Mothers' emotion dynamics and their relations with harsh and lax discipline: Microsocial time series analyses

Michael F. Lorber, Amy M Smith Slep

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Hypotheses were tested about how moment-by-moment variation in mothers' negative emotion predicts harsh and lax discipline. Mother-toddler dyads interacted in a task designed to elicit challenging child behavior. Mothers viewed videotapes of their interactions and continuously rated their experienced emotion. Harsh discipline was associated with mothers' greater negative emotion intensity, greater dependence of mothers' emotion on toddlers' negative affect, and lower serial predictability of mothers' emotion. Laxness was also associated with greater emotion dependence on negative toddler affect and lower serial predictability but not with negative emotion intensity. The dependence of mothers' emotion on toddlers' rule violations was not associated with discipline. Dynamic emotion variables were not redundant with emotion intensity and therefore enhance our understanding of the role of emotion in discipline.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)559-568
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology
Volume34
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2005

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Clinical Psychology

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