Social cognition and parenting among Black caregivers: Linking public regard to racial and emotion socialization.

Authors

Mallory Raya Cotton, Haley E Conroy Busch, Karina Silva, Dania Y Amarneh, Emily L Mallin, Andres G Viana

Published in

Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43). Oct 26, 2026. Epub Oct 26, 2026.

Abstract

Among Black families, cultural racism necessitates adaptations in emotion socialization to prepare children for navigating racialized environments. Black caregivers with high negative public regard, or the belief that others view Black Americans negatively, may engage in racial barrier socialization and discourage their children's expression of negative emotions. However, no studies have directly tested associations among negative public regard, racial barrier socialization, and emotion socialization practices. The present study employed a social-cognitive framework to examine direct and indirect associations between negative public regard, racial barrier socialization, and suppressive emotion socialization practices among Black caregivers. It was hypothesized that negative public regard would be associated with higher racial barrier socialization and, in turn, greater use of distress, minimizing, and punitive emotion socialization practices. Black caregivers (N = 100; M_age = 43.57 years, SD = 7.75; 91% female) completed self-report measures of racial identity, racial socialization, discrimination, and emotion socialization. Controlling for child sex, caregiver emotion dysregulation, and prior discrimination experiences, we found a significant indirect effect of negative public regard on minimizing (but not punitive nor distress) emotion socialization through racial barrier socialization. These findings incrementally advance extant literature, which contends that Black caregivers' racial barrier socialization and minimizing emotion socialization may operate in tandem to prepare Black youth for others' negative prejudicial beliefs and anti-Black racism in broader society. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

PMID:
42932813
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 27 Oct 2026.

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