This study evaluated the construct validity of the Emotion-Related Parenting Styles Self-Test–Likert (ERPSST-L) by examining its relationships with the Meta-Emotion Interview (MEI). 33 mothers completed the ERPSST-L and MEI about their 3-5 year old children. The MEI measures parental awareness, acceptance, coaching, and regulation of children's emotions, while the ERPSST-L measures four emotion-related parenting styles: emotion coaching, laissez-faire, dismissing, and disapproving. Correlations between the MEI and ERPSST-L, controlling for child and family factors, provided partial support for the validity of the ERPSST

1. • Parental meta-emotion philosophy (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996)
encompasses parents’ thoughts and feelings about emotions
pertaining to themselves and their children
• This construct has been found to translate into emotion socialization
practices, involving the process of teaching children how to express,
cope with, and respond to emotions (e.g., Katz, Maliken, & Stettler,
2012)
• The Meta-Emotion Interview (Katz & Gottman, 1986) has been the
“gold standard” measure of parental meta-emotion philosophy
• There is a need for a time-efficient measure of this construct
• The purpose of the present study was to test the construct validity of
the Emotion-Related Parenting Styles Self-Test–Likert in conjunction
with the original Meta-Emotion Interview
Participants
• Archival data included 33 mothers (Mage = 30.97 years, SD = 5.83)
from a nonclinical sample with at least one child from ages 3 to 5
(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 Self-Test–Likert (ERPSST-L;
Gottman & DeClaire, 1997, modified by Hakim-Larson, Parker, Lee,
Goodwin, & Voelker, 2006) is an 81-item, 5-point Likert-type self-
report questionnaire. It produces scores on four emotion-related
parenting styles originally identified by Gottman et al. (1996):
• Emotion coaching: Parent scores high in emotional awareness,
acceptance, regulation and coaching
• Laissez-faire: Parent scores high in emotional awareness and
acceptance but low in emotional regulation and coaching
• Dismissing: Parent holds belief that negative emotions are harmful
and scores low in emotional awareness, acceptance, coaching, and
regulation
• Disapproving: Parent uses criticism and punishment in response
to child expression of negative emotions and scores low in
emotional awareness, acceptance, coaching, and regulation
Procedure
• Mothers completed the ERPSST-L (Table 1) and the MEI
• Interviews were transcribed and coded based on the Meta-Emotion
Coding System Coding Training Manual (Katz, Mittman, & Embry, n.d.)
• Inter-rater reliability, calculated on 30.30% of the sample, was
found to be acceptable (average r = .80)
Evaluating the Construct Validity of the Emotion-Related Parenting Styles Self-Test
Shawna A. Scott, M.A., Julie Hakim-Larson, Ph.D., Melissa A. Wuerch, B.A., Sylvia Voelker, Ph.D., and Kimberley Babb, Ph.D.
University of Windsor, Canada
Introduction
• Partial correlational analyses, controlling for child age, child sex, and family income, were
conducted between the MEI and the ERPSST-L (Table 2)
• When correlation coefficients were statistically significant, they also were in the direction
expected, based on meta-emotion theory. For example:
• Mothers who scored high on the ERPSST-L dismissing subscale tended to be less
accepting of their children’s sadness and anger
• Mothers who scored high on the ERPSST-L emotion coaching subscale tended to report
that their children were better able to regulate anger
Method
Results
Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
SRCD 2013 Poster Abstract
Table 2
One-Tailed Partial Correlations between Meta-Emotion Interview Child Dimensions and
Emotion-Related Parenting Styles Self-Test – Likert (ERPSST-L) Subscales Controlling for
Child Age, Child Sex, and Family Income
ERPSST-L Subscales (Average)
Child
Dimensions
Emotion
coaching
Laissez-faire Dismissing Disapproving
Awareness
Sadness
Anger
Combined
.19
.26
.26
.05
-.01
.02
.04
-.20
-.10
.05
-.15
-.06
Acceptance
Sadness
Anger
Combined
.02
.16
.12
-.15
-.03
-.09
-.40*
-.53**
-.55***
-.22
-.46**
-.42*
Regulation
Sadness
Anger
Combined
.01
.35*
.23
-.18
.07
-.04
-.04
-.37*
-.27
.15
-.37*
-.17
Coaching
Sadness
Anger
Combined
.20
-.03
.05
-.01
-.10
-.08
-.37*
-.45**
-.47**
-.26
-.20
-.25
Note. “Combined” refers to the summed scores of sadness and anger for that dimension.
* p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.
• Results provided partial support for the construct validity of the ERPSST-L
• With a time-efficient measure of meta-emotion, researchers can better explore emotion
socialization processes that contribute to emotional development in children
Discussion
Table 2
One-Tailed Partial Correlations between MEI Child Dimensions and ERPSST-L Subscales Controlling
for Child Age, Child Sex, and Family Income
Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients for the ERPSST-L
Name of ERPSST-
L Subscale
Number
of Items
Average Likert-
type score
Subscale Mean
(SD)
Alpha
Coefficient
Emotion coaching
Laissez-faire
Dismissing
Disapproving
23
10
25
23
3.83
3.36
2.55
2.10
88.08 (10.91)
33.64 (3.81)
63.65 (9.26)
48.34 (12.02)
.89
.59
.79
.90
Note. Mothers’ average Likert-type scores for all subscales were used in later analyses.