Quantity and Valence of Early Parent Emotion Talk: Influences on Child Emotion Language Use and Adolescent Emotional Intelligence

Early parent-child emotion talk is one way children learn about emotions. In the present study, I explored whether individual differences in the quantity and valence of early parent emotion talk influenced children's use of emotion language. I also examined the relationship between individual differences in the quantity and valence of early parent emotion talk and children's later performance on a test of emotional intelligence. In addition to these two primary research questions, I inquired whether a child's gender affects the quantity and content of a caregiver's use of emotion talk. Natural language data from 31 children and their primary caregiver(s) was recorded at home in unstructured observations when the children were 14, 34, and 58 months old. Recordings were transcribed and coded for positive and negative valence emotion talk. Findings indicated that parents' and children's use of emotion talk positively correlated during the 34-month visit. When terms were averaged across the three visits to test for the effects of emotion valence, parents' use of positive emotion talk positively correlated with children's use of positive emotion talk and parents' use of negative emotion talk positively correlated with children's use of negative emotion talk. It was also found that parents' use of positive emotion talk positively correlated with children's scores on a test of emotional intelligence administered in the ninth grade. No gender differences in the frequency or valence of emotion talk between parents of daughters and parents of sons were found.