Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
Explanatory Emotion Talk
in Mexican Immigrant and
Mexican American Families
Christi A. Cervantes
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
This study investigated emotion conversations in 48 Mexican-descent families, focusing
on their use of emotion labels and explanations during a videotaped storytelling task.
Emotion conversations were examined for patterns related to mothers’ intracultural
group (Mexican immigrant, Mexican American) and preschool-age children’s gender.
Results indicated that Mexican immigrant mothers used more explanations than labels,
whereas Mexican American mothers used comparable amounts of both. Children in both
groups used equal amounts of labels and explanations. Mothers’ emotion talk did not
show gender patterns, but, in the Mexican American group, girls discussed emotion more
than boys did. The data reported here contrast with previous studies reporting low frequency of explanations in Mexican-descent mother-child interactions, diverge from
prior findings in European American families, and suggest that gender patterns in emotion talk vary both across and within cultural groups. The results on Mexican-descent
families are discussed regarding notions of family closeness, respect, and giving children
nurturing advice.
Children’s developing emotional competence has been a topic of longstanding interest in developmental psychology (Lewis & Michalson, 1983;
Saarni & Harris, 1989). Recently, it has received a surge of attention in the
field of education (Cohen, 2001; Elias, Hunter, & Kress, 2001) and in the
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This research was partially supported by a grant from the Center for Education, Diversity, and Excellence and by Grant No. HD26228 from the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development. I thank Maureen Callanan, Campbell Leaper, Robert Moreno,
Deanne Perez-Granados, and Barbara Rogoff for their expert feedback on this project and on earlier versions of the article. I also thank Consuelo Alba-Speyer, Marla Black, Angélica Blanco,
María Elena Chavez, Victoria Chavira Walsh, Joanna Goldberg, and Sandra Marquez for their
help with data collection, transcription, translation, and coding. Last, I thank the families who
participated. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Christi A. Cervantes, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 220
Education Building, 1310 S. Sixth St., Champaign, IL 61801; e-mail: [email protected].
Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 24 No. 2, May 2002 138-163
© 2002 Sage Publications
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Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
139
popular press (Goleman, 1995), particularly in books aimed at parents (Elias,
Tobias, & Friedlander, 1999; Pollack, 1998). Emotional competence is generally defined as learning to reflect on, label, and explain feelings in precise
language; learning to regulate feelings in socially appropriate ways; and
learning to recognize, understand, and respond appropriately to one’s own
and others’ feelings (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Saarni, 1999). In addition,
emotional competence is generally viewed as intertwined with gender socialization; that is, specific forms of emotional expression and regulation differentiate gender role norms (Fivush, 1993; Shields, 1995).
It is important to note, however, that the specifics of emotional competence—
for example, the emphasis on verbal precision for purposes of self-awareness
and emotion regulation—are founded on mainstream European American
notions of emotional competence (Cameron, 2000; Saarni, 1999). Furthermore, the developmental research that informs our understanding of emotional competence and its gender differentiation is primarily situated in
middle-income, European American samples. It is therefore crucial to
expand the cultural base of research on children’s emotional development
before making definitive claims about emotional competence and the means
by which to foster it in family and schools settings. Hence, this study focused
on conversations about emotion in Mexican-descent families. Specifically,
the study examined mothers’ and preschool-age children’s use of emotion
labels (e.g., “I am sad”) and emotion explanations (e.g., “I am sad because I
lost my dog”) during a storytelling task.
Mexican-descent families offer an illuminative context for studying cultural and intracultural variation in emotion talk practices and emotional competence because they constitute a large and demographically diverse group,
most notably marked by varying experiences of immigration and residency in
the United States (Baca Zinn, 1995). Although a few studies have documented intracultural variation in specific emotion talk practices of European
and Mexican American families, most of them have focused on variations
related to socioeconomic status (Burger & Miller, 1999; Eisenberg, 1996,
1999). The present study was conducted in a California community where
most Mexican-descent families were low income and either first- or secondgeneration U.S. residents; hence, the more salient distinction was between
Mexican immigrant and Mexican American mothers, with the two groups
defined by a combination of nativity (Mexico vs. United States) and years of
U.S. residency.
To address children’s emotional development in this community context,
the study examined mother-child emotion talk (emotion labels and explanations) for patterns related to mothers’ intracultural group (Mexican immi-
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
grant and Mexican American) and children’s gender. The study’s conceptual
background is presented in three sections: (a) parent-child emotion talk and
the socialization of emotion, (b) cultural variations in emotion explanations,
and (c) intracultural variations in Mexican-descent communities.
Parent-Child Emotion Talk and
the Socialization of Emotion
A growing body of research, based primarily in European American contexts, reports that children’s emotional competence develops substantially
within family interactions and has potential implications for their social relationships across the life course. Specifically, children’s early understanding
of emotion is positively associated with their later negotiation of friendship
conflicts (Dunn & Herrera, 1997), sibling caregiving behavior (Garner,
Jones, & Palmer, 1994), prosocial behavior with peers (Denham, 1986), and
general peer acceptance (Cassidy, Parke, Butkovsky, & Braungart, 1992).
Parent-child conversation is considered one key activity for socializing children’s verbalization and understanding of emotions (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). For example, studies report a positive association
between the frequency of family emotion talk—particularly, the frequency of
explanations about emotion—and children’s concurrent and later emotion
understanding (Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994; Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall,
1991; Garner, Jones, Gaddy, & Rennie, 1997).
Causal explanations about emotion (e.g., “He’s mad because you hit
him”) are considered significant because they potentially provide explicit
information about emotions, encourage reflection on the causal circumstances of individuals’ feelings and behaviors, orient children toward problem solving in social situations, and convey social and communicative norms
about emotions (Applegate, Burleson, & Delia, 1992; Fivush, 1993; Sillars,
1995). Although studies do not find associations between labeling of emotions (e.g., “She’s mad”) and children’s emotional development, emotion
labels are generally believed to be important in heightening awareness of
feelings in self and others and in making “private” feelings public (Fivush,
1989; Planalp, 1999). Parent-child emotion talk, then, provides a medium for
socializing children’s awareness and knowledge of emotions as well as their
socially appropriate use of emotion language.
Consistent with this dual socialization of emotion and social norms, gender patterns have been found in family emotion talk. Both mothers and
fathers have been observed to use a greater number and variety of emotion
words with girls than boys (Adams, Kuebli, Boyle, & Fivush, 1995; Dunn,
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
141
Bretherton, & Munn, 1987). In addition, gender patterns have been noted in
mothers’ use of emotion labels and explanations (Cervantes & Callanan,
1998; Fivush, 1989). For example, Fivush (1989) found that mother-daughter
dyads mainly labeled emotions in conversations about past events, whereas
mother-son dyads more frequently linked emotion references to causal
information.
Because most of these studies focused on European American families, it
is unclear whether the gender findings hold across other cultural groups. Evidence suggests that gender differentiation of emotional expression occurs
widely but that patterns of differentiation vary considerably across cultures
(Fischer & Manstead, 2000; Halberstadt, 1991). Similar gender patterns in
the general frequency of emotion talk have been found in African and Mexican American families (Eisenberg, 1999; Flannagan & Perese, 1998). But
gender variations in the use of emotion explanations have been inconsistent
across cultures. For example, Garner et al. (1997) found that low-income
mothers, most of whom were African American, gave more emotion explanations to girls than boys. In contrast, Eisenberg’s (1999) study did not reveal
gender variations in Mexican American mothers’ explanation use.
Saarni (1997) noted that emotional competence is inseparable from cultural context and that “our embeddedness in relationships with others provides the diversity of emotional experience, the challenges of emotional
coping, and the immensely rich ways in which we communicate our emotional experiences to others” (p. 38). Given the culture- and gender-specific
nature of emotional development, it is important to document the particularities of how children come to think and talk about emotions in ways congruent
with their cultural community and its gender norms. Thus, one objective of
this study was to examine gender variations in how Mexican-descent mothers
and their preschool-age children discuss emotion.
Cultural Variations in Emotion Explanations
Cultural comparisons of gender patterns in the use of emotion explanations are complicated by the tendency of cultures also to vary in the extent to
which emotions are generally explained. For example, Schieffelin (1990)
noted that the Kaluli in New Guinea commonly give explanations about their
own internal states but believe it inappropriate to verbally explain those of
others. In contrast, Clancy (1986) reported that Japanese mothers often give
young children explanations of others’ internal states for the purposes of
teaching empathy, but they infrequently discuss these matters with other
adults. Hence, variations in the frequency and contexts of emotion talk and
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
emotion explanations may be related to varying beliefs about social and emotional competence.
Several researchers (e.g., Cameron, 2000; Wierzbicka, 1999) have argued
that an analytic and self-reflective approach to emotional competence, as
exemplified by frequent causal explanations, is particularly characteristic of
mainstream U.S. communities and their emphasis on individualism. Indeed,
there are alternative approaches to emotional competence, including the use
of dramatic language, teasing, and debating to express and regulate feelings
(Burger & Miller, 1999; Miller, 1986). However, the analytic approach is promoted in U.S. preschool curricula and popular parenting books, particularly
as a means of regulating feelings (Greenspan & Greenspan, 1985; Hyson,
1994). Thus, the adoption of this view of emotional competence may depend
on families’ “positioning” in mainstream U.S. society as well as on their
exposure to educational resources such as preschool and parenting classes
(Cameron, 2000).
Eisenberg (1999) found that Mexican American families’ emotion talk
was less explanatory than European American families’ emotion talk, suggesting the possibility that Mexican American mothers do not necessarily
socialize their children to the mainstream framework for emotional competence. However, Mexican immigrant families’ emotion talk has not been
examined. It is possible that Mexican American mothers’ emotion talk is
denser with explanations than is Mexican immigrant mothers’ emotion talk,
partly because Mexican American families may have more access to the educational resources that promote explanatory emotion talk. Thus, a second
objective of the present study was to examine intracultural variation (Mexican immigrant vs. Mexican American) in the emotion talk of Mexicandescent families.
Intracultural Variations in Mexican-Descent Families
In the literature on Mexican-descent families, two values are considered
central in the socialization of young children. The first, familismo, promotes
a strong commitment to family members’connectedness and socioemotional
well-being (Ramirez, 1991; Zayas & Solari, 1994). The second value,
respeto, emphasizes children’s expression of deference, affection, and honor
to adult authority figures and the maintenance of proper conduct in social
interactions (Valdés, 1996; Zayas & Solari, 1994). These values have an
interpersonal focus that may encourage parent-child discussions of people’s
feelings. Related to this suggestion, Eisenberg (1999) found that Mexican
American dyads discussed emotions as frequently as did European American
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
143
dyads. Furthermore, Flannagan and Perese’s (1998) investigation of motherchild conversations about children’s school day found that Mexican American dyads discussed emotion more frequently in connection with interpersonal topics, whereas European American dyads discussed emotion more
often in connection with learning topics.
Family socialization of familismo and respeto may also have implications
for the frequency of parents’ emotion explanations. As mentioned above,
Eisenberg (1999) found fewer emotion explanations in the conversations of
Mexican American mother-child dyads compared to the conversations of
European American dyads. This finding is consistent with developmental
research observing that lower educated, Mexican-descent mothers used
fewer inquiry utterances, such as explanations and conceptual questions,
than did European American mothers in teaching activities with preschoolage children (Laosa, 1978; Martinez, 1981). Eisenberg’s (1999) data are also
consistent with ethnographic work (Delgado-Gaitan, 1994a; Valdés, 1996)
observing that Mexican-descent parents infrequently engage young children
in explanatory talk in some family contexts, instead expecting children to
accept their statements and commands on parental authority.
It is important to note that values such as respeto vary in salience within
communities and potentially between Mexican immigrant and Mexican
American families. Furthermore, Delgado-Gaitan (1994a) found that compared to Mexican immigrant mothers, Mexican American mothers who had
spent considerable time in the United States and participated in local community organizations generally engaged in more explanatory talk with their children. Thus, experiences with educational resources such as preschool and
parent education classes may also be a source of intracultural variation in
mothers’ explanatory talk with their children. Mexican immigrant mothers,
because of their relatively recent arrival in the United States and their cultural
experiences before their arrival, tend to have lower education and family
incomes, less proficiency in English, and less contact with non-Mexican
groups, compared to Mexican American mothers (Martinez, 1986; Vega,
Hough, & Miranda, 1985). Zambrana, Silva-Palacios, and Powell (1992)
suggested that Mexican immigrant mothers are therefore less likely to contact social agencies, parent support groups, or printed materials than are
Mexican American mothers. They may therefore have less exposure to mainstream U.S. notions of emotional competence.
Our first research question asked about intracultural variations in explanatory emotion talk. Given their varying U.S. experiences, as described above,
Mexican American mothers were expected to use more explanatory emotion
talk (i.e., more emotion explanations than labels) than Mexican immigrant
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
mothers were. Our second research question asked whether gender variations
occur in mothers’ or children’s general frequency of emotion talk or in their
use of explanations. Although Eisenberg (1999) found that Mexican American mothers discussed emotion more frequently with girls than boys, her
study did not detect gender differences in the frequency of emotion explanations. We therefore expected that mothers and their daughters would discuss
emotion more frequently than would mothers and their sons. Given reports
(e.g., Falicov, 1982) that Mexican-descent parents typically expect girls to be
nurturing and boys to be more independent and assertive, and given data on
European American families (Cervantes & Callanan, 1998; Fivush, 1989), it
was possible that mothers would use explanatory emotion talk which potentially reinforces individualism more with boys than girls. Finally, we also
explored the dominant valence (positive vs. negative emotions) of motherchild emotion talk in Mexican-descent families. Based on studies of workingclass families (Burger & Miller, 1999; Eisenberg, 1996), it was predicted that
emotion talk in both intracultural groups would emphasize negative over positive emotions.
Method
Participants
Participants were 48 Mexican-descent mothers with children approximately 4 years of age (M = 4.6; range = 3.7 -4.11). Half of the mothers were
categorized as Mexican immigrant and half as Mexican American (with
equal numbers of boys and girls in each group). Mexican immigrant mothers
were those born in Mexico and moving to the United States after age 12.
Mexican American mothers were those born in the United States (n = 11) or
1
those born in Mexico (n = 13) and moving to the United States before age 10.
Of the mothers born in the United States, all were second-generation Mexican Americans—that is, one or both of their parents had been immigrants to
the United States. The families lived in a central coast region of California
and were primarily recruited through kindergarten sign-ups, Head Start
meetings, preschools, and low-income community housing complexes. Mothers
were initially informed that the purpose of the research was to study how
young children learn about language and communication during interactions
with their parents. We revealed our specific interest in emotion talk toward
the end of their participation and during an interview on parenting. Each family was thanked with a canvas bag of children’s books and toys.
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
145
Procedure for Family Visits
A pair of researchers visited each family at home for approximately 2
hours. All visits with Mexican immigrant families were conducted in Spanish, whereas visits with Mexican American families were mainly conducted
in English or both languages.2 The visits included a videotaped storytelling
session and an audiotaped parent interview.
Storytelling session. The storytelling session involved a Lego house and
family of dolls (two parents, two grandparents, two children, and a dog). As a
warm-up, mother and child first engaged in free play with the Lego props for
about 10 minutes. They were then asked to make up a 20-minute story
together that included the following four events: (a) Some pretend parents
leave their two children with relatives and go on an overnight trip (separation
episode), (b) the two children play in the yard and have a conflict about a toy
(conflict episode), (c) the family’s pet dog runs away (loss episode), and
(d) the parents return home to the children (reunion episode). The Lego props
as well as most of the story events have been previously found effective in
eliciting family discussions of feelings and emotional themes (Bretherton,
Prentiss, & Ridgeway, 1990; Cervantes & Callanan, 1998). We invited participants to add whatever details they would like to these four events—for example, what the dolls were saying, doing, or feeling. We were careful not to put
stress on the word feeling, so that the topic of emotion did not become too
salient in the task. Mother and child were then left alone to tell their story.3
Parent interview. The first part of the interview was a brief, structured
demographic survey of the family members living in the home. It also asked
about the mother’s experience with parenting groups and preschool. The second part was a semistructured, open-ended interview on the mother’s beliefs
and experiences regarding parenting and children’s emotional development.
Just the data from the demographic portion are reported here.
Coding for Emotion Talk
Videotapes of the storytelling sessions were transcribed; Spanish transcripts were also translated into English, making them available to researchers with little fluency in Spanish. Both versions were checked by at least two
bilingual researchers before being finalized for coding. For each transcript,
the mother’s and child’s emotion references were identified. The related
utterances surrounding these references were coded for the following:
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
146
(a) emotion labels versus explanations, (b) types of explanation, and (c) emotional valence (positive vs. negative).
Emotion references. Identification of emotion references was limited to
words and sound effects that fell within the following categories: pleasure/
liking, surprise, affection, concern, distress, fear, anger/frustration, provocation/
annoyance, dislike/disgust, and indifference/courage (Dunn et al., 1987).
Emotion words were limited to emotion state words (e.g., feliz/happy,
enojado/mad) and emotion behavior words (e.g., llorar/cry, besar/kiss).
Emotion sound effects, which were salient in the Lego session’s play context,
were limited to highly recognizable sounds used to perform emotional
behaviors (e.g., “boo-hoo” for pretend crying, lip smacks for pretend kissing). Intercoder reliability for distinguishing instances of the three emotion
reference categories was achieved with two coders independently coding
25% of the transcripts (in their original language). Using Cohen’s kappa as
the agreement statistic, reliability was 0.80, which is an excellent level of
agreement (Bakeman & Gottman, 1997).
Emotion labels and explanations. Each emotion word and sound effect
was then coded as occurring with one or more labeling or explanation utterances. A labeling utterance referred to or asked about the emotion of a person, animal, or event without mentioning causal information. An explanation
utterance linked an emotion reference to causal information. (An utterance
was never coded as both a label and explanation.) The judging of causal relationships was guided by the formal and semantic criteria of Bloom and
Capatides (1987). In examining speaker turns with emotion references, the
coder looked for causal connectors (e.g., porque/because), lexical causatives
(e.g., hacer/make, fastidiar/annoy), or alternatively, the mentioning of two
adjacent or near-adjacent events implying a conditional relationship (e.g.,
“The boy is worried. The dog ran away).4 Explanations could therefore
extend across utterance boundaries and speaker turns. It was possible for a
single emotion reference to have multiple explanation codes as long as the
causal utterances occurred consecutively or near consecutively and did not
give redundant causal information (e.g., “The kids are happy. Their parents
came home, and so did their dog” = 2 causes). Similarly, a single emotion reference could have multiple label codes (e.g., “Joey is happy, and his dad is,
too” = 2 labels).
Specific kinds of explanations. Explanation utterances were further coded
for their focus: cause, result, intervention, and elicitation. Cause-focused
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
147
explanations mentioned behaviors, events, or internal states that caused
someone’s emotion (e.g., “The kids are happy because the parents came
home”). Result-focused explanations mentioned behaviors, expressive gestures, or internal states that resulted from someone’s emotion (e.g., “Boohoo. We miss our dog”). Intervention-focused explanations mentioned interventions such as problem solving, distraction, or assurance (e.g., “He’s upset
and asks his sister for help”). Elicitation-focused explanations requested an
explanation without giving causal information (e.g., “Why is the girl excited?”).
It should be noted that the first three explanation types could also occur in
question form, but they had to contain specific causal information (e.g., “Is
the boy happy because his parents came home?”). The elicitation category,
however, was used solely for questions in which the speaker attempted to
elicit causal information from the other.
Intercoder reliability was achieved in two steps. First, two coders independently coded 16 English transcripts from a previous study. The kappa for
the coding of labels versus different kinds of explanations was 0.74. In the
second step, the same two coders independently coded 25% of the transcripts
in the present study, with one person coding the Spanish transcripts and the
other person (who was less fluent in Spanish) coding the corresponding English translations. This step also provided a check on the translations and on
the coding scheme’s commensurability in the two languages. The kappa was
0.83, an excellent level of agreement (Bakeman & Gottman, 1997).
Emotional valence. Each utterance (label or explanation) connected to an
emotion reference was coded as positive (e.g., happy) or negative (e.g., sad)
in valence. Thus, if an emotion reference was negative, all the utterances (i.e.,
one or more explanations) connected to it were coded as negative. It was presumed that coding utterances, rather than just the emotion word or emotion
sound effect, provides a more precise index of the extent to which a speaker’s
emotion talk focuses on positive or negative emotions.
Results
The results of the study are presented in two parts. First, demographic data
on Mexican immigrant and Mexican American mothers are reported. Next,
data on emotion talk are reported separately for children and mothers. The
latter analyses examined whether different aspects of emotion talk varied
with mothers’ intracultural group (Mexican immigrant and Mexican American) and/or children’s gender.
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
Demographic Information
To examine whether the Mexican immigrant and Mexican American
groups of mothers were in fact demographically distinct, descriptive and
inferential statistics were performed on mothers’ reported demographic
information. Although there was some overlap between the two groups,
Mexican immigrant mothers differed from Mexican American mothers in
several ways. First, by definition, they had spent significantly fewer years in
the United States (M = 9, range = 3-19) compared to Mexican American
mothers (M = 24, range = 15-30), F(1, 46) = 146.64, p < .001. This was the
case, even though Mexican immigrant mothers tended to be older (M = 31,
range = 24-41) than Mexican American mothers (M = 27, range = 20-38),
F(1, 46) = 9.78, p < .01. Correspondingly, 75% of Mexican immigrant mothers reported language proficiency in Spanish only, whereas all Mexican
American mothers reported proficiency in both Spanish and English. Second, similar to other demographic accounts (Vega, 1995; Zambrana et al.,
1992), Mexican immigrant mothers reported fewer years of formal education
(M = 10 years, range = 5-16) than did Mexican American mothers (M = 12
years, range = 5-16), F(1, 46) = 6.27, p < .05. Third, they reported total family
incomes (approximately $16,500 per year) that were, on average, half of
what Mexican American mothers reported (approximately $27,500).5 In both
groups, 87% of the families had two parents present, with a mode of three
children (range = 1-5) in the Mexican immigrant group and two children
(range = 1-4) in the Mexican American group.
A smaller proportion of Mexican immigrant mothers (42%) worked outside the home compared to Mexican American mothers (71%). Another 12%
in each group did not work but attended a local community college or university. Although fewer Mexican immigrants worked outside the home, their use
of preschool for target children (M = 7 months, range = 0-24 months) did not
significantly differ from that of Mexican American mothers’ use (M = 10
months, range = 0-36 months), F(1, 46) = 0.53, p > .10. Across the two
groups, Head Start programs accounted for about half of mothers’ preschool
use.
Children’s Emotion Talk
Although they were not prompted to talk about emotions, 42 of the 48 children made one or more references to emotion in the 20-minute storytelling
session. The three most common emotion state words in the children’s corpus, in descending order, were enojado/mad, querer/love, and sorry. The
three most common emotion behavior words were pelear/fight, llorar/cry,
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149
and pegar/hit. Kissing was the most common sound effect, followed by hitting (e.g., “pa-pa-pa”) and growling (“grrr”) sounds. Analyses focused on
children’s categories of emotion reference, relative use of emotion references
in label and explanation utterances, and dominant valence of these
utterances.
Children’s Emotion References
To gain a basic picture of how children referred to emotion, a 2 × 2 × 3
mixed-design analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed on their frequencies of emotion references. Group (Mexican immigrant, Mexican American) and gender were the between-participants variables, and reference type
(state, behavior, sound effect) was the within-participants variable. Because
one girl’s frequency of emotion state words was much higher than other children’s (higher than 3 SD above the mean), the analysis was performed on a
winsorized sample (g = 1). Winsorization makes an outlying score less
extreme by replacing it with the next highest score in the sample; it also
reduces the corresponding degrees of freedom (Winer, 1971). As the standard deviations in Table 1 suggest, frequency of emotion references and
utterances varied considerably across individual children; thus, it seemed
appropriate to maintain the girl’s scores in reduced form rather than dropping
her from the sample.6
A significant effect of reference type was obtained, F(2, 80) = 5.82, p <
.01. Post hoc comparisons with Tukey’s HSD revealed that children used
emotion state words (M = 1.67) and emotion behavior words (M = 1.69) more
than emotion sound effects (M = 0.65) (all ps < .05). Thus, although emotion
sound effects may be common in pretend play situations, they are infrequently used compared to other kinds of emotion reference. Inspection of the
data indicated that only one third of the children used sound effects at least
once. No significant effects or interactions were found for group or gender.
Children’s Label and Explanation Utterances
Next, to examine children’s relative use of emotion references in label and
explanation utterances, a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed-design ANOVA was performed,
with group and gender as the between-participants variables and utterance
type (label, explanation) as the within-participants variable. The same girl’s
frequencies of emotion labels and explanations were much higher than were
other children’s, so the analysis was performed on a winsorized sample (g = 2).
No significant difference was found between children’s use of emotion
labels (M = 3.06) and explanations (M = 2.65). Instead, the results indicated a
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
Table 1.
Children’s Mean Use of Emotion References in Label and Explanation Utterances
Labels
Children
Mexican immigrant
Girls
Boys
Total
Mexican American
Girls
Boys
Total
Explanations
Total
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
1.83
3.75
2.79
2.79
3.72
3.36
1.42
2.17
1.79
1.16
1.90
1.59
1.62
2.96
2.29
2.10
3.00
2.65
4.83
1.83
3.33
4.41
2.12
3.71
4.17
2.83
3.50
3.81
3.13
3.48
4.50
2.33
3.42
4.04
2.66
3.56
significant Group × Gender interaction, F(1, 40) = 5.36, p < .05. As Table 1
shows, Mexican American girls’ total emotion utterances (M = 4.50) were
higher than all the other groups’. Follow-up analysis of the simple effects of
gender at each group revealed that they discussed emotion more than their
male counterparts did (M = 2.33), F(1, 40) = 4.12, p < .05, whereas Mexican
immigrant girls (M = 1.62) and boys (M = 2.96) did not differ. Analysis of the
simple effects of group at each gender additionally revealed that the difference between Mexican American and Mexican immigrant girls was also significant, F(1, 40) = 7.24, p < .01.
Valence of Children’s Emotion Utterances
The dominant valence (positive vs. negative) of children’s emotion utterances was also examined. A 2 × 2 × 2 mixed-design ANOVA was performed
on their total emotion utterances (labels and explanations combined), with
group and gender as the between-participants variables and valence as the
within-participants variable. This analysis was also performed on a winsorized
sample (g = 2) because the same girl, described above, had outlying scores for
positive and negative utterances.
As Table 2 shows, children tended to focus on negative (M = 4.37) more
than positive emotions (M = 1.27), F(1, 40) = 26.98, p < .001. This finding
corresponds with the descriptive information given above on the highest
emotion words and sound effects used in the children’s corpus. In addition to
the same Group × Gender interaction, reported above, the results showed a
Group × Gender × Valence interaction, F(1, 40) = 3.95, p < .05. Post hoc analyses with separate Gender × Valence ANOVAs for each group revealed that
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
Table 2.
151
Children’s and Mothers’ Valence of Emotion Utterances
Children
Groups
Mexican immigrant
Girls
Boys
Total
Mexican American
Girls
Boys
Total
Combined
Mothers
Positive
Negative
Positive
Negative
1.33
0.67
1.00
1.83
5.08
3.46
4.67
6.17
5.42
13.67
18.33
16.00
2.42
0.67
1.54
1.27
6.58
4.00
5.29
4.37
11.00
6.17
8.58
7.00
16.67
13.25
14.96
15.48
the interaction of gender and valence occurred only in the Mexican immigrant group, F(1, 20) = 6.75, p < .05. Inspection of the means suggests that
Mexican immigrant girls’ emotion utterances were equally positive (M =
1.33) and negative (M = 1.83), whereas boys’utterances emphasized negative
(M = 5.08) over positive emotions (M = 0.67). In the Mexican American
group, negative emotions predominated over positive emotions in both girls’
(Ms = 6.58, 2.42) and boys’ (Ms = 4.00, 0.67) talk.
Summary of Children’s Emotion Talk
Children talked minimally about emotion, averaging about three emotion
utterances per 20-minute storytelling session. Overall, they used emotion
state words and emotion behavior words equally and label and explanation
utterances in similar amounts, and they emphasized negative over positive
emotions. As expected, gender patterns were found, but they depended on
intracultural group. In the Mexican American group, girls explicitly discussed emotion more than boys did. In the Mexican immigrant group, boys’
emotion utterances almost exclusively focused on negative emotions, whereas
girls’ emotion utterances were equally negative and positive in valence.
Mothers’ Emotion Talk
All mothers made one or more references to emotions during the storytelling session. The three most common emotion state words in their corpus, in
descending order, were enojado/mad, feliz/contenta/happy, and querer/love.
The three most common emotion behavior words were pelear/fight, besar/
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
kiss, and llorar/cry. The most common sound effect was for kissing, followed
by sounds for crying (“waah,” “boo-hoo”) and laughing (“hee-hee”). The
same analyses were conducted as for children, but an additional set of analyses addressed the kinds of explanations mothers used.
Mothers’ Emotion References
A 2 × 2 × 3 mixed-design ANOVA was conducted on the frequencies of
mothers’ emotion references, with group (Mexican immigrant, Mexican
American) and gender as the between-participants variables and reference
type (state, behavior, sound effect) as the within-participants variable. The
analysis was performed on a winsorized sample (g = 1) because one mother
had a much higher number of sound effects.
There was a main effect of reference type, F(2, 80) = 24.36, p < .001. Post
hoc analysis with Tukey’s HSD revealed that similar to children, mothers
used emotion state words (M = 8.23) and emotion behavior words (M = 8.69)
more frequently than emotion sound effects (M = 1.54) (all ps < .05). Inspection of the data showed that about half of mothers used emotion sound effects
at least once, but only 10 mothers used them three or more times. No main
effects or interactions were found for group or gender.
Mothers’ Emotion Labels and Explanations
Mothers’relative use of labels and explanations was analyzed in a 2 × 2 × 2
mixed-design ANOVA, with group and gender as the between-participants
variables and utterance type (label, explanation) as the within-participants
variable. Similar to the children’s data, the standard deviations in Table 3 suggest the high individual variation in mothers’ frequencies of emotion talk.
One mother used a much higher number of labels and two mothers used very
high numbers of explanations compared to the other mothers. Their scores
were reduced to the next highest label or explanation scores in the sample,
and the analysis was performed on a winsorized sample (g = 3).
The results indicated a main effect of utterance type, F(1, 40) = 4.10, p <
.05, with explanations (M = 12.58) more frequent than labels (M = 9.77).
However, this was qualified by a significant Group × Utterance Type interaction, F(1, 40) = 7.53, p < .01. As shown in Table 3, post hoc analysis of the
simple effects of utterance type for each group indicated that it was Mexican
immigrant mothers who used more emotion explanations (M = 14.04) than
labels (M = 7.42), F(1, 40) = 11.37, p < .01. In contrast, Mexican American
mothers used comparable amounts of explanations (M = 11.12) and labels
(M = 12.12). Analysis of the simple effects of group at utterance type
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
Table 3.
153
Mothers’Mean Use of Emotion References in Label and Explanation Utterances
Labels
Mothers
Mexican Immigrant
Girls
Boys
Total
Mexican American
Girls
Boys
Total
Explanations
Total
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
4.83
10.00
7.42
2.41
11.43
7.50
12.83
15.25
14.04
11.62
10.93
11.10
8.58
12.21
10.72
8.40
10.40
10.34
15.00
9.25
12.12
11.65
7.17
9.90
12.08
10.17
11.12
5.23
7.92
6.63
13.46
9.71
11.62
8.91
7.40
8.35
revealed that although the two groups did not differ in explanation frequency,
Mexican American mothers used labels more frequently than did Mexican
immigrant mothers, F(1, 40) = 5.74, p < .05. No other main effects or interactions were significant.
To begin to explore the content of mothers’explanations, the next analysis
examined the kind of causal information given in mothers’ explanations.
Mothers’ frequency of emotion explanations was examined in a 2 × 2 × 4
mixed-design ANOVA, with group and gender as the between-participants
variables and explanation type (cause, result, intervention, elicitation) as the
within-participants variable. Given that two mothers, as mentioned above,
used very high numbers of explanations, the analysis was conducted on a
winsorized sample (g = 2). The results indicated a main effect of explanation
type, F(3, 120) = 55.43, p < .001. Post hoc analysis with Tukey’s HSD
revealed that mothers’ explanations focused on causes of emotions (M =
7.37) more than on results (M = 2.37), interventions (M = 1.21), or eliciting
causal information (M = 1.58) (all ps < .05). In addition, their use of resultfocused explanations was higher than intervention- and elicitation-focused
explanations (p < .05). No evidence was obtained for group or gender variations in mothers’ use of explanation types.
Valence of Mothers’ Emotion Utterances
Lastly, the dominant valence of mothers’ emotion utterances (labels and
explanations combined) was examined in a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed-design ANOVA,
with group and gender as the between-participants variables and valence as
the within-participants variable. The two mothers with high frequencies of
explanations also had high frequencies of positive or negative emotion utter-
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
ances. Their scores were thus reduced to the next highest scores in the sample. Table 2 shows that similar to children, mothers’ emotion utterances
emphasized negative (M = 15.48) over positive emotions (M = 7.00), F(1,
40) = 31.13, p < .001. No other main effects or interactions were obtained.
Summary of Mothers’ Emotion Talk
Mothers talked about emotion much more frequently than children did,
averaging about 11 emotion utterances per storytelling session. They were
comparable to children in using equal amounts of emotion state and emotion
behavior words and in emphasizing negative over positive emotions. Although
the two groups of mothers discussed emotion in similar amounts, their relative use of labels and explanations varied in ways contrary to prediction.
Mexican immigrant mothers’emotion talk was denser with explanations than
labels, whereas Mexican American mothers used comparable amounts of the
two utterance types, and their use of labels was significantly higher that Mexican immigrant mothers’ use. Overall, explanations tended to focus on the
causes of emotions rather than on results or interventions. Finally, in contrast
to the children’s data, mothers’emotion talk did not show gender differences.
Discussion
Results of this investigation of emotion talk in Mexican immigrant and
Mexican American families expand the cultural base of research on parent
socialization of emotion. The findings are discussed in terms of (a) children’s
gender, (b) mothers’ intracultural group (Mexican immigrant and Mexican
American), and (c) children’s emotional development.
Children’s Gender and Mother-Child Emotion Talk
Overall, children linked emotion references to labeling and explanation
utterances in comparable amounts, and mothers linked them more extensively to explanations. They both emphasized negative over positive emotions, which may reflect the negative valence of three of the story’s four
events. Yet the participants were free to add to the story events and could have
easily incorporated positive emotions. The negative valence may also reflect
cultural practices. Studies of several low-income groups report that mothers
and children engage in more discussion of negative emotions (Burger &
Miller, 1999) and emotionally volatile topics (Briggs, 1998) compared to
middle-income European American families. These findings have been
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
155
linked to beliefs regarding young children’s ability to handle emotionally
negative topics.
Mothers and children differed regarding gender patterns in their emotion
talk. Children’s data showed gender differences that depended on intracultural group. In the Mexican American group, girls exhibited more emotion
utterances than boys did, as observed in earlier studies of Mexican American
and middle-income European American families (Adams et al., 1995; Dunn
et al., 1987; Eisenberg, 1999). In contrast, no significant gender differences
were found in the Mexican immigrant group. These divergent results give
limited support to the notion that specific patterns of gender differentiation
vary across cultural groups and, in this case, across intracultural groups
(Halberstadt, 1991).
Mothers’ emotion talk, however, did not show obvious gender patterns,
countering findings on European American families (Adams et al., 1995;
Cervantes & Callanan, 1998). Possibly, the high individual variation in their
emotion talk obscured gender patterns. Also, because the analyses focused
on labels and explanations, they may not have tapped more subtle patterns.
Inspection of the entire corpus of specific emotion references revealed that
consistent with Fivush’s (1993) work, anger references were most often
made by boys (12 of 15 instances) and by mothers of boys (31 of 45
instances). Words and sound effects for fighting showed similar gender patterns. In contrast, girls made the bulk of children’s love references (13 of 15
instances) and kissing sound effects (19 of 21 instances). Hence, gender patterns may depend on the specific emotion discussed.
Culture may also play a role in the lack of gender variations in mothers’
emotion talk. Research (Eisenberg, 1999; Flannagan & Pereses, 1998) suggests that emotion talk in Mexican-descent families has a distinctively interpersonal focus; it may thus be an effective medium for socializing familismo
and respeto. Because these values are purportedly central in Mexicandescent children’s socialization (Zayas & Solari, 1994), young girls and boys
may be similarly engaged in emotion conversations. Also, gender differentiation may become more salient as children get older, as suggested in the metaanalysis of Leaper, Anderson, and Sanders (1998). Finally, interactive context may play a role in both gender and cultural patterns. Leaper et al. (1998)
found that parents’ gender-differentiated talk was more likely to occur in
unstructured rather than structured activities, such as the present study’s
Lego storytelling task. Perhaps both mothers and children would show different emotion talk patterns in a less structured situation. To address how culture, gender, and interactive context co-construct mother-child emotion talk,
it will be important to compare Mexican-descent families’ emotion talk in a
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
number of interactive situations, including longer samples of spontaneous
conversation in the home.
Mothers’ Intracultural Group and the
Use of Emotion Labels and Explanations
Cultures vary in their patterns of explanation about social and emotional
topics (Lillard, 1997). The results showed that label-explanation patterns
also vary intraculturally, although the patterns were notably counter to prediction. First, Mexican American mothers used emotion labels more often
than Mexican immigrant mothers did. Below, in an example of frequent label
use, the mother’s use of emotion labels seems to highlight and promote sensitivity to the expressive aspects of people’s feelings. The Mexican American
mother and son discuss a pretend conflict in which a sister has taken her
brother’s bike without asking him. (Emotion references are italicized.)
M: [laughs] Is he mad?
C: Yes.
M: Is he looking mad like that, all close to her?
C: Yes. [smiles]
M: Is he crying?
C: No. [smiles]
M: He’s not crying? What if she starts crying cuz he’s looking mean like that?
C: I’m going to go to sleep. [pretend voice]
M: And you left her there crying?
C: No.
M: She’s crying, look at her.
Second, both groups used emotion explanations quite regularly. This regularity may be related to the dominant focus on negative emotions in their
emotion talk, because negative emotions tend to be explained more than positive emotions are (Fivush, 1993). But surprisingly, it was Mexican immigrant
mothers who showed a significantly greater density of explanations to labels.
Explanatory emotion talk has generally been considered an important component of analytic, self-reflective notions of emotional competence
(Wierzbicka, 1999); it was therefore expected to be more characteristic of
Mexican American mothers’ speech, because they generally have more contact with educational resources (e.g., parenting books) and U.S. practices of
individualism compared to Mexican immigrant mothers. The Mexican
American mother in the transcript portion below shows the self-reflective
approach to explanatory emotion talk that is noted in middle-income European American families and preschool settings (Feeny, Eder, & Rescorla,
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
157
1996). In discussing the story event of a pet dog (Chato) running away, she
prompts her daughter to reflect on her own past feelings about a similar reallife situation (involving the dog, Brozo).
M: ¿Y tú querías mucho a tu perrito?
C: Sí.
M: Y como cuando se fue Brocito estabas triste. ¿O estabas enojada o estabas
feliz?
C: Feliz.
M: Feliz. ¿Porque se fue Brozo?
C: No. Estaba triste.
M: Triste. Y ahorita estás triste porque se nos perdió Chato. Vamos a buscar a
Chato. Vente, vamos a subirnos al carro, vamos a ir a buscar a Chato.
[M: And did you love your dog a lot?
C: Yes.
M: And like when little Brozo ran away, you were sad. Or were you mad, or were
you happy?
C: Happy.
M: Happy. Because Brozo ran away?
C: No, I was sad.
M: Sad. And now you’re sad because we lost Chato. Let’s look for Chato. Come
on, let’s get in the car, let’s go look for Chato.]
However, the next example suggests that there are additional forms of
explanatory emotion talk beyond the self-reflective form. The Mexican
immigrant mother and her daughter in this example also talk about a pet dog
running away, and the mother uses many emotion explanations. But the story
event is organized around children’s transgressions and their negative effects
on the dog, other family members, and the children themselves.
M: Ellos andaban preocupados porque quieren el perrito.
C: Y ellos estaban esperando acostados a su mamá.
M: No, m’hija, ellos estaban apurados que quieren el perrito porque su papá y su
mamá los van a regañar. Porque ellos les van a decir que porque fastidiaron al
perrito y se fue. ¿Y ahora qué van a hacer?
Near the end of their story, when the parents return to the children, the
mother’s causal talk reinforces the importance of children’s obedience to parents’ directives:
M: Y el perrito ya feliz porque ya llegó el papá de los niños y ya no lo van a
fastidiar. “Niños, ya no quiero que fastidien al perrito porque el perrito es
bueno y no quiere que lo fastidien. Si no, se va a volver a escapar y ya no lo voy
a volver a traer.” “Está bien, ya no lo vamos a fastidiar, ya lo vamos a cuidar.
[M: They were worried because they love the doggy.
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
C: And they were waiting in bed for their mom.
M: No honey, they were distressed because they want their doggy back and
because Dad and Mom are going to scold them. Because they’re going to say
that they annoyed the doggy and he ran away. What are they gonna do?
M: And the doggy is glad because the children’s dad is back and they won’t annoy
him anymore. “Children, I don’t want you to annoy the doggy because he’s a
good doggy, and he doesn’t want you to annoy him. If you do, he’ll run away
again and I won’t bring him back.” “All right, we won’t annoy him again. We’re
gonna take care of him.”]
The above mother’s explanatory emotion talk suggests another approach
to socializing children’s emotional competence. It has a moral orientation
consistent with the socialization of familismo and respeto. This form of
explanatory emotion talk is suggestive of the everyday conversational practice, dar consejos—that is, the nurturing advice about the social world that
Mexican-descent parents frequently impart to children (Delgado-Gaitan,
1994b; Valdés, 1996). Delgado-Gaitan (1994b) noted that parents’ consejos
promote empathy, awareness of familial expectations, and critical thinking
about the social world. Perhaps this everyday practice is more salient in Mexican immigrant than Mexican American families. As the Mexican immigrant
mother’s example above shows, these conversations potentially provide children with rich information about emotions—particularly about other people’s emotions. However, the example diverges from the Mexican American
examples in that the mother ostensibly does not actively encourage the
child’s verbal contributions. In contrast, the Mexican American mothers
seem to encourage their children’s active participation in ways similar to
school-like discourse.
Thus, the transcript examples above suggest interesting directions for
future work on intracultural variations in Mexican-descent families’ emotion
talk and notions of emotional competence. It is possible that Mexican immigrant mothers’ emotion talk is more closely linked to the cultural practice of
dar consejos, whereas Mexican American mothers’ emotion talk is more
closely linked to U.S. preschool discourse practices. Yet it is important to
underscore that both of these possibilities represent emotionally rich and
cognitively complex approaches to young children’s developing emotional
competence. To explore multiple orientations to explanatory emotion talk
within and across cultures, future research should enjoin structural analyses
of label-explanation patterns with more fine-grained analyses of conversational content.
Cervantes / Mexican Immigrant and American Families
159
Children’s Emotional Development
Overall, the findings suggest that emotion conversations in Mexicandescent families provide an emotionally and cognitively rich context for
young children’s developing emotional competence. The literature on lowincome and ethnic minority families has often portrayed mothers as infrequently engaging in cognitively complex talk, including causal language,
with young children (Hart & Risley, 1995; Sigel, McGillicuddy-DeLisi, &
Johnson, 1980). In the present study, causal talk was generally quite frequent
in the context of emotion, suggesting that the complexity and causal nature of
parent-child talk in low-income families depends on the interactional context
in which families are observed (Burger & Miller, 1999; Eisenberg, 1996;
Moreno, 1991).
The study, however, did not address relations between Mexican-descent
mothers’ explanatory talk and measures of children’s emotion understanding. This relationship will be important to examine in Mexican-descent families and also across different cultures, as a step toward understanding the
correlates of emotional development in both general and culture-specific
terms. Previous work has revealed positive associations between parents’
emotion explanations and several aspects of children’s social and emotional
competence (Denham et al., 1994; Garner et al., 1997). However, this work
was primarily conducted with European American families. Given cultural
and intracultural variation, future work should consider multiple orientations
to emotion explanation and examine how these orientations mediate associations between parents’ label explanation patterns and children’s emotion
understanding. Some explanatory frameworks may relate to subtly different
forms of emotion understanding. Finally, it is important to examine the role
of parents’ beliefs about children’s emotions and how they link to conversational practices and children’s emotion understanding. Future studies of
Mexican-descent families may provide important data concerning parents’
beliefs about children’s emotions and emotional competence that would
enrich the content and activities of school-based programs on emotional
competence.
Notes
1. The cutoff points for the Mexican immigrant and Mexican American groups were based
on the assumption that adolescence is an important time for developing an identitfication with a
particular country (Zambrana et al., 1992).
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Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences
2. A total of five female researchers were involved in data collection. One researcher was of
Cuban descent, and the others were of Mexican descent; four out of five were native speakers of
Spanish.
3. In six cases (spread evenly across the two groups of mothers), a sibling sat with the mother
and target child during the storytelling session. This was allowed when the sibling’s exclusion
would have resulted in an uncomfortable situation for the family. In all cases, sibling interaction
was minimal and did not interfere with the mother’s or target child’s interactions.
4. In the case of near-adjacent utterances being judged for causal relations, a guideline was
set that no more than three utterances could intervene between them.
5. The family income question was optional in the demographic interview, and a total of nine
mothers opted not to answer it. Those who answered it selected from a list of ranges; therefore,
the income averages are rough estimates.
6. This and all the other analyses involving outlying scores were also performed with the outliers eliminated from the data set. All significant results found in the winsorized samples were
preserved in these second analyses.
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Christi A. Cervantes is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and a faculty affiliate in the Latina/Latino Studies Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California,
Santa Cruz. Her research interests focus on family, gender, and cultural contexts of children’s emotion socialization. She is currently examining links among parents’ beliefs
about children’s emotional development, parent-child conversations about emotion, and
children’s understanding of emotion.