Examining Complex Links Among Shyness, Fear Regulation, and Parental Emotional
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Running head: SHYNESS AND FEAR REGULATION IN CHILDREN’S SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT Examining Complex Links among Shyness, Fear Regulation, and Parental Emotional Socialization in the Prediction of Young Children’s Socio-Emotional Functioning by William Hipson A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology Carleton University Ottawa, Canada © 2017 William Hipson SHYNESS AND FEAR REGULATION IN CHILDREN’S SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT ii Abstract The primary goal of this study was to examine a complex theoretical model linking shyness, fear regulation, parental emotion socialization, and indices of social adjustment in preschoolers. Participants were N = 262 preschool children (ages 2-5 years; M = 3.23, SD = .51). Parents rated children’s shyness and fear regulation strategies in the Fall (Time 1) and early childhood educators assessed indices of children’s social adjustment in the Spring (Time 2). Among the results, shyness was negatively associated with fear regulation and positively associated with socially withdrawn behaviours at preschool. A significant age moderated-mediation effect was also found, whereby fear regulation mediated the negative association between shyness and prosocial behaviour among older preschoolers, but not among younger preschoolers. Overall, the results provide some initial evidence to suggest that fear regulation may play a unique role in older preschoolers’ social adjustment. SHYNESS AND FEAR REGULATION IN CHILDREN’S SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT iii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Robert Coplan, for his enduring guidance and support. Thank you imparting such a wealth of knowledge and for helping me transform my ideas into reality. I would also like to acknowledge the immense contribution of my colleague Dr. Daniel Séguin. Thank you, not only for your input and assistance in this project, but also for instilling in me a passion for research in developmental psychology and for teaching me how to ask deep questions and think “big picture”. I would like to extend my thanks to Dr. Scott Mirabile for letting me use and adapt his measure of emotion regulation, and for offering valuable insights about the results. I am also grateful for my thesis committee (Dr. Xiaobei Chen, Dr. Chris Davis, and Dr. Deepthi Kamawar) for their time and devotion to this work. To the directors, educators, and parents from our participating childcare centres across Ottawa and Halifax: I offer my heartfelt gratitude for taking the time to participate in this research. This would not have been possible without their contributions. Furthermore, I would like to thank Laura Cater, Sam Davin, Laura Dodge, Emily Vanden Hanenburg, Carlotta Heymann, Annastasia Jickling, Maria Redden, Bronwen Schryver, Jamie Thompson, and Shawntel Whitten for their role in collecting and inputting the data. To my parents, I thank you for encouraging me to pursue an education and to reach my fullest potential. Finally, to Erika Hipson, my wife and best friend. Thank you for endlessly supporting me in my studies and for always being there to listen to my thoughts and ideas. Without you, I may never have had the courage to pursue these goals. SHYNESS AND FEAR REGULATION IN CHILDREN’S SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT iv Table of Contents List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. vi List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vii List of Appendices ....................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1 The Development of Emotion Regulation....................................................................................3 Implications for socio-emotional development ...................................................................6 Shyness in Children ......................................................................................................................9 Shyness and Emotion Regulation ...............................................................................................11 Fear Regulation ..........................................................................................................................13 Parental Socialization of Emotions ............................................................................................17 The Current Study ......................................................................................................................19 Method ...........................................................................................................................................24 Participants .................................................................................................................................24 Measures .....................................................................................................................................25 Emotion regulation.............................................................................................................25 Shyness ..............................................................................................................................27 Parental meta-emotion philosophy ....................................................................................27 Child social adjustment ......................................................................................................27 Procedure ....................................................................................................................................28 Results ............................................................................................................................................29 Overview ....................................................................................................................................29 Factor Structure and Psychometric Properties of the ERSQ ......................................................29 Preliminary Analyses .................................................................................................................35 Correlations among Study Variables ..........................................................................................38 Mediation and Moderated-Mediation Analyses .........................................................................40 Anxiety ...............................................................................................................................40 Peer exclusion ....................................................................................................................40 Prosocial behaviour ............................................................................................................41 Asocial behaviour ..............................................................................................................42 SHYNESS AND FEAR REGULATION IN CHILDREN’S SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT v Discussion ......................................................................................................................................48 Measurement of Fear and Anger Regulation in Young Children ..............................................49 Concomitants of Fear Regulation ...............................................................................................52 Shyness and Social Adjustment .................................................................................................56 Shyness, Fear Regulation, and Adjustment: Moderated/Mediated Pathways ............................58 Emotion Coaching and Social Adjustment ................................................................................61 Implications and Future Directions ............................................................................................63 Conclusions ................................................................................................................................68 References ......................................................................................................................................70 Appendix A ....................................................................................................................................94 Appendix B ....................................................................................................................................97 Appendix C ....................................................................................................................................98 Appendix D ....................................................................................................................................99 Appendix E ..................................................................................................................................101 Appendix F...................................................................................................................................102 Appendix G ..................................................................................................................................104 Appendix H ..................................................................................................................................105