1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«[T]he present [thesis by articles] was designed to examine the stability of childhood positive emotionality (PE) and negative emotionality (NE) and its relation to child internalizing symptoms.» (p. iii) «[T]he overarching goal [of the first article] was to more comprehensively understand the relation between NE and internalizing symptoms or depression, both within and between children and their parents.» (p. 11) «The [second article] was designed to explore the link between the negative emotionality (NE) of mothers and their adolescent children and the potential mechanisms for this similarity.» (p. 49) Finally, the third article addresses «the potential role of positive emotions [...].» (p. 11)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
For the first and the second article, the participants derives «from the original larger longitudinal sample of the Concordia Project. In 1976-77, 4,109 elementary school students in grades 1, 4 and 7 were selected from francophone low-income neighbourhoods in Montreal, Canada […].The original participants of [these presents studies], both male and female, are those who became parents and had a preschool child at the time of recruitment for the present study. This resulted in a sub-sample of 175 families with either a father or mother who was an original participant in the 1976 original data collection for the study.» (p. 19-20) For the third article, «a sub-sample of the Concordia Project of 120 francophone mothers were selected based on whether they had a child aged from 2.5 to 6 years old at Time 1 of this study.» (p. 90)

Instruments :
- Questionnaires
- Grille d’observation

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Results from [the first article] suggested that child NE and child internalizing symptoms are relatively stable and associated with each other. Similarly, parental NE and depression symptoms were associated with child emotional well-being, although the specific relations differed depending on whether the factors were maternal or paternal. Results from [the second article] provided support for maternal contingencies as a potential avenue by which the link between high mother NE and high child NE may be reinforced. Specifically, mothers with higher levels of NE tended to punish their child’s negative emotions […], which in turn was associated with higher levels of adolescent NE. Furthermore, being supportive of the adolescent’s negative emotions was associated with fewer internalizing symptoms, while magnifying the adolescent’s negative emotions […] was associated with more adolescent internalizing symptoms. Finally, results from [the third article] revealed that observed child PE was correlated across two time points, and that older children tended to express more PE than younger children. However, maternal contingencies […] to positive emotions were not correlated across time points, suggesting that mothers may not be socializing in a consistent manner across time. Nonetheless, maternal contingencies were associated with child internalizing symptoms; specifically, higher levels of maternal supportive responses to child PE at preschool age were associated with lower internalizing symptoms 2 years later.» (p. iii-iv)