SYNOPSIS

Objective. The current study examines whether associations between mothers’ and fathers’ emotional expressiveness and children’s observed sharing behavior differ for two young children in the same family and whether children’s baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) moderates relations between emotional expressiveness and sharing. Design. Altogether 69 families, including mothers, fathers, older siblings (M_age = 57.52 months), and younger siblings (M_age = 32.68 months) participated. Multilevel Poisson models were used to account for nesting of children within families and the count outcome of sharing. Results. Mothers who reported expressing more positive emotion had children who shared more, and this effect was moderated by child baseline RSA such that mothers who reported expressing more positive emotions had children who shared more when children had lower levels of baseline RSA. This finding was not significant for children with higher levels of baseline RSA or for fathers. Conclusions. Variations in the family’s emotional climate across individual members may be crucial to foster sharing behavior for children with lower levels of physiological regulation.

概要

目标。目前的研究调查了同一家庭中的两个幼儿的母亲和父亲的情绪表达与儿童观察到的分享行为之间的关联是否不同，以及儿童的基线呼吸性窦性心律失常 (RSA) 是否会调节情绪表达和分享之间的关系。设计。共有 69 个家庭，包括母亲、父亲、哥哥姐姐（ M_年龄 = 57.52 个月）和弟弟妹妹（ M_年龄 = 32.68 个月）参与。多级泊松模型用于说明家庭内儿童的嵌套和共享的计数结果。结果. 报告表达更多积极情绪的母亲的孩子分享更多，并且这种影响受到儿童基线 RSA 的调节，因此报告表达更多积极情绪的母亲的孩子在孩子基线 RSA 水平较低时分享更多。对于基线 RSA 水平较高的儿童或父亲，这一发现并不显着。结论。家庭成员之间情绪氛围的变化可能对于促进生理调节水平较低的儿童的分享行为至关重要。