Constructing emotional and relational understanding:

描述（由申请人提供）：最近的研究将母子关于情感的话语和母亲对情感的表达与儿童社会情感发展的各个方面联系起来（Brown & Dunn, 1996; Laible, in press）。然而，尽管如此，一些重要的问题仍未得到解答。首先，在很大程度上，缺乏纵向研究，因此情感话语、情感和社会情感发展之间的关系方向仍然不明确。其次，研究人员倾向于独立地研究话语或情感，而没有研究两者是否相互作用产生社会情感能力。这是不幸的，因为母子关系的质量似乎可能会影响孩子对话语环境中构建的信息的内化。第三，研究人员还没有研究孩子们是否从母亲那里学会了公开谈论情感经历。最后，预测母亲、孩子和二元话语质量的因素在很大程度上仍未得到检验。因此，本研究计划纵向考察情感表达、母子情感话语和儿童社会情感发展之间的联系。此外，本研究还旨在探讨可能影响情感体验话语质量的因素。在42个月大的时候，母子话语的质量和影响将在两个充满情感的环境中进行检查（在阅读故事书和过去事件的对话中）。同时，母亲独立于孩子公开讨论情感的能力也将通过缩短版的家长发展访谈（PDI）进行评估。最后，儿童还将完成社会情感发展的测量，母亲将完成母子气质和依恋的测量。在48个月大时，母亲和孩子将重复双重话语任务（故事书阅读和过去事件对话），孩子将再次完成社会情感发展的测量。更具体地说，本研究将解决三个问题。首先，本研究将探讨母亲的依恋风格和气质如何与她在PDI期间公开谈论情感的能力相关。其次，本研究将考察与二联体话语质量相关的因素，包括依恋和气质。最后，本研究将探讨两个话语任务中的情感和话语如何预测儿童随后的情感理解。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Recent research has linked both mother-child discourse about emotion and mother's expression of emotion with aspects of a child's socioemotional development (Brown & Dunn, 1996; Laible, in press). Despite this, however, important questions remain unanswered. First, for the most part, longitudinal research is lacking and thus the direction of the relations between emotional discourse, affect, and socioemotional development remains unclear. Second, researchers have tended to examine discourse or affect independently, without examining whether the two interact to produce socioemotional competence. This is unfortunate, because it seems likely that the quality of mother-child affect influences the child's internalization of messages constructed in the context of discourse. Third, researchers have yet to examine whether children are learning to talk openly about emotional experiences from mothers. Finally, factors that predict the quality of mother, child, and dyadic discourse remain, for the most part, unexamined. Therefore, this study plans to examine longitudinally the links between expressed affect, mother-child discourse about emotion, and a child's socioemotional development. In addition, this study also is intended to examine factors that might contribute to the quality of discourse about emotional experiences. At 42-months of age, the quality and affect of mother-child discourse will be examined in two emotion-laden contexts (during a storybook reading and a past events conversation). At the same time, the mother's ability to openly discuss emotion independent of the child will also be assessed using a shortened version of the Parent Development Interview (PDI). Finally, children will also complete measures of socioemotional development and mothers will complete measures of maternal and child temperament and attachment. At 48-months, mothers and children will repeat the dyadic discourse tasks (the storybook reading and past events conversation) and children will again complete measures of socioemotional development. More specifically, this study will address three issues. First, this study will examine how the mother's attachment style and temperament relate to her ability to speak openly about emotion during the PDI. Second, this study will examine factors that relate the quality of dyadic discourse in the dyad, including attachment and temperament. Finally, this study will examine how both affect and discourse during two discourse tasks predict a child's subsequent emotional understanding.