Parents’ meta-emotion philosophy, emotional intelligence and relationship to adolescent emotional intelligence

The current study investigated combined contributions of several parental aspects involved in the socialisation of emotion. A model was proposed which considered how parental EI and emotion-related beliefs may shape parental behaviour, which in turn influences the emotional intelligence of adolescents. The parent sample consisted of 92 participants, including 60 mothers and 31 fathers and their 65 adolescent children, aged between 11 and 17 years. Parents completed the Swinburne University Intelligence Test (SUEIT), the Self-Expressiveness in the Family Questionnaire, the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale and a newly constructed Meta-emotion Philosophy Scale. Adolescents completed the adolescent version of the SUEIT. The Swinburne Meta-emotion Philosophy Scale was highly reliable and expected correlations indicated validity. Although the proposed mediating model was not supported, findings were in the expected direction and mediating effects were found for parts of the model. Cluster Analysis revealed that the subsidiary aim of the current study, which was to disentangle the construct of meta-emotion philosophy, was successful. Three distinct groups of parents were identified who differed in terms of emotional intelligence, emotion-related beliefs and parent practices. Results highlight the importance of considering parents’ emotional functioning and emotion-related beliefs as influences of parenting behaviour that ultimately affect children’s emotional competencies.