Gender and Emotion in Mother-Child Conversations About the Past

AbstractIn this research, mothers were asked to discuss four specific past events during which their 32- to 3 5-month-old children experienced happiness, sadness, anger, and fear. Results suggest that mothers discuss the emotions of sadness and anger quite differently with daughters than with sons. Conversations about sadness were longer and emphasized the causes of sadness more with daughters than with sons, and mothers seemed concerned with comforting daughters about being sad. In contrast, conversations about anger were longer with sons than with daugh-ters, and mothers accepted anger and accepted retaliation as an appropriate response to anger with sons but not with daughters. Daughters are encouraged to resolve anger by reestablishing the damaged relationship. Further, all four emotions were placed in a more social interactional framework with daughters than with sons. This pattern of results is discussed in terms of what young children may be learning about emotional experience and self-concept, as well as how these early differences in emotional socialization may be related to gender differences in adults' emotional processing. (Psychology)