This research focuses on the development of experimental procedures to assess mothers' styles of communication about emotions with their young children. Associations between mothers' and children's responses concerning emotions are explored. How interpretations of emotions are related to expressed behaviors are examined. Factors contributing to children's understanding of causes and consequences of psychological (emotion) events are examined, especially as they pertain to the early development of a sense of responsibility and guilt reactions. Preliminary analyses indicate that quantitative and qualitative variations in communication patterns are evident, both in the mothers and their two-year-olds. Subsequent analyses of emotion language in mother-child dyads will compare children of anxious or depressed mothers and of mothers without mood disturbance. Mothers' and children's discussions of causes of (negative) emotions also will be examined in relation to experimental assessments of children's feelings of responsibility and guilt reactions.
