"Emotional expressivity" refers to how openly and visibly someone shows their emotions. It means expressing feelings in a way that others can easily understand, through facial expressions, body language, or tone of voice.
Full definition
There was a significant group × target expressivity interaction such that patients showed a smaller increase in empathic accuracy with higher levels
of emotional expressivity by the target, compared with controls.
This observational study tries to understand differences in
dyadic emotional expressivity and dyadic emotional flexibility between parent - child dyads with and without AD children.
Childhood positive
parental emotional expressivity more consistently related to early - adolescents» lower pure externalizing compared to co-occurring problems and pure internalizing.
To further narrow and enhance our understanding of group differences in dyadic emotional processes, we investigated the effects of parents» AD
on emotional expressivity and flexibility in parent - child interactions.
Mother - child dyads where both mother and child had AD showed
more emotional expressivity and less emotional flexibility compared to mother - child dyads with only AD children and to dyads without AD.
Sophistication in understanding and enacting cultural display rules has increased dramatically by this stage, such that by now children begin to know when to control
emotional expressivity as well as have a sufficient repertoire of behavioral regulation skills allowing them to effectively mask emotions in socially appropriate ways.
Finally, while fathers» contribution and role during interactions with children might be different from that of mothers, particularly when fathers have an AD themselves (Bögels and Phares 2008; Lunkenheimer et al. 2011; Morris et al. 2007; Suveg et al. 2008), studies mostly
examined emotional expressivity and flexibility of mother - child dyads.
Targeting emotional flexibility of dyads with children with an AD, and
also emotional expressivity of dyads when mother has an AD, might be a valuable goal for family - based intervention.
Participants» self - rated empathy was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, and targets» self -
rated emotional expressivity was measured using the Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire.
Since none of these studies
investigated emotional expressivity as a real - time sequence of dyadic emotions, one explanation for our results might be that the role of parents» and children's individual emotions in child anxiety has been overestimated.
Differences between father - child dyads and mother - child dyads were investigated as well as the effects of parents» AD on
dyadic emotional expressivity and dyadic emotional flexibility.
This contradicts earlier studies (Hudson et al. 2008; Suveg et al. 2005, 2008) showing deficits in parents» and children's
emotional expressivity during parent - child interactions with AD children.
Considering that only little research to date has systematically addressed differences between father - child and mother - child dyads in these dyadic emotional processes, we explored
whether emotional expressivity and flexibility differed between mother - child and father - child dyads with and without AD children.
We contribute to the literature on the relations of temperament to externalizing and internalizing problems by considering
parental emotional expressivity and child gender as moderators of such relations and examining prediction of pure and co-occurring problem behaviors during early to middle adolescence using bifactor models (which provide unique and continuous factors for pure and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problems).
This was not the case, indicating that neither parents» and children's gender nor children's age affected differences
in emotional expressivity and flexibility between parent - child dyads with and without AD children.
The researchers compared
their emotional expressivity results to another demographic measure of immigration — the sheer number of home countries represented by immigrants living in each of 32 countries in 2013 — and found little correlation.
Post-hoc analyses revealed significant differences between pairings in which the husband was high in negative expressivity, irrespective of wives» negative
emotional expressivity, and pairings in which both partners were low in negative emotional expressivity.
Preliminary t - tests revealed no differences between children and adolescents in levels of dyadic
emotional expressivity and flexibility.
Measures of dyadic
emotional expressivity (positive and negative affect) and dyadic emotional flexibility (transitions, dispersion, average duration) were derived from these interactions using state space grid analysis.
Emotional expressivity of parent - child dyads is thought to be an important indicator of adaptive socio - emotional functioning (Morris et al. 2007).
These findings are discussed with respect to previous research that suggests that wives»
emotional expressivity is the major determinant of marital functioning.
Therefore, a critical question remains whether there are differences between parent - child dyads with AD children and non-AD children in levels of dyadic
emotional expressivity (i.e., dyadic positive and negative affect).
To capture
the emotional expressivity, we derived from GridWare the total duration in seconds of dyadic positive affect and dyadic negative affect during father - child and mother - child interactions.
Schizophrenia patients showed lower empathic accuracy than controls, and their empathic accuracy was less influenced by
the emotional expressivity of the target.
Maternal AD affected levels of
emotional expressivity and emotional flexibility of mother - child dyads with AD children.
Yet, emotional demands are different across contexts, and the merit of
emotional expressivity and flexibility might depend on the specific social context.
Descriptives of
emotional expressivity and emotional flexibility for father - child and mother - child dyads
Nevertheless, knowledge is lacking on how parental AD, in addition to children's AD, is associated with dyadic
emotional expressivity and dyadic emotional flexibility during parent - child interactions.
For example, mothers» positive
emotional expressivity is one of the most robust predictors of adequate social - emotional functioning in children, including adaptive self - regulation and high social competence (Eisenberg et al. 1998).
The current observational study represents a novel and important contribution to the current literature by showing that dyadic emotional flexibility, but not dyadic
emotional expressivity, was lower in parent - child dyads with children with an AD than dyads with typically developing children.
Current results may imply that dyadic emotional flexibility might be a better indicator of problematic parent - child emotional processes when comparing AD and non-AD children than dyadic
emotional expressivity.
Data from 58 married couples were used to assess spouses» levels of
emotional expressivity and how these levels predicted reports of marital functioning.
Mother's
emotional expressivity and children's behavior problems and social competence: Mediation through children's regulation
Parental
emotional expressivity was measured observationally and with parents» self - reports.