The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of toddler’s emotionality and mother’s reaction
to their child’s negative emotions of social-emotional behaviors of toddlers. The subjects were 141
mothers and toddlers ranging in age from 18 to 36 months. Instruments used in this study were: 1)
Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire(ECBQ)(Rothbart, 1994), 2) Coping with Toddlers’ Negative
Emotions Scale(CTNES)(Eisenberg et al., 1996), and 3)Brief Infant Toddler Social and Emotional
Assesment(BITSEA)(Carter et al., 2006). Data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation and
hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The results of this study show that toddler’s emotionality
and the mother’s negative reaction to their child’s negative emotions were related to the
social-emotional behaviors of toddler. Also, mother’s reaction to their child’s negative emotions have
mediation effects between toddler’s emotionality and social-emotional behaviors. Specifically,
toddler’s emotionality has a partial mediating effect on social-emotional behaviors through mother’s
supportive reaction to their child’s negative emotions. Additionally it was also determined that the
toddler’s emotionality has a complete mediating effect on the relationship between mother’s
unsupportive reaction to their child’s negative emotions and the social-emotional behaviors of toddler.
Theses results support the notion that mother’s character as well as child’s personality at birth are
critical predictors which could impact social-emotional behaviors of toddler.