The relationships between parental emotion expressivity, children`s temperament and children`s coping strategy


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Psikoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2006

Öğrenci: HİLAL EYÜPOĞLU

Danışman: SİBEL KAZAK BERUMENT

Özet:

This study aims to investigate the relations between the dimensions of parental expressivity which are positivity, negative dominant expressivity, negative submissive expressivity, family environment and child’s coping strategies, and the effect of child temperament on this relation .111 preschool children between the ages of 4 and 6 years and their families participated in the study. Family expressivity as assessed with Halberstadt’s Self Expressivennes in the Family Questionnaire. Three subscales of Family Environment Scale which are cohesion, expressivity and conflict were utilized to measure the relation in the family. In order to determine how the child copes with situation specific stress Vignette Assessment of Preschool Children’s Coping Strategies was used. VAPCCS consists of four stressful vignettes that are mastery challenge, peer conflict, parentchild conflict and separation situations. Child’s coping strategies were coded as five coping strategies, problem approach and problem avoidance, passive acceptance, and emotion venting. Child’s temperamental characteristics were assessed with Colorado Child Temperament Inventory. Results revealed that children’s temperamental characteristics did not predict children’s coping strategy by its own. However, child coping strategies varied in the interaction of different child temperament characteristics and dimensions of maternal emotional expressivity. Children’s soothability moderated the relation between maternal negative submissive expressivity and children’s problem approach coping. Moreover, children tended to use less problem avoidance coping strategy in cases where mothers expressed negative submissive emotion more frequently in the family and when children had highly sociable temperamental characteristics. Overall, the results of the study suggested that when fluctuations in the degree of expression of negative emotion in the family are taken into consideration with children’s temperamental characteristics, they influence how the children cope with stress.