Child emotion inhibition mediates the effect of parent's adaptive cognitive emotion regulation on child frontal EEG asymmetry during reappraisal.

Abstract

Cognitive reappraisal is considered an adaptive emotion regulation strategy, but little is known regarding children's ability to effectively implement cognitive reappraisal. Some research indicates that parenting contributes to child cognitive reappraisal ability, with parent's own adaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies playing a role. Minimal research attempts to examine how child and parenting factors work together to affect child cognitive reappraisal. We examined this association through mediation analyses to determine whether child emotion coping and emotion inhibition would mediate the relation between parent's adaptive cognitive emotion regulation and children's cognitive reappraisal implementation. Children were instructed to implement cognitive reappraisal during a sad film, while electroencephalogram (EEG) was collected. Left frontal EEG asymmetry was conceptualized as effective cognitive reappraisal implementation. Our model supported full mediation for child emotion inhibition. Parent's adaptive cognitive emotion regulation was positively associated with children's emotion inhibition, which was then positively linked to children's left frontal EEG asymmetry during cognitive reappraisal. The model with child emotion coping as a mediator was not supported. Our findings highlight the importance of examining multiple pathways that may impact children's adaptive cognitive reappraisal ability.