Abstract
The ability to regulate negative emotions plays a central role in children's psychosocial (mal-)adjustment. As different contextual demands require the utilization of different strategies, the development of a large and diverse repertoire of emotion regulation (ER) strategies is an important developmental task. This two-wave longitudinal study with 101 preschoolers (wave 1: 3–6 years, M = 5.19, SD = 0.84, 46.5% girls; wave 2: 5–8 years, M = 6.69, SD = 0.85, 46.4% girls) investigated the bidirectional association of children's ER repertoire and problem behavior, operationalized by hyperactivity/attention problems (HAP) and emotional problems (EP). Latent cross-lagged panel analyses indicated that children's size of ER repertoire did not predict HAP, but that HAP negatively predicted the later size of ER repertoire. In contrast, the diversity of available ER strategies negatively predicted later HAP. For EP, no cross-lagged effects could be detected.
Published Version
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