John Mordechai Gottman, Lynn Fainsilber Katz, Carole Hooven

• Contents: Foreword. Part I: The Emotional Life of Families. Introduction to the Concept of Meta-Emotion. Research on Parenting, and Meta-Emotions. Popular Parenting Guides: Introducing Ginott. Appendix: Life Space Interviewing in More Detail. Part II: Measurement and Conceptualization. The Selection of Developmental Outcomes. The Meta-Emotion Interview. An "Emotion Regulation Theory" of Meta-Emotion, Parenting, and Child Outcomes. Appendix: How Specifically Might Meta-Emotion and Parenting Affect a Child's Development? Appendix: Necessary Concepts From Child Physiology: A Brief Review of Research. Designing a Family Psychophysiology Laboratory: The Methods of Our Study. Appendix: More Detail on Measures and Coding. The Internal Structure of Parents' Meta-Emotions. Validity of the Meta-Emotion Interview. Part III: Parenting, Meta-Emotions, and Child Outcomes. Parenting, Parental Meta-Emotions, and the Child's Peer Relations. Parenting, Parental Meta-Emotions, and the Physical Health and Negative Affectivity of Children. Parenting, Parental Meta-Emotions, and Children's Academic Achievement at Age 8. Part IV: Mechanisms: Process Models, and the Parents' Marriage. How Might Meta-Emotions Have Their Effects? Preliminary Tests of Our Theory. Parenting, Meta-Emotion, and the Parents' Marriage. The Effects of Marital Conflict and Buffering Children From Marital Conflict. Part V: Extensions. Meta-Emotion and Gender. When Parents Feel Emotionally Out of Control. Meta-Emotion, Emotional Expressiveness, and Parental Social Class. Appendix: Vagal Tone and the Inhibition of Expressiveness. Appendix: Child Temperament. Discussion and a Research Agenda. Emotion Metaphors. Appendix: Methodology for the Vagal Tone Computations.

"Comprehensive...the book will be of interest to graduate students and professionals."—CHOICE"Qualitative examples and end-of-chapter summaries usefully clarify this work's main statements. The major contribution of the meta-emotion construct is that it tackles challenging issues in the closely interconnected fields of child development and family functioning; this aspect alone merits serious attention from researchers and clinicians.—Readings