Emotion knowledge in childhood has been shown to predict social functioning andpsychological well-being, but relatively little is known about parental factorsthat influence its development in early childhood. There is some evidence thatboth parenting behavior and maternal depression are associated with emotionrecognition, but previous research has only examined these factors independently.The current study assessed auditory and visual emotion recognition ability among a large sample of preschool children to examine typical emotion recognitionskills in children of this age, as well as the independent and interactiveeffects of maternal and paternal depression and negative parenting (i.e.,hostility and intrusiveness). Results indicated that children were most accurate at identifying happy emotional expressions. The lowest accuracy was observed for neutral expressions. A significant interaction was found between maternaldepression and negative parenting behavior: children with a maternal history ofdepression were particularly sensitive to the negative effects of maladaptiveparenting behavior on emotion recognition ability. No significant effects werefound for paternal depression. These results highlight the importance ofexamining the effects of multiple interacting factors on children's emotionaldevelopment and provide suggestions for identifying children for targetedpreventive interventions.
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