Mother adolescent storytelling: associations between maternal emotion socialization and adolescent well-being and emotional development

Abstract

[EMBARGOED UNTIL 6/1/2023] Within the context of family storytelling, parent-adolescent conversations are a rich, yet underexplored, means of capturing parental emotion socialization and its impacts on adolescents' emotional development (Fivush, et al., 2006b). Furthermore, adolescent autobiographical storytelling allows mothers to promote healthy development; the ways mothers socialize during discussions of past events has meaningful impacts on adolescent adjustment and self-esteem (Bohanek et al., 2008; Habermas and Reese, 2015). Therefore, the present study aims to examine maternal socialization behaviors during adolescent autobiographical storytelling and the ways these behaviors influence adolescent well-being and adjustment. Forty-five mother-adolescent (ages 12-16) dyads discussed three life stories together; these stories were coded for global and specific socialization behaviors. Results reveal that mothers utilize different socialization behaviors by adolescent gender and age, and unsupportive socialization strategies are negatively associated with adolescent well-being and academic motivation. Furthermore, adolescent emotion regulation does moderate the effects of mothers' socialization behaviors for adolescent outcomes. Implications of these findings and ways to further explore the variety of socialization strategies analyzed are discussed.