Children's Social Withdrawal in Relation to Mothers' Reactions to Children's Negative Emotion and Mothers' Emotional Expressivity

Abstract This study examined the effects of mothers’ reactions toward children’s negative emotion as well as mothers’emotional expressivity on children’s social withdrawal. 206 children (103 boys, 103 girls; aged 4-5 years old) andtheir mothers participated in the study. Mothers reported their reactions to their child’s negative emotion along withtheir expressivity. The teachers completed a rating scale to measure children’s social withdrawal. The collected datawas analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson’s productive correlation coefficient, and hierarchical multipleregressions. The results showed a relation between mothers’ distress reactions and punitive responses and children’ssocial withdrawal. A mother’s positive expressivity was negatively related to a child’s social withdrawal. A hierarchicalregression analysis indicated that the effects of mothers’ punitive responses and minimization responses on children’swithdrawal were moderated by a mother’s positive expressivity. Mothers’ punitive responses and minimizationresponses were positively associated with children’s social withdrawal, especially for children who had the lowest levelof mother’s positive expressivity.± ¯ ,FZXPSET
Ž%x$ w?(social withdrawal), W—Dx² A a ¯`aE=(mothers’reactions to children’s negative emotion), ¯`aD² ´?(mother’s emotionalexpressivity)Corresponding Author :Yeon Hee Kwon, Department of Early Childhood Education, Pukyong National University, 599-1, Daeyeon 3 dong,Naumgu, Busan, 608-737, Korea Tel: +82-51-629-5498 Fax: +82-51-629-5493 E-mail: yeonheekwon@pknu.ac.kr