Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 63 (2013) 15–23

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Original article

Parental socialization of emotion and depression in adulthood: The role ofattitudes toward sadness
La socialisation parentale des émotions et la dépression à l’âge adulte : le rôle des attitudes
envers la tristesse
M.E. Boucher a,∗ , S. Lecours a , F.L. Philippe b , S. Arseneault aab

Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7, Canada
Department of Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, C.P. 8888, succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3P8, Canada

a r t i c l e

i n f oArticle history:
Received 14 November 2011
Received in revised form
18 November 2012
Accepted 20 November 2012
Keywords:
Parental socialization of emotion
Depression
Attitudes toward sadness
Anger against the self
Sadness as a complaint
Fear of rejection
Fear of sadnessa b s t r a c t
Introduction. – Lack of parental care and high parental control have systematically been linked to depression. Dysfunctional schemas explain this relationship.
Objective. – We propose that a retrospective evaluation of unsupportive parental socialization of emotion should predict depression in adulthood and that this relationship should be mediated by negative
attitudes toward sadness.
Method. – One hundred and forty undergraduate students (mean age of 22) completed a questionnaire
for assessing the socialization of emotion (QSE), another for evaluating types of attitudes toward sadness(QAFET), and the Brief Symptom Inventory Depression scale (BSI-D).
Results. – Results show that four attitudes toward sadness, namely perception of sadness as a complaint,
anger against the self if sad, fear of being rejected if sad and fear of where sadness might lead, eachpartially mediate the relationship between unsupportive parental socialization of emotion and adultdepression.
Conclusion. – Our ﬁndings have both theoretical and practical implications. On the one hand, we demonstrated that unsupportive parental socialization of emotion and some attitudes toward sadness bothpredict depression. On the other hand, our results justify a closer look at parental socialization of emotion
and attitudes toward sadness when clinically investigating depression.
© 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

r é s u m éMots clés :Socialisation parentale des émotions
Dépression
Attitudes envers la tristesseColère contre soi
Tristesse comme plainte
Peur du rejet
Peur de la tristesse

Introduction. – Un manque de sensibilité parentale et un contrôle parental élevé ont été systématiquement
associés à la dépression. Des schémas dysfonctionnels expliqueraient cette relation.
Objectif. – Nous proposons que l’évaluation rétrospective d’une socialisation parentale des émotions non
soutenante devrait prédire la dépression à l’âge adulte et que cette relation devrait être médiatisée pardes attitudes négatives envers la tristesse.
Méthode. – Cent quarante étudiants de premier cycle universitaire (âge moyen de 22 ans) ont complété
un questionnaire mesurant la socialisation des émotions (QSE), un questionnaire évaluant les attitudes
typiques face à la tristesse (QAFET) et l’échelle de dépression du Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI-D).
Résultats. – Les résultats démontrent que quatre attitudes envers la tristesse, soit la perception de latristesse comme étant une plainte, la colère envers soi-même d’être dans un état de tristesse, la peurd’être rejeté si l’on est triste et la peur de l’état auquel la tristesse pourrait conduire, agissent chacune
comme médiateur de la relation entre une socialisation parentale des émotions non soutenante et ladépression à l’âge adulte.
Conclusion. – Nos résultats ont des contributions à la fois théoriques et pratiques. D’une part, nous avons
démontré que la socialisation parentale des émotions non soutenante et certaines attitudes envers la∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: marie-eve.do.boucher@umontreal.ca (M.E. Boucher).
1162-9088/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erap.2012.11.003

16

M.E. Boucher et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 63 (2013) 15–23

tristesse prédisent la dépression. D’autre part, nos résultats justiﬁent que l’on prête davantage attention
à la socialisation parentale des émotions et aux attitudes envers la tristesse lors de l’évaluation cliniquede la dépression.
© 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. Tous droits réservés.

1. Introduction
Some aspects of parenting have consistently been found toincrease vulnerability to depression (Alloy et al., 2001; Oliver &Berger, 1992; Whisman & Kwon, 1992). This association has beenobtained across different age groups including infants, children andadults and using various types of measure, such as observation
and retrospective reports (Blatt & Homann, 1992). Culture does notseem to impact this association either: parenting was related toadolescent depressed mood in Eastern culture just as in Westernculture (Dmitrieva, Chen, Greenberger, & Gil-Rivas, 2004).
Beck (1967) conceptualized the association between parenting and adult depression as being mediated by the formation of
enduring concepts. According to Beck, children’s attitudes toward
themselves and their environment are forged by their interaction with signiﬁcant others. Negative enduring self-concepts, or
negative schemas as Beck would call them, would predispose todepression because “the affective state can be regarded as theconsequence of the way the individual views himself or his environment” (p. 261).
This three-stage chain of events, namely negative parenting
leading to dysfunctional schemas leading to depression, has beentested and supported by numerous studies on depressed adolescents (Charoensuk, 2007; Liu, 2003) and adults (Harris & Curtin,
2002; McGinn, Cukor, & Sanderson, 2005; Randolph & Dykman,
1998; Shah & Waller, 2000). All studies used the same selfreported retrospective parenting measure, namely the Parental
Bonding Instrument (Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979). Depressedindividuals reported low parental care and high parental overprotection/control (Shah & Waller, 2000). These ﬁndings indicate that
aspects of parenting inﬂuence the way the future adult will regulate emotions. Obviously, parenting is a complex, multifaceted task.
One of these tasks indirectly related to parental bonding, but moreclosely linked to emotion regulation, is the socialization of emotion.
1.1. Socialization of emotion
Since the 1990s, research on the socialization of emotion hasreceived increasing attention. Socialization of emotion encompasses the parental behaviors that inﬂuence children’s learning of
the expression, regulation and experience of emotion (Eisenberg,
Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). In their review, these authors identiﬁed three main parental emotion-related socialization behaviors:
nonsupportive and supportive reactions to children’s experienceand expression of emotion; discussion of emotion; parental expressivity. In general, non-supportive reactions, such as punitive
reactions and distress, were predictors of negative social andemotional child outcomes, such as low levels of social competence (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1997; Jones, Eisenberg, Fabes, &MacKinnon, 2002) and externalizing problems (Tao, Zhou, & Wang,2010), whereas supportive reactions were associated with positivesocial and emotional child outcomes, such as constructive coping(Valiente et al., 2004) and emotional decoding and expressiveness(Fabes, Poulin, Eisenberg, & Madden-Derdich, 2002). Discussion ofemotion and parental expressivity were also linked to children’s
more effective regulation of negative emotions and greater expressivity of emotion respectively (Eisenberg et al., 1998).
Parenting practices are thought to have an enduring impact
on the emotional development of the child (Stack, Serbin, Enns,

Ruttle, & Barrieau, 2010). That is why perceived parental socialization of emotion (PSE) was studied in adolescents and even adults.
Perceived parental dismissing of emotion, such as in punishing or
neglecting the child’s sadness, was positively correlated to internalizing symptoms in adolescents (O’Neal & Magai, 2005) andpsychological distress in young adults (Garside & Klimes-Dougan,2002), while perceived parental emotion-coaching, accepting anddiscussing of the child’s negative affect for instance, was negatively correlated to internalizing symptoms (Stocker, Richmond,
Rhoades, & Kiang, 2007). Socialization of emotion regulation was
also posited as a resilience factor against biological vulnerability
to depression (Silk et al., 2007). Thus, although scarce, some early
research ﬁndings have begun to establish an association between
parental socialization of emotions and adult depression. However,research on the relationship between socialization and depression
as mediated by constructs related to self-concepts is still morescant. One indirect way to get at such self-concepts has been tofocus on meta-emotions and attitudes toward emotions.
1.2. Meta-emotions and attitudes toward emotions
A meta-emotion structure is “an organized and structured set of
emotions and cognitions about the emotions, both one’s own emotions and the emotions of others” (Gottman et al., 1997, p. 7). Most
probably due to the fact that meta-emotions were theoreticallyviewed as an antecedent to parental practices regarding the child’s
emotions, research on meta-emotions has until now solely examined parents’ meta-emotions predicting, among other variables,
their behaviors toward children’s expression of negative emotions(Wong, Diener, & Isabella, 2008; Yap, Allen, Leve, & Katz, 2008)
and adolescents’ depressive symptoms (Katz & Hunter, 2007). To
our knowledge, only two studies (Buckholdt, Parra, & Jobe-Shields,
2009; Hunter et al., 2011) have measured aspects of meta-emotionsin adolescents as an outcome of PSE or parental meta-emotions.
Buckholdt et al. found that perceived parental neglect and punishment of children’s sadness predicted negative evaluations ofsadness in adolescents, such as anger against the self when sadand believing nothing can be done to feel better. Hunter et al.
found that parent’s meta-emotion philosophy about their child’s
emotions predicted depressed meta-emotion philosophy in adolescence. However, no study has done the same for adults. In anotherline of research, emotional inhibition, which can be thought asreﬂecting the action of a negative evaluation of an emotion, wasfound by Krause et al. to act as a mediator in the relationshipbetween invalidating parental socialization of emotion and adult
distress, including depression symptoms (Krause, Mendelson, &Lynch, 2003). The present study aims at providing further evidence
as to how speciﬁc socialization practices might contribute to adultdepression by inﬂuencing intermediary belief structures. In orderto amplify on this trend while staying closer to emotion regulation,
beliefs about a central emotion to depression, namely sadness, will
be explored.
1.3. Sadness and depression
Sadness is linked to the appraisal of an irrevocable loss (Lazarus,
1991). The adaptive function of this emotion would be to elicit
a reparative cognitive work in order to accept and adjust to thispermanent loss (Arieti & Bemporad, 1978). Consequently, when

M.E. Boucher et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 63 (2013) 15–23

sadness is experienced, mental and physical functioning are bothslowed down and attentional processes are turned inward and are
more detail-oriented (Bonanno, 2009; Izard, 1991).
For many authors, depression is a condition involving a formof complicated, dysfunctional, or malignant sadness (Hagen, 2011;
Horwitz & Wakeﬁeld, 2007; Izard, 1972; Wolpert, 1999). According to Arieti and Bemporad (1978), depression could be seen as
the failure of sadness’ reparative work. In addition to biologicalhypotheses, namely that depression would be the result of a brain
chemical defect, these authors propose that “the reparative process (sorrow work) cannot take place because the person is not
psychologically equipped for it” (p. 128).
Negative attitudes toward emotions, such as believing that one
has to eliminate emotions perceived as weak and negative (suchas sadness), are frequently endorsed by depressed people (Power,1999). In a similar way, Arieti and Bemporad (1978) explain thatthe repression of painful ideas in order to avoid depression is afrequent process in depressed patients. Thus, negative attitudes
toward sadness have been found to be associated with depression.
1.4. Hypotheses
We propose that attitudes toward sadness could be seen as acting as a mediator of the relationship between perceived parental
practices regarding a child’s emotions and depression in adulthood. We believe that speciﬁc negative attitudes toward sadness
might contribute to some kind of inhibition of sadness and therefore might be a relevant mediator of the relation between PSE anddepression. Since research on attitudes toward emotions and PSE is
scarce, we cannot predict exactly which attitude(s) will mediate therelationship between PSE and depression. Therefore, we will use an
exploratory approach for identifying the mediator variable(s). We
thus hypothesize that:• retrospective reports of unsupportive PSE in childhood will predict depression scores in adulthood;• this relationship will be mediated by negative attitudes towardsadness.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
The participants were 140 undergraduate students enrolled ina psychology program at a Canadian University, with a mean age of
21.5 years (SD = 4.4). The class in which participants were recruited
had a total of 195 students; the response rate was thus 71.7%.
Seventy-six percent of the participants were women.
2.2. Instruments
2.2.1. Questionnaire de Socialisation des Émotions (QSE)(Lecours, Philippe & Descôteaux, 2009)
The QSE is a retrospective self-report of parental reactions to
the participant’s emotions when he/she was a child. The QSE has
20 items which are anchored on a 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging
from “Never true” to “Very often true”. It has ﬁve subscales, eachmade of four items (prompt: “When I was a child. . .”):• parental indifference (e.g. “my parents were not interested in how
I reacted to important events”);• parental hostility (e.g. “my parents punished me when I was reallyangry”);• parental distress (e.g. “my parents panicked when I started tocry”);

17• an attitude of fostering cognitive evaluation, which is reversely
coded when the QSE total score is calculated (e.g. “my parents
tried to understand why I was angry”);• and parental lack of emotional communication (e.g. “my parents
did not talk about their emotions”).
The expression “my parents” refers to one or both parents orto the principal caretaker(s) during childhood. Consequently, if at
least one parent/caretaker’s behavior ﬁts the item description, theparticipant is told to rate it as being true. Since the measure wasdesigned as an indicator of the importance of each participant’s
general exposition to unsupportive parental socialization, the speciﬁc response of each parent was not differentiated.
The initial psychometric properties of the scale were satisfactory. The questionnaire’s items were obtained from a poolof descriptors generated from a literature review on parental
reactions to their child’s emotional expression and socialization
behaviors. The scales were constructed on the basis of a principal component analysis applied to the responses of a validation
student sample different from the one used for this study. A conﬁrmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood as the methodof estimation was conducted in Mplus 6.12 (Muthén & Muthén,2012) in order to conﬁrm the factorial validity of the QSE. Results
for a 5-factor model revealed adequate ﬁt indices, 2 (142) = 253.50,
p < .001, NC = 1.79, CFI = .95, TLI = .94, RMSEA = .058 [.046; .069],
SRMR = .063. All factor loadings were high and signiﬁcant, ranging from .59 to .93. The QSE total score, indicating the level ofunhelpful parental socialization practices, was coherently associated with measures of child trauma, alexithymia and symptoms.
For the present study, alphas were: parental indifference (␣ = .86);
parental hostility (␣ = .66); parental distress (␣ = .67); parental lackof communication (␣ = .84); and an attitude of fostering cognitive
evaluation (␣ = .83).
We preferred to construct the QSE instead of translating into
French an existing instrument. In order to measure PSE in adults,
Krause et al. adapted the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions
Scale (Fabes et al., 2002) into the Socialization of Emotions Scale(SES), a retrospective self-report measure of caretakers’ attitudes
towards the participant’s negative emotions (Krause et al., 2003).
The Emotions as a Child Inventory (EAC) (Magai, 1996) can also
be used as a questionnaire or an interview for similar dimensionsof emotion socialization (reward, neglect, punishment, magniﬁcation, override) for four discrete negative emotions (anger, fear,sadness, shame) (O’Neal & Magai, 2005). While the SES and EAC
assess direct emotion socialization strategies, that is, parental reactions that are contingent to the child’s emotion, the QSE measuresboth direct (punishment, distress, cognitive elaboration, indifference) and indirect (lack of parental emotional communication)socialization of emotion. It was important to us to include this indirect form of PSE since it is associated with observational learning,
implicit in the effect of the level of parental emotional expressivity, thought to be an important dimension of PSE (Eisenberg et al.,1998).

2.2.2. Questionnaire sur l’Attitude Face à l’Émotion de Tristesse(QAFET) (Lecours & Philippe, 2010)
The QAFET is a self-report measure evaluating one’s typicalattitudes toward sadness. It has 34 items based on a 7-point
Likert-type scale, ranging from “Not at all” to “A lot”. It has nine
subscales (prompt “Usually, when I am in a situation that can cause
sadness. . .”):
• replacement of sadness with a positive thought (4 items, e.g. “I
try to think about something happier”);

18

M.E. Boucher et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 63 (2013) 15–23• perception of sadness as useful for self-growth, which is reversely
coded when the QAFET total score is calculated (4 items, e.g. “I
think that sadness helps me understand myself better”);• perception of sadness as a complaint (3 items, e.g. “I tell myselfthat I don’t want to be pitied”);• anger against the self if sad (4 items, e.g., “I ﬁnd myself stupid forbeing affected that way”);• perception of sadness as being harmful (4 items, e.g. “I think thatsadness should not exist”);• fear of being rejected if sad (4 items, e.g., “I tell myself that if I
express my sadness, someone is going to make fun of me”);• denial of sadness (4 items, e.g. “I am not sad, because to me, life
is always beautiful”);• fear of where sadness might lead (4 items, e.g. “I am scared of notknowing where my sadness could take me if I let myself beingsad”;• and lack of interest for sadness (3 items, e.g. “I don’t want tounderstand what is going on in me”).
This questionnaire was constructed for the current study. Again,
an initial pool of items was generated on the basis of a literature review on sadness evaluation. The scales were derived froma Principal Component Analysis applied to the responses of a validation student sample different from the one used for this study andthe one for the validation of the QSE. A conﬁrmatory factor analysis using maximum likelihood as the method of estimation was
conducted in Mplus 6.12 (Muthén & Muthén, 2012) in order to conﬁrm the factorial validity of this scale. Results for a 9-factor model
revealed adequate ﬁt indices, 2 (99) = 234.44, p < .001, NC = 2.37,
CFI = .96, TLI = .94, RMSEA = .050 [.042; .059], SRMR = .043. All factor
loadings were high, ranging from .64 to .95. The initial Cronbachalphas for each of the nine dimensions were satisfactory. The QAFET
total score, indicating typical negative attitudes toward sadness,
was coherently associated with measures of alexithymia, depression, anxiety, well-being and self-esteem. The psychometric data
for the current sample are also satisfactory:• replacement of sadness with a positive thought (␣ = .70);• perception of sadness as useful for self-growth (␣ = .86);• perception of sadness as a complaint (␣ = .71);• anger against the self if sad (␣ = .75);• perception of sadness as being harmful (␣ = .72);• fear of being rejected if sad (␣ = .81);• denial of sadness (␣ = .77);• fear of sadness (␣ = .77);• and lack of interest for sadness (␣ = .58).
The construction of the QAFET was motivated by the fact that,as far as we know, only general measures of attitudes toward emotions have appeared in the literature, such as the Attitude Toward
Emotional Expression Scale (Joseph, Williams, Irwing, & Cammock,1994), the Ambivalence over Emotion Expression Questionnaire(King & Emmons, 1990) and the Emotional Schemas Scale (Leahy,2002). While all three instruments were found to be predictorsof psychological distress (including depression) (King & Emmons,
1990; Leahy, 2002; Surgenor & Joseph, 2000), no study has tried torelate them to PSE. These three instruments assess the (negativeor ambivalent) attitude toward emotional expression and do not
focus on a speciﬁc emotion.
2.2.3. Brief Symptom Inventory - Depression Scale (BSI-D)(Derogatis, 1975)
This scale is part of the BSI, which assesses clinically relevant
psychological symptoms. The following prompt was used in ourstudy: “During the past 7 days (including today), how much were
you distressed by. . .?” The BSI-D has six items evaluated on a

5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from “Not at all” (1) to“Extremely” (5). The total score (BSI-D-tot) represents the actual
self-reported level of depressive symptoms.
The BSI’s psychometric properties are well established (Boulet& Boss, 1991). For the present study, Cronbach’s alpha was .82. The
BSI depression scale (BSI-D) has demonstrated speciﬁcity and sensitivity indices similar to the Beck Depression Inventory’s (BDI-II)(Stukenberg, Dura, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 1990). It also predicts BDIII scores when demographic and clinical variables are controlled(Khalil, Hall, Moser, Lennie, & Frazier, 2011) and it is signiﬁcantly
correlated to the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SRDS) (Tate,
Forchheimer, Maynard, Davidoff, & Dijkers, 1993). Moreover, the
BSI-D has a fair discriminative value: in a psychiatric inpatient
sample, there was a signiﬁcant difference between BSI-D scores ofthe depressed and the non-depressed participants (Johnson, Chipp,Brems, & Neal, 2008). The BSI-D was essentially preferred overother self-report depression scales because of its reduced length.
While presenting similarly adequate psychometric properties, it
has the advantage of being shorter than other well-known depression scales (BDI-II = 30 items, SRDS = 20 items).
2.3. Procedure
Participants were asked to participate in the study during a class.
They were free to participate or not, without prejudice, and were
not remunerated for their participation. The principal investigator described the study and distributed the three questionnaires tothose who accepted the invitation. The participants were told thatthe questionnaires were constructed by the researcher in order toassess aspects of emotional functioning and that he needed to evaluate their relationships and properties. The questionnaires werecompleted in the following order: QSE, QAFET and BSI-D. The testing session lasted less than 15 minutes.
2.4. Statistical analyses
In order to test our hypotheses, correlations between the QSE,QAFET and BSI-D total mean scores and subscales’ mean scores
were calculated. As recommended by Baron and Kenny (1986),
hierarchical regressions were also conducted to test our mediational model predicting level of depression symptoms and tocontrol for possible confounding variables, namely sex and age.
3. Results
3.1. Descriptive statistics
Descriptive statistics of the three principal variables are presented in Table 1 and correlations among all variables of thestudy are shown in Table 2. The correlations between retrospective parental unsupportive socialization of emotion (QSE), actual
negative attitudes toward sadness (QAFET) and actual depressive
symptoms (BSI-D) scores are all signiﬁcant, being congruent with
our ﬁrst hypothesis: the more participants report a non supportive PSE, the more negative attitudes toward sadness and the higher
the level of depression symptoms are. In addition, with increasingly
negative attitudes toward sadness come higher levels of depressive
symptoms. The correlations are small to moderate in size (Cohen,1988).
We could not anticipate which attitudes toward sadness
would be related to unsupportive parental socialization anddepressive symptoms so we decided to look at the correlations
between each dimension of the QAFET and these variables. As
shown in Table 2, correlations vary a lot according to which
dimension of QAFET is considered. It was thus apparent that theconstruct of “attitudes toward sadness” was not a homogeneousM.E. Boucher et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 63 (2013) 15–23

19

Table 1
Descriptive statistics and correlations between QSE, QAFET and BSI-D mean scores.
Variable

M

SD

Minimum

Maximum

QSE

QAFET

QSE
QAFET
BSI-D

48.61
115.22
1.97

11.71
21.97
0.76

22
68
1

82
180
3.83

–
.20*
.28**

–
.32**

QSE: unsupportive parental socialization of emotion; QAFET: negative attitudes toward sadness; BSI-D: Brief Symptom Inventory Depression Scale.
p < .05, ** p < .01.

*

Table 2
Correlations among QSE mean score, QSE dimensions mean scores, QAFET mean score, QAFET dimensions mean scores, and BSI-D mean score.

IND
HOST
DIST
COG
COM
QAFET
POS
USE
COMP
ANG
HARM
REJ
DENI
FEAR
LINT
BSI-D
AGE
SEX

QSE

IND

HOST

DIST

COG

COM

QAFET

POS

USE

COMP

ANG

HARM

REJ

DENI

FEAR

LINT

BSI-D

.83**
.59**
.49**
−.81**
.73**
.20*
−.13
−.04
.21*
.19*
.09
.32**
−.12
.28**
.12
.28**
.11
.02

–
.34**
.32**
−.68**
.50**
.07
−.07
.06
.11
.06
−.01
.20*
−.03
.12
.04
.13
.13
.07

–
.23**
−.29**
.24**
.21*
.04
.07
.24**
.16
.11
.25**
−.06
.24**
−.04
.19*
−.02
−.06

–
−.18*
.12
.23**
.03
.02
.04
.29**
.14
.18*
−.03
.31**
.01
.22**
.09
.16

–
−.56**
−.08
.27**
.14
−.13
−.12
.03
−.27**
.18*
−.17*
−.22*
−.23**
−.10
.02

–
.15
−.14
−.15
.19*
.08
.13
.20*
−.11
.18*
.16
.23**
.07
−.08

–
.27**
−.46**
.68**
.66**
.75**
.59**
.27**
.63**
.19*
.32**
−.01
−.05

–
.06
−.07
−.04
.24**
−.15
.43**
.01
−.25**−.27**
.10
.09

–
−.15
−.18*
−.45**
−.11
−.08
−.07
−.42**
−.12
.08
.11

–
.49**
.33**
.55**
.09
.41**
.11
.29**
.02
−.13

–
.35**
.42**
−.15
.57**
.11
.52**
−.06
.15

–
.29**
.15
.36**
.07
.20*
−.03
.10

–
−.06
.46**
.06
.44**
.10
−.13

–
−.19*
−.03
−.47**.09−.28**

–
.08
.48**
−.10
.14

–
.10
−.02
−.19*

−.03
.14

QSE: unsupportive parental socialization of emotion; IND: parental indifference; HOST: parental hostility; DIST: parental distress; COG: parental cognitive elaboration; COM:
lack of parental emotional communication; QAFET: negative attitudes toward sadness; POS: replacement of sadness with a positive thought; USE: perception of sadness asuseful to self-growth; COMP: perception of sadness as a complaint; ANG: anger against the self if sad; HARM: perception of sadness as being harmful; REJ: fear of being
rejected if sad; DENI: denial of sadness; FEAR: fear of where sadness might lead; LINT: lack of interest for sadness; BSI-D: Brief Symptom Inventory Depression Scale; Sex:
female: 1, male: 0.
*
p < .05, ** p < .01.

one in its relationship with socialization of emotion and depressive
symptoms. This was conﬁrmed by a failed, underpowered, attempt
to obtain a signiﬁcant mediation effect of attitudes toward sadness
in the relationship between unsupportive parental socialization ofemotions and depression while using the total scores of the QSE andQAFET. We then explored which speciﬁc types of attitude towardsadness could act as mediators. Four dimensions of QAFET show
signiﬁcant correlations with both the QSE mean score and the BSI
mean score: the perception of sadness as a complaint, the anger
against the self if sad, the fear of being rejected if sad and the fearof where sadness might lead.
Furthermore, as can be seen in Table 2, since unsupportiveparental socialization is rather homogeneously related to depressive symptoms, as apparent from the pattern of correlations
between the QSE subscales and the BSI-D, we selected the QSE total
score as the predictor in our mediational model.

3.2. Mediational models
As introduced in our second hypothesis, we decided to test
a mediational model where a negative attitude toward sadness
would explain the relationship between an unhelpful PSE and thepresent level of depressive symptoms. Since four negative attitudes
toward sadness were found to be signiﬁcantly correlated to boththe BSI-D and the QSE mean scores, four mediational models will
be presented, where the QSE mean score is the independent variable, the negative attitude toward sadness is the mediator and the
BSI-D mean score is the dependent variable. According to Baron &Kenny (1986), three regressions must be calculated to demonstrate
a mediation effect: a regression of the mediator on the independent
variable (see Models 2, 4, 6 and 8 in Table 3), a regression of thedependent variable on the independent variable (see Model 1 inTable 3) and a multiple regression of the dependent variable on
both the independent variable and the mediator (see Models 3, 5,
7 and 9).

3.2.1. Perception of sadness as a complaint
As can be seen in Table 3, our ﬁrst mediational model, controlling for age and sex, satisﬁes the three conditions for establishingmediation: ﬁrst, QSE signiﬁcantly predicts perception of sadness
as a complaint (Model 2); second, QSE also signiﬁcantly predicts
BSI-D (Model 1); and third, perception of sadness as a complaint
predicts BSI-D (Model 3). Additionally, when the perception of sadness as a complaint mean score is introduced in the regressionof the BSI-D mean score on the QSE mean score (Model 3), theunstandardized beta of the QSE becomes smaller in value (B = .015,
p < .01) compared to Model 1 (B = .019, p < .01). Hence, the relation between the total score of unsupportive PSE and the actual
depression score seems to be partially mediated by perception ofsadness as a complaint, this ﬁnding being congruent with our second hypothesis. In this mediational model, sex is also a signiﬁcantpredictor of the BSI-D score (B = .316, p < .05), females presenting signiﬁcantly more depressive symptoms than males when allother variables are controlled. The mediation effect is signiﬁcant(z = 2.36) and represents 20% of the total effect (see Frazier et al.,2004, for calculations). In other words, 20% of the total effect of
unsupportive PSE on actual depressive symptoms level is mediated by the perception of sadness as a complaint. The model that
includes the contribution of age, unsupportive PSE, sex, and theperception of sadness as a complaint explains 17% of the variance of the BSI-D mean score, which is a medium effect (Cohen,1988).

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M.E. Boucher et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 63 (2013) 15–23

Table 3
Summary of unstandardized regression coefﬁcients from linear regression analyses testing four mediational models for parental socialization of emotion and depression.

Age
Sex
QSE
COMP
ANG
REJ
FEAR
R2
F Value

Model 1
(Does QSE
predict BDI-D
controllingfor age andsex?)

Model 2
(Does QSE
predict COMP
controllingfor age andsex?)

Model 3 (Does
COMP predict
BDI-D
controlling forage, sex and
QSE?)

Model 4
(Does QSE
predict ANG
controllingfor age andsex?)

Model 5 (DoesANG predict
BDI-D
controlling forage, sex and
QSE?)

Model 6
(Does QSE
predict REJ
controllingfor age andsex?)

Model 7 (DoesREJ predict
BDI-D
controlling forage, sex and
QSE?)

Model 8(Does QSE
predict FEAR
controllingfor age andsex?)

Model 9 (Does
FEAR predict
BDI-D
controlling forage, sex and
QSE?)

−.009
.248
.019**
–
–
–
–
.10**
5.00 (3, 133)

−.005
−.476
.026*
–
–
–

−.008
.316*
.015**.143**–––.17**
10.62 (1, 129)

−.021
.421
.021*
–
–
–
–
.06*
2.96 (3, 133)

−.003
.129
.013*
–
.281***––.31***
38.94 (1, 132)

.016
−.366
.031***
–
–
–
–
.12**
6.17 (3, 133)

−.013
.349*
.010
–
–
.276***–.26***
27.17 (1, 132)

−.036
.385
.032**
–
–
–
–
.11**
5.46 (3, 133)

.000
.151
.011*
–
–
–
.251***.26***
28.49 (1, 132).06*
2.93 (3, 130)

QSE: unsupportive parental socialization of emotion; BSI-D: Brief Symptom Inventory Depression Scale; Sex: female: 1, male: 0; COMP: perception of sadness as a complaint;
ANG: anger against the self if sad; REJ: fear of being rejected if sad; FEAR: fear of where sadness might lead.
*p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001.

3.2.2. Anger against the self if sad
As shown in Table 3 (Models, 1, 4 and 5), our second mediational model, controlling for age and sex, also satisﬁes the three
conditions for establishing mediation. Moreover, when the anger
against the self if sad mean score is introduced in the regression of
the BSI-D mean score on the QSE mean score (Model 5), the unstandardized beta of the QSE becomes smaller in value and signiﬁcance(B = .013, p < .05) compared to Model 1 (B = .019, p < .01). Hence, therelationship between the total score of unsupportive PSE and theactual depression score seems to be partially mediated by the anger
against the self if sad. The mediation effect is signiﬁcant (z = 2.33)
and represents 31% of the total effect. In other words, 31% of thetotal effect of unsupportive PSE on actual depressive symptoms
level is mediated by the anger against the self if sad. The modelthat includes age, sex, unsupportive PSE and anger against the self
if sad explains 31% of the variance of the BSI-D mean score, which
is a large effect (Cohen, 1988).
3.2.3. Fear of being rejected if sad
As presented in Table 3 (Models 1, 6 and 7), our third mediational model, controlling for age and sex, also satisﬁes the three
conditions for establishing mediation. Moreover, when the fear of
being rejected if sad mean score is introduced in the regression of
the BSI-D mean score on the QSE mean score (Model 7), the unstandardized beta of the QSE becomes smaller in value and signiﬁcance(B = .010, p = .054) compared to Model 1 (B = .019, p < .01). Hence,
the relationship between the total score of unsupportive PSE andthe actual depression score seems to be mediated by the fear of
being rejected if sad. In this mediational model, sex is also a signiﬁcant predictor of the BSI-D score (B = .349, p < .05), which meansthat females present signiﬁcantly more depressive symptoms thanmales when all other variables are controlled. The mediation effectis signiﬁcant (z = 3.86) and represents 45% of the total effect. In otherwords, 45% of the total effect of unsupportive PSE on actual depressive symptoms level is mediated by the fear of being rejected if
sad. This model, which is composed of the contribution of age, sex,
unsupportive PSE and fear of being rejected if sad, explains 26% of
the variance of the BSI-D mean score, which is a large effect (Cohen,1988).
3.2.4. Fear of where sadness might lead
As can be seen in Table 3 (Models 1, 8 and 9), our fourth and last
mediational model, controlling for age and sex, also satisﬁes thethree conditions for establishing mediation. Moreover, when thefear of where sadness might lead mean score is introduced in the
regression of the BSI-D mean score on the QSE mean score (Model9), the unstandardized beta of the QSE becomes smaller in value
and signiﬁcance (B = .011, p < .05) compared to Model 1 (B = .019,
p < .01). Hence, the relationship between the total score of unsupportive PSE and the actual depression score seems to be partiallymediated by the fear of where sadness might lead. The mediation
effect is signiﬁcant (z = 3.55) and represents 42% of the total effect.
In other words, 42% of the total effect of unsupportive PSE on actual
depressive symptoms level is mediated by the fear of where sadness
might lead. This model, which includes age, sex, unsupportive PSE
and fear of where sadness might lead, explains 26% of the varianceof the BSI-D mean score, which is a large effect (Cohen, 1988).

4. Discussion
Using an exploratory approach, the goals of this study were ﬁrst
to verify if retrospective reports of unsupportive parental socialization of emotion (PSE) would predict present levels of depressive
symptoms and, second, if actual negative attitudes toward sadness would mediate this relationship. Results conﬁrmed our ﬁrst
hypothesis and revealed that four speciﬁc attitudes toward sadness, namely the perception of sadness as a complaint, the anger
against the self if sad, the fear of being rejected if sad and the fear ofwhere sadness might lead, were, of all nine measured attitudes, theones correlated to both retrospective unsupportive PSE and actual
depressive symptoms. Moreover, these four attitudes each mediated the relationship between retrospective unsupportive PSE andactual depressive symptoms. These results are now discussed.
First, the prediction of present levels of depressive symptoms by retrospective reports of unsupportive PSE is congruent
with numerous studies predicting depression with retrospective
childhood emotional abuse and neglect (i.e. parental humiliation,
rejection, psychological unavailability or ignoring of the child’s
emotional needs) (Maciejewski & Mazure, 2006; Wright, Crawford,& Del Castillo, 2009) and low parental care and high overprotection (Alloy et al., 2001; Whisman & Kwon, 1992). Many of these
related studies explained this relationship by the development of
dysfunctional cognitions or schemas (i.e., feelings of worthlessness,fear of criticism and rejection), which would increase vulnerability
to depression. Since we speciﬁcally assessed the recall of parental
reactions to the emotions of the participant as a child (instead ofgeneral parenting practices), considering present attitudes towardemotions as a mediator between unsupportive PSE and depression (instead of more general cognitions about the self and theenvironment) was a logical choice and is congruent with the aforementioned studies. In line with our results, Silk et al. suggested in2007 that the socialization of emotion regulation was a possible

M.E. Boucher et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 63 (2013) 15–23

developmental process contributing to resilience against depression (Silk et al., 2007).
Second, four attitudes toward sadness mediated the predictionof actual depressive symptoms by retrospective reports of unsupportive PSE. Before discussing each attitude separately, we will
discuss them as a whole. The perception of sadness as a complaint,
the anger against the self if sad, the fear of being rejected if sadand the fear of where sadness might lead can all be seen as attitudes contributing to emotional inhibition, which was found to bea mediator in the relationship between invalidating parental socialization of emotion and adult distress (Krause et al., 2003). Indeed,
these four negative attitudes toward sadness are linked to the anticipation of possible negative consequences if sadness is expressed:
being looked upon with pity, being rejected by others, or by oneself, and losing emotional control. The fact that these four attitudes
are highly correlated (Table 2) suggests that they could be part ofthe same system of attitudes: when one attitude is reported, it isvery likely that another, or others, will also be reported. Different
hypotheses regarding their dynamics can be elaborated and could
be investigated in future studies: for example, the perception ofsadness as a complaint could be a consequence of the fear of being
rejected if sad, and anger against the self could be the following
emotional reaction for exposing the self to potential social rejection. Fear of where sadness might lead could also be followed byanger against the self as a means to avoiding sadness and potential
rejection.
We will now discuss each attitude individually. Since they areboth related to anticipating negative social consequences of sadness, the perception of sadness as a complaint and the fear of being
rejected if sad will be discussed together. The perception of sadness as a complaint is the impression that expressing sadness isakin to whining and could elicit pity or contempt from others. In
the same way, the fear of being rejected if sad can be seen as a fearof possible external consequences of expressing sadness, namely
being laughed at or not being taken care of. Previous studies haveindeed reported that people reporting negative attitudes towardemotional expression, such as a belief of social rejection, also tend
to have higher scores on the BDI (Joseph et al., 1994). But how canthese speciﬁc attitudes toward sadness predict depression? Those
who have negative attitudes toward emotional expression would
also be more ambivalent about expressing their emotions (Laghai &Joseph, 2000) and would report reduced social support seeking following a distressing event (Joseph et al., 1994). Furthermore, themore depressed people report to be, the more they believe theiremotions are different from others’ (Leahy, 2002). This low consensus judgment might lead to reduced social contact and turn into avicious circle where depressed people, considering there is a low
probability that others share their experiences and emotions, will
avoid social interaction and, consequently, will not receive feedback that could change their initial perception of low consensus,
leading again to reduced social contact (Brewin & Furnham, 1986).
Thus, depressive states and fear of being rejected have been clearly
linked to less conﬁding relationships. Yet, expressing one’s negative feelings to another person might alleviate distress by reducing
distress about distress and facilitating insight (Kennedy-Moore &Watson, 2001). More precisely, talking to someone else about one’s
distress might, on one hand, let one see their emotions as less frightening or unbearable than one ﬁrst thought and, on the other hand,might help create meaning for the sources and implications of sad
feelings, the two processes being associated with less distress andhigher well-being.
Sex turned out to be a signiﬁcant predictor of the BSI score onlyin the mediational models involving the perception of sadness as
a complaint and the fear of being rejected if sad. Being a woman
was indeed more related to depressive symptoms when those
two negative attitudes toward social consequences of expressing

21

sadness were used as mediators of the relationship between PSE
and depression scores. This essentially means that the unique contribution of sex to depression becomes signiﬁcant over and above
the mediation effects observed for these two attitudes. Since therelationship between sex and depression is modest (r = .14), andthe size of the correlations between sex and the four attitudes issomewhat equivalent (COMP: r = −.13, ANG: r = .15, REJ: r = −.13,
FEAR = .14), this ﬁnding is likely to be the result of a small, conceptually inert, advantage of sex in the pattern of correlations among
the variables in the regressions for sadness as a complaint and fearof being rejected if sad.
Anger against the self if sad could be deﬁned as blaming oneself for being sad. Consistent with our results, the BDI score wasfound to be positively correlated with guilt toward emotions inanother study (Leahy, 2002). In the same way, Buckholdt et al.
(2009) suggest that parental neglect and punishment of sadness
could lead children to feel ashamed of their sad feelings and thus
use deliberate self-harm to regulate their negative feelings. Furthermore, anger is frequently experienced in reaction to sadness in
psychotherapy, since it would be a less painful and a more powerfulemotion than sadness, and would thus be used for self-protection
when sadness is experienced (Henretty, Levitt, & Mathews, 2008).
Thus, anger against the self if sad could be seen as both being critical
toward the self for feeling sad and as avoiding sadness by feeling less vulnerable. But how could anger against the self if sad be
related to depression? Just as the three other discussed attitudes,
being angry against oneself if sad could inhibit the experience ofsadness and thus prevent the reparative work normally elicited bysadness, resulting in depression (Arieti & Bemporad, 1978). Angeragainst oneself would also “complicate” sadness when experienced
and thus lead to an even more painful and dysphoric feeling of hurtwhen sad (Izard, 1991).
As for the fear of where sadness might lead, it can be conceptualized as a fear of possible internal consequences of experiencing
sadness, such as losing emotional control, being overwhelmed bysadness, etc. This attitude was reported by clients who experiencesadness in psychotherapy (Henretty et al., 2008): they were afraidthat their sadness could become pathological if they experienced it
for too long a time. This conceptualization is also in line with ﬁndings from Leahy (2002), who reported that depression scores werepositively correlated with believing one’s emotions were incomprehensible and uncontrollable. In addition, the BDI score wasfound to be predicted by the negative reactivity to emotions, which
consists of negative attitudes toward emotions, such as the fear of
losing control if one expresses emotion (Mennin, Holaway, Fresco,
Moore, & Heimberg, 2007). Furthermore, the fear of losing emotional control if sad could be explained by a difﬁculty in being
self-reassuring, which has been found in those reporting a lack ofparental warmth and which predicts depressive symptoms (Irons,
Gilbert, Baldwin, Baccus, & Palmer, 2006). Moreover, developmentof self-reassurance through compassionate mind training was associated with signiﬁcant reductions of depression level (Gilbert &Procter, 2006).
The results of this study are limited by different factors. First,
the convenience sample used prevents us from generalizing theresults to the general population. Therefore, other studies areneeded to test the validity of our results. The use of clinical andnon-clinical samples representative of the general population
would allow a greater variance of depression scores. Second, weused a retrospective and self-reported measure of PSE, whichmight not have been an exact assessment of parental reactions toparticipants’ emotions when they were children. Some participants
could have minimized or even forgotten, intentionally or not, theirparents’ behaviors toward their emotions during childhood. Or
inversely, depressive symptoms might bias participants toward
recalling more negatively tinged interactions with their parents.

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M.E. Boucher et al. / Revue européenne de psychologie appliquée 63 (2013) 15–23

A longitudinal study would be the best way to overcome thislimitation, where observational and self-reported measures of PSE
could be used and compared. Third, the Cronbach alphas for two
QSE subscales and one QAFET subscale were under .70, the usual
threshold for acceptable internal consistency (Pallant, 2007).
Concerning the theoretical contributions of this study, wedemonstrated that unsupportive PSE and attitudes toward sadness, two relatively new variables in the psychology literature,both predicted depression levels. We also suggest that negative
attitudes toward sadness, such as perceiving sadness as a complaint, anger against the self, fear of rejection and fear of losing
emotional control, would arise from perceived unsupportive PSE.
As for the practical contributions of this study, our ﬁndings justify
a closer look at PSE and attitudes toward sadness when clinically investigating depression. In particular, the four attitudes
that were found to be mediators could be speciﬁcally targeted bytherapeutic interventions in the psychotherapy of depression. For
example, education and cognitive restructuring could be used toalter these negative attitudes toward sadness. By modifying theirattitudes toward sadness, patients would most probably be more
inclined to fully experience their sadness instead of avoiding it.
The reparative work of sadness (Arieti & Bemporad, 1978) could
then take place, thus contributing to the reduction of depressive
symptoms.
Disclosure of interest
The authors declare that they have no conﬂicts of interest concerning this article.
Acknowledgments
The collection and analysis of data of this research were conducted with the help of a grant from the Social Sciences andHumanities Research Council of Canada.
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