Pathways to Sibling Jealousy: The Influence of Parents' Self-Reported Beliefs and Reactions and Children's Implicit Theories
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2006-07-22
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The goal of the current study was to examine how parents' reported beliefs about children's emotions and parents' reactions to children's expression of negative emotions relate to children's implicit theories about relationships and sibling jealousy experience. Participants were 102 sixth-grade children from two local middle schools and one of their parents (n = 82). Children were interviewed about their implicit theories about relationships, the causes of and frequency, duration, and intensity of their jealousy toward a sibling, and their coping strategies in response to a recalled sibling jealousy event. Parents completed questionnaires regarding their beliefs about children's emotions, their reactions to their own children's negative emotion expression, and their demographics. Parents' beliefs that negative emotions are good and parents' problem-focused and encouraging expression reactions were positively related to children's implicit theories about parents, and to the duration and intensity of sibling jealousy. Parents' encouraging reactions were negatively related to children's passive/avoidant coping with jealousy. Also, children's implicit theories about parents were positively related to children's duration and intensity of jealousy, behavioral action coping, and negatively related to children's passive/avoidant coping. Findings suggest that parent socialization is important in the development of children's implicit theories, as well as children's jealousy experiences and coping strategies.
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PhD
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Psychology
