Abstract/Summary

The ability to regulate one’s emotions, which is progressively acquired from birth, is key to healthy socio-emotional and psychological functioning. Research suggests that predictors of child emotional development, including parenting, child temperament, context and culture, contribute to the socialisation of emotion regulation (ER) and exert their influence both directly, and in interaction with one another. However, little empirical research has considered these factors together. This PhD thesis includes three longitudinal studies conducted in the UK, Italy, and South Africa, and focuses on the influence of mother-infant interactions assessed in the first three months (in particular, maternal sensitivity and specific contingent responses to infant socio-emotional communication) on later child ER (from 9 months to 2 years). Across studies, both reactive (i.e., latency and intensity of distress) and regulatory components (i.e., regulative behavioural strategies) of ER were assessed as outcomes, with differences in design and approach, according to study aims and child age. Two studies were cross-cultural, comparing the UK with either samples from South Africa (Stellenbosch and Khayelitsha – paper 1), or from Italy (paper 2), while the last study was conducted in the UK, on a sample different from the ones used in the previous studies (paper 3). The main findings from the three papers are: a) no differences in global levels of sensitive responsiveness were found across cultures, but variations in the expression of responsiveness emerged (papers 1 and 2); b) differences in the reactive component of ER did not emerge across cultures, whereas differences in the type of ER strategies employed to face frustration did emerge (papers 1 and 2); c) early maternal responsiveness mediated the association between culture and later child ER (papers 1 and 2); d) in the UK sample, maternal sensitivity mediated the association between type of context and ER (paper 3); and e) the association between maternal sensitivity and child ER varies according to temperament (paper 3).