Article information

Korean J Child Stud. 2026;47(2):1-20

Publication date (electronic) : 2026 May 31

doi : https://doi.org/10.5723/kjcs.2026.47.2.1

Hojin Han

Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Dong-Eui University, Busan, Korea

한호진

동의대학교 심리학과 강사

Corresponding Author: Hojin Han, Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Dong-Eui University, 176, Eomgwang-ro, Busanjin-gu. Busan, Korea E-mail: hhan＠deu.ac.kr

Received 2025 November 3; Revised 2026 February 8; Accepted 2026 March 29.

Trans Abstract

Introduction

Emotion socialization research illustrates that parents’ beliefs about their own and their children’s emotions are important contributors to children’s developing emotion regulation (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998; Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1997; Raval & Walker, 2019). These parent beliefs manifest in the caregiving environment (Denham, Mitchell-Copeland, Strandberg, Auerbach, & Blair, 1997; Levine, Stein, & Liwag, 1999; Ramsden & Hubbard, 2002; Waters et al., 2010; Wong, McElwain, & Halberstadt, 2009) and shape the early experiences that children draw on in developing their emotion representations and self-regulation (Dweck & London, 2004; Thompson, 2000). One widely used framework to examine these beliefs is Gottman et al.’s (1997) parental meta-emotion philosophy. Based on this framework, studies have linked parents’ emotion-focused guidance to positive child outcomes in European American families (Katz & Hunter, 2007; Meyer, Raikes, Virmani, Waters, & Thompson, 2014). However, findings among culturally diverse families indicate variability in parent beliefs, practices, and child outcomes (Bowie et al., 2013; Daga, Raval, & Raj, 2015; Fishman, Raval, Daga, & Raj, 2014). The most recent qualitative study with Korean American mothers, which used Katz and Gottman’s (1986) meta-emotion coding system, found them to be less aware and accepting of their children’s emotions compared to their European American counterparts (Nahm, 2006). This raises questions about whether traditional conceptualizations of supportive or unsupportive philosophies may overlook adaptive and developmentally significant aspects of meta-emotion philosophy in different cultural contexts and highlights the need for research that informs efforts to further support diverse communities. This study addresses that gap by exploring Korean American mothers’ meta-emotion philosophy using a data-driven qualitative approach that centers on their beliefs and lived experiences.

Parental meta-emotion philosophy (hereafter referred to as PMEP) is defined as “an organized set of feelings and thoughts about one’s own emotions and one’s child’s emotions” that guides parents in their approach to socializing their children regarding emotions, particularly focusing on negative emotions (Gottman et al., 1997, p. 243). PMEP is primarily assessed through the semi-structured Meta-Emotion Interview (Gottman et al., 1997), which asks the parent about their own and their child’s negative emotions (anger, sadness, and fear). Parents’ responses are then rated using an established coding system that examines their awareness, acceptance, and regulation of their emotions, as well as their awareness, acceptance of, and practices concerning their children’s emotions (Katz, Mittman, & Hooven, 1997). Subsequently, parents are categorized into one of four PMEP profiles developed based on observations of European American parents: emotion coaching, laissez-faire, emotion dismissing, and emotion disapproving.

Parents with emotion coaching philosophy are aware of, accept, and manage their own emotions while also recognizing, accepting, and guiding their children’s emotional experiences and regulation. They see children’s negative emotions as opportunities for connection and teaching and discuss goals and strategies for managing emotions with their children. In contrast, parents with emotion dismissing philosophy tend to ignore or minimize their own emotions, dismiss their children’s feelings, and focus on eliminating negative emotions rather than fostering regulation. Parents with an emotion disapproving philosophy are often distressed by negative emotions, both in themselves and their children, and frequently respond with punishment or criticism. Lastly, parents with a laissez-faire philosophy passively accept their child’s emotions but do not actively assist in their regulation.

PMEP is important because it has been linked to children’s psychological adjustment, including achievement, peer relations, and behavioral adjustment, and may also bear on physical health through processes of regulatory physiology (e.g., vagal tone; El-Sheikh, Harger, & Whitson, 2001; Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1996; Gottman et al., 1997). Parents’ beliefs manifest in the caregiving environment through the family’s overall emotional expressiveness (Denham et al., 1997), the way parents interpret and respond to their children’s emotions (Levine et al., 1999; Ramsden & Hubbard, 2002; Waters et al., 2009; Wong et al., 2009), and the guidance they provide on adaptive self-regulation (Gottman et al., 1997). These socialization practices shape the early experiences that children draw on in developing their emotional representations and self-regulation adapted to their life circumstances (Dweck & London, 2004; Thompson, 2000).

Research with European American families has demonstrated the benefits of parental emotion coaching for children’s emotional functioning, likely because these practices align with other social contexts in which these children navigate emotions across different age periods. In a longitudinal study of European American middle-class preschoolers, parental emotion coaching was related to positive changes in children’s parasympathetic nervous system function, emotion regulation, and later outcomes in middle childhood (Gottman et al., 1996). Similar findings were observed in adolescence within a predominantly European American sample, where emotion coaching was linked to more positive emotional and behavioral adjustment, including lower depressive affect and fewer externalizing symptoms (Katz & Hunter, 2007). Additionally, within a similar sample, mothers who valued attending to and accepting emotions, as well as emotion management, were more likely to use related practices, which in turn mediated the relation between their beliefs and their reports of their children’s emotion regulation competence (Meyer et al., 2014).

Research applying Gottman et al.’s (1997) meta-emotion coding system to ethnically diverse parents (e.g., African American and Indian American parents) found variability in parents’ awareness, acceptance, and coaching of emotions across ethnic groups (Bowie et al., 2013; Daga et al., 2015). While parent emotion regulation consistently relates to adaptive child outcomes, the benefits of emotion coaching have been mixed, with some studies finding positive effects (Bowie et al., 2013; Cunningham, Kliewer, & Garner, 2009) and one finding no relation (Daga et al., 2015). Given the distinct contextual demands experienced by US ethnic-racial minority groups compared to European Americans (Coll et al., 1996; Mistry et al., 2016; Ogbu, 1981; Yoo, Gabriel, & Okazaki, 2022), variability in PMEP and its implications for children are expected. Fishman et al. (2014), who used a data-driven approach rather than the established coding system, found emotion-related themes that were not captured in Katz and Gottman’s (1986) framework. Their findings suggest that traditional conceptualizations of supportive or unsupportive PMEP may overlook adaptive and developmentally significant aspects of PMEP in different cultural contexts. These findings highlight the need for further research that explores PMEP using a data-driven qualitative approach across diverse populations. Expanding beyond a framework developed with European American families provides a deeper understanding of the contextual demands expressed by parents, to which their emotion representations and socialization practices are adapted. It also helps identify the trade-offs that parents and children may face, particularly as children navigate different contexts that require different emotional goals and skills, informing societal efforts to further support families.

Raval and Walker (2019) emphasize the cultural context as a central influence in parental emotion socialization, incorporating Coll et al.’s (1996) integrative model of development. They highlight how oppressive systems, such as racism, influence family functioning and child development among US ethnic-racial minority families. The specific forms of racism faced by different racial groups contribute to formations of adaptive culture—a set of evolving goals, values, and practices shaped by both historical and current contextual demands. These adaptations are a product of how families navigate experiences of racism, engage with acculturation, and pass down cultural legacies, which are reflected in their caregiving practices. For Asian Americans, acculturation may involve not only adjusting to a new culture but also responding to racialized pressures to conform, such as those imposed by the perpetual foreigner stereotype that uniquely targets this group (Yoo et al., 2022). Accordingly, parents adapt their emotion-related beliefs and practices in response to both cultural legacies and experiences of racism. Recognizing adaptive culture fosters a more comprehensive understanding of parental emotion socialization across diverse groups.

While Asian Americans are the fastest-growing, heterogeneous ethnic-racial group in the US (Budiman & Ruiz, 2021), little is known about PMEP within Asian American families, and even less is known about the distinct cultural beliefs and experiences of individual ethnic communities—particularly in Korean American families, who remain underrepresented in this research area (Raval & Walker, 2019). Recent research in emotion socialization advises that culturally adaptive emotion-related parenting cannot be inferred solely from Western-derived constructs or from predominantly European American samples (Brown & Dunsmore, 2025; Raval, 2023). This work highlights the importance of interpreting parents’ beliefs and practices in the context of culturally grounded socialization goals, relational norms, and the structural conditions that shape daily family life. In particular, researchers have emphasized that advancing emotion socialization research requires greater attention to Asian and Asian diaspora contexts, including the meanings that parents assign to emotion talk, regulation, and relational obligations (Raval, 2023).

Korean emotion socialization has often been discussed in relation to broader interdependent, collectivistic, and Confucian cultural traditions that emphasize relational obligations, emotional restraint, and the maintenance of social harmony (e.g., Kim & Choi, 1994; Raval & Walker, 2019; Son & Doan, 2023). These emphases differ in important ways from Western individualistic models that more often privilege open emotional expression, verbal validation, and self-assertion as markers of emotionally healthy functioning (Friedlmeier, Corapci, & Cole, 2011; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Raval, 2023). At the same time, these orientations need not be treated as fixed or mutually exclusive; among second-generation Korean American mothers, they may be selectively retained, reinterpreted, or combined in ways consistent with autonomy-relatedness and bicultural adaptation (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2005; Raval & Walker, 2019).

Koreans have experienced rapid and significant contextual changes since the Korean War, spanning three generations. Given the intergenerational influences on emotional development, this historical context, and the complexities of the immigrant experience, the lack of research with Korean Americans—which inadvertently portrays them as less emotionally competent compared to European Americans (Nahm, 2006)—risks being misleading because it may overlook the adaptive skills they have developed within their sociocultural context. Importantly, because the present study focuses on second-generation Korean American mothers, the key issue is not whether Korean cultural values remain unchanged in migration, but how they may be retained, reinterpreted, or selectively integrated within lived US contexts (Kağıtçıbaşı, 2005; Raval & Walker, 2019). In this sense, mothers’ PMEP-related meanings may reflect not only Korean cultural legacies, but also bicultural negotiation and second-generation adaptation to mainstream US parenting norms. This makes a phenomenological approach especially useful, as it allows culturally and generationally specific meanings to emerge without assuming that they map neatly onto either a traditional Korean or a mainstream American model.

Consistent with calls for culturally grounded inquiry, qualitative research using the Meta-Emotion Interview in immigrant and non-Western contexts indicates that parents’ emotion-related meaning-making may not be fully captured by standardized PMEP categories (Chan, Feng, Wang, & Wang, 2026; Fishman et al., 2014). Phenomenological and inductive studies show that parents may value emotional awareness while also emphasizing restraint, reframing, and responsibility to others—patterns that may be misinterpreted if viewed solely through a single cultural lens (Chan et al., 2026; Fishman et al., 2014). As demonstrated in Fishman et al.’s (2014) study with Asian Indian immigrant mothers, open-ended qualitative inquiry can illuminate culturally grounded meanings of emotion-related parenting that are less visible in standardized PMEP applications. A similar phenomenological approach is therefore especially useful for understanding how Korean American mothers may articulate PMEP within culturally and generationally specific contexts. Thus, a data-driven approach is essential for understanding how PMEP may be articulated in Korean American family contexts.

Research shows that Korean and Asian American mothers place greater value on emotional control (Son & Doan, 2023) and practice greater control over their preschoolers’ emotional expressions through suppression and shaming, partly to encourage modesty (Louie, Oh, & Lau, 2013). However, these practices were not related to Asian preschoolers’ emotional displays and were only positively related in European American dyads—except for sadness (Louie et al., 2013), raising questions about whether such beliefs and practices are adaptive or maladaptive across cultural contexts. A survey study on Korean mothers’ beliefs about preschoolers’ aggression and withdrawal found that mothers reacted negatively to both but held distinct goals for each expression of these emotions—parent- and social-centered goals for aggression, and child-centered goals for withdrawal (Cheah & Park, 2006). These goals reflected mothers’ causal attributions regarding children’s emotions and the strategies used to manage them: they attribute aggression externally and view it as less stable when compared to withdrawal, leading to more directive strategies for handling aggression (Cheah & Park, 2006). These findings suggest that mothers’ beliefs about emotions shape their caregiving practices and vary depending on the type of negative emotion (Cheah & Park, 2006).

In an interview study using the established meta-emotion coding system (Katz & Gottman, 1986), Korean American mothers were rated as less aware of their children’s emotions, less accepting of sadness and anger, and less likely to provide emotion coaching compared to their European American counterparts (Nahm, 2006). Relatedly, Korean research has examined maternal PMEP in relation to dyadic interaction processes and children’s socioemotional functioning, offering further support that PMEP is meaningfully linked to parenting and child outcomes beyond European American contexts (Choi & Nahm, 2016; Nahm & Park, 2018). In other words, PMEP may be important across contexts, but standardized coding may not capture some culturally meaningful ways of supporting children’s emotions. To date, no studies have explored Korean American mothers’ PMEP through an open-ended qualitative approach that interprets their perspectives in cultural context.

Research on PMEP is largely based on European American families, shaping the dominant understanding of how parents perceive and respond to emotions. While studies have linked emotion coaching with positive child outcomes in these populations, findings among culturally diverse families indicate variability in parent beliefs, practices, and child outcomes. Research involving Korean and Korean American families, using quantitative methods, highlights the importance of emotional control along with distinct beliefs and caregiving practices based on the type of emotion expressed. Additionally, a cross-cultural study on Korean American mothers’ PMEP, using Katz and Gottman’s (1986) meta-emotion coding system, found them to be less aware and accepting of their children’s emotions compared to their European American counterparts (Nahm, 2006). This finding raises questions about the cultural interpretation of the existing PMEP framework. However, no studies have explored Korean American mothers’ PMEP through an open-ended, qualitative approach that centers on their conceptualizations of emotions grounded in their lived experiences.

To address this gap, this study explored PMEP-related beliefs and practices among Korean American mothers in this sample through a data-driven qualitative approach. Importantly, the purpose of this study is not to characterize PMEP among Korean American mothers broadly or to establish a new typology within this population. Rather, consistent with phenomenological inquiry, this study aims to explore the meaning structures through which the mothers in this sample understand emotions and emotion-related parenting. Accordingly, findings are intentionally bounded to this small, exploratory sample and are offered to illuminate culturally situated meanings for interpreting and applying PMEP concepts and to generate questions for subsequent research.

The study addressed the following research questions:

1. What PMEP-related beliefs and practices do Korean American mothers in this study articulate regarding their own and their children’s emotions?

2. How can the PMEP-related beliefs and practices described by the mothers in this study be understood in their cultural contexts?

3. How might the perspectives of the mothers in this study inform the interpretation and application of Gottman et al.’s (1997) PMEP framework?

Methods

Data Analysis

Participants’ responses to the interview questions were analyzed using the analytic method described in Fishman et al.’s (2014) study on Asian Indian American mothers’ PMEP. It is an adaptation of Colaizzi’s (1978) phenomenological method, which is widely used in social science research to generate experience-based descriptions grounded in interview data (e.g., Sanders, 2003). This approach aligns with research that aims to derive structure from interview responses rather than fitting them into preexisting classifications.

The author, who collected and analyzed data, is a Korean woman with extensive academic experience in the US and Canada. The author’s positionality can be characterized as insider-outsider: as a Korean woman with long-term residence in the US and fluent English use, she shared Korean cultural familiarity and gender with participants and could navigate US contextual references during interviews, potentially facilitating rapport and sensitivity to culturally embedded meanings. However, she did not share participants’ Korean American diaspora and generational experiences, which may have influenced analytic attention and interpretation. To support reflexivity and transparency, the author kept reflexive memos, revisited interpretations against raw transcripts during theme development, and maintained an audit trail linking extracted statements, formulated meanings, and theme iterations (Sanders, 2003). A Korean American clinical psychologist was also closely involved in the data analysis and interpretation.

Following Colaizzi’s (1978) method and that outlined in Fishman et al.’s (2014) study, the first step involved the author familiarizing herself with the data by listening to the interviews, taking notes, and identifying meaningful passages. Second, the author reviewed the transcripts to identify significant statements that reflected the participants’ PMEP. Third, the author developed formulated meanings—that is, general descriptions of the significant statements—and reviewed them with the collaborator alongside the transcripts to refine the interpretations. Fourth, the author organized the formulated meanings in a spreadsheet and, fifth, iteratively arranged them into subthemes and aggregate-level themes. The collaborator independently reviewed the themes and provided feedback until consensus and saturation were reached (i.e., no new themes emerged and the thematic structure remained stable across repeated review of transcripts and theme iterations). Finally, the author structured the emergent themes and subthemes into a narrative that preserved the nuances of participants’ words. To enhance methodological transparency, Table 1 illustrates how significant statements were translated into formulated meanings and then organized into subthemes and themes.

Table 1

Illustrative Analytic Pathway from Significant Statements to Themes

Results

The first overarching theme is about Korean American mothers’ general beliefs about negative emotions. The second theme focuses on their beliefs about regulating negative emotions. The third theme is about how the mothers manage their own negative emotions. The fourth theme is about how mothers approach their children’s negative emotions. The fifth theme is about the mentioned sources of influence regarding emotions, including mothers’ own familial experiences and other environmental factors. The sixth theme discusses the mentioned norms surrounding emotions. The discussion explores how these themes can be understood within their cultural context.

Discussion

This study explored PMEP among the Korean American mothers in this sample using a phenomenological approach. Findings show shared beliefs and practices regarding emotions, including an emphasis on understanding and addressing the causes of negative emotions and approaching children’s negative emotions as opportunities to guide them through reasoning and teach children knowledge about the world and important life values. In this discussion, these approaches are understood through the lens of cultural values and as adaptive responses to the cultural context in which Korean Americans live, including intergenerational influences and immigrant experiences. The implications of these findings for Gottman et al.’s (1997) PMEP framework and future research and practice are also addressed. Because this study is a small, exploratory phenomenological inquiry, interpretations are intentionally bounded to the meaning structures described within this sample rather than population-level conclusions.

Consistent with prior research with Korean and Korean American mothers, the Korean American mothers in this study valued the skill to regulate negative emotions and fostering this skill in their children, highlighting their role in children’s developing emotion regulation (Son & Doan, 2023). However, previous studies relied solely on quantitative methods or the established coding system, which did not capture the underlying beliefs shaping this value (Cheah & Park, 2006; Choi & Nahm, 2016; Louie et al., 2013; Nahm, 2006; Nahm & Park, 2018; Son & Doan, 2023). In this study, mothers expressed that negative emotions are natural and transient responses to life’s circumstances. While experiencing and expressing these emotions is natural, they also emphasized the importance of managing or resolving the situations that elicit them. Thus, emotion regulation is seen as an important skill for maintaining balance and moving forward in life. This finding may explain the research showing that Korean American parents tend to score lower in attention to or value of emotion compared to their European American counterparts (Nahm, 2006). Within this sample, the present study suggests that this difference may not reflect a lack of emotional skills or values but rather an alternative approach to emotions. This belief about negative emotions was reflected in how mothers managed their own negative feelings.

Mothers expressed the importance of understanding the reasons behind their negative emotions to process and regulate their feelings. This understanding enabled them to respond constructively to situations that elicited these emotions, aligning with their values and indirectly helping to resolve those feelings. This approach was applied across different negative emotions but led to varied experiences. Anger and fear were relatively easier to navigate, as they often had clear, understandable causes and actions to address the situations. Sadness, however, was more challenging and varied in how mothers navigated it, as it often lacked an immediate, resolvable, or understandable cause, aligning with mental health findings that the prevalence of internalizing behaviors is more significant compared to externalizing behaviors (Liu, Stevens, Wong, Yasui, & Chen, 2019). This approach also explained why mothers perceived expressions of anger as particularly dysregulated and why they preferred to process their negative emotions privately. Their emphasis on managing the situation, along with their belief that emotions are personal experiences that vary among individuals, may lead to a preference for processing emotions privately. This approach also aligns with prior research showing that Asian Americans tend to score higher in emotion suppression compared to European American counterparts (Lugo-Candelas, Harvey, Breaux, & Herbert, 2016; Morelen, Jacob, Suveg, Jones, & Thomassin, 2013; Saw & Okazaki, 2010). Within this sample, the present study suggests that this difference may not arise from a lack of emotional skills (Nahm, 2006); rather, the priority and approach differ and may be more relevant to their cultural context.

Understanding and addressing the situational causes of negative emotions, as well as the preference for privately processing these emotions, may have several explanations related to their cultural context. One is the cultural value of interdependence and connectedness (Kağıtçıbaşı, 1996; Markus & Kitayama, 1991), which serves as a prevalent explanatory framework for Asians and Asian Americans, including Korean Americans (Nahm, 2006; Raval & Walker, 2019; Son & Doan, 2023). In this context, emotional restraint and selective emotional expression are prioritized to maintain relationships (Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006). Thus, mothers’ preference for privately processing emotions may be understood in relation to the importance of maintaining relationships in Asian cultural contexts. This is supported by mothers’ expressions of concern about sharing negative emotions and potentially transmitting negativity to others. On the other hand, this can also be understood in terms of the specific life circumstances of this population, in line with emotion regulation literature (Thompson, 2015), which shows that how individuals understand and manage emotions is adapted to the contexts in which individuals live. The understanding and management of emotions described by the mothers in this study are also shaped by their first-generation immigrant parents, who experienced the direct aftermath of war and the challenges of immigrant life. This background may also explain why these mothers have learned to emphasize managing life circumstances that were likely adaptive for their parents and remain functional in their current context. This is supported by mothers’ accounts of perceiving their parents as less emotionally attuned or available, along with their understanding of these circumstances without harboring resentment toward their parents. Therefore, mothers’ understanding and management of emotions may stem not only from cultural values but also from the real-life context in which these are adapted. Mothers’ approach to managing their own emotions was reflected in how they responded to their children’s emotions, consistent with prior research (Gottman et al., 1997; Meyer et al., 2014). This also indicated generational changes in their approach, reflecting the changing cultural context from those in which they were raised, with fewer language barriers and a greater emphasis on empathy toward children, in line with Coll et al.’s (1996) adaptive culture. Valuing constructive responses to situations that elicit negative emotions, mothers guided their children through reasoning and provided knowledge about the world. While approaching children’s emotions with empathy and validation, mothers also recognized their limited life experiences as a reason to help them understand the situations that caused their emotions, aligning and regulating their feelings accordingly. Moreover, mothers sought to teach meaningful values such as reasonableness, generosity, and bravery, which extend beyond momentary emotions. This may help explain why prior studies have found that some Asian American parents, including Korean Americans, display higher levels of dismissive and punitive responses to their children’s emotions (Curtis, Zhou, & Tao, 2020; McCord & Raval, 2016; Morelen et al., 2013; Saw & Okazaki, 2010), which are generally viewed as unsupportive (Eisenberg et al., 1998), and why Korean American mothers were assessed as less aware and accepting of their children’s emotions compared to their European American counterparts (Nahm, 2006). Within this sample, these patterns are interpreted as potentially reflecting a culturally and contextually meaningful approach rather than a lack of care or competence.

Consistent with prior research, gender, education, and religion played roles in emotion socialization (Eisenberg, 2020). Educational and religious backgrounds shaped mothers’ beliefs about emotions, showing how their educational experiences influenced emotion-related beliefs and practices, and how religious teachings, in particular, influenced their perception of fear as a lack of confidence or trust. Additionally, mothers acknowledged gendered expectations in emotional expressions, with boys often discouraged from showing vulnerability. However, many actively challenged these norms by encouraging their sons to express emotions freely, countering traditional gender expectations. This also reflects the changing cultural context from which they were raised (Coll et al., 1996); the current context is more fluid in the thinking about gender and what it means to be a boy or a girl. Furthermore, mothers’ responses suggested a prevailing dominant norm regarding healthy and unhealthy ways of managing emotions, possibly shaped by their social interactions and educational experiences. This indicates potential negative consequences of deviating from these norms for mothers and their parenting practices.

Taken together, these contextual influences can be interpreted in more than one way. Because participants in this study were second-generation mothers with relatively high educational attainment and middle-to-upper household income, and reported a bicultural orientation, the emphasis on reasoning and self-regulation may reflect adaptive strategies under minority stress and perceived social scrutiny, but it may also align with mainstream middle-class parenting norms that prioritize self-control, rational discussion, and child competence (Cano, 2022). Given these concurrent possibilities, the present findings are best understood as raising questions about how PMEP may vary at the intersection of immigration generation, socioeconomic status, and lived experiences of marginalization—questions that future research should examine through purposive sampling across these dimensions.

Across the six themes, several culturally relevant patterns emerge. Themes emphasizing emotional restraint, private processing, and attention to how emotions affect others are consistent with Korean cultural logics that prioritize relational harmony, sensitivity to interpersonal consequences, and regulation of emotions in ways that minimize disruption to others (e.g., Raval & Walker, 2019; Son & Doan, 2023). At the same time, themes involving empathy, explicit perspective-taking, and value-based teaching suggest that the mothers in this sample were not simply reproducing a fixed traditional Korean model, but were instead articulating hybrid approaches shaped by both Korean cultural legacies and second-generation adaptation to mainstream US parenting norms (Raval & Walker, 2019). In this sense, the present findings suggest that PMEP-related meanings in this sample reflect not only continuity with Korean cultural values, but also bicultural negotiation in how emotional support is understood and enacted. This pattern is also broadly consistent with Fishman et al.’s (2014) findings that immigrant mothers may endorse emotional awareness while also emphasizing restraint, adaptation, and responsibility to others, while at the same time suggesting group-specific meanings in the Korean American context, such as a stronger emphasis on reasoning through situations and value-based guidance.

It is important to note that the mothers did not explicitly label their beliefs or practices as Korean. On a few occasions, some described their own parents’ approaches as Korean when seeking mutual understanding with the Korean interviewer. However, they did not reference their own beliefs or practices in explicitly ethnic terms, even after completing an acculturation survey and being introduced to the interview within an ethnic context. This suggests that while Korean American cultural background may influence their beliefs—reflected in shared themes that are understandable within their cultural context—it does not fully define their identities or caregiving approaches. Their beliefs and practices are also shaped by other aspects of identity unique to each individual. In other words, cultural influences are an important contributor to who they are and should be recognized—but they represent only one part of a multifaceted identity that continues to evolve over time.

This study offers a culturally grounded understanding of PMEP as articulated by the mothers in this sample and suggests interpretive considerations for applying the PMEP framework developed with European American families (Gottman et al., 1997). While the traditional PMEP emphasizes emotional awareness, acceptance, and coaching, this study highlights culturally relevant approaches that serve adaptive and supportive functions.

Importantly, these themes are not presented as new PMEP types. Rather, they suggest that the coaching–dismissing distinction, as developed in predominantly European American contexts, may not fully capture culturally grounded forms of emotion-related support (Gottman et al., 1997; Katz et al., 1997). In particular, some practices described by the mothers in this sample—such as reasoning through the eliciting situation, encouraging regulation before expression, or privately processing emotion to avoid burdening others—may appear less coaching-oriented when judged by Western criteria emphasizing explicit labeling, validation, and encouragement of emotional expression (e.g., Nahm, 2006). However, in this sample, these practices were often described as supportive, morally meaningful, and directed toward helping children function effectively in relationships and everyday life. Thus, the present findings do not reject the PMEP framework, but suggest that its application across cultural contexts may require greater attention to the forms, functions, and meanings of support that standardized coding systems may underrecognize.

First, this study highlights culturally relevant beliefs that guide emotion socialization. The mothers in this study viewed negative emotions as natural and transient, emphasizing the equal importance of addressing the situations that caused them—an approach not adequately captured in the existing framework. Rather than focusing solely on emotions, mothers highlighted the importance of understanding, reasoning, and aligning emotional responses with the reality of the situation. This approach was used to guide children in learning about emotions, gaining knowledge about the world, and understanding important life values. This suggests that emotional support may be enacted through cognitive scaffolding and value-based teaching instead of direct emotional coaching. These findings build onFishman et al. (2014), who showed that Asian Indian immigrant mothers articulated emotion philosophies that diverged from the traditional PMEP profiles and emphasized culturally grounded strategies, such as subtle communication, adapting to circumstances, and moving on. Consistent with their findings, this study suggests emotion-related beliefs and practices that may be less visible within the traditional PMEP applications, which assessed Korean American mothers as less aware and accepting of their children’s emotions (Nahm, 2006).

Second, this study highlights the significance of historical and current context in shaping PMEP. The perspectives of mothers can be understood not only through inter dependent cultural values that prioritize harmony and emotional restraint, but also through their lived experiences as second-generation Korean Americans. Their emotion philosophies were shaped by the parenting they received from first-generation immigrant parents—many of whom experienced the aftermath of war and migration—and by their own efforts to adapt these experiences for their children in the current context. In doing so, they reflected generational shifts in emotion socialization practices while still drawing from culturally rooted values. This underscores the importance of interpreting PMEP within dynamic, contextually shaped identities and social ecologies.

Finally, the findings support broader calls for a culturally relevant understanding of emotion-related parenting (Raval & Walker, 2019). By using a data-driven qualitative approach, this study offers culturally grounded considerations regarding PMEP that are often overlooked in quantitative studies or those that use a standardized coding system. Overall, the findings encourage interpretation of Korean American mothers’ emotion-related beliefs and practices in this sample as contextually meaningful and adaptive, reducing the likelihood of deficit-based conclusions based solely on standardized labels.

Several limitations require careful interpretation of the present findings. First, this study is an exploratory phenomenological inquiry based on a small sample (N = 5); therefore, findings should be understood as describing meaning structures within this sample rather than as population-level conclusions about Korean American mothers broadly. Although such a sample size is appropriate for phenomenological research focused on depth of meaning-making, it limits the transferability of the findings beyond this particular group of participants. Second, the sample consisted entirely of second-generation mothers of preschool-aged children and was relatively socioeconomically advantaged (e.g., most held at least a bachelor’s degree, and the median household income fell in the $100,001∼$150,000 range). These characteristics may shape PMEP-related meanings and the emphasis placed on reasoning, self-regulation, and emotion norms, and thus transferability beyond this sample may be limited for Korean American families with different socioeconomic backgrounds, immigration histories (such as first-generation parents), or caregiving environments. Because all participants were second-generation mothers, the findings may reflect meanings shaped by bicultural socialization and US-based adaptation, and may not transfer to firstgeneration Korean immigrant mothers. In addition, because the study focused on mothers of preschool-aged children, the themes identified here may differ from PMEP-related meanings that emerge at later developmental periods, when children’s autonomy, peer relationships, and emotionregulation demands become more complex. Third, the study relied solely on mothers’ interview narratives and did not involve direct observations of daily interactions or include other caregivers. Accordingly, the findings reflect mothers’ articulated philosophies and self-understandings rather than directly observed moment-to-moment parenting behavior; thus, some reported beliefs and intentions may not map neatly onto how emotion-related support is enacted in everyday interactions across situations and caregivers. Taken together, these limitations underscore that the primary contribution of this study is to offer culturally grounded considerations for interpreting and applying PMEP concepts and to generate questions for subsequent research.

Building on these findings, future research should examine the relations between the Korean American PMEP described here and child outcomes. This will examine the developmental implications of the PMEP, such as whether variations in cultural practices lead to similar developmental outcomes or result in significantly different outcomes adapted to different social ecologies and potential trade-offs. Second, future research should explore children’s expressions of their beliefs about emotions, as this socialization process is mediated by their own developing representations of emotions. Third, future research should examine how differences in parent and child representations may impact their relationship, particularly in immigrant families experiencing significant generational changes. Fourth, future research should expand PMEP to include other important caregivers, such as fathers or other significant figures in the children’s lives. Lastly, future research exploring PMEP related to ethnicity and race should incorporate explicit questions about this topic in their PMEP interviews.

Findings from this exploratory study suggest potential practical implications for culturally responsive work with Korean American families in similar sociocultural contexts.

In particular, practitioners should be cautious about applying Western emotion-coaching approaches without adaptation, as strategies such as emotional restraint, private processing, or reasoning-based guidance may be misinterpreted as low emotional attunement when viewed only through norms that prioritize explicit emotional expression and validation. Practitioners may benefit from engaging with families’ PMEP-related meanings and emotion socialization strategies—such as cognitive guidance, value-based teaching, and emotional restraint—as potentially adaptive approaches rather than assuming they reflect deficits. In practice, this may include asking caregivers about the purposes these strategies serve (e.g., helping children understand causes of emotions, encouraging reasonableness or bravery, minimizing interpersonal burden) and building support that aligns with families’ stated values and daily realities. At the same time, these strategies may involve trade-offs for children navigating multiple social contexts that demand different emotional goals and skills. Accordingly, culturally responsive support may be strengthened by attending to both families’ strengths and the situational pressures they describe, and by helping caregivers flexibly scaffold children’s emotion-related skills across contexts.

In sum, this study offers a culturally grounded description of PMEP within this sample of second-generation Korean American mothers. By centering mothers’ accounts, the study highlights how emotion-related beliefs and practices may be understood as contextually meaningful rather than deficit-based. It calls for continued research that examines variability across socioeconomic and generational contexts and that further clarifies implications for child development.

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