Expression and display rules of basic and self-conscious emotions among Turkish children : role age, gendder, socio economic status and context

Abstract

Emotion display rules are the prevailing expectations that prescribe socially acceptable forms of emotion expression in a given context. The aim of the present study was to examine the unique and interactive roles of children’s socioeconomic status (SES), gender, age, and emotion communication context (father, mother, friend) on the use of emotion display rules for both basic and self-conscious emotions in Turkish culture. The sample included 123 children (62 boys, 61 girls) from third and fifth grade. Schools were selected based on the neighborhood characteristics to ensure variability in the SES of the participating families. Children’s reactions to emotion eliciting situations were assessed by a structured interview that consisted of five hypothetical scenarios. Each scenario was designed to elicit a specific emotion, namely happiness, anger, guilt, shame, and disappointment. After each scenario was read out loud, children were asked about how they would feel if they were in such a situation and whether they would show or not show their felt emotion. All children were interviewed individually in their school. Logistic regression analyses revealed the interactive role of the SES and gender on the probability of children’s decision to express or not to express their emotion in the situations designed to elicit shame and guilt. In each of these situations (shame and guilt scenarios), the odds of emotion expression was less likely for low SES boys than high SES boys. On the other hand, the relation between children’s report of emotion expression and SES was nonsignificant for girls in these two scenarios. Secondly, for those shame and guilt scenarios, grade was revealed to have a predictive role on emotional expression such that, fifth graders were found to be more likely to express their emotions in those scenarios than third graders. For anger scenario, SES uniquely predicted children’s emotional expression. The odds of emotion expression of high SES children were higher than low SES children. The findings were discussed in light of the child rearing values and beliefs of Turkish culture by highlighting the variations of gender and sociocultural differences in emotion socialization.