Mediating roles of preschooler's emotion regulation in the effects of parental emotion socialization on preschooler's anxiety

WANG Furong; WANG Yuping

doi:10.11852/zgetbjzz2024-1116

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Chinese Journal of Child Health Care ›› 2025, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (4) : 378-382. DOI: 10.11852/zgetbjzz2024-1116

Mediating roles of preschooler's emotion regulation in the effects of parental emotion socialization on preschooler's anxiety

WANG Furong¹, WANG Yuping²

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Abstract

Objective To explore the relationships between parental emotion socialization, children's emotion regulation, and children's anxiety, in order to provide empirical evidence for family-based prevention of anxiety in preschool children. Methods A cluster sampling method was used to select 415 children aged 3 - 6 years from three public kindergartens in Xi'an. The Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES), the Preschool Anxiety Scale (PAS), and the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) were administered for data collection. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted using SPSS 27.0 to examine the relationships among variables. The Bootstrap method and the Process plugin were employed to test the mediating effects. Results 1) Parental supportive responses were significantly positively correlated with children's emotion regulation (r＝0.228, P<0.01) and significantly negatively correlated with children's anxiety levels (r＝-0.166, P<0.01). In contrast, parental non-supportive responses were significantly negatively correlated with children's emotion regulation (r＝-0.349, P<0.01) and significantly positively correlated with children's anxiety levels (r＝0.281, P<0.01). 2) In the mediation analysis, the direct effect of parental supportive responses on children's anxiety was not significant (β＝-0.060, P＝0.230). Children's emotion regulation fully mediated the relationship between parental supportive responses and children's anxiety, with a mediation effect of 0.087, accounting for 62.14% of the total effect. Parental non-supportive responses had a significant direct effect on children's anxiety (β＝0.145, P=0.002), and children's emotion regulation partially mediated the relationship between parental non-supportive responses and children's anxiety, with a mediation effect of 0.102, accounting for 48.57% of the total effect. Conclusions Parental emotional socialization and preschooler's emotional regulation have significant effects on preschooler's anxiety, and preschooler's emotional regulation plays a mediating role in the influence of parental emotional socialization on preschooler's anxiety.

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parent emotion socialization / parental reaction / anxiety / emotion regulation / preschoolers

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WANG Furong, WANG Yuping. Mediating roles of preschooler's emotion regulation in the effects of parental emotion socialization on preschooler's anxiety[J]. Chinese Journal of Child Health Care. 2025, 33(4): 378-382 https://doi.org/10.11852/zgetbjzz2024-1116

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