Psychology
Experiences of Racism and Acculturation Patterns in Asian American Mothers’ Emotion Representations and Socialization Practices
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Emotion socialization research highlights the importance of parents’ beliefs about emotions and their responses to children’s negative emotions in fostering children’s developing emotion regulation. However, few studies have examined how systemic influences shape these processes among Asian American families. This cross-sectional online survey examined how racism-related stress and acculturation patterns relate to Asian American mothers’ emotion-related beliefs and socialization practices. Participants were 177 Asian American mothers (Mage = 36.3 years, SD = 7.3) of preschool-aged children (Mage = 4.3 years, SD = 1.1; 44.1% girls) who completed questionnaires assessing racism-related stress, acculturation, beliefs about their own and their children’s emotions, responses to children’s negative emotions, and children’s emotion regulation. Regression analyses indicated that mothers who valued attending to and regulating emotions and who viewed children’s negative emotional expressions as appropriate reported more emotion-encouraging and emotion-problem-focused responses. In contrast, mothers who viewed children’s negative expressions as inappropriate and socially consequential reported more minimizing and punitive responses. Acculturation was associated with less emotional suppression, whereas racism-related stress was not associated with the study variables. These findings suggest that Asian American mothers’ emotion-related beliefs and parenting responses may be understood in relation to their racialized, acculturative, and family contexts. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2026.
Publication Title
Journal of Child and Family Studies
Publication Date
2026
ISSN
1062-1024
DOI
10.1007/s10826-026-03399-7
Keywords
acculturation, Asian American, emotion representation, emotion socialization, racism
Repository Citation
Han, Hojin and Marcelo, Ana, "Experiences of Racism and Acculturation Patterns in Asian American Mothers’ Emotion Representations and Socialization Practices" (2026). Psychology. 1008.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_psychology/1008
