The way people talk about their emotional experiences can reveal information about how well they are functioning. Depression symptoms can include feelings of hopelessness and a saddened mood. Labile self-esteem is the fluctuations a person may experience in their self-esteem. Previous studies have found a relationship between self-esteem, depression symptoms, and word use; however, no research has yet examined the interaction between depression symptoms and labile self-esteem in predicting word use. The present study examines the main and interactive effects of depression symptoms and labile self-esteem in predicting the number of clout (language associated with confidence), achievement (goal-oriented language), and power (words related to superiority) words utilized to describe sad and happy emotional experiences. We predicted that the interaction between more depression symptoms and more labile self-esteem would relate to less use of clout, achievement, and power words when describing sad and happy emotional experiences. Participants answered surveys measuring depression symptoms and labile self-esteem. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used to determine how much clout, achievement, and power words participants utilized when describing past sad and happy emotional experiences. The present study found that labile self-esteem was only significantly positively correlated with clout words used to describe a happy emotional experience. In contrast to our hypothesis, participants’ self-reported depression symptoms were not linked to clout, power, and achievement words used to describe happy and sad emotional experiences. Finally, there were no significant interactions between labile self-esteem and depression symptoms in predicting words used to express a past emotional experience. The findings in this study provide a greater understanding of how factors that may affect a person’s overall wellbeing, such as depression symptoms and labile self-esteem, are linked to how people recall and express past emotional experiences.

Preschool provides an opportunity for children to explore emotions, social relationships, community participation, and cultural values. In these early years, a primary task of emotional development occurs through emotion socialization, which refers to the processes through which individuals learn the skills, behaviors, and social understandings relevant to becoming emotionally competent members of their social groups and cultures. In the preschool context, teachers’ emotion socialization is important to understand, as it contributes to children’s emotion competence which is associated with a range of outcomes. However, children’s emotional development in preschool can be disrupted, as suspensions and expulsions in preschool occur at a rate four times higher than in the K-12 system. These disciplinary measures can result from the provision of ineffective responses to children’s “challenging behaviors,” which often arise from children’s difficult emotions. Emotion socialization may ultimately determine whether children and families are welcomed to, or expelled from, their early childhood educational programs. The present qualitative case study examined teachers’ emotion socialization in a predominately Latinx preschool community. The “case” was defined to include teachers’ and the director’s: (a) professional journeys, (b) emotional experiences in relation to their work, (c) understandings of emotion socialization and children’s socioemotional development, and (d) emotion socialization practices. I conducted classroom observations, interviews with seven teachers and the school director, and an analysis of the book, FLIP IT!, a manual for a socioemotional approach (Sperry, 2011). I found that teachers drew from all aspects of community cultural wealth in their professional journeys. Teachers and their director engaged in theory-building, and prioritized building relationships in their work. Teachers’ experienced emotional suffering, stemming from anxieties regarding children’s challenging behaviors. When children experienced challenges, teachers focused on limit setting rather than addressing children’s emotional and social experiences, and both children and teachers had a threshold for their capacity to handle challenges within this limit-focused approach. Despite these challenges, teachers found great enjoyment and meaning from their work with children. These results suggest that intervention efforts be created in partnership with ECEC communities, to expand emotional repertoires and better support diversity, equity, and inclusion.