Challenging the dichotomy: Examining parent socialization goals and behaviors regarding positive affect in Bengaluru, India

Parents' responses to youth positive affect (PA) have been dichotomized as enhancing and dampening. This dichotomy may not fit with cultural scripts about emotion in communities where a balance between positive and negative emotions is preferred. To assess parents' PA socialization in a culturally relevant manner for urban, middle‐class families in India, we developed a new measure of parental goals about happiness and adapted the Responses to Adolescent Happy Affect Scale (RAHAS). We tested the psychometric properties of these measures and assessed relations among parental socialization goals and behaviors across 5 months. Our sample included 377 adolescent (84.4% girls; Mage = 14.47) and parent (63.9% mothers) dyads, primarily Hindu, in Bengaluru, India. Two parental goals factors emerged: “Balancing and Controlling” and “Maximizing and Sharing” happiness. Three factors emerged for the adapted RAHAS. Two factors were the same as the original RAHAS: (a) “Enhancing” strategies to upregulate PA and (b) “Dampening” strategies to downregulate PA. A third factor emerged: (c) “Balancing” strategies, which were culturally salient for families in India and aimed for moderation. Among socialization behaviors, “Enhancing” and “Dampening” were inversely related, while “Balancing” related positively to each. Balancing and Controlling goals were only correlated to “Balancing” behaviors. Maximizing and Sharing goals were correlated positively with “Enhancing” and inversely with “Dampening.” Longitudinally, Maximizing and Sharing and Balancing and Controlling goals were related to a significant increase and marginal decrease in “Dampening,” respectively. Challenging the dichotomy, our findings highlight the relevance of balancing to theories of PA socialization.