GENDER DIFFERENCES IN PARENT-CHILD CONVERSATIONS ABOUT PAST EMOTIONS - A LONGITUDINAL INVESTIGATION

In this longitudinal investigation we examined the emotional content of 17 white middle-class parents' conversations about past events with their children at 40 and 70 months of age. Parents' use of emotion language did not differ depending upon parent gender but strong differences were found in parents' use of emotion terms depending upon child gender parents' references to emotion were more frequent and varied with daughters than with sons. They also mentioned sadness and disliking more often with daughters than with sons. While no differences were found between girls and boys at 40 months of age, by 70 months, girls mentioned more unique emotion terms than did boys. Children more frequently used emotion terms with their fathers than with their mothers. Age-related changes in parents' and children's use of emotion language were also documented The role of conversations about the past in the differential emotion socialization of girls and boys is discussed.