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In 1997, Gottman, Katz, & Hooven used the term meta-emotion to describe parents' reactions to their children's emotional displays. Baker, Fenning, & Crnic (2010) defined meta-emotion philosophy as "parental attitudes toward emotion." While some psychologists have examined the influence of meta-emotions on how individuals interpret and deal with their own and others’ emotions, much of the literature regarding meta-emotion has focused on how parental meta-emotion impacts the social-emotional development of their children.

Broadly speaking, meta-emotion encompasses both feelings and thoughts about emotion. According to Gottman et al. (2006), the term meta-emotion does not merely refer to an individual’s emotional reactions to his or her own emotions, but refers to the “executive functions of emotion” (243). Greenberg (2002) suggested that meta-emotions be considered a type of "secondary emotion," a temporal concept in which a secondary emotion follows a primary emotion. For example, anxiety (the secondary emotion) may follow anger (the primary emotion). Whenever we elicit an emotion, we also deal with subsequent emotions regarding how we experienced the primary emotion. In their book regarding meta-emotion and family interactions, Gottman, Katz, & Hooven (1997) developed the term meta-emotion structure to refer to: “an organized and structured set of emotions and cognitions about the emotions, both one’s own emotions and the emotions of others” (7). These broad definitions of meta-emotion sparked psychologists’ interest in the topic, particularly regarding parental meta-emotion philosophy.

The term meta-emotion was unexpectedly coined as a result of the initial work of Gottman et al. (1996). For years, developmental psychology research has focused on parental affect, responsiveness, and parenting style. Gottman, Katz, & Hooven (1996) believed that there was not enough attention given to parents' feelings and thoughts about their own emotions and their children's emotions. While researching the effects of parents' marital relationship on children, Gottman et al. (1996) found that there was a large variety of different attitudes and philosophies that parents held about their own emotions and their children's emotions. In order to examine these differences, Katz & Gottman (1986) developed a meta-emotion interview and deemed the term "meta-emotion structure," to refer to parents' feelings about feelings. They believed that meta-emotion was a "pervasive and understudied dimension in emotion research" (250). Katz & Gottman (1986) paralleled their concept of meta-emotion with that of the meta-cognition construct Metacognition Hooven, Gottman, & Katz (1995) used the term "meta-emotion structure" to refer to: "the parents' awareness of specific emotions, their awareness and acceptance of these emotions in their child, and their coaching of the emotion in their child" (231). The results of their study demonstrated that parental meta-emotion variables were related to their abilities to both interact with their children and resolve marital conflict. Gottman, Katz & Hooven (1996) suggested that parents' own feelings and thoughts about their emotions strongly influence the ways in which they parent.

Types of Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy
In their paper published in 1996, Gottman, Katz & Hooven outline different types of parental meta-emotion philosophy. These include emotion-coaching philosophy and a dismissing meta-emotion philosophy. That there are two major meta-emotion philosophies continues to be the general consensus among psychologists studying meta-emotion: emotion-coaching philosophy, in which the parents are comfortable with the emotions of themselves and their children, and an emotion-dismissing philosophy in which parents view negative emotions as harmful.

Emotion-Coaching Philosophy
Parents who follow an emotion-coaching philosophy tend to be aware of their emotions and the emotions of others, are able to talk about these emotions, and who help their children understand and express their emotions, particularly sadness and anger. The authors found a distinction between emotion-coaching philosophy and parental warmth.

Dismissing Philosophy
Parents with a dismissing meta-emotion philosophy feel as though their child's anger or sadness could be harmful to their child, that their primary job is to alleviate this harmful emotions as quickly as possible, and that their child should know that these negative emotions would not last. These parents believe that ignoring or denying negative emotions is the best approach to helping their children. Parents with a dismissing meta-emotion philosophy were unable to provide insight into their child's emotions and did not view negative emotions as an opportunity for growth or intimacy.

Disapproving Philosophy
Another possible type of parental meta-emotion philosophy is that of disapproving parents. These parents reprimand their children for any type of emotional expression, even if their actions are appropriate. As a result, these children start to view their emotions as inappropriate and invalid, and have a difficult time with emotion regulation.

Impact of Parental Meta-Emotion on Children and Adolescents
There have been many studies examining the impact of different parental meta-emotion philosophies on adolescents. For example, researchers have studied the relation between meta-emotion philosophy and adolescent depression, as well as the impact of parental meta-emotion on adolescent affect and coping skills. Other psychologists have examined the impact of maternal meta-emotion philosophy on children's attachment inclination.

Gottman et al. (1997) highlighted two specific aspects of parental meta-emotion that impact children and family outcomes: 1) emotional awareness, and 2) emotion coaching. Gottman, Katz, & Hooven—the leading psychologists regarding meta-emotion—firmly believe in the significant impact of parental meta-emotion on many aspects of their children’s lives: “There is evidence that from the beginning of a child’s life, parents’ interaction with the child has implications for the child’s ability to self-regulate, focus attention, share intersubjective meaning, for the essential affectional bonds with parents, and be able to interact with a changing environment” (87).

There has been a growing interest in examining the impact of the various types of parental meta-emotion philosophies on children’s emotional states and depressive symptoms. For example, Hunter et al. (2011) examined the associations between the meta-emotion philosophies of fathers, mothers, and adolescents. They found that when parents held an emotion-coaching philosophy, the adolescents tended to have fewer behavioral and emotional issues. They concluded that: "The quality of the meta-emotion philosophy developed by adolescents may have implications for their mental health. In particular, evidence suggests that beliefs about emotion are relevant to depressive disorders, with negative beliefs associated with an increased risk for adolescent depression." Similarly, Katz & Hunter (2007) examined the effects of maternal meta-emotion on adolescent depressive symptoms. The authors found that adolescents with high levels of depressive symptoms tended to have mothers who were less accepting of their own emotions. Mothers were more accepting of their own emotions tended to have adolescents with high self-esteem, fewer externalizing problems, and fewer depressive symptoms. In conclusion, this study demonstrated a strong correlation between maternal meta-emotion philosophy and adolescent depression. Thus, these authors suggest that meta-emotion philosophy is related to adolescent depression and affect.

Another study found that mothers with a meta-emotion philosophy that is higher in both awareness and acceptance was correlated with fewer negative social behaviors during mother-child interactions. . This suggests that maternal meta-emotion philosophy also influences the interactions between the mother and her adolescent. It would be interesting to examine whether or not this holds true for fathers and their adolescents as well.

Aside from examining the impact of parental meta-emotion on children’s affect and depressive symptomatology, some psychologists have researched the influence of meta-emotion on the development of children’s coping strategies. Lagacé-Séguin & Gionet (2009) were interested in studying the nature versus nurture debate regarding children’s development of coping strategies. To do so, they examined the impact of both temperament (nature) and parental meta-emotion philosophy (nurture) on the development of coping skills in early adolescents. The authors found many interactions between parental meta-emotion and the adolescent’s temperament. For example, they found that emotion-coaching parenting was related to distraction coping strategies for children with lower negative affect and higher surgency. The authors concluded that parental meta-emotion philosophy styles can interact with a child’s temperament and predict the adolescents’ coping styles.

Measuring Meta-Emotion Philosophy
The Meta-Emotion Interview is the most widely used measurement tool of meta-emotion. Each parent is separately interviewed about their own encounters with anger and sadness, their beliefs about emotional expression, and their attitudes and responses to their children’s sadness and anger. This interview was semi-structured, allowing for flexibility for both the interviewer and the interviewee. The interview was audio-taped and designed to evaluate three dimensions of meta-emotion for sadness and anger: the parent’s awareness of their own emotion, their awareness of the child’s emotion, and the coaching of the child’s emotion.

Gottman, Katz, & Hooven updated their first meta-emotion interview to target parents' awareness of their own emotions and their children's emotions, as well as the parents' method of interacting with their children when the child is actively experiencing emotions. The interview outlines four types of parenting styles: emotion-coaching, laissez-faire, dismissing, and disapproving. It is an hour-long structured interview that is scored from audio-tapes

The primary goal of the most recent Meta-Emotion Interview (MEI) is to gain a clear idea of how an individual experiences a particular emotion. Although it was first used to examine the emotions of sadness and anger, it has since been expanded to include pride and love/affection. The MEI focuses on one emotion at a time—all the questions are answered about one particular emotion (ie: sadness) before the interviewer moves on to the next emotion. For each emotion, the individual is first asked about their childhood and how their family handled and expressed each emotion. Then, they are asked about how they experience the emotion now. The questions particularly target how they experience each emotion in their relationships with their spouse and/or child. The MEI also addresses nonverbal expressions of emotion. For example, the interviewer asks what the individual looks like when he or she experiences a particular emotion (ie: “What do you look like when you are sad?”). The MEI is videotaped and then coded using the MEI Coding System, which focuses on four main dimensions of emotion: awareness, acceptance, dysregulation, and coaching. Awareness refers to the extent to which the individual acknowledges that they are experiencing an emotion. Acceptance refers to whether the individual not only allows himself to experience the emotion, but also feels comfortable expressing it. Dysregulation relates to the individual’s reported difficulties regulating their expression of the particular emotion. Finally, coaching refers to the degree to which individuals are able to identify and accept others’ (ie: spouse or child) emotional experience in a positive manner.