Examining Maternal Social and Emotional Experiences as Predictors of Preschool-Aged Children's Social-Emotional Competence
Abstract
Few researchers have examined the socialization of social-emotional competence in preschool-aged children; specifically, limited research has been conducted on the ways in which mothers’ social-emotional experiences influence children’s social-emotional development. This study examined the effects of maternal stress, perceived social support, task-focused coping, emotion-focused coping, and avoidance-oriented coping on preschool-aged children’s social-emotional competence, also conceptualized as children’s total problem behaviors. Participants were 100 mothers with neurotypically developing children between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Pearson correlations and a hierarchical regression analysis were conducted. Results indicated that maternal stress contributed unique variance to children’s total problem behaviors. Perceived social support and emotion-focused coping were each significantly associated with children’s total problem behaviors. Task-focused coping and avoidance-oriented coping did not contribute unique variance to children’s total problem behaviors. Implications for future research and for the development of targeted prevention and intervention efforts are discussed.
Subject Area
Psychology|Developmental psychology|Social psychology
Recommended Citation
Levenson, Lisa Winn, "Examining Maternal Social and Emotional Experiences as Predictors of Preschool-Aged Children's Social-Emotional Competence" (2021). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI28417437.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI28417437
