Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:48:55.453Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Emotion-related abilities and depressive symptoms in Latina mothers and their children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2004

WILLIAM F. ARSENIO ,
MARIA SESIN  and
LAWRENCE SIEGEL
WILLIAM F. ARSENIO
Affiliation:
Ferkhauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University
MARIA SESIN
Affiliation:
Ferkhauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University
LAWRENCE SIEGEL
Affiliation:
Ferkhauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study examined the abilities of 40 Latina mothers and their 6- to 11-year-old children (20 girls, 20 boys) to recognize and produce emotion expressions and how these abilities differed as a function of maternal depressive symptoms. The results indicated that depressively symptomatic mothers were less accurate at recognizing basic emotions (e.g., happy, sad, etc.) and some mixed emotions (e.g., scared/ok combinations) than nonsymptomatic mothers, but there were no group differences for emotion production. In contrast, children of symptomatic mothers posed fewer recognizable sad expressions than their peers. Error pattern analyses also revealed that children of symptomatic mothers were more likely to mistakenly recognize happiness and to avoid posing sadness (across all basic emotions). Children's ability to pose emotions was related to their mothers' emotion production, and this was not moderated by maternal depressive symptoms. The discussion focuses on the possible interpersonal consequences of these biases and deficits in the emotion-related abilities of symptomatic mothers and their children and on the need to conduct research on the familial and cultural processes that might underlie these findings.Portions of this article are based on a dissertation by Maria Sesin submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the doctoral degree at Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University. We would like to thank the mothers and children who made this research possible, as well as Marjorie Melendez and Craig Indellicati for their help in preparing the emotion recognition stimuli.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 2004 , pp. 95 - 112
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alva, S., & Reyes, R. (1999). Psychosocial stress, internalized symptoms, and academic achievement of Hispanic adolescents. Journal of Adolescent Research 14, 343–358.Google Scholar
Arsenio, W. (1988). Children's conceptions of the situational affective consequences of sociomoral events. Child Development 59, 1611–1622.Google Scholar
Arsenio, W., Cooperman, S., & Lover, A. (2000). Affective predictors of preschoolers' aggression and peer acceptance: Direct and indirect effects. Developmental Psychology 36, 438–448.Google Scholar
Arsenio, W., & Maloney, A. (2003, April). Emotion-related abilities and adjustment in Latino elementary school children. Poster session presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Tampa, FL.
Baron, R., & Kenny, D. (1986). The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 51, 1173–1182.Google Scholar
Beck, A. (1996). Beck Depression Inventory. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt.
Blazer, D., Kessler, R., McGonagle, K., & Swartz, M. (1994). The prevalence and distribution of major depression in a national community sample: The National Comorbidity Study. American Journal of Psychiatry 151, 979–986.Google Scholar
Bradley, S. (2000). Affect regulation and the development of psychopathology. New York: Guilford Press.
Brody, L., & Hall, J. (2000). Gender, emotion, and expression. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland–Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotion (2nd ed., pp. 338–349). New York: Guilford Press.
Camras, L., Grow, C., & Ribordy, S. (1983). Recognition of emotional expressions by abused children. Journal of Clinical and Child Psychology 12, 325–328.Google Scholar
Camras, L., Ribordy, S., Hill, J., Martino, S., Sachs, V., Spaccarelli, S., & Stefani, R. (1990). Maternal facial behavior and the recognition and production of emotional expression by maltreated and nonmaltreated children. Developmental Psychology 6, 304–312.Google Scholar
Camras, L., Ribordy, S., Hill, J., Martino, S., Spaccarelli, S., & Stefani, R. (1988). Recognition and posing of emotional expressions by abused children and their mothers. Developmental Psychology 24, 776–781.Google Scholar
Camras, L., Sachs–Alter, E., & Ribordy, S. (1996). Emotion understanding in maltreated children: Recognition of facial expressions and integration with other emotion cues. In M. Lewis & M. W. Sullivan (Eds.), Emotional development in atypical children (pp. 203–225). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Canals, J., Blade, J., Carbajo, G., & Domenech–Llaberia, E. (2001). The Beck Depression Inventory: Psychometric characteristics and usefulness in nonclinical adolescents. European Journal of Psychological Assessment 17, 63–68.Google Scholar
Cohn, J., Campbell, S., Matias, R., & Hopkins, J. (1990). Face-to-face interactions of postpartum depressed and nondepressed mother infant pairs at 2 months. Developmental Psychology 26, 15–23.Google Scholar
Custrini, R., & Feldman, R. (1989). Children's social competence and nonverbal encoding and decoding of emotions. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology 18, 336–342.Google Scholar
Cummings, M., & Davies, P. (1994). Maternal depression and child development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 35, 73–112.Google Scholar
Daza, P., Novy, D., Stanley, M., & Averill, P. (2002). The Depression Anxiety Scale—21: Spanish translation and validation with a Hispanic sample. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment 24, 195–205.Google Scholar
Denham, S. (1993). Maternal emotional expressiveness and toddlers' social–emotional functioning. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology 34, 725–728.Google Scholar
Denham, S. (1998). Emotional development in young children. New York: Guilford Press.
Denham, S., McKinley, M., Couchoud, E., & Holt, R. (1990). Emotional and behavioral predictors of preschool peer ratings. Child Development 61, 1145–1152.Google Scholar
Denham, S., Zoller, D., & Couchoud, E. (1994). Socialization of preschoolers' understanding of emotion. Developmental Psychology 30, 928–936.Google Scholar
Dix, T. (1991). The affective organization of parenting. Psychological Bulletin 110, 3–25.Google Scholar
Downey, G., & Coyne, J. (1990). Children of depressed parents: An integrative review. Psychological Bulletin 108, 5–76.Google Scholar
Dunn, J., Brown, J., & Maguire, M. (1995). The development of moral sensibility: Individual differences and emotion understanding. Developmental Psychology 31, 649–659.Google Scholar
Ekman, P., Roper, G., & Hager, R. (1980). Deliberate facial movement. Child Development 51, 886–891.Google Scholar
Field, T., Healy, B., Goldstein, S., & Guthertz, M. (1990). Behavior-state matching and synchrony in mother–infant interactions of nondepressed versus depressed dyads. Developmental Psychology 26, 7–14.Google Scholar
Fine, S., Izard, C., Schultz, D., & Ackerman, B. (2000). Emotion knowledge as a predictor of children's self-reports of internalizing. Unpublished manuscript.
Friesen, W., & Ekman, P. (1984). EMFACS: Emotion facial coding system. Available from W. Friesen, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco.
Garber, J., & Flynn, C. (2001). Vulnerability to depression in childhood and adolescence. In R. Ingram & J. Price (Eds.), Vulnerability to psychopathology: Risky across the life span (pp. 175–225). New York: Guilford Press.
Garcia Coll, C., Akerman, A., & Cicchetti, D. (2000). Cultural influences on developmental processes and outcomes: Implications for the study of development and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology 12, 333–356.Google Scholar
Garcia Coll, C., & Garrido, M. (2000). Minorities in the United States: Sociocultural context for mental health and developmental psychopathology. In A. Sameroff, M. Lewis, & S. Miller (Eds.), Developmental Psychopathology (2nd ed., pp. 177–195).
Garcia Coll, C., Meyer, E., & Brillon, L (1995). Ethnic and minority parenting. In M. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 2. Biology and ecology of parenting (pp. 189–289). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Garner, P., Jones, D., & Miner, J. (1994). Social competence among low-income preschoolers: Emotion socialization practices and social cognitive correlates. Child Development 65, 622–637.Google Scholar
Garner, P., & Spears, F. (2000). Emotion regulation in low-income preschoolers. Social Development 9, 246–264.Google Scholar
Goodman, S., & Gotlib, I. (1999). Risk for psychopathology in the children of depressed mothers: A developmental model for understanding mechanisms of transmission. Psychological Review 106, 458–490.Google Scholar
Gotlib, I., & Beach, S. (1995). A marital/family discord model of depression: Implications for therapeutic intervention. In N. Jacobson & A. Gurman (Eds.), Clinical handbook of couple therapy (pp. 411–436). New York: Guilford Press.
Gotlib, I., & Whiffen, V. (1991). The interpersonal context of depression. In W. Jones & D. Perlman (Eds.), Advances in personal relationships (Vol. 3, pp. 177–206). London: Kingsley.
Gottman, J., & Krokoff, L. (1989). Marital interaction and satisfaction: A longitudinal view. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 57, 47–55.Google Scholar
Gross, A., & Bailif, B. (1991). Children's understanding of emotions from facial expressions and situations. Developmental Review 11, 368–398.Google Scholar
Gross, J., & Levenson, R. (1993). Emotional suppression: Physiology, self-report, and expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 64, 970–986.Google Scholar
Gur, R. C., Erwin, R., Gur, R. E., Zwil, A., Heimberg, C., & Kramer, H. (1992). Facial emotion discrimination: II. Behavioral findings in depression. Psychiatry Research 42, 241–251.Google Scholar
Halberstadt, A. (1991). Socialization of expressiveness: Family influences in particular and a model in general. In R. Feldman & S. Rime (Eds.), Fundamentals of emotional expressiveness (pp. 106–162). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Halberstadt, A., Denham, S., & Dunsmore, J. (2001). Affective social competence. Social Development 10, 79–119.Google Scholar
Hammen, C. (2001). Vulnerability to depression in adulthood. In R. Ingram & J. Price (Eds.), Vulnerability to psychopathology: Risk across the life span (pp. 226–257). New York: Guilford Press.
Harris, P. (1989). Children and emotion: The development of psychological understanding. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hay, D., Vespo, J., & Zahn–Waxler, C. (1998). Young children's quarrels with their siblings: Links with maternal depressions and bipolar illness. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 16, 519–538.Google Scholar
Hubbard, J. (2001). Emotion expression processes in children's peer interactions: The role of peer rejection, aggression, and gender. Child Development 72, 1426–1438.Google Scholar
Izard, C., Fine, S., Schultz, D., Mostow, A., Ackerman, B., & Youngstrom, E. (2001). Emotion knowledge as a predictor of social behavior and academic competence in children at risk. Psychological Science 12, 18–23.Google Scholar
Jones, S., Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R., & MacKinnon, D. (2002). Parents' reactions to elementary school children's negative emotions: Relations to social and emotional functioning at school. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly 48, 133–159.Google Scholar
Kovacs, M. (1985). The Children's Depression Inventory (CDI). Psychopharmacology Bulletin 21, 995–998.Google Scholar
Lemerise, E., & Arsenio, W. (2000). An integrated model of emotion processes and cognition in social information processing. Child Development 71, 107–118.Google Scholar
Mendez, J., Fantuzzo, J., & Cicchetti, D. (2002). Profiles of social competence among low-income African American preschool children. Child Development 73, 1085–1100.Google Scholar
Mostow, A., Izard, C., Fine, S., & Trentacosta, C. (2002). Modeling emotional, cognitive, and behavioral predictors of peer acceptance. Child Development 73, 1775–1787.Google Scholar
Persad, S., & Polivy, J. (1993). Differences between depressed and non-depressed individuals in the recognition of and response to facial emotional cues. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 102, 358–368.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, L., & Masters, J. (1983). Children's use of expressive and contextual cues in judgments of emotion. Child Development 53, 993–1004.Google Scholar
Saarni, C. (1999). The development of emotional competence. New York: Guilford Press.
Schmitt, E. (2001, April 1). U.S. now more diverse, ethnically and racially. The New York Times, p. A 18.Google Scholar
Schultz, D., Izard, C., Ackerman, B., & Youngstrom, E. (2001). Emotion knowledge in disadvantaged children: Self-regulatory antecedents and relations to social difficulties and withdrawal. Development and Psychopathology 13, 53–67.Google Scholar
Seccombe, K. (2000). Families in poverty in the 1990s: Trends, causes, consequences, and lessons learned. Journal of Marriage and the Family 62, 1094–1113.Google Scholar
Twenge, J., & Nolen–Hoeksema, S. (2002). Age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, and birth cohort differences on the Children's Depression Inventory: A meta-analysis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 111, 578–588.Google Scholar
Walden, T., & Field, T. (1990). Preschool children's social competence and production and discrimination of affective expressions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology 8, 65–76.Google Scholar
William, J., Matthews, A., & MacLeod, C. (1996). The emotional Stroop task and psychopathology. Psychological Bulletin 120, 3–24.Google Scholar
Zahn–Waxler, C., Iannotti, R., Cummings, M., & Denham, S. (1990). Antecedents of problem behaviors in children of depressed mothers. Development and Psychopathology 2, 271–291.Google Scholar
Zahn–Waxler, C., Klimes–Dougan, B., & Slattery, M. (2000). Internalizing problems of childhood and adolescence: Prospects, pitfalls, and progress in understanding the development of anxiety and depression. Development and Psychopathology 12, 443–467.Google Scholar
Zahn–Waxler, C., Kochanska, G., Krupnick, J., & McKnew, D. (1990). Patterns of guilt in children of depressed and well mothers. Developmental Psychology 26, 51–59.Google Scholar