Gender differences in the socialization of preschoolers' emotional competence.

Preschoolers' socialization of emotion and its contribution to emotional competence is likely to be highly gendered. In their work, the authors have found that mothers often take on the role of emotional gatekeeper in the family, and fathers act as loving playmates, but that parents' styles of socialization of emotion do not usually differ for sons and daughters. They also found several themes in the prediction of preschoolers' emotion knowledge and regulation. For example, sometimes mother-father differences in emotional style actually seem to promote such competence, and girls seem particularly susceptible to parental socialization of emotion. (c) Wiley Periodicals, Inc.