Emotion Expression, Emotionality, Depressive Symptoms, and Stress: Maternal Profiles Related to Child Outcomes

This study investigated the relationships between various maternal characteristics and child outcomes in preschool age children. Participants included 128 mother-child pairs. Mothers and children participated in two observational tasks, clean-up and Tickle-Me-Elmo, which were coded for expressions of emotion, and mothers completed self-report surveys. A person-centered latent profile analysis was applied, identifying distinct maternal profiles defined by observed positive emotion expression and reported positive and negative emotionality, depressive symptoms, and parenting stress. Four profiles were identified, labeled Happy, Melancholic, Stressed, and Struggling. These profiles were found to be associated with child outcomes, including observed positive and negative emotion expression and problem behaviors. Specifically, the Melancholic and Struggling profiles tended to be negatively related to child emotion expression, while the Stressed and Struggling profiles tended to be related to greater child problem behaviors. The results highlight meaningful distinctions between concurrent, interacting maternal characteristics that contribute to child emotion socialization, and they suggest significant differentiations in the factors that contribute to child risk.