Edited by: Amanda Williams, Dalhousie University, Canada
Reviewed by: Susanne Kristen, LMU Munich, Germany; Sophia Francis Ongley, University of Toronto, Canada
*Correspondence: Jesse Drummond, Early Social Development Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Sennott Square, 3rd floor, 210 S. Bouquet St., Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA e-mail:
This article was submitted to Developmental Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
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A growing body of literature suggests that parents socialize early-emerging prosocial behavior across varied contexts and in subtle yet powerful ways. We focus on discourse about emotions and mental states as one potential socialization mechanism given its conceptual relevance to prosocial behavior and its known positive relations with emotion understanding and social-cognitive development, as well as parents' frequent use of such discourse beginning in infancy. Specifically, we ask how parents' emotion and mental state talk (EMST) with their toddlers relates to toddlers' helping and how these associations vary by context. Children aged 18- to 30-months (
Young children, even in their early years, exhibit a remarkable capacity to act prosocially toward others. Starting in their second year, infants show concern for and comfort others in distress (Dunn,
Socialization plays a central role in many theories of prosocial development, from modeling of empathic and responsive behavior to direct instruction, guided participation in everyday chores (Rheingold,
One potentially important contributor to early prosocial behavior may be parents' discourse about others' emotions and mental states with their young children (henceforth referred to as emotion and mental state talk, EMST). Parents use a wide variety of emotion and mental state vocabulary in conversation with young children, including simple affect (e.g., happy, sad), desire (e.g., want, need), and mental state terms (e.g., think, know) (Beeghly et al.,
A wealth of empirical findings supports the assertion that discourse about emotions and mental states contributes to social and emotion understanding, measured either concurrently or longitudinally, among both preschoolers (Dunn et al.,
There is also evidence that the role of EMST extends to prosocial behavior, especially insofar as prosocial responses rely on the ability to attend to, understand, and respond to the emotions and desires of others. Parent-child discourse about emotions and mental states is positively related to prosocial behavior in preschoolers and older children (Denham et al.,
Beyond these general relationships, certain patterns of EMST may play unique roles in prosocial development. Brownell et al. (
Finally, EMST may contribute to the development of some aspects of prosocial behavior more than others. Prosocial behavior is a multidimensional construct comprised of many distinct behaviors that rely on different capabilities and stem from different developmental mechanisms (Svetlova et al.,
Parents use discourse about emotions and mental states in many interactive contexts, ranging from pretend play (Dunn et al.,
These context differences may be due, in part, to different goals. Parents may use ordinary conversation to help their children learn and adopt socially-appropriate behaviors, while they may be more likely during book-reading to actively try to help their children identify and understand the emotions and internal states depicted in the story (Howe et al.,
In addition to context differences in parents' use of EMST, child outcomes may be differentially associated with EMST in particular contexts (Fivush et al.,
The current study aims to build on the conceptual and empirical work outlined above by evaluating EMST as a predictor of prosociality during the period when emergent prosocial behaviors are undergoing rapid change. We expect that children whose parents more frequently use EMST, and in particular who elicit EMST from their children, will be more helpful; and we expect findings to be stronger for empathic helping than for instrumental helping. A secondary aim is to compare parental EMST across two distinct interactive contexts, i.e., joint picture-book reading and joint play, and to determine whether relations with prosocial behavior vary by context. We expect parents to use EMST more frequently during book reading than joint play, and we expect EMST in book reading to be more strongly associated with helping than EMST during toy play.
Forty-four parent-child dyads participated in a larger study of prosocial behavior; 21 18- and 23 30-month-olds. Data from six children were not usable because of procedural error (
Procedures took place in a large playroom. Video was captured from behind a one-way mirror and audio was recorded by an in-room multi-directional microphone hung from the ceiling. The sessions began with a short warm-up to familiarize the child with the lab setting and with the experimenter (E) and an assistant experimenter (AE). Two tasks measuring parental EMST were administered: joint parent-child book reading and parent-child joint play with a standard set of age-appropriate toys. Two helping tasks were administered, one instrumental or action-based, and one empathic or emotion-based, adapted from Svetlova et al. (
E gave a book to the parent, encouraged the parent to read the book as she normally would at home, and left the room. The book was read by the child's regular daytime caregiver who accompanied them to the lab, most often mothers (
The parent and child were presented with a basket of age-appropriate toys and given 7 min to play as they typically would at home. E did not give the parent any specific instructions on how to play with the child; this context thus approximates the many unstructured everyday interactions parents have with their children and provides a complement to the more structured interactions captured in the book-reading context.
Parents' language during book reading and joint play was transcribed verbatim from the video records and separated into distinct utterances. As defined by Slaughter et al. (
Transcripts were coded for six different
An additional distinction was made based on the
Thus, each transcript was coded for: total number of utterances; simple affect talk (produced vs. elicited); desire talk (produced vs. elicited); emotion explanations/elaborations (produced vs. elicited); other internal state talk (produced vs. elicited), mental state talk (produced vs. elicited), and empathy statements (produced; no elicitations occurred). Interrater reliability between the first and second authors was established using Cohen's kappa and was excellent for both book reading (κ = 0.92; calculated on 21% of records) and joint play (κ = 0.95; 18% of records). Disagreements were resolved by consensus.
Several composite variables were created to serve as the measures for analysis. Total frequency of EMST utterances was summed within each context, yielding
Children engaged in two tasks with E designed to measure different types of helping behavior: an instrumental helping task and an empathic helping task. These tasks have been used effectively to measure helping behavior in children between 18 and 30 months of age (Warneken and Tomasello,
Helping was scored when the child gave the target object to E. Children received a helping score of 0–5 for each task according to the cue at which they helped (0 = did not help; 1 = helped at the last cue; 5 = helped immediately upon E's first cue). High scores thus indicated earlier, more skilled helping, with fewer cues. Percent agreement was calculated between each coder and the primary coder on 20% of the video records, with 100% agreement.
The primary goal of the current study was to examine associations between parents' EMST and children's instrumental and empathic helping, considered as a function of interactive context. We present the results first for context and age effects on parental EMST, followed by analyses for associations between helping and EMST within each context.
To examine context and age differences in the
Total utterances (rate per minute) | 15.21 (4.27) | 17.15 (3.81) | 1.98 | 15.08 (4.43) | 16.62 (3.91) | 1.77 | 19.36 (5.20) | 14.58 (4.45) | 35.26 |
Total EMST (proportion) | 0.16 (0.07) | 0.21 (0.08) | 4.11 |
0.15 (0.07) | 0.19 (0.08) | 1.67 | 0.18 (0.11) | 0.17 (0.08) | 1.41 |
EMST elicitations | 0.09 (0.06) | 0.13 (0.05) | 4.83 |
0.09 (0.05) | 0.11 (0.06) | 0.41 | 0.09 (0.08) | 0.11 (0.07) | 0.73 |
EMST productions | 0.07 (0.04) | 0.08 (0.05) | 0.50 | 0.06 (0.03) | 0.09 (0.05) | 1.68 | 0.09 (0.07) | 0.06 (0.04) | 10.98 |
Simple affect | 0.03 (0.03) | 0.04 (0.02) | 2.57 | 0.03 (0.02) | 0.05 (0.03) | 2.83 | 0.07 (0.05) | 0.01 (0.02) | 55.37 |
Desire talk | 0.05 (0.03) | 0.06 (0.04) | 2.64 | 0.06 (0.04) | 0.05 (0.03) | 0.40 | 0.03 (0.03) | 0.07 (0.05) | 20.81 |
Explanations | 0.01 (0.01) | 0.02 (0.02) | 3.94 |
0.01 (0.01) | 0.01 (0.01) | 0.61 | 0.02 (0.03) | 0.00 (0.00) | 21.21 |
Mental states | 0.03 (0.03) | 0.06 (0.03) | 5.84 |
0.03 (0.03) | 0.05 (0.03) | 9.81 |
0.03 (0.04) | 0.05 (0.04) | 4.94 |
Other internal states | 0.04 (0.03) | 0.02 (0.02) | 1.16 | 0.03 (0.03) | 0.03 (0.03) | 0.22 | 0.03 (0.03) | 0.03 (0.03) | 0.57 |
Empathy statements | 0.00 (0.01) | 0.00 (0.01) | 0.01 | 0.00 (0.01) | 0.00 (0.01) | 0.04 | 0.01 (0.01) | 0.00 (0.01) | 1.73 |
Number of different content categories | 3.04 (1.23) | 3.60 (1.06) | 1.52 | 3.06 (1.15) | 3.41 (1.21) | 1.01 | 3.55 (1.75) | 2.97 (1.05) | 6.697 |
There were no significant age differences for the rate of total utterances or the proportions of total EMST, EMST elicitations, or EMST productions (see Table
There were several significant context differences (see Table
To examine consistency of EMST across contexts, partial correlations, controlling for age and gender, were conducted to examine associations between EMST productions, EMST elicitations, and total EMST across the two contexts. Analyses revealed significant relations for production of EMST across contexts (partial
In sum, parents talked more while reading books with their toddlers than while playing together with toys, although they used the same proportion of EMST in both contexts. They produced proportionally more emotion and mental state labels and explanations during book reading than during joint play, but they asked their children to discuss mental states and emotions to the same degree in both contexts. Parents talked about more distinct EMST
To examine associations between parental EMST and children's helping, partial correlations, controlling for age and gender, were calculated between children's instrumental and empathic helping scores and the measures of parental EMST (see Tables
Instrumental | 2.39 (1.64) | 2.60 (1.81) | 0.14 | 1.63 (1.67) | 3.09 (1.44) | 8.38 |
Empathic | 1.35 (1.30) | 1.5 (1.35) | 0.12 | 0.53 (1.13) | 2.00 (1.07) | 16.09 |
Total EMST | −0.26 | 0.48 |
EMST elicitations | −0.26 | 0.36 |
EMST productions | −0.11 | 0.31 |
Simple affect | −0.34 |
0.26 |
Desire talk | −0.06 | 0.08 |
Emotion explanation | −0.15 | 0.33 |
Mental state | −0.12 | 0.59 |
Other internal state | 0.01 | −0.02 |
Empathy statements | −0.11 | 0.37 |
Total EMST | −0.33 |
0.10 |
EMST elicitations | −0.25 | −0.13 |
EMST productions | −0.23 | 0.43 |
Simple affect | −0.26 | 0.25 |
Desire talk | −0.14 | −0.16 |
Emotion explanation | −0.16 | −0.05 |
Mental state | −0.21 | 0.13 |
Other internal state | −0.28 |
0.26 |
Empathy statements | 0.03 | 0.11 |
Regarding
To determine if eliciting children's talk about emotions during book reading was uniquely associated with children's helping over and above parents' production of EMST (following Brownell et al.,
A parallel regression analysis was conducted on parental EMST in the free-play context. The full model again explained 42% of the variance in empathic helping scores,
The goals of the current study were to explore parent-child talk about emotions and mental states in two interactive contexts and to examine such discourse as a potential socialization mechanism in the development of prosocial behavior in 18- and 30-month olds, when prosociality is emerging and undergoing dramatic change. Parent talk was measured while parents and their children read picture books and played with toys, activities chosen for their ecological validity and the opportunities they provide for discussion of emotions and mental states.
Several findings are worth noting. First, parents discussed emotions and mental states with their children at both ages and in both contexts to the same degree, with nearly 20% of their discourse comprised of EMST. Thus, even when their children are very young and likely have a tenuous grasp on abstract mental states, parents devote a significant proportion of their conversation to these concepts. Second, the nature of parents' talk differed in the two contexts. Although they asked children to label or explain emotions and mental states equivalently in both contexts, parents themselves labeled and explained emotions and mental states significantly more while reading a picture book with their children than when playing together with toys. They also varied the content of their EMST more while reading books than playing with toys, discussing more distinct internal states than they did while playing with toys. Conversely, when playing with toys parents used more desire talk (e.g., want, need) and mental state words (e.g., think, know) than they did while reading books with children. Converging with these findings are the abundance of overt affective cues and emotional terms in children's books (Dyer et al.,
Importantly, parents' discourse about emotions and mental states in each context was positively related to toddlers' empathic helping. Furthermore, when taken together, EMST production and elicitation during book reading accounted for the same proportion of variance in children's empathic helping scores as when it occurred during joint play. However, associations were more consistent for EMST during book reading, and specific associations varied by context: children who helped more quickly in the empathic helping situation had parents who
This is the first empirical examination, to our knowledge, to evaluate potential context-specific associations between EMST and early-appearing prosocial behavior. The findings add to current understanding by suggesting that both the quantity and quality of EMST play important roles in socializing empathic prosocial behavior, and further, that this depends on the context in which the discussions take place.
Toddlers' prosocial behavior toward an adult in distress, in this case offering something to alleviate the distress, was associated with parents' emotion and mental state discourse with their children both while reading books together and while playing with toys together. The specific pathways through which discourse about emotions and mental states may operate to encourage prosocial behavior remain unknown. Emotion understanding, given its robust associations with EMST, is one logical pathway (de Rosnay and Hughes,
However, this role varies by context. We largely replicated the findings from Brownell et al. (
There are several potential explanations for these context differences. As compared to joint play with toys, reading a picture book provides the child with specific emotion referents as well as overt cues to help her identify and piece together characters' internal states, often including exaggerated emotional facial expressions and a plot or narrative that helps place the character and the emotion-eliciting events in meaningful context. These cues can be made salient to the child by the parent, especially by asking the child to attend to and reflect on them, and may help her understand the character's mental state, the factors that led to that state, any consequences of that state, and how the state can be alleviated. When asked questions that require the child to recruit her rudimentary social understanding, she may need and utilize all of these cues to make sense of the question. Without such cues, questions about internal states may be meaningless or overwhelming; with them, children may be able to find answers, and construct social knowledge in the process.
Additionally, the referent of parents' EMST may differ between contexts, with parents more often talking about the emotions and mental states
Findings from this study are subject to several limitations. The correlational design precludes firm causal inferences about the effects of EMST on prosocial development, and the cross-sectional design precludes inferences about the long-term and cumulative effects of greater relative EMST use. Although our findings are consistent with conceptual frameworks positing the causal influence of parental socialization, experimental and/or longitudinal designs are required to make such inferences with confidence. Additionally, the current study included only parents' talk. To fully understand and appreciate the contextual differences in these joint activities, the child's input must be considered. It will also be important in future work to explore differences between mothers and fathers in EMST use and corresponding relations with prosocial behavior. The generalizability of the findings is also limited. We hoped to capture snapshots of parent-child interactions as they would unfold in the home during ecologically valid dyadic activities like joint play and book reading, but this may have been constrained by the lab atmosphere. Naturalistic work conducted in the home would provide converging evidence. Finally, it is unknown whether the patterns we have identified generalize across cultures or across families differing in education, family income, or other socioeconomic indicators.
The findings of the current study contribute to the growing literature examining discourse about emotions and mental states as a mechanism through which parents are likely to socialize prosocial behavior. Parent- child interaction dominates children's first few years, providing many opportunities for discussing emotions and mental states beginning very early in life (Dunn,
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
This research was supported in part by grants to Celia A. Brownell from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD055283 and HD064972). Portions of this research were presented at meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development and the International Conference on Infant Studies. We thank the children and parents who volunteered their time to participate in this research. Special thanks also to Jules Bueti, Rachel Carlton, Tim Cotter, Alicia Dlugos, Erin Karahuta, Alyssa Marchitelli, Liz Moore, Erica Njoku, Dana Pettygrove, Sarah Pierotti, Briana Pollock, Gina Roussos, Paige Sable, Emma Satlof-Bedrick, and Shelby Summers for assistance with data collection and coding.
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: