Grandparents as overlooked agents for emotion socialization: a two-study investigation of adult grandchildren and grandmothers with young grandchildren

Abstract

Grandparents are involved in grandchildren’s lives in ways that may directly or indirectly teach grandchildren about emotions; yet grandparents’ emotion socialization has not been systematically examined to date. We conducted two studies with US samples examining grandparents’ role as emotion socialization agents. In Study 1, US adults recruited through MTurk (N = 100; age 26–44 years; 10% Black or African American, 7% Asian American, 79% White, 4% multiracial; 5% Hispanic/Latinx) provided: (a) narratives about high points and low points with their grandparent, (b) narratives of life lessons learned from the grandparent, (c) retrospective reports of their grandparent’s emotion socialization, and (d) self-reports of emotion regulation. Narratives indicated the presence of grandparent teaching/validation emotion socialization, particularly in high point narratives. About half of life lessons learned from grandparents were related to positive emotions (six themes identified) and/or negative emotions (two themes identified). Grandparents’ emotion socialization was a unique predictor of adult maladaptive emotion regulation after accounting for parents’ emotion socialization. In Study 2, African American, Latina, and Appalachian grandmothers (N = 146; age 46–90 years) with grandchildren in grades 3–5 completed online surveys reporting their beliefs about emotions and their grandchild’s emotion management and social competence. Across groups, grandmothers’ beliefs about positive emotions were influential for children’s socioemotional outcomes, and guidance beliefs were influential for children’s prosocial behavior. Grandmothers’ guidance beliefs related to children’s emotion regulation among Latina grandmothers only. Findings support a unique role of grandparents in emotion socialization across sociocultural groups, particularly regarding socialization of positive emotions.