation, and coaching of negative emotions
5 4.20 21.02 (2.50) .75
Parental rejection Parental rejection of negative emotions 5 2.23 11.14 (3.36) .78
Parental acceptance Parental acceptance of negative emotions 5 3.66 18.28 (3.80) .81
Uncertainty/ineffectiveness Feelings of uncertainty/ ineffectiveness in
emotion socialization
5 2.20 10.98 (2.68) .67
Note. Mothers’ average Likert-type scores for all subscales were used in later analyses.