This study was intended to analyze relations among mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions, children’s empathy, and children’s anger expression modes, and to demonstrate whether children’s empathy has a mediating effect on the relationship between mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions and anger expression modes. To this end, a survey was conducted on 400 children in the fifth and sixth grades of four elementary schools located in Jeollabuk-do Province, Korea, and a total of 334 questionnaires were collected for final analyses. This study was designed as a survey study with a self-report questionnaire targeted at children. The survey was composed of the scales for children’s anger expression modes (STAXI-K), mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions, and children’s empathy. Data descriptive statistics, t-test, and multiple regression analysis were performed using SPSS program 18.0. This was followed by the verification procedure for mediating effects Baron and Kenny (1986) and the Sobel Test (1982) to analyze the mediating effects.
The three major results of this study are as follows:
First, as a result of verifying differences among major variables based on gender, There were significant differences between male and female children in mothers’ oversensitive reactions and emotion-minimizing reactions to children’s negative emotions and children’s empathy. In contrast, there was no significant difference between male and female children in children’s anger expression modes. Specifically, it was found that male children had a higher perception of their mothers’ oversensitive reactions and emotion-minimizing reactions than female children, and the empathy level was higher in female children than in male children.
Second, the correlations between mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions, children’s empathy, and children’s anger expression modes were examined. The results showed that in the relationship between mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions and children’s anger expression modes, the higher the mothers’ emotion-coaching reactions to children’s negative emotions are, the higher the children’s anger control and the lower the anger-out and anger-in are. The higher the mothers’ oversensitive reactions to children’s negative emotions are, the higher the children’s anger-out and anger-in are. In addition, the higher the mothers’ emotion-minimizing reactions to children’s negative emotions are, the lower the children’s anger control and the higher anger-out and anger-in are. In the relationship between mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions and children’s empathy, the higher the mothers’ emotion-coaching reactions to children’s negative emotions are, the higher the children’s empathy is. The higher the mothers’ emotion-minimizing reactions to children’s negative emotions are, the lower the children’s empathy is. In the relationship between children’s empathy and children’s anger expression modes, the higher the children’s empathy, the higher the children’s anger control. The lower the children’s empathy, the higher the children’s anger-out.
Third, as a result of verifying the mediating effects of children’s empathy in the relationship between mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions and children’s anger expression modes, children’s empathy was found to have a partially mediating effect on the relationship between mothers’ emotion-coaching reactions to children’s negative emotions and children’s anger control. In the relationship between mothers’ emotion-coaching reactions to children’s negative emotions and children’s anger-out, children’s empathy was shown to have a completely mediating effect. In addition, children’s empathy had a partially mediating effect on the relationship between mothers’ emotion-minimizing reactions to children’s negative emotions and children’s anger control and anger-out.
This study has verified that mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions have an influence on children’s empathy, and such children’s empathy, in turn, affects children’s anger control and anger-out as children’s anger expression modes. The results of this study indicate that children’s empathy is one of the important variables with respect to children’s anger control and anger-out. The research also suggests the significance of mothers’ reactions to children’s negative emotions which influence children’s empathy.
Therefore, at home, it is necessary to administer parent education that motivates mothers to have appropriate emotion-coaching reactions when children display negative emotions. While in school, efforts should be made to promote children’s empathy by facilitating the operation of empathy training programs.