Preschool teachers’ emotional intelligence and beliefs: Informing emotion socialization in the classroom

Research on preschool teachers’ emotion socialization is relatively sparse. In this study, one specific line of inquiry is studied: examining how teachers’ beliefs about emotions, in conjunction with their own emotional competence, contribute to their fostering preschool emotional competence. Ninety-five teachers participated in this correlational study, providing self-reports on their emotion-related beliefs and emotional competence; as well, they were observed showing emotions and reacting to children’s emotions, as well as sharing emotion-laden picturebooks in the classroom. Further, their emotional support and feedback to children’s emotion utterances were rated. We found that preschool teachers’ own emotional competence, bolstered by beliefs valuing teaching and coaching children about emotions, as well as commitment to this teaching, contributed to more positive emotion socialization, whether observed or teacher-reported. Believing in punishing emotions undergirded teachers’ less frequent talking about emotions. Addressing in training early childhood educators’ emotional competence and their emotion-related beliefs could support their emotion socialization behaviors that facilitate preschoolers’ emotional competence.