J. Asiat. Soc. Bangladesh, Sci.

39(2): 211-220, December 2013

COGNITIVE EMOTION REGULATION IN CHILDREN AS RELATED

TO THEIR PARENTING STYLE, FAMILY TYPE AND GENDER

A.K.M. REZAUL KARIM1, TANIA SHARAFAT AND ABU YUSUF MAHMUD2

Department of Psychology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka1000
2
Department of Psychology, Dhaka College, Dhaka1205

Abstract
This study aimed to investigate whether cognitive emotion regulation in children varies
with parenting style, family type and gender. Toward this end, cognitive emotion
regulation and perceived parenting style of 206 school children were measured. Standard
regression analyses of data revealed that the models were significant and explained
17.3% of the variance in adaptive emotion regulation (Adjusted R²=0.173; F=9.579,
p<.001), and 7.1% of the variance in less adaptive emotion regulation (Adjusted
R²=.071, F=4.135, p=.001). Results showed that children’s cognitive emotion regulation
is functionally associated with parenting style, but not with family type and their gender.
Amongst the three types of parenting, authoritative parenting was the strongest predictor
of overall adaptive emotion regulation while authoritarian parenting was the strongest
predictor of overall less adaptive emotion regulation. Permissive parenting has impact on
neither adaptive nor less adaptive emotion regulation. The findings have implications for
parents, caregivers, child psychologists and other professionals working with children/
adolescents.
Key words: Cognitive emotion regulation, Adaptive, Less adaptive, Parenting style, Family type

Introduction
In everyday life we often experience strong emotions that need to be managed in order to
function well in the family, office or workplace, and community or society etc.
Managing or regulating emotions mean understanding and filtering emotional
experience, using healthy strategies to control uncomfortable emotions and engaging in
appropriate behavior (e.g. attending classes, going to work, engaging in friendships or
social relationships) when distressed. Emotion regulation has both cognitive and
behavioral aspects. We are interested here in the cognitive aspect of emotion regulation
of adolescents. Cognitive emotion regulation is defined as the conscious, cognitive way
of managing the intake of emotionally arousing information (Thompson 1994). The
cognitive strategies that people generally use to regulate their emotions in different
settings can be divided into two broad categories: adaptive strategies and less adaptive
strategies.
Researchers have shown that the neurological changes improve the regulation of emotion
over the course of adolescence. As adolescents grow they also learn how to regulate
emotions which has both positive and negative impacts on their relationships with

1
Corresponding author: Email: karim.akmr.monscho06@gmail.com
212 Karim et al

family, neighbors and friends. However, we still do not know about the role of parents or
family in its development. Thus we are interested to see what kind of strategies children
use (Adaptive or Less Adaptive?) in what kind of family and parenting situations to
regulate their emotions. The child’s interactions with the family members in general and
with the parents in particular can play a crucial role in its cognitive and socio-emotional
development (McLanahan and Bumpass 1988). This role can be much more important
in a collectivistic society such as in Bangladesh where there are mainly two types of
family: nuclear family and extended family.
Although children at adolescence give more importance to their peer group than parents,
but parents and families have strong influence over them. Berndt (1979), and Young and
Ferguson (1979), for example, found that although both sexes are highly peer-oriented,
males and females at different times in adolescence are influenced by their parents.
Parenting styles have been described as the collection of parents’ behaviors which create
an atmosphere of parent-child interactions across situations (Mize and Pettit 1997).
Authoritative parents offer a balance between high nurturance and high control, they do
not reward dependency (Baumrind and Black 1967), but instead set a standard of
responsibility and self-control. Here, expectations are clear, rules are firm and rational,
and discipline is administered in a consistent manner (Baumrind 1978). Thus
authoritarian parenting is characterized by high control with low levels of parental
warmth, involvement, support, or emotional commitment (Baumrind and Black 1967).
Permissive/indulgent parents allow their children to do whatever they wish and they are
characterized by high levels of warmth and low levels of control over children. In this
style of parenting children are often left to regulate their own activities, behavior, and
emotions at a young age.
The period of adolescence forms an important stage in the development of cognitive
coping skills as this is the period in which the more advanced cognitive abilities are
being mastered. Studies have shown that children’s emotion regulation can be dependent
on the style of parenting. Children of authoritarian parents on the other hand have been
shown to be dissatisfied, apprehensive, fearful, socially inhibited, aggressive, and
experience difficulty in regulating emotions (Baumrind 1967, Baumrind and Black 1967,
Hart et al. 1998, Hart et al. 2003, Nix et al. 1999). Permissive parenting has been linked
to bossy, dependant, impulsive behavior in children, with low levels of self-control and
achievement; these children do not learn persistence and emotional control (Baumrind
1967). One limitation of these studies is that they are biased to the scenario of
individualistic societies. A second limitation is that they mostly focused on the
behavioral part of emotion regulation. The cognitive part of emotion regulation has been
studied in relation to parenting style and child’s gender insufficiently and not at all in
relation to family type. Therefore, the present study investigated whether parenting style
can determine that a child would employ adaptive or less adaptive strategies in
Cognitive emotion regulation in children 213

regulating emotions and whether the type of family (nuclear/extended) and child’s
gender have any impacts on such regulation.

Materials and Methods

Participants: 206 children (40% boys, 60% girls) aged 12-15 from four randomly chosen
secondary schools of Dhaka City participated in the study. Of the participants, 48 were
from grade VII, 44 from grade VIII, 44 from grade IX and 70 from grade X. The grades
were chosen at random, one from each selected school. 71% of the participants came
from nuclear families and 29% from extended families.
Measures: Two psychometric measures were used in the study. These were the
Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) and the Parental Authority
Questionnaire (PAQ). The CERQ is a 36-item questionnaire originally developed by
Garnefski et al. (2002). It is a five-point Likert type scale ranging from 1 (almost never)
to 5 (almost always). The scale has nine sub-scales, each consisting of four items, each
item referring to what someone thinks after the experience of threatening or stressful life
events. The sub-scales are grouped broadly into Adaptive and Less Adaptive emotion
regulation strategies. The adaptive strategies are acceptance, positive refocusing, refocus
on planning, positive reappraisal, and putting into perspective. The less adaptive
strategies include self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing and blaming others. The sub-
scales have good internal consistencies ranging from 0.68 to 0.83 and test-retest
reliabilities ranging from 0.48 to 0.65 and the CERQ has good factorial validity,
discriminant validity and construct validity (Garnefski et al. 2002). In this study, the
scale was translated into Bangla and adapted within the socio-cultural context of
Bangladesh by administering on a sample of 100 secondary school students. The split-
half reliability of the Bangla version as calculated by the Spearman-Brown formula is
0.78. As reported by the judges the Bangla version has good content and face validity.
The PAQ is a 30-item measure originally developed by Buri (1991). It is a five-point
Likert type scale ranging from 1 (disagree) to 5 (agree). The scale has three subscales,
namely authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting and permissive parenting. Each
sub-scale contains 10 items. Cronbach α coefficients for the sub-scales are 0.61, 0.79
and 0.72 respectively. The full scale has Cronbach α coefficients of 0.74 to 0.87 and test-
retest reliabilities of 0.77 to 0.92 (Buri 1991). The construct validity of the original scale
was tested by correlating parenting style with self-esteem. As in the above, the scale was
translated into Bangla and adapted within the socio-cultural context of Bangladesh. The
Bangla version has good content and face validity as reported by the judges. The split-
half reliability of the full scale calculated by the Spearman-Brown formula is 0.72.
Procedures: Standard data collection procedures were followed in the study. One of the
authors of this paper personally met each head of the selected schools, briefed about the
general purpose of the study and got permission to collect relevant data from the
214 Karim et al

students. At the beginning of survey administration, good rapport was established with
the students. The surveys were distributed to them individually asking to read the
instructions printed on questionnaires, record the socio-demographic information (e.g.,
age, gender, class, family type, socio-economic status) and respond to the items.
Necessary clarifications were made whenever they faced any problems to understand the
items. Thus the CERQ and the PAQ were administered to them at a single sitting. They
responded to the CERQ followed by the PAQ. Thus data collection was completed in
four selected schools.
Data Analysis: Participants’ responses were scored according to the scoring systems of
the PAQ and CERQ respectively. Each participant received three types of scores on the
PAQ: permissive score, authoritative score and authoritarian score, and two scores on the
CERQ: adaptive score and less adaptive score. As the present study was correlational in
its design, data were analyzed in multiple regressions using ‛Enter’ method on SPSS
with overall adaptive and overall less adaptive emotion regulations as
criterion/dependent variables and permissive, authoritative, authoritarian parenting,
family type (levels: nuclear and extended) and child’s gender (levels: male and female)
as predictor/independent variables. Major assumptions of the multiple regression
analysis (linearity, normality, homoscedasticity and multi-collinearity) were met in the
present data.

Results and Discussion

The results of this study are illustrated below showing how children's adaptive cognitive
emotion regulation and less adaptive cognitive emotion regulation vary with parenting
style, but not with family type and child’s gender.
Adaptive Cognitive Emotion Regulation: A significant regression model was emerged
explaining 17.3% of the variance in adaptive cognitive emotion regulation (Adjusted
R²=0.173; F=9.579, p<.001). Table1 indicates that adaptive cognitive emotion regulation
has a functional relationship with parenting style. As revealed by the standardized β,
authoritative parenting style (β=.376, p<.001) was the strongest predictor of adaptive
cognitive emotion regulation when the variance explained by all other variables in the
model was controlled. A second significant predictor of this type of emotion regulation was
the authoritarian parenting style (β=.197, p<.005). Thus a change of 1 standard deviation
in authoritative parenting resulted in a change of .376 standard deviations in adaptive
cognitive emotion regulation, whereas a change of 1 standard deviation in authoritarian
parenting resulted in a change of .197 standard deviations in adaptive cognitive emotion
regulation. Part correlation coefficients for the authoritative and authoritarian parenting
styles were .334 and .190 respectively (not shown in table). When computed their unique
contributions (squared of part correlation multiplied by 100), authoritative parenting
style excelled (11.16%) over authoritarian parenting style (3.61%). Furthermore, when
Cognitive emotion regulation in children 215

Table 1. Regression of adaptive cognitive emotion regulation on permissive parenting,

authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting, family type and child’s gender.
Unstandardized Standardized
Predictor variables coefficients coefficients
B SE β t p
(Constant)
36.68 6.475 5.66 .0001
Permissive parenting
.121 .187 .047 .646 .519
Authoritative parenting
. 641 .122 .376 5.256 .0001
Authoritarian parenting
1 . 317 .106 .197 2.995 .003
Family type (nuclear)
2 2.451 1.793 .088 1.367 .173
Child’s gender (male)
- 2.29 1.725 -.087 -1.32 .187

Adjusted R²=0.173 (F =9.579, p<.001)

Note: 1Family type (N) was used here and subsequently as a dummy variable coded as ‘1’ or ‘0’.
‘1’ stands for membership of a nuclear family and ‘0’ stands for non-membership of a nuclear
family. So, when ‘1’ changes to ‘0’ the variable switches to Family Type (Extended). The same
logic applies for 2Child’s gender (M) variable.

data for each adaptive strategy were analyzed separately, results were highly consistent
with the results for overall adaptive cognitive emotion regulation as above. That is,
authoritative parenting was the strongest and/or only predictor of the child’s scores in
positive refocusing (β=.341, p<.001), refocus on planning (β=.286, p<.001), positive
reappraisal (β=.310, p<.001) and putting into perspective (β=.256, p=.001) strategies.
Although authoritarian parenting was identified as a significant predictor of positive
refocusing (β=.138, p<.05) and putting into perspective (β=.183, p=.01) strategies it was
weaker than authoritative parenting. However, none of the variables explained child’s
score in acceptance strategy.
The above findings suggest that authoritative parenting works best for adaptive emotion
regulation (i.e., rational and positive thoughts, happy and pleasant thoughts) in children.
The present findings are consistent with the past findings. For example, past studies
found that children reared by authoritative parents show higher levels of social
competence (Baumrind 1978), a greater ability to regulate emotions, high social skills
(Isley et al. 1996) and self-regulation (Baumrind 1967). They also excel in areas of
independence, creativity, persistence, academic competence, leadership skills, and social
perspective taking (Baumrind 1967, 1991, 1993). Why is authoritative parenting
conducive for adaptive cognitive emotion regulation in children? As discussed earlier in
this paper, authoritative parents set reasonable demands on and have high expectations
for their children while being warm and responsive. As parents give them chance to
explore the event, they can analyze and handle the situation more efficiently, and
approach forward to reach the goals. They can develop thoughts to give a positive
meaning even to the negative and stressful events. Baumrind (1978) explained that
216 Karim et al

authoritative parents openly discuss the problems or actions that may arise in relation to
the child and exhibit firm control when necessary.
Less Adaptive Cognitive Emotion Regulation: The regeression model was also
significant here which explained 7.1% of the variance in less adaptive cognition emotion
regulation (Adjusted R²=.071, F=4.135, p=.001). Table 2 indicates that the less adaptive
cognitive emotion regulation has a functional relationship with parenting style. As
revealed by the standardized β, authoritarian parenting style (β=.294, p<.001) was the
strongest and only significant predictor of less adaptive cognitive emotion regulation
when the variance explained by all other variables in the model was controlled. Thus a
change of 1 standard deviation in authoritarian parenting resulted in a change of .294
standard deviations in less adaptive cognitive emotion regulation. Part correlation
coefficient for this predictor was .283 (not shown in table) indicating that authoritarian
parenting alone contributes 8.01% (squared of part correlation multiplied by 100) of the

Table 2. Regression of less adaptive cognitive emotion regulation on permissive parenting,

authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting, family type and child’s gender.
Unstandardized
Standardized coefficients
Predictor variables coefficients
B SE β t p
(Constant) 34.597 5.394 6.414 .0001
Permissive parenting .166 .156 .083 1.064 .289
Authoritative parenting -.028 .102 -.021 -.273 .785
Authoritarian parenting .371 .088 .294 4.210 .0001
1
Family type (nuclear) -.053 1.493 -.002 -.035 .972
2
Child’s gender (male) -.950 1.437 -.046 -.661 .509

Adjusted R²=.071 (F=4.135, p<.001)

variance in less adaptive cognitive emotion regulation. Furthermore, when data for each
less adaptive strategy were analyzed separately, results were consistent with the results
for the overall less adaptive cognitive emotion regulation as above. That is, authoritarian
parenting was the strongest and only predictor of child’s scores in self-blame (β= .235,
p<.001), rumination or focus on thought (β=.262, p<.001) and catastrophizing (β=.214,
p<.005) strategies. However, none of the variables explained child’s score on blaming
others.
The above findings suggest that authoritarian parenting leads to a less adaptive emotion
regulation in children. The positive association of authoritarian parenting with less
adaptive cognitive emotion regulation indicates that children of authoritarian parents
always emphasize their thoughts of negative aspects of the situation. Consistent with
these findings past studies have shown that authoritarian parenting is positively
associated with the child’s negative outcomes and negatively with the positive outcomes
such as self-esteem (Buri et al. 1987). Authoritarian parents are obedience- and status-
Cognitive emotion regulation in children 217

oriented, and expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation (Baumrind 1991).
They are demanding and unresponsive to the emotional needs of the child, as well as
being controlling, detached and unsupportive (Baumrind 1967). Thus offering one-way
style of parenting authoritarian parents might block the development of emotion
regulation in adaptive manner, increasing the likelihood that the child will be less
adaptive in interaction with the surroundings.
The study further revealed that permissive/indulgent parenting has a neutral role in
developing cognitive emotion regulation making children neither adaptive nor less
adaptive (Tables 1 and 2). As permissive parents exhibit high levels of warmth and low
levels of control, children of these parents become neither adaptive nor less adaptive in
emotional setting. Research has shown that children of permissive parents get
inconsistent and confusing guidelines or no outlines of the boundaries in their
environment (Baumrind 1967). Under such parenting, little is required of children,
especially in the areas of maturity and responsibility (Baumrind 1991). Also, permissive
parents often surrender to the demands of their child. According to Baumrind (1968),
children of permissive parents are often left to regulate their own activities, behavior, and
emotions at a young age.
One important aspect of the findings is that children's cognitive emotion regulation is not
associated with the type of family they are raised in (Tables 1 and 2). Family is the first
and foremost important psychosocial setting for every child. According to Karim et al.
(2004), to know the future of a society one should look into the ways the children are
raised in, but not into the family structure. As the difference in family structure did not
produce any difference in children’s cognitive emotion regulation in this study, we give
more importance on quality parenting over family structure, suggesting that all parents
should be trained on good parenting rather than family structure. However, there are
studies demonstrating that family type can facilitate or limit the ways in which parents
are able to positively influence the outcomes of their children (Amato 2001, Amato and
Keith 1991, Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan 2002). But, in those studies the concept of
family type was different from what we mean by family type in the present study. As
demonstrated by Amato (2001), for example, children coming from divorced families
have more difficulties in school, more behavior problems, more negative self-concept
and more trouble getting along with their parents. Children who live with a single mother
family fare poorly across a wide range of adolescent and adult outcomes, including
educational attainment, economic security and physical and psychological well-being
(Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan 2002). Thus whether family type is important for the
child’s emotional or other psychosocial development depends on how it is defined. A
family type just defined by the number of people living together is not important at all.
Another interesting demonstration is the gender equality in children’s cognitive emotion
regulation. This is inconsistent with the findings in other cultures (Zlomke and Hahn
2010, Martin and Dahlen 2005, Garfenski 2004). American women scored higher on
218 Karim et al

rumination, catastrophizing, positive refocusing, refocusing on planning and positive

reappraisal whereas American men scored higher on blaming others (Martin and Dahlen
2005). Likewise, Dutch women reported to use rumination, catastrophizing and positive
refocusing more often than Dutch men (Garfenski 2004). Nowadays, parents in
Bangladesh are conscious enough to deal with the male and female children alike, thus
promoting no difference in cognitive emotion regulation between the two sexes.
In summary, the study demonstrated that the style of parenting determines the cognitive
strategies children will employ to regulate their emotions. Of the three types of
parenting, authoritative parenting was the best for children’s adaptive cognitive emotion
regulation, and authoritarian for less adaptive cognitive emotion regulation. Permissive
parenting has no impact on children’s cognitive emotion regulation. Type of family or
child’s gender has also nothing to do with such functioning. It can, therefore, be
concluded that good parenting style as characterized by parental warmth, acceptance, and
readiness for childhood needs and proper control is crucial for adaptive emotion
regulation at adolescent period and to handle the problems skillfully.
Limitations and Implications: The present study offers some inconsistent results. For
example, authoritarian parenting contributes significantly in both the adaptive and less
adaptive cognitive emotion regulations. This was unexpected and cannot be explained by
the present data. The study has also some inherent limitations such as it cannot explain a
large proportion of the variance in cognitive emotion regulation. Further research on a
large scale sample from different parts of Bangladesh will possibly exclude the
inconsistency.
Despite the above limitations, the present findings will have important implications for
research and practice. The findings will give rise to new researches in family matters,
parental practices and adolescents’ outcomes. For practice, the study provides important
information about the good parenting need in adolescence. Adolescence is a very
sensitive age, when guidance and proper press of their emotion and emotion regulation
must go together with affection, support, and freedom. The findings will be helpful for
parents, caregivers, child psychologists, and other professionals working with children or
adolescents for guiding them to become resources of the country.

Acknowledgements
Authors are thankful to N. Garnefski, Department of Psychology, Division of Clinical
and Health Psychology, University of Leiden, PO Box 9555, 2300 Leiden, The
Netherlands, who permitted to translate and use the CERQ, and to J. Buri, Department of
Psychology, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN 55105, USA, who permitted to
translate and use the PAQ in this research.
Cognitive emotion regulation in children 219

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(Received revised manuscript on 25 September 2013)