Gender differences in parent-child emotion narratives

Early parent-child conversations about past emotional experiences provide a rich environment for the socialization of emotions. This study explored th e role of parent and child gender in this process. Participants were 21 Whi te, middle-class, 40- to 45-month-old children and their mothers and father s. At separate home visits, each parent discussed with their child four spe cific past events during which the child experienced happiness, anger sadne ss, and fear, respectively. Mothers convened more overall, talked more abou t emotional aspects of the experience, and used more emotion words than did fathers. Similarly, girls talked more about emotional aspects of their exp eriences than did bells. Further, girls used more emotion words when discus sing scary events than did boys. Most intriguingly, both mothers and father s used more emotional utterances when discussing sad events with daughters than with soils. Parent-daughter dyads also placed emotional experiences in a more interpersonal context than did parent-son dyads. Implications for t he development of gender, emotional understanding, and clinical repercussio ns are discussed.