Mothers’ construal of self and emotion socialisation goals

Abstract

The present study examined the relationships between construal of self and emotion socialisation goals. The Parental Goals for Children’s Emotional Competence Scale was constructed to measure the relative importance of individualistic emotional competence (IEC) and relational emotional competence (REC) of children to parents. Data were collected from 189 Chinese mothers living in Hong Kong. It was found that the Chinese mothers in Hong Kong have a dominant interdependent construal of self and valued REC more. Structural equation modelling results show that the independent construal of self predicted the endorsement of IEC only, whereas the interdependent construal of self predicted the endorsement of both IEC and REC. The Parental Goals for Children’s Emotional Competence Scale was shown to have strong construct validity.

Keywords:

• construal of self
• emotional competence
• emotion socialisation
• parental goals
• Hong Kong

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a research fund (A775) granted by the Hong Kong Institute of Education to the author. The kind assistance of the mothers who participated in this study is gratefully acknowledged. Sincere gratitude also goes to J. Bowes and S. Wyver for their advice and comments.

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