Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368

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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jappdp

Testing TIK (Tuning in to Kids) with TEC (Test of Emotion Comprehension):

Does enhanced emotion socialization improve child
emotion understanding?
Rune Flaaten Bjørk a, *, Evalill Bølstad a, Francisco Pons a, Sophie Seychelle Havighurst b
a
University of Oslo, Norway
b
University of Melbourne, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This study examined the predictive link between enhanced parental emotion-related socialization behaviors
Emotion socialization (ERSBs) and children’s emotional understanding. Parental ERSBs were enhanced using the Tuning in to Kids
Emotion understanding (TIK; Havighurst & Harley, 2007) parenting intervention, and children’s emotional understanding was directly
Emotion coaching
assessed using the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC; Pons & Harris, 2000). 40 children in their final year of
Parenting intervention
kindergarten and one of their parents participated in the study. TIK led to positive changes in parental expressive
encouragement. All children showed statistically significant improvements in emotion understanding at six-
month follow-up. As expected, parental expressive encouragement positively predicted children’s development
of emotional understanding from baseline to follow-up. Thus, when parents encouraged children to talk about
emotions, children’s emotional understanding improved. Unexpectedly, emotion-focused responses (warm but
dismissive) negatively predicted children’s development of emotion understanding, Children’s emotional un­
derstanding did not improve as much when parents responded with comfort and distraction. Implications are
discussed.

Emotion understanding is the ability to recognize and predict emo­
tions in oneself and others (Denham, 1998; Harris, 1989; Saarni, 1999;
Saarni & Harris, 1991), and is related to several developmental out­
comes in children (Bender, Pons, Harris, Esbjørn, & Reinholdt-Dunne,
2015; Cassidy, Werner, Rourke, Zubernis, & Balaraman, 2003; Den­
ham, 1986; Denham et al., 2003; Southam-Gerow & Kendall, 2000). A
large body of research has linked emotion understanding in children to
parent emotion-related socialization behaviors (ERSBs) – that is, the
way parents discuss emotions, model emotional expressions, and how
they respond to children’s emotions (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad,
1998). However, no previous studies have directly tested whether
enhanced ERSBs predict improvements in children’s emotional under­
standing. Such information is needed to inform practice (i.e., emotion-
focused parenting interventions) and is crucial for understanding
emotion socialization processes.
The current study uses an intervention design to test these associa­
tions, applying the emotion-focused parenting program Tuning in to
Kids (TIK; Havighurst & Harley, 2007). TIK is a six-session emotion-
focused parenting program appropriate for universal delivery, where the
main aim is to enhance parental ERSBs. Intervention designs can be used
to test developmental models examining a causal link between parental
ERSBs and emotion understanding in children. Investigations of
emotion-focused parenting programs provide emerging evidence of this
link (Havighurst et al., 2013; Havighurst et al., 2015; Havighurst, Wil­
son, Harley, Prior, & Kehoe, 2010; Salmon, Dadds, Allen, & Hawes,
2009; Van Bergen, Salmon, Dadds, & Allen, 2009; Wilson, Havighurst, &
Harley, 2012), but these studies did not investigate whether the positive
changes in child outcomes were caused by positive changes in parental
ERSBs. Other studies investigating the link between parental ERSBs and
emotion understanding in children have expanded on existing behav­
ioral parenting interventions. Salmon, Dittman, Sanders, Burson, and
Hammington (2014), for example, compared an Emotion Enhanced
Triple-P with the standard Triple-P parenting program. They found that
parental ERSBs improved more in the emotion-enhanced condition post-
intervention and at a 4-month follow-up assessment, but there were no
differences between children’s emotional understanding in the two

* Corresponding author at: University of Oslo, Norway.

E-mail addresses: r.f.bjork@psykologi.uio.no (R.F. Bjørk), e.b.karevold@psykologi.uio.no (E. Bølstad), francisco.pons@psykologi.uio.no (F. Pons), sshavi@
unimelb.edu.au (S.S. Havighurst).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101368
Received 18 July 2020; Received in revised form 19 November 2021; Accepted 22 November 2021
Available online 30 November 2021
0193-3973/© 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
R.F. Bjørk et al.
groups. It is therefore not evident that improving ERSBs in parents will
lead to positive changes in children’s emotional understanding.
Simultaneously, most previous intervention studies on emotion so­
cialization and emotion understanding have focused on emotion
recognition and causes of emotions (e.g., Denham & Kochanoff, 2002;
Denham, Zoller, & Couchoud, 1994) that develop in the first phase of
emotion understanding from 3 to 4 years of age (Cutting & Dunn, 1999;
Denham & Burton, 1996; Harris, 1989; Pons, Harris, & de Rosnay,
2004). Thus, there is an additional gap in the emotion socialization
literature concerning the later stages of emotion understanding (i.e.,
understanding mixed emotions or moral emotions), and it is largely
unknown how parental ERSBs affect the latter developmental phases of
emotion understanding.
A developmental model of emotion understanding
Emotion understanding is one of the main constituents of emotional
competence, in addition to emotional expressiveness and emotion
regulation (Denham et al., 2003; Denham, Bassett, & Wyatt, 2015).
Emotion understanding is positively related to children’s social adjust­
ment, school achievement, academic success, and action coordination in
peer interaction (Bardack & Widen, 2019; Franco, Beja, Candeias, &
Santos, 2017; Viana, Zambrana, Karevold, & Pons, 2019). It is also
positively related to the development of cognitive functioning, such as
intelligence, working memory, and language development (Albanese,
De Stasio, Di Chiacchio, Fiorilli, & Pons, 2010; De Stasio, Fiorilli, & Di
Chiacchio, 2014; Morra, Parrella, & Camba, 2011), and negatively
related to aggression, anxiety, depression, and behavior problems in
children (Bender et al., 2015; Schuberth et al., 2019; Southam-Gerow &
Kendall, 2002).
According to the developmental model of emotion understanding
(Pons et al., 2004), children’s emotional understanding develops
through a series of three partly overlapping phases during childhood:
the external, the mental, and the reflective phases (Harris, 1994; Harris,
Johnson, Hutton, Andrews, & Cooke, 1989; Kockeritz, Klinkhammer, &
von Salisch, 2010; Pons et al., 2004; Pons & Harris, 2005; Sprung,
Munch, Harris, Ebesutani, & Hofmann, 2015). The TEC was developed
to specifically assess these three phases of emotion understanding,
including three components for each phase, yielding a total of nine
components: 1) recognition of emotion labels, 2) understanding external
causes of emotions, 3) understanding emotions that are based on desires
4) comprehending belief-based emotions, 5) understanding that emo­
tions can be elicited by reminders, 6) understanding that emotions can
be regulated 7) understanding hidden emotions, 8) comprehending
mixed emotions, and 9) understanding that emotions can be affected by
moral judgment (Pons & Harris, 2000). Components 1 to 3 develop in
the external phase of emotion understanding. In this phase, from 3 to 5
years of age, children develop the ability to recognize and label basic
emotional expressions such as happiness, sadness, anger, and fear
(Cutting & Dunn, 1999; Denham, 1986). The mental phase from 4 to 7
years of age corresponds to components 4–6): children acquire an un­
derstanding that beliefs, either false or true, can influence people’s
emotions, that a reminder can elicit emotions, and that emotions can be
regulated by behavioral and psychological strategies (Band & Weisz,
1988; Harris et al., 1989; Pons et al., 2004). For example, children start
to understand that sadness might follow from being reminded of a dead
pet, and that thought can regulate emotions. The reflective phase de­
velops from around 4 to 8 years of age and corresponds to components
7–9 (Kårstad, Wichstrom, Reinfjell, Belsky, & Berg-Nielsen, 2015; Pons
et al., 2004). Children begin to understand that emotions are sometimes
hidden, mixed, or influenced by moral judgment (Brown & Dunn, 1996;
Gardner, Harris, Ohmoto, & Hamazaki, 1988; Lake, Lane, & Harris,
1995). For example, children develop an understanding that feelings of
guilt or shame may arise from getting caught stealing a cookie. In sum,
research supports the notion that children’s emotional understanding
develops in partly overlapping phases during early to middle childhood
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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368
(Pons et al., 2004). The TEC (Pons & Harris, 2000) measures the
developmental phases of emotion understanding and is, therefore, a
valuable instrument to apply in emotion socialization research.
Most research on emotion socialization, however, has not applied a
developmental model of emotion understanding but has instead focused
on external components of emotional understanding (e.g., Havighurst
et al., 2013; Havighurst et al., 2015). A link between parental ERSBs and
children’s external emotion understanding has been established in
several studies using the Denham (1986) puppet task (for a review, see
Denham et al., 2015). Denham’s (1986) puppet task is sometimes also
referred to as the Emotion Skills Task, the Affective Knowledge Test, or
simply the puppet interview (Morgan, Izard, & King, 2010). The Coping
with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES; Fabes, Eisenberg, &
Bernzweig, 1990) is often used as a measure of parental ERSBs in
conjunction with the puppet interview in the emotion socialization
literature. The CCNES is a widely used self-report questionnaire
assessing parental ERSBs. It measures three types of supportive (parental
expressive encouragement, emotion-focused, and problem-focused re­
actions) and three types of non-supportive (parental distress, mini­
mizing and punitive reactions) ERSBs (for a review, see Johnson, Hawes,
Eisenberg, Kohlhoff, & Dudeney, 2017). In keeping with prior studies,
we used the CCNES in the present study, but instead of the puppet
interview, we used the TEC to measure developmental stages of emotion
understanding. However, we still review prior research with the puppet
task as it provides a conceptual basis for the present investigation, as
there is, to our knowledge, no studies on the impact on ERSB in­
terventions on developmental stages of emotion understanding in
children.
Parental ERSBs predict emotion understanding
Fabes, Poulin, Eisenberg, and Madden-Derdich (2002) conducted a
psychometric evaluation of the CCNES, using the puppet interview as an
outcome measure to investigate the relationship between parental
ERSBs and children’s external emotion understanding. They found that
parental supportive ERSBs positively and non-supportive ERSBs nega­
tively predicted child emotion understanding. In other words, when
parents comforted and distracted (i.e., emotion-focused reactions),
problem-solved (i.e., problem-focused reactions), and encouraged chil­
dren to share and express feelings (i.e., expressive encouragement),
children tended to have a better understanding of emotions. On the
other hand, when parents responded with punitive responses (e.g.,
yelling at the child), minimization (e.g., telling the child to stop crying),
or distress (e.g., losing their temper), children tended to perform more
poorly on the puppet interview. Similarly, using the puppet interview
and an emotion labeling task, Denham et al. (1994) found that observed
supportive parental ERSBs (i.e., explanations about and responsiveness
to emotions) positively predicted external components of emotion un­
derstanding in 3 year-olds (N = 47). This finding was replicated in a
larger study by Denham and Kochanoff (2002) using the CCNES and the
puppet interview. In a sample of 134 predominantly Caucasian, middle-
income families of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds, they found that supportive
parental ERSBs were related to better performance on the external
components of emotion understanding in children. Perlman, Camras,
and Pelphrey (2008) replicated these results using a computerized
version of the puppet interview. In a study of 42 preschool children aged
4 to 5 years, they found evidence of a significant association between
non-supportive reactions and the external components of emotion un­
derstanding. In sum, several studies have found that supportive re­
actions are related to improved child emotion understanding and that
non-supportive reactions are related to poorer emotion understanding
in 3- to 5-year-old children (Denham et al., 1994; Denham et al., 2015;
Eisenberg et al., 1998; Fabes et al., 2002; Thompson et al., 2020).
The present study differs from prior studies on emotion socialization
and emotion understanding in that it uses the TEC to measure devel­
opmental phases of emotion understanding. The TEC is advantageous in
R.F. Bjørk et al.
several ways. First, the TEC measures all nine components of emotion
understanding and provides scale scores for external, mental, reflective,
and total emotion understanding, whereas the puppet interview pri­
marily assesses external components of emotions (i.e., labeling of
emotions and understanding situational causes of emotions). Even
though young children, such as those in the present sample’s age range,
are not expected to comprehend higher components of emotion under­
standing (i.e., the reflective and mental components), it is important to
also assess mental and reflective items as these components may develop
earlier in some cultures than in others (e.g., the understanding of hidden
emotions may develop as early as age 4 in Chinese children; Pons et al.,
2004; Tang et al., 2018). Secondly, the TEC is more standardized than
the puppet interview. The experimenter presents scenarios with draw­
ings on paper that are the same every time and reads aloud a stan­
dardized verbal script with neutral intonation. Additional
standardization is achieved when using the computerized version of the
TEC (Haslinger, 2014). Third, the TEC does not require a verbal
response, which reduces the chances that results are confounded with
children’s language production.
Only two previous studies have investigated the effects of supportive
and non-supportive ERSBs on emotion understanding using the CCNES
and the TEC (Bjørk, Havighurst, Pons, & Karevold, 2020; Chora, Mon­
teiro, Ramos, & Amaral, 2019). In a sample of 75 Portuguese 3- to 6-
year-old children and their fathers, Chora et al. (2019) found a signifi­
cant negative association between fathers’ distress reactions and chil­
dren’s total TEC scores. In other words, when Portuguese fathers reacted
calmly in response to children’s negative emotions, children tended to
have better emotion understanding. Relatedly, in a sample of 40, 5- to 6-
year-old Norwegian kindergarten children and their parents, Bjørk et al.
(2020) found that parental expressive encouragement positively and
significantly predicted children’s scores on the TEC. Parental distress
reactions did not predict emotion understanding in these Norwegian
families but when parents encouraged children to share difficult emo­
tions, children tended to achieve higher scores on the TEC.
Whereas the puppet interview is typically used in Anglo-American
studies on emotion socialization (for a review, see Denham et al.,
2015), the TEC is often applied in cross-cultural and more culturally
diverse samples studying emotion understanding (Aznar & Tenenbaum,
2013; Cavioni, Grazzani, Ornaghi, Pepe, & Pons, 2020; Chora et al.,
2019; Kårstad, 2016; Kårstad et al., 2016; Tang et al., 2018; Viana et al.,
2019; Vikan, Kårstad, & Dias, 2013). Thus, in the following section,
cross-cultural influences on emotion understanding are discussed.
Cultural influences on emotion understanding
Most cited research on emotion socialization comes from European
American samples set in North America (Cole & Tan, 2015). Thus, there
is a gap in emotion socialization literature where culturally diverse
samples are seldom included (Raval & Walker, 2019). This is concerning
because the emotion understanding literature provides evidence of dif­
ferences in emotion understanding across cultures, suggesting that cul­
ture may affect children’s understanding of emotions. For example, a
cross-cultural study of Chinese preschool children (N = 65; age 4 to 6)
applying the TEC, found that Chinese children developed an under­
standing of emotions that followed a pattern similar to that found in
European American preschoolers (Tang et al., 2018). The Chinese pre­
schoolers, however, performed better at understanding hidden emotions
compared to European children but were poorer at linking reminders to
emotions. One possible explanation for this finding is that hiding emo­
tions are more common in the Chinese culture and children, therefore,
develop this component earlier compared to Western European children.
Results from another cross-cultural study applying the TEC suggested
that socioeconomic status (SES) was confounded with culture. When
comparing TEC scores for high SES Brazilian preschoolers (n = 50) with
low SES Brazilian preschoolers (n = 50), Kårstad et al. (2016) found that
SES affected the understanding of positive and neutral emotions. Low
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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368
SES Brazilian preschoolers did not have difficulties recognizing negative
emotions but found it more difficult than high SES children to recognize
positive and neutral emotions. Kårstad et al. (2016) compared their
findings to high SES preschoolers in Norway and Italy, and low SES
preschoolers in Peru. High SES Brazilian preschoolers had almost the
same level of emotion understanding as Norwegian and Italian pre­
schoolers, and low SES Brazilian preschool children had a similar level
of emotion understanding as low SES children from Peru (Kårstad et al.,
2016). The researchers concluded that the development of emotion
understanding was better explained by SES than culture, highlighting
the importance of including SES as a covariate in studies on emotion
understanding.
Whether the Norwegian culture differs from other western cultures
in terms of emotion socialization practices is largely unknown (Bjørk
et al., 2020). One important factor that sets the Nordic countries apart
from other WEIRD (White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Demo­
cratic) countries (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010), is the Nordic
Social-Democratic welfare system (the Nordic Model; Andersen et al.,
2007). Through the welfare system, Nordic parents receive substantially
more economic and social support in their role as parents compared to
parents in the US, and families have universal access to child care
(Zachrisson & Dearing, 2015). On the one hand, substantial economic
support provided to families in the first year after birth enables parents
to spend considerable time with their newborn babies, thereby poten­
tially strengthening attachment bonds and supportive ERSBs in early
childhood (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Godleski, Eiden, Shisler, & Livingston,
2020). On the other hand, universal access to childcare may encourage
parents to pursue professional careers in the early childhood years,
reducing time spent with the family and therefore also reducing op­
portunities for socializing children into a world of emotions within the
family context (Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, & Robinson, 2007;
Thompson, 2013; Thompson et al., 2020). It is thus unclear how Nordic
family-friendly policy schemes affect parental ERSBs and the develop­
ment of emotional understanding in children (Bjørk et al., 2020).
A recent cross-cultural study of parental ERSBs in 12 cultures in 9
countries (i.e., China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines,
Sweden, Thailand, and the USA) found however that the mechanisms
linking parent behavior to behavior problems in adolescents were
similar across cultures. These findings suggest that although parental
ERSBs may vary across cultures (Cole & Tan, 2015; Raval & Walker,
2019), the emotion socialization processes linking parental ERSBs to
adolescent behavior problems operate similarly across cultures. We
assumed that the same conclusion may generalize to children’s
emotional understanding, though we did not explore discrete mecha­
nisms in the present investigation. As part of building a foundation for
such future works, the present study is the first to investigate the effects
of the TIK intervention on parental ERSBs and children’s emotional
understanding in a Nordic cultural context. In the following sections, a
broader introduction to the TIK intervention is given.
The TIK intervention
TIK was developed to enhance emotion socialization skills in parents
(Havighurst & Harley, 2007), building on the seminal work of John
Gottman and colleagues (Gottman & Declaire, 1997; Gottman, Katz, &
Hooven, 1996, 1997). Gottman et al. (1996) found that an emotion-
coaching style of parenting was associated with better socio-emotional
adjustment in children. Emotion coaching parents were 1) more aware
of low-intensity emotions in themselves and their children, 2) viewed
their child’s negative emotions as an opportunity for intimacy and
teaching, 3) validated their child’s emotions, 4) assisted the child
verbally in labeling emotions, and 5) helped their child to solve prob­
lems or to set limits for the child’s behavior. Gottman et al. (1996) also
identified a group of parents, whose style of parenting was associated
with poorer child outcomes. These emotionally dismissive parents
viewed negative emotions as potentially harmful and avoided talking
R.F. Bjørk et al.
about emotions.
The TIK intervention, therefore, aims to promote parental emotion
coaching, reduce parental emotional dismissiveness, and to encourage
emotion talk in families (Havighurst & Kehoe, 2021). The program is
structured and manualized. Every session consists of a warm-up exer­
cise, home activity review, agenda-setting, and activities, as well as
completing new home activities. Warm-up exercises include reflections
on the week, emotional awareness, and mindfulness exercises. The main
group activities are psychoeducation (e.g., learning basic concepts of
emotion socialization in a normal, non-pathologizing language),
reflective exercises, and roleplaying practicing emotion coaching skills.
At first, roleplaying is scripted. As the program advances, group facili­
tators encourage parents to engage in unscripted roleplaying. Home
activities include practicing an emotion talk exercise with their children,
practicing the five steps of emotion coaching, using an emotion diary,
and completing other emotion-related activities involving their child.
TIK RCT studies including samples of typically developing children
and children with behavior problems have found that parental ERSBs
and child outcomes improved as a result of participating in TIK groups
(Duncombe et al., 2016; Havighurst et al., 2010; Havighurst et al., 2013;
Havighurst et al., 2015; Havighurst, Wilson, Harley, & Prior, 2009;
Karevold et al., 2021; Wilson et al., 2012). TIK intervention studies have
also found evidence of a positive effect on external emotion under­
standing (assessed using the puppet interview; Denham, 1986) in chil­
dren at six to ten-month follow-up (Havighurst et al., 2010; Havighurst
et al., 2013; Havighurst et al., 2015). For example, an RCT study
investigating the effect of TIK in 216 typically developing 4- to 5-year-
old children and their parents, found improved ERSBs in parents and
emotion understanding in children at the six-month follow-up
(Havighurst et al., 2010). This finding has been replicated in later
studies (e.g., Havighurst et al., 2015) and suggests that children’s
emotional understanding improves as a result of enhanced parental
ERSBs.
Aims of the current study
The main aim of this study was to investigate the link between
parental ERSBs and the developmental phases of emotion understand­
ing. Although previous TIK investigations have found evidence of an
increase in children’s emotional understanding as a result of participa­
tion in TIK groups (e.g., Havighurst et al., 2013; Havighurst et al., 2015),
these studies did not directly test whether the change in parenting
predicted change in children’s emotional understanding nor did they
differentiate between developmental levels thereof. We aimed to
examine whether improved parental ERSBs (as a result of the TIK
intervention) led to positive changes in external, mental, reflective, and
total emotional understanding (as measured using the TEC). More
importantly, we hypothesized that enhanced ERSBs would positively
predict improvements in children’s emotional understanding from
baseline to follow-up. We used an intervention design to investigate the
following research questions: 1) Did TIK lead to increased supportive
ERSBs and decreased non-supportive ERSBs in our sample? 2) Did
children’s emotional understanding increase more in the intervention
condition compared to the control group? 3) Did enhanced parental
ERSBs positively predict the development of emotional understanding
from baseline to follow-up?
Method
Participants & procedure
Participants in this pilot study were a sample of 40 children (M age =
5.91 years, SD = 0.32, boys n = 21) recruited in their final year of
kindergarten, as well as one of their parents (M age = 42.05, SD = 4.55,
fathers n = 10). All families with preschoolers in their final year of
kindergarten were eligible to participate in the study. The only exclusion
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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368
criteria were language skills (i.e., parents needed to be able to speak
English to participate in the intervention). No participants were
excluded based on language proficiency. One mother of twins responded
twice to the questionnaires concerning her two children and one twin
was randomly removed from the sample (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).
Thirty-five parents (89.7%) lived together with the other biological/
adoptive parent; 32 children (82.1%) lived full-time with siblings; 34
parents (87.2%) had a college or university degree of at least 4 years; 4
parents (10.3%) had a college or university degree of less than 4 years;
and 1 parent (2.6%) had only completed high school. The sample rep­
resented a well-educated higher SES population. Twenty-four parents
(61.5%) reported that they were”very well off” financially, and 15
parents (38.5%) reported that they were “well off” financially. No par­
ents reported that they were not well off financially.
This study used a 2 × 2 intervention design as part of a larger Nor­
wegian Tuning in to Kids (N-TIK) pilot evaluation (Bolstad et al., 2021;
ClinicalTrials: NCT04851704). The research team recruited participants
from 17 kindergartens within a 10 km radius of the University of Oslo
with a population of circa 1 million people (SSB, 2018). In Norway,
kindergartens typically provide daycare in combination with preschool
elements. The curriculum is play-based and promotes a holistic
approach to learning (Hansen & Alvestad, 2018). Participants were not
randomized, but consecutively assigned to the intervention group or a
wait-list control condition based on their kindergarten site. Control and
intervention parents attended separate kindergartens. The mean number
of children from each kindergarten was 2.05 (median = 1; range = 1–6).
Kindergarten staff (i.e., teachers and head of the department) circulated
information letters about the study to parents of children attending the
final year of kindergarten. Parents who expressed interest in partici­
pating in the study were contacted by phone by a researcher who
described the study and then sent them a plain language statement and
consent form via email or post. Children were assessed for emotion
understanding at the University of Oslo by the research team. Parents
completed online questionnaires on ERSBs while waiting. The assess­
ment took approximately one and a half hours. The assessment was
repeated at 6-month follow-up (T2) for all participants. Control partic­
ipants were offered the intervention after the 6-month follow-up
assessment was completed. The research study was approved by the
Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics, region:
south-east of Norway (REC: 2015/2383) and all parents gave written
and informed consent for their own as well as for their child’s partici­
pation in the study.
TIK parenting program delivery
TIK was originally developed in Australia and the parenting program
has never previously been delivered in Norway, and no experienced
Norwegian facilitators were thus available. The parenting groups were
therefore conducted in English and facilitated by one of the program
developers (last author) and a co-facilitator (second author). Both fa­
cilitators were certified TIK trainers. Materials and scripted role-plays
were translated to Norwegian. Norwegian translations were offered by
the co-facilitator when participants had any language questions or
showed some misunderstanding. Fidelity was assessed by completing an
activity checklist after every session to ensure all components of the
intervention were delivered. All activities were completed in the inter­
vention groups.
Measures
The coping with children’s negative emotions scale
Parental ERSBs were assessed using a Norwegian translation of the
CCNES (Fabes et al., 1990). The questionnaire was translated to Nor­
wegian by the first and last authors with back-translation and proof­
reading by bilingual scholars (Bjørk et al., 2020). The CCNES is a 72 item
R.F. Bjørk et al.
self-report scale assessing parental reactions to children’s negative
emotions. Parents are asked to rate on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (very
unlikely) to 7 (very likely) how likely it is that they will react in a certain
way to their child’s negative emotions in a variety of parenting sce­
narios. The parent is presented with 12 scenarios with 6 possible re­
actions in each scenario, that corresponded to one of the 6 subscales in
the CCNES: Minimization Reactions, Distress Reactions, Punitive Re­
actions, Expressive Encouragement, Emotion-Focused Reactions, or
Problem-Focused Reactions. One example of a scenario is: “If my child
loses some prized possession and reacts with tears, I would…” Possible
responses on this item are: “tell my child that he/she is over-reacting”
(Minimization Reaction); “get upset with him/her for being so careless
and then crying about it” (Distress Reaction); “tell him/her that’s what
happens when you’re not careful” (Punitive Reaction); “tell him/her it’s
OK to cry when you feel unhappy” (Expressive Encouragement);
“distract my child by talking about happy things” (Emotion-Focused
Reaction); “help my child think of places he/she hasn’t looked yet”
(Problem-Focused Reaction). The average Cronbach’s alpha for the
CCNES scales was 0.77, ranging from 0.65 to 0.92, indicating moderate
to good reliability.
The test of emotion comprehension
The Norwegian version of the TEC is a direct assessment measure
used to capture child emotion understanding (Kårstad et al., 2015; Pons
& Harris, 2000). The TEC measures nine components of emotion un­
derstanding: 1) emotion recognition, 2) external cause, 3) desire, 4)
belief, 5) reminder, 6) regulation, 7) hidden, 8) mixed, and 9) morally
based emotions. The TEC external scale is comprised of components 1–3,
the TEC mental scale includes components 4–6, and the TEC reflective
scale is comprised of components 7–9. The TEC emotion scale is a total
score including all nine components. The experimenter presented
participating children with a picture book, read the corresponding
stories aloud, and asked children to indicate the emotion of the pro­
tagonist in each story by pointing to one of the four faces presented
under each cartoon scenario. The faces exhibited two pleasant emotions
(happy and all right) and two unpleasant emotions (either scared, angry,
or sad). The experimenter reported the emotion the child identified
through pointing. The TEC was thus very clear to code and left little
room for ambiguity. Success on one component yielded 1 point. As each
TEC scale (i.e., external, mental, and reflective) measured three com­
ponents, children achieve a minimum score of 0 and a maximum score of
3 on each TEC scale, and a maximum score of 9 on the TEC emotion
(total) scale. For example, a score of 3 on the TEC external scale in­
dicates that the child has passed tests of emotion recognition (compo­
nent 1), causes of emotions (component 2) and desire-based emotions
(component 3). The Cronbach’s α coefficient for the TEC emotion (total)
scale was estimated as 0.68 at baseline and 0.53 at follow-up. Acceptable
levels of internal consistency have been found in other studies on larger
samples (α = 0.72; n = 406; Franco et al., 2017; α = 0.79; n = 1000;
Albanese & Molina, 2008). Lower reliability estimates are typically re­
ported for tests like the TEC (i.e., α = 0.32; n = 201; Garrett-Peters,
Castro, & Halberstadt, 2017). The factor structure of the TEC is well-
established in other studies and the TEC shows good test-retest reli­
ability (Cavioni et al., 2020; Ornaghi, Grazzani, Cherubin, Conte, &
Piralli, 2015; Pons et al., 2004).
Data analysis
Data analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS version 27. Data were
screened prior to analysis according to the guidelines of Tabachnick and
Fidell (2013). G*Power 3.1.9.7 was used to estimate sensitivity for
detection of level 1 effects in a repeated measures within-between mixed
designs, given a sample of 39 participants and a desired power of 0.80
(Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2007; Howell, 2013). The power
analysis estimated an f value of 0.23, suggesting that medium to large
5
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368
effect sizes were detectable (Ellis, 2010). Missing scores were imputed
using Expectation Maximation (Heck, Thomas, & Tabata, 2014).
Normality was found to be acceptable for most variables, except for the
CCNES Distress Reactions and Minimization Reactions scales and the
TEC scales. Bootstrapping is robust to violations of non-normality
(Erceg-Hurn & Mirosevich, 2008; Field, 2013), and was thus applied
in all analyses. First, descriptive statistics and correlations were esti­
mated. Secondly, multilevel analyses were conducted to test the effect of
time (i.e., maturation) and condition (intervention or control) by time
on parental ERSBs and child emotion understanding (Heck et al., 2014).
Third, parental ERSBs that changed from baseline to follow-up were
added as predictors in the multilevel models.
Results
Preliminary analyses
Descriptive statistics and correlations are presented in Table 1. The
parental non-supportive subscales (i.e., minimizing, punitive, and
distress reactions) were positively correlated, and there was a significant
positive correlation between the baseline (T1) and follow-up (T2) as­
sessments. Parental emotion and problem-focused reactions (i.e., both
supportive ERSBs) were correlated at baseline and follow-up. At base­
line, parental expressive encouragement was positively correlated with
emotion understanding (i.e., TEC emotion and TEC external), but not at
follow-up. The TEC subscales were significantly correlated with each
other at baseline assessment, and from baseline to follow-up, with the
exception of the TEC reflective scale where there was no correlation
between baseline and follow-up assessments. Higher parental education
was associated with higher scores on TEC external at follow-up.
Main analyses
Multilevel analyses were conducted to investigate improvements in
ERSBs and emotion understanding from baseline to follow-up (Heck
et al., 2014). Estimates of fixed effects as a function of time and time by
condition are presented in Table 2. Improved parental ERSBs were
added as predictors in the multilevel models to investigate whether
changes in parental ERSBs predicted the change in emotion under­
standing. All models included the following predictors: kindergarten,
SES, time, condition, and time*condition (interaction effect). Effect sizes
were calculated using the independent-groups pretest-posttest design
(IGPP) formula for multilevel analyses (Feingold, 2009). Goodness of fit
was evaluated by comparing the chi-square change (− 2LL; Log Likeli­
hood) and df change to the critical values of the chi-square distribution
(Field, 2013).
The analysis followed the steps in multilevel analysis suggested by
Heck et al. (2014). Steps one to five were conducted for every outcome
variable. As in hierarchical regression, predictors were added incre­
mentally to the multi-level models, and the chi-square change indicated
whether adding covariates to the model significantly improved model fit
(Field, 2013).
To investigate whether TIK led to improved ERSBs (i.e., research
question 1), we first constructed a model including only the outcome
variable (i.e., a null model) for each outcome measure (Heck et al.,
2014). Second, we constructed models including random intercepts for
kindergarten sites (i.e., random intercept model). None of the random
intercept models converged and kindergarten site was excluded from
further analyses. Third, we added SES (i.e., parental education and self-
reported family economy) as fixed effects. Fourth, we added time as a
dummy coded covariate (0 = baseline, 1 = follow-up) in the multilevel
models. Time significantly increased model fit for emotion-focused re­
sponses, χ 2(1) = 12.28, p < .01. Fifth, a dummy coded condition variable
(0 = control, 1 = intervention) was added to the models including the
interaction effects (time*condition). This significantly improved model
fit in the parental expressive encouragement model, χ 2(2) = 13.63, p <
 R.F. Bjørk et al.
Table 1
Descriptive statistics and correlations.
Measure Parental Emotion Socialization Behaviors Child Emotion Understanding SES

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

1. T1 Minimizing Reactions 2.10 .74

2. T1 Punitive Reactions 1.83 .56 .57**
3. T1 Distress Reactions 2.61 .74 .46** .53**
4. T1 Expressive
Encouragement 5.30 .75 − .27 − .28 − .22
5. T1 Emotion Focused
Reactions 5.79 .65 .19 .15 .29 − .13
6. T1 Problem Focused
Reactions 6.03 .43 − .01 − .06 .00 .28 .41**
7. T2 Minimizing Reactions 1.91 .58 .76** .66** .46** − .27 .16 − .11
8. T2 Punitive Reactions 1.65 .47 .51** .88** .53** − .31 .15 − .05 .71**
9. T2 Distress Reactions 2.47 .65 .37* .31 .72** − .22 .05 − .17 .53** .41**
6

1. T2 Expressive
Encouragement 5.56 .90 .01 − .13 .03 .22 − .09 .18 − .18 − .08 − .01
11. T2 Emotion Focused
Reactions 5.25 .82 .16 .29 .20 − .22 .64** .31 .22 .36 − .04 − .08
12. T2 Problem Focused
Reactions 5.87 .63 − .04 .02 .03 .05 .38* .58** .02 .11 − .13 .22 .64**
13. T1 TEC External 2.59 .64 − .03 − .19 − .26 .38* − .30 .03 − .07 − .19 − .07 .09 − .13 .13
14. T1 TEC Mental 1.31 .98 − .03 .12 .03 .24 − .09 .01 .11 .23 .03 − .02 .10 .09 .25
15. T1 TEC Reflective 1.56 .91 .02 − .29 − .06 .18 − .14 − .20 − .06 − .24 − .02 − .25 − .18 − .27 .32* .18
16. T1 TEC Emotion 5.46 1.79 − .02 − .15 − .11 .35* − .23 − .08 .01 − .06 − .02 − .10 − .08 − .04 .66** .73** .72**
17. T2 TEC External 2.92 .27 .12 − .01 − .13 .02 − .14 .05 .10 .10 .20 − .02 .05 .10 .43** .30 .31 .47**

Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368

18. T2 TEC Mental 1.82 .72 − .02 .07 − .15 .28 − .26 − .16 − .01 .04 .03 .08 .01 − .13 .36* .42* .17 .44** .47**
19. T2 TEC Reflective 2.08 .90 − .40* − .21 − .23 .10 − .19 − .13 − .21 − .09 − .19 − .06 − .26 − .15 .06 .45** .36* .45** .15 .15
2. T2 TEC Emotion 6.84 1.35 − .24 − .10 − .27 .20 − .35 − .18 − .10 − .02 − .03 .02 − .17 − .15 .30 .58** .36* .60** .55** .73** .75**
21. Parental Education 4.85 .43 .12 .13 .03 − .15 .31 .30 .12 .15 .13 − .16 .22 .10 .05 .30 − .11 .13 .34* .09 .11 .20
22. Financial status 4.59 .55 − .06 − .04 − .01 − .16 − .09 − .10 .12 .01 .18 − .16 − .10 − .18 .03 − .05 − .16 − .10 − .05 .00 .09 .06 .17

T1 = baseline assessment. T2 = follow-up assessment. n = 39. *p < .05. **p < .01.
R.F. Bjørk et al. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368

Table 2
Multi-level Mixed Effects Modeling: Intervention Outcomes.
Baseline Follow-up Time (both conditions) Interaction (Time X Condition)

Measures Condition Mean SD Mean SD b Bias SE p d b Bias SE p d

Control 2.08 .81 2.00 .69 − .08 .01 .24 .744 .27 − .21 − .02 .31 .506 .31
Minimizing reactions
Intervention 2.11 .68 1.84 .48
Control 1.92 .69 1.68 .56 − .23 − .01 .19 .249 .33 .09 .02 .23 .738 .13
Punitive reactions
Intervention 1.76 .45 1.63 .39
Control 2.46 .81 2.42 .72 − .04 − .01 .26 .885 .21 − .19 .00 .32 .557 .34
Distress reactions
Intervention 2.75 .65 2.53 .60
Control 5.43 .81 5.14 1.03 − .31 .02 .29 .300 .31 1.06** − .03 .36 .003 1.01
Expressive encouragement
Intervention 5.25 .73 6.05 .55
Control 5.83 .64 5.47 .69 − .37* .00 .18 .042 .74 − .41 .01 .32 .206 .32
Emotion-focused reactions
Intervention 5.77 .69 5.04 .90
Control 6.07 .42 5.97 .60 − .10 .00 .17 .550 .33 − .17 .00 .24 .452 .13
Problem-focused reactions
Intervention 6.15 .45 5.90 .70
Control 2.58 .61 2.94 .23 .36* .00 .08 .026 .73 − .07 .00 .22 .775 .01
External emotion understanding
Intervention 2.60 .68 2.90 .31
Control 1.53 .90 1.89 .66 .35 − .02 .27 .189 .63 .27 .02 .38 .491 1.39
Mental emotion understanding
Intervention 1.10 1.02 1.75 .79
Control 1.63 .90 2.00 .94 .34 .01 .31 .284 .60 .28 − .01 .43 .527 .33
Reflective emotion understanding
Intervention 1.50 .96 2.15 .88
Control 5.74 1.41 6.89 1.37 1.12* .00 .46 .019 .90 .42 .03 .70 .556 1.14
Total emotion understanding
Intervention 5.20 2.09 6.80 1.36

Parental reactions to children’s negative emotions and child emotion understanding pre-and post-intervention. SES was included as a covariate.
*
p < .05.

.01, but not in any other models. The results are presented in Table 2.
Table 3
Parental expressive encouragement was the only ERSB that changed
Multi-level Mixed Effects Modeling: Predicting emotion understanding.
significantly as a function of time by condition (Cohen’s d = 1.01),
corresponding to a large effect size (Ellis, 2010). Parental emotion- Model Bootstrapped estimates of fixed effects
focused reactions changed significantly in both the intervention and b Bias SE p
control groups from baseline to follow-up (Cohen’s d = 0.74), showing a TEC external modela
medium to large effect size (Ellis, 2010). Parental education .08 .01 .08 .275
To investigate whether children’s emotional understanding Financial status − .03 .00 .06 .649
increased more in the intervention condition compared to controls (i.e., Time .36* .01 .16 .026
Condition .05 .01 .19 .809
research question 2), we repeated the multilevel analysis using
Time*Condition − .31 .00 .21 .168
emotional understanding as the outcome measure. Time significantly Expressive encouragement .14* .00 .05 .013
increased model fit for all models, TEC external χ 2(1) = 8.29, p < .01, Emotion-focused reactions − .11* .00 .05 .052
TEC mental χ 2(1) = 6.25, p < .05, TEC reflective χ 2(1) = 5.44, p <. 05, TEC mental modelb
and TEC emotion χ 2(1) = 12.88, p < .01. External and total emotion Parental education .21** .00 .10 .012
understanding also increased significantly in both groups from baseline Family economy − .09 .00 .10 .369
to six-months follow-up with medium to large effect sizes. Children’s Time .37 − .04 .28 .197
Condition − .38 − .02 .28 .203
emotional understanding increased more in the intervention condition
Time*Condition − .04 .03 .38 .924
but did not significantly change as a function of time by condition. The Expressive encouragement .19* .00 .10 .054
mean baseline scores on external emotion understanding (2.94 in the Emotion-focused reactions − .11 − .01 .10 .246
control group and 2.90 in the intervention group) came close to the TEC reflective modelc
maximum score on TEC external (3.00) post-intervention, indicating a Parental education .02 .00 .12 .844
possible ceiling effect. Family economy − .13 .00 .12 .285
Finally, to investigate whether the change in parental ERSBs pre­ Time .24 .01 .32 .450
Condition − .12 .01 .29 .676
dicted change in emotion understanding (i.e., research question 3),
Time*Condition .16 .01 .46 .731
parental ERSBs that changed from baseline to follow-up (i.e., expressive Expressive encouragement .00 .00 .12 .964
encouragement and emotion-focused reactions) were added as cova­ Emotion-focused reactions − .21* .00 .10 .032
riates in the multilevel TEC models. Results are presented in Table 3.
TEC emotion modeld
Model fit significantly improved when parental expressive encourage­ Parental education .33 .01 .23 .115
ment and emotion-focused reactions were added in the sixth step of the Financial status − .23 .00 .20 .252
TEC external, χ 2(2) = 8.95, p < .05, and TEC emotion models, χ 2(2) = Time 1.04* .02 .46 .036
Condition − .44 − .02 .52 .422
9.05, p < .05. Model fit did not significantly improve in the mental,
Time*Condition − .28 .00 .69 .696
χ 2(2) = 4.62, and reflective models, χ 2(2) = 3.50. Expressive encouragement .36* .01 .18 .051
Time remained a significant positive predictor of external and total Emotion-focused reactions − .44** .00 .15 .003
emotion understanding when enhanced parental ERSBs were added to a
χ 2(2) = 8.95, p < .05.
the multilevel models. Expressive encouragement was a significant b
χ2(2) = 4.62, p > .05.
positive predictor of children’s development of emotional understand­ c
χ2(2) = 3.50, p > .05.
ing, and the emotion-focused responses scale was a significant negative d
χ 2(2) = 9.05, p < .05. *p < .05 **p < .01.
predictor of the development of children’s external and total emotional
understanding.

7
R.F. Bjørk et al.
Discussion
The present study tested the assumption from emotion socialization
theory that parental ERSBs aid in the development of emotion under­
standing in children (Eisenberg et al., 1998). Previous intervention
research has suggested that emotion-focused parenting programs, such
as TIK, lead to increased emotional understanding in children (e.g.,
Havighurst et al., 2013; Havighurst et al., 2015; Havighurst & Kehoe,
2021; Wilson et al., 2012), but no previous studies have directly tested
whether changes in parental ERSBs positively predicted improvements
in the development of children’s emotion understanding. In the present
study, we tested this predictive link using an intervention design and
advanced statistical methods. The main aim was to examine whether
improved parental ERSBs (as a result of the TIK intervention) positively
predicted changes in external, mental, reflective, and total emotional
understanding in a sample of 4- to 5-year-old children (as measured
using the TEC). We found that parental ERSBs improved as a result of the
intervention and that emotional understanding improved over time in
both intervention and control children. Emotional understanding
improved more in the intervention group than in the control group, but
this difference was not statistically significant at six months follow-up.
In short, emotion understanding improved in both groups as a result
of development over time, and parents’ emotion-focused reactions
decreased in both groups. Parental expressive encouragement increased
as a result of the TIK intervention. More importantly, when parents
became more encouraging towards children, there was an increase in
children’s emotional understanding. In other words, when parents
encouraged their children to talk about negative emotions (e.g.,
encouraging children to express sadness or fear when falling off a bike),
children’s showed stronger improvements in external and total
emotional understanding during the 6-month-period from baseline to
follow-up compared to children whose parents were not as encouraging.
Unexpectedly, parental emotion-focused reactions were negatively
related to improvements in children’s emotional understanding. In these
families, when parents responded to children’s negative emotions with
distraction and comfort (e.g., helping the child to think happy thoughts
when falling off a bike), children’s emotional understanding did not
improve as much. Our findings are discussed in detail in the following
sections.
Did TIK Lead to Increased Supportive ERSBs and Decreased Non-supportive
ERSBs?
The TIK parenting intervention is based on Gottman et al.’s (1996)
original research, and the main aim is to increase supportive (i.e.,
emotion coaching) and reduce non-supportive (i.e., dismissive) styles of
parenting (Havighurst & Harley, 2007). Numerous TIK studies over the
last 20 years have found that the TIK program partly or completely
achieves these goals (Havighurst et al., 2009; Havighurst et al., 2010;
Havighurst et al., 2013; Havighurst et al., 2015; Wilson et al., 2012). In
TIK groups, parents learn to encourage the expression of emotions in
children (e.g., “all emotions are acceptable, although not all behaviors”),
and previous TIK studies have found an effect on expressive encour­
agement (e.g., Wilson et al., 2012). The current study replicated this
finding, showing a large effect size. The large positive effect on parental
expressive encouragement suggests a willingness for Norwegian parents
to talk about negative emotions when encouraged and helped to do so.
How do we interpret this finding? It goes against the cultural ste­
reotype suggesting that Norwegians usually do not express emotions
(Bourrelle, 2017). An explanation can be found in the “Janteloven” and
the feminine values typical of Nordic societies (Bromgard, Trafimow, &
Linn, 2014; Cappelen & Dahlberg, 2018; Hofstede, 2011; Hofstede-
Insigths, 2021; Trotter, 2015).
Norway is ranked as the second most feminine society (only sur­
passed by Sweden) on Hofstede Insights’ records of more than 50 soci­
eties assessed using Hofstede’s (2011) 6-D model of cultural dimensions
(Hofstede-Insigths, 2021). Feminine societies typically value
8
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368
cooperation, dialogue, consensus and humility over masculine values
such as competitiveness, gloating over success and a winner-takes-it-all
mentality (Hofstede, 2011). Although cooperation, dialogue and
consensus are positive values, on the dark side of femininity, Nordic
culture discourages people from taking pride in success, bragging about
wealth, or being the center of attention. This anti-masculine tendency is
referred to as the “Janteloven” (Bromgard et al., 2014).
The law of “Jante” (“Janteloven”) is a Nordic literary construct
consisting of ten commandments, stating in sum that “you shall not
believe that you are better than other people” (Bromgard et al., 2014;
Cappelen & Dahlberg, 2018; Trotter, 2015). In Nordic societies, overt
emotional displays are problematic because the actor becomes the
center of attention, threatening the equalitarian values of the “Jantelo­
ven”. Strong emotional expressions (i.e., crying or screaming) implies
that the actor is putting his or her feelings above those of others.
Therefore, when a Nordic child trips and falls, parents hastefully and
chairfully exclaim “Up again!” as if nothing just happened (Wallace &
Kjøs, 2012). The parental response may be warm and sensitive, solving
the child’s immediate problems in a culturally appropriate manner (i.e.,
getting the child up on her feet again without attracting attention), but
does not take advantage of the opportunity to learn new emotion
regulation skills from the emotional experience.
Although Norwegian parents may be culturally motivated to
discourage expressions of emotions (Bourrelle, 2017), they may become
more inclined to do so when they learn that children down-regulate
more rapidly using emotion coaching rather than invalidating strate­
gies. Parents participating in the present study may have embraced the
emotion coaching strategy because they were motivated to raise well-
regulated, socially and culturally competent children while staying
within the “Jante” mentality and avoiding mutual discomfort associated
with strong emotional expressions. This can explain the increase in
expressive encouragement. The primary motivation for parents partici­
pating in the study may not primarily have been to encourage children
to express emotions, but to help children down-regulate emotions. In
short, TIK might not only have taught parents good parenting skills but
may also have helped parents learn how to raise emotionally healthy
children within the specific cultural context. The cultural context does,
however, not explain why we did not find a similar effect on non-
supportive strategies.
Previous TIK studies have found a reduction in non-supportive ERSBs
as a result of the intervention (e.g., Havighurst et al., 2015). We,
therefore, also expected to find a reduction in non-supportive ERSBs (i.
e., minimizing, punitive, and distress reactions) as a result of the inter­
vention. The effect sizes were small, however, and we did not have
sufficient statistical power to detect small effects. Previous studies have
found an effect of the TIK program on emotion understanding (e.g.,
Havighurst et al., 2015), but, as further discussed in the next section, we
did not find evidence of such a direct effect of the intervention on
children’s understanding of emotions.
Did children’s emotional understanding increase more in the intervention
group?
Children’s emotional understanding increased from baseline to
follow-up regardless of whether their parents had participated in the TIK
intervention condition or in the control condition. There was a ceiling
effect on children’s external emotional understanding, leaving little
room for additional improvements in the intervention group. Children’s
mental and reflective emotional understanding increased more in the
intervention group compared to controls, but this difference was not
significant.
According to emotion socialization theory (Eisenberg et al., 1998),
supportive parental ERSBs improve children’s emotion understanding,
regulation, and expression (i.e., emotional competence; Denham, 2015).
We did not find any statistically significant direct effects of the TIK
intervention on children’s emotional understanding even though many
previous studies have found such an effect (Havighurst et al., 2010;
R.F. Bjørk et al.
Havighurst et al., 2013; Havighurst et al., 2015).
The most salient and perhaps also most important explanation for the
lack of effects on emotional understanding may be the instrument used
to assess it (i.e., the TEC). At baseline most children participating in the
study had already achieved a maximum score of 3 on the TEC external
scale, leaving no or little room for gains attributable to the intervention
(in addition to maturation effects). The ceiling effect in 4- to 5-year-olds
in the current study is interesting because it suggests that the Denham
(1996) puppet interview (which is widely used in emotion socialization
literature) may be a better fit in detecting changes as a result of emotion-
focused parenting interventions for children in this age group. It also
explains why previous TIK studies found a direct effect on children’s
emotional understanding (Havighurst et al., 2010; Havighurst et al.,
2013; Havighurst et al., 2015), while we did not.
An additional or alternative explanation for the lack of direct effects
on children’s emotional understanding is the duration of time from
baseline to follow-up assessments. Salmon et al. (2014) suggested that
emotion-focused interventions take longer to exert an effect on child
outcomes compared to behaviorally focused interventions. They found,
however, an effect of their emotion-cause talk intervention at two
months follow-up, and other TIK studies have found significant effects of
the intervention on external components of emotion understanding at
six to ten-month follow-up (Havighurst et al., 2010; Havighurst et al.,
2013; Havighurst et al., 2015). A six-month period from baseline to
follow-up should, therefore, be long enough for the intervention to exert
an effect on children’s emotional understanding, leaving the lack of
direct effect in the present study best explained by the ceiling effect in
the external components.
Although we did not find a direct effect of the intervention on chil­
dren’s emotional understanding, we did find an indirect effect of the
intervention via one parental ERSB. Expressive encouragement (which
increased as a result of the intervention) predicted improvements in
children’s emotional understanding. These findings are discussed in the
next section.
Did enhanced parental ERSBs positively predict improvements in emotional
understanding?
To test the assumption from emotion socialization theory (Eisenberg,
1998) that parental ERSBs aid the development of emotional under­
standing in children, we included improved supportive ERSBs as pre­
dictors in the statistical models. This was done by adding parental ERSBs
that changed from baseline to follow-up (i.e., expressive encouragement
and emotion-focused reactions) as predictors in the multilevel TEC
models. As expected, expressive encouragement positively and signifi­
cantly predicted external and total emotion understanding, controlling
for the effect of time (i.e., maturation from baseline to follow-up),
condition and SES. We also expected, based on emotion socialization
theory, that supportive ERSBs would improve emotion understanding in
children. This was demonstrated for expressive encouragement in both
models. Unexpectedly, we found that parental emotion-focused re­
sponses negatively predicted children’s total score on emotion under­
standing, which seems counterintuitive. We discuss each of these novel
findings in turn below.
In the context of this experimental investigation, this study provided
novel support for the assumption that when parents encourage their
children to share their negative emotional experiences, this shift in
parental attitudes leads to the development of better emotional under­
standing in children. We assumed from previous research that this
would be the case (Havighurst et al., 2010; Havighurst et al., 2013;
Havighurst et al., 2015), but to date, scholars in emotion socialization
have not tested this assumption through modeling change in ERSBs. In
practical and clinical terms, this finding suggests that counselors and TIK
group facilitators can teach parents to encourage their children to talk
about negative emotional experiences, which again leads to their better
emotional understanding. As described by emotion socialization theory
(Eisenberg et al., 1998), when parents talk about emotions and
9
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 78 (2022) 101368
encourage their children to talk about emotions, children’s emotional
vocabulary and their understanding of emotions improve.
The unexpected, negative effect of parental emotion-focused re­
actions was also interesting, and warrants replication. When parents in
our sample reacted with comfort and distraction in the face of negative
emotions, children’s emotional understanding improved significantly
less from baseline to follow-up. How can this be? An explanation for this
finding is that the emotion-focused reactions CCNES scale, rather than
assessing emotion coaching responses (as suggested by its name), mea­
sures an emotionally dismissive style of parenting (Bjørk et al., 2020).
According to Gottman et al. (1996), dismissive parents are warm and
supportive in that they want their children to feel better (e.g., encour­
aging children to think happy thoughts when they are sad), but
dismissive in that they fail to acknowledge the importance of the un­
derlying negative emotions (e.g., silver lining their negative emotional
experience). Gottman et al. (1996) found that warm and supportive, but
also dismissive parents tended to have children with poorer emotional
competence. Thus, when parents did not label and validate emotions (e.
g., did not verbally and emotionally address the child’s sadness and fear
when he/she fell of a bike, but instead tried to help the child forget about
the incident), children tended to have a poor understanding of emotions.
Even though children can’t articulate their emotions adequately at a
young age, the experience of being dismissed can still generate consid­
erable additional negative affect that would require regulation. Over
time, this chain of events could make it harder for children to learn to
regulate emotions, thus contributing to the lower improvements in
emotional competence over time. In our data, it appears that a dismis­
sive style of responding to negative emotions leads to fewer improve­
ments in children’s emotional understanding. Given the dismissive
nature of the emotion-focused reactions CCNES items (Bjørk et al.,
2020), our findings thus support Gottman et al.’s (1996) research find­
ings, and are in line with Morris et al.’s (2007) tripartite model and Katz,
Maliken, and Stettler’s (2012) Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy
(PMEP) theoretical framework suggesting a direct link between parental
emotion coaching and children’s emotional competence. In sum, our
findings thus support emotion socialization theory, while also high­
lighting an avenue for empirical confirmation concerning the precise
mechanisms of effect, specifically in terms of different effects of
dismissive/supportive and emotion coaching/supportive ERSBs on child
outcomes.
Strengths and limitations
As is true in all investigations, this study possessed crucial strengths
and limitations. Regarding strengths, we used a well-established, evi­
dence-based emotion-focused parenting program (TIK) to manipulate
parental ERSBs in an experimental design. Second, the study was further
strengthened by the use of a comprehensive, standardized, objective
measure to assess all nine components of emotion understanding in
children (The TEC; Pons & Harris, 2000). The TEC was easy to admin­
ister and provided estimates of mental and reflective phases of emotion
understanding, in addition to external components. Lastly, advanced
statistical methods were used to test the predictive link between
enhanced parental ERSBs and improved emotional understanding in
children.
This pilot study had also had a number of limitations. The small
sample size resulted in limited power and we were only able to detect
moderate to large effect size. Further, the sample was homogenous,
consisting of mainly highly educated middle-class families who were
recruited voluntarily from a large geographical area, implying a strong
potential for selection bias. Additionally, while the use of the TEC was an
advantage relative to the puppet interview used in prior studies, in the
context of this study, its psychometrics were somewhat disappointing. In
particular, the reliability estimates on the TEC at follow-up were
somewhat low, reducing the chances of detecting an effect of the
intervention. Ceiling effects on the external scale left limited room for
change. The TEC external scale could have profited from including more
R.F. Bjørk et al.
items, such as emotion recognition of complex emotions such as shame
and surprise. The mental and reflective scales would also have profited
from more items (e.g., additional vignettes portraying belief-based or
mixed emotions or emotion regulation). A second set of limitations
concerns potential language barriers: while we sought to prevent this
issue through deliberate study inclusion criteria regarding English lan­
guage fluency, this still may have impeded the delivery of TIK in this
study, in that TIK materials were translated into Norwegian, but group
sessions were conducted in English. This was necessary as this was the
first time TIK groups were conducted in Norway, and experienced
Norwegian TIK facilitators were not available. Thus, future studies on
TIK in Norway should use trained Norwegian-speaking group facilita­
tors. There was also a misfit between the emotion-focused reactions
CCNES scale and the emotion-coaching concept in the present study and
more integrative conceptualizations of parental support and emotion
coaching responses can be included in future research (e.g., Jespersen,
Hardy, & Morris, 2021). Lastly, while reliance on self-report measures of
parental ERSBs is a common limitation in studies on emotion socializ­
ation, for future studies, researchers should strive to augment these re­
ports with validated observational assessment methodologies.
Conclusions
Our findings provide support for emotion socialization theory and
extend the existing empirical evidence in the field by showing that
parental expressive encouragement positively, and emotion-focused
responses negatively predicted the development of emotion under­
standing in children. When parents encouraged their children to share
difficult emotional experiences, children tended to have better
emotional understanding. When parents responded with comfort and
distraction, however, children’s emotional understanding did not in­
crease as much. Thus, this research clearly demonstrates a link between
parental expressive encouragement and the development of emotion
understanding in children.
Author contributions
Rune Flaaten Bjørk. Main and corresponding author, participation in
the study implementation and data collection, responsible for the study
data analyses and interpretations, and of the writing of the manuscript.
Evalill Bølstad Karevold. Coauthor. PI of the overall project.
Responsible for the overall project conception, implementation and data
collection, participation in the study data collection, analyses and
interpretation and in the writing of the manuscript.
Francisco Pons. Coauthor, participation in the study data interpre­
tation and in the writing of the manuscript.
Sophie Seychelle Havighurst. Senior author. Participation in the
study planning, implementation and data collection, analyses and
interpretation, and on the writing of the manuscript.
Acknowledgements
The present study was funded by the Department of Psychology,
University of Oslo.
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