Development Of Emotion Regulation Research Articles

Maternal recognition of positive emotion predicts sensitive parenting in infancy.

Research on parent-child relationships demonstrates the importance of maternal sensitivity for the development of children's emotion regulation, social competence, and health; thus, it is important to understand the emotional-cognitive capacities underlying maternal sensitivity. We followed 120 mothers and their full-term infants from the newborn period to 5 months postpartum. Mothers' emotion recognition during the newborn period was measured using a validated facial emotion recognition task assessing discrimination (d') of six facial expressions of emotion: happiness, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, and neutrality. Maternal behavior at 5 months postpartum was coded from a mother-infant free-play session using Ainsworth's Sensitivity Scales. Preregistered analyses revealed that mothers' ability to detect happiness specifically (but not other emotions such as fear or sadness) in the neonatal period predicted greater observed sensitivity 4 months later, β = .30, p = .002, ΔR² = .08. Results suggest that maternal recognition of positive emotion may be uniquely predictive of sensitive behavior in low-stress parent-infant interaction contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional Experience and Consequences of Growing Up in a Family with Alcoholism in Adult Children of Alcoholics

Adult children of alcoholics are adults who spent a part of, or their whole childhood in a dysfunctional family, where the biggest problem was alcohol addiction in one or both parents. In families with parental alcoholism, there is usually a lot of dysfunction in interpersonal relationships and in the upbringing of the children, which does not provide a healthy and optimal developmental environment for the child. There is often physical and psychological violence, and other forms of abuse and neglect that children perceive as traumatic. All this leaves the child with severe consequences, which they also struggle with in adulthood. Unresolved and traumatic childhood content often remains repressed and unprocessed and helps shape one’s functioning in adulthood, which is frequently emotionally and socially immature. Adult children of alcoholics often have problems in experiencing and regulating their emotions, as they had to carry many emotional burdens in a dysfunctional family, while they had no real opportunity for the healthy development of emotional regulation. The article will present research on the emotional experience of children with their alcoholic parents and how they recognize related consequences in their adult lives. Using the content analysis method, we analyzed 71 anonymous forum posts on the counselling forum on the topic “Adult children of alcoholics.” The directed approach to content analysis was used to validate forum posts by people who described their childhood experiences with an alcoholic parent. We identified parts of the content that fell into two predetermined categories: emotional experience in childhood with an alcoholic parent and the experience of its consequences in adulthood. The results showed that the adult children of alcoholics mostly experienced severe feelings of fear, shame, sadness and disgust with their alcoholic parents in their childhood, and that these feelings have remained unprocessed. In adulthood, they struggle with negative consequences in the personal sphere (e.g. poor self-esteem, inferiority, anxiety, depression), in interpersonal relationships (e.g. problems in partnerships, mistrust, social phobia, parental stress, complicated relationships with parents) and in everyday functioning (e.g. coping with one’s own addiction, dysfunctional behavioural patterns), but they also recognize that because of this experience they have managed to lay the foundations of their lives differently and better. The results confirm that children are hidden victims of parental alcoholism and justify the need for psychosocial and therapeutic support even in their adulthood.

Emotional Regulation Play Therapy for Maltreated Children: A Single Case Study

Aggressive children's behavior can arise from the child's inability to regulate the emotions that are felt as a result of the violence they have experienced as one form of maltreatment. This study aims to see how Emotional Regulation Play Therapy affects the behavior of maltreated children. This study was a quasi-experiment with a single case pre-test and post-test design. The participant of this study was a 10 years old boy with physical abuse and neglect history. Emotional Regulation Play Therapy consists of 5 therapy sessions based on emotional regulation development steps by Knell (2009). Measurement of emotional regulation ability was carried out using the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire for Child and Adolescence (ERQ-CA) developed by Gullone and Taffe (2011). The measurement results show an increase in the ERQ-CA score by 19 points accompanied by an increase in the ability to regulate emotion which is described qualitatively.

A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Parenting Intervention During Infancy Alters Amygdala-Prefrontal Circuitry in Middle Childhood

Early adverse parenting predicts various negative outcomes, including psychopathology and altered development. Animal work suggests that adverse parenting might change amygdala-prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuitry, but work in humans remains correlational. The present study leveraged data from a randomized controlled trial examining the efficacy of an early parenting intervention targeting parental nurturance and sensitivity (Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up [ABC]) to test whether early parenting quality causally affects amygdala-PFC connectivity later in life. Participants (N= 60, mean age= 10.0 years) included 41 high-risk children whose parents were referred by Child Protective Services and randomly assigned to receive either ABC (n= 21) or a control intervention (n= 20) during the children's infancy and a comparison sample of low-risk children (n= 19). Amygdala-PFC connectivity was assessed via functional magnetic resonance imaging while children viewed fearful and neutral faces. Across facial expressions, ABC produced different changes than the control intervention in amygdala-PFC connectivity in response to faces. The ABC group also exhibited greater responses than the control intervention group to faces in areas classically associated with emotion regulation, including the orbitofrontal cortex and right insula. Mediation analysis suggested that the effect of ABC on PFC activation was mediated by the intervention's effect on amygdala-PFC connectivity. Results provide preliminary causal evidence for the effect of early parenting intervention on amygdala-PFC connectivity and on PFC responses to face viewing. Findings also highlight amygdala-PFC connectivity as a potential mediator of the effects of early parenting intervention on children's emotion regulation development. Intervening Early With Neglected Children; https://clinicaltrials.gov/; NCT02093052. We worked to ensure sex and gender balance in the recruitment of human participants. We worked to ensure race, ethnic, and/or other types of diversity in the recruitment of human participants. We worked to ensure that the study questionnaires were prepared in an inclusive way. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented sexual and/or gender groups in science. One or more of the authors of this paper received support from a program designed to increase minority representation in science. While citing references scientifically relevant for this work, we also actively worked to promote sex and gender balance in our reference list.

Development and validation of the Interpersonal Emotion Regulation for Couples Scale (SIERC) in the Spanish population

Antecedents Interpersonal emotional regulation (IER) is the deliberate attempt to influence others’ emotions. There is not enough research on IER in the context of romantic couples. Aim The aim of the present study was to develop and validate an instrument to assess couples’ IER and understanding its functioning at both an individual and dyadic level. Method Participants were 764 adults and 91 dyads. Three studies were carried out: first, to study the psychometric properties of the scale and its validity; second, to understand the functioning of the scale at a dyadic level; third, to analyse the predictive capacity of the instrument. Results Our 11-item scale has four factors: observe, ask, validate, and soothe feelings. These factors are doubly evaluated: as an agent (SIERC-A) and as a target (SIERC-B). The scale showed good psychometric properties and adequate internal consistency. It presents convergent validity with emotional competences, and divergent validity with emotional dysregulation and insecure attachment. At a dyadic level, there is an actor-partner effect of IER on couple adjustment. Finally, IER seems to predict relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and life satisfaction. Discussion This new instrument can be a useful tool for assessment and intervention in couple therapy and research.

The development of emotion regulation in adolescence: What do we know and where to go next?

AbstractEmotion regulation is critical for adolescent functioning. Theories on the subject have evolved rapidly in recent years and have led to a more contextualized and dynamic conceptualization of emotion regulation processes. In this paper, based on the distinction between emotion regulation strategies and abilities, we propose future directions for research on emotion regulation development in adolescence. We first present evidence that emotional, cognitive, and social changes that occur in adolescence are central in emotion regulation development. We then review empirical findings on emotion regulation development by tying them to their conceptual foundations. We discuss their limitations and argue that building better conceptual clarity is essential to study emotion regulation. Because current knowledge on recent concepts that emerged in adult‐based models remains limited and contested in adolescence, we end this article by discussing new research perspectives to provide a better understanding of the topic. We stress the need for researchers in the field to adopt a more contextualized and person‐oriented approach, to combine different time scales and methods, and examine the predictors of emotion regulation as well as its outcomes.

Maternal socialization of emotion and the development of emotion regulation in early adolescent girls.

Regulation of negative emotions is a core competency of child development. Parental emotion socialization profoundly influences later capacity to regulate negative affect in childhood and adolescence. The present study examined the effects of maternal emotion socialization on the development of emotion regulation in the context of a longitudinal study of 210 mother-daughter dyads. Dyads completed a conflict resolution task when the child was age 11 years during which maternal warmth and hostility were coded. At ages 11 to 13 years, mothers completed self-report measures of supportive and nonsupportive responses to child negative emotion, and children completed self-reports of inhibition and adaptive regulation of sadness and anger. We used latent growth curve modeling to estimate changes in inhibition and adaptive regulation of sadness and anger over time; observed maternal warmth and hostility were included as time-invariant covariates and maternal self-report of supportive and nonsupportive responses were included as time-varying covariates. Observed maternal warmth was positively associated with girls' adaptive regulation of anger and sadness at age 11 years. Maternal self-reported supportive responses to girls' negative affect were positively associated with girls' adaptive regulation of anger, and nonsupportive responses were negatively associated with adaptive regulation of anger and sadness. These findings support the role of maternal emotion socialization and indicate specific effects of maternal warmth and supportive responses in the development of girls' capacity to modulate negative emotions during early adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Using machine learning to identify early predictors of adolescent emotion regulation development.

As 20% of adolescents develop emotion regulation difficulties, it is important to identify important early predictors thereof. Using the machine learning algorithm SEM-forests, we ranked the importance of (87) candidate variables assessed at age 13 in predicting quadratic latent trajectory models of emotion regulation development from age 14 to 18. Participants were 497 Dutch families. Results indicated that the most important predictors were individual differences (e.g., in personality), aspects of relationship quality and conflict behaviors with parents and peers, and internalizing and externalizing problems. Relatively less important were demographics, bullying, delinquency, substance use, and specific parenting practices-although negative parenting practices ranked higher than positive ones. We discuss implications for theory and interventions, and present an open source risk assessment tool, ERRATA.

Neurocognitive and behavioral development in young children (1-7 years) with sex chromosome trisomy.

Investigating sex chromosome trisomies (SCTs) may help in understanding neurodevelopmental pathways underlying the risk for neurobehavioral problems and psychopathology. Knowledge about the neurobehavioral phenotype is needed to improve clinical care and early intervention for children with SCT. This is especially relevant considering the increasing number of early diagnosed children with the recent introduction of noninvasive prenatal screening. The TRIXY Early Childhood Study is a longitudinal study designed to identify early neurodevelopmental risks in children with SCT, aged 1-7 years. This review summarizes the results from the TRIXY Early Childhood Study, focusing on early behavioral symptoms in areas of autism spectrum disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and communication disorders, and underlying neurocognitive mechanisms in domains of language, emotion regulation, executive functioning, and social cognition. Behavioral symptoms were assessed through structured behavior observation and parental questionnaires. Neurocognition was measured using performance tests, eyetracking, and psychophysiological measures of arousal. In total, 209 children aged 1-7 years were included: 107 children with SCT (33 XXX, 50 XXY, and 24 XYY) and 102 age-matched population controls. Study outcomes showed early behavioral symptoms in young children with SCT, and neurocognitive vulnerabilities, already from an early age onward. Neurobehavioral and neurocognitive difficulties tended to become more pronounced with increasing age and were rather robust, independent of specific karyotype, pre/postnatal diagnosis, or ascertainment strategy. A more longitudinal perspective on neurodevelopmental 'at-risk' pathways is warranted, also including studies assessing the effectiveness of targeted early interventions. Neurocognitive markers that signal differences in neurodevelopment may prove to be helpful in this. Focusing on early development of language, social cognition, emotion regulation, and executive functioning may help in uncovering early essential mechanisms of (later) neurobehavioral outcome, allowing for more targeted support and early intervention.

Emotion dysregulation and symptoms of anxiety and depression in early adolescence: Bidirectional longitudinal associations and the antecedent role of parent-child attachment.

Difficulties in emotion regulation have been consistently associated with various psychological difficulties, including anxiety and depression; however, less is known about the directionality of this relationship, particularly in adolescents. In addition, early parent-child attachment quality has been closely linked to the development of emotion regulation. Previous studies have proposed an overarching model in attempt to describe the developmental trajectory of anxiety and depression from early attachment, albeit with several limitations that are discussed in this paper. This study adds to this field of research by investigating the longitudinal associations between emotion dysregulation (ED) and symptoms of anxiety and depression among 534 early adolescents in Singapore over three timepoints in a school year, and the antecedent role of attachment quality on individual differences on these variables. Bidirectional influences were found between ED and anxiety and depression symptoms, respectively, between T1 and T2, but not T2 and T3, at the between- and within-individual levels of analysis. Additionally, attachment anxiety and avoidance were both significantly predictive of individual differences in ED and for both psychological symptoms. The current findings provide preliminary evidence of a mutually reinforcing relationship between ED and symptoms of anxiety and depression in early adolescence, where attachment quality serves as a developmental antecedent that sets these longitudinal associations in motion.

Parenting, emotion regulation, and externalizing symptomatology as adolescent antecedents to young adult health risk behaviors.

This study used longitudinal data to elucidate how trajectories of negative parenting across adolescence are associated with young adult health risk behaviors (HRBs) by testing difficulties with emotion regulation and externalizing symptomatology as sequential underlying mediators. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% males, Mage =14 at Time 1 and Mage =18 at Time 5) who were assessed five times. Adolescents self-reported on negative parenting, emotion regulation, externalizing symptomatology, and engagement in HRBs. Results suggest that increasingly negative parenting across adolescence has adverse consequences for emotion regulation development and in turn, externalizing symptomatology, which confers risk for young adult HRBs. Results offer insights towards mechanisms for prevention and intervention and public health policy aimed at reducing the prevalence and consequences of engagement in HRBs.

The role of fathers in children's emotion regulation development: A systematic review

AbstractThis systematic review summarizes the results of 43 studies that explored the potential role of fathers in emotion regulation (ER) development in children. Following a tripartite model, this review investigates the paternal modelling of ER strategies, emotion‐related paternal parenting practices, father–child emotional climate, and fathers' characteristics, by identifying 16 specific themes of paternal factors that could play a role in the child's ER development. Results show that while a large number of studies investigated father–child emotional climate and fathers' characteristics and their association with children's ER, the effects of paternal modelling and the father's emotion‐related parenting practices on children's ER are still understudied. This review reveals that several factors—fathers' modelling of ER strategies; positive reactions and support in responding to their child's expression of emotions; better quality of the father–child relationship; higher father–child attachment security; and positive parenting in terms of sensitivity, engagement, and expressiveness—had significant associations with children's higher ER skills. Conversely, fathers' psychopathology and harsh parenting were associated with poorer ER skills in children.Highlights This study summarized existing literature that explored the association between paternal factors and ER in children. The review showed some evidence supporting the paternal role in children's ER development. Fathers' role in the development of child's ER is most prominent in infancy and toddlerhood. Most paternal factors significantly associated with a child's ER reflected previous findings examining maternal factors.

The Benefit of Outdoor Activity for Child Development

Activities outside the home or outdoor activities are activities carried out in open spaces that allow children to have the freedom to play and relate to various natural elements. Outdoor activities offer children natural and exciting activities, and play promotes cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being, offering the necessary conditions for children to develop and learn. This literature review discusses the impact of outdoor activities on child development. The discussion will cover outdoor activities that have many benefits for children's development, both in terms of sensory development, motor development, cognitive development, development of emotional regulation, mood, and behavior, as well as social interaction and social skills.

Serious Game Design Principles for Children with Autism to Facilitate the Development of Emotion Regulation

Serious Game Design Principles for Children with Autism to Facilitate the Development of Emotion Regulation

How parents assist children's emotion regulation in Turkey: The Turkish adaptation of the parental assistance with child emotion regulation (PACER) questionnaire.

Parents play a critical role in emotional socialization and the development of emotion regulation during childhood. The tools to measure how parents assist children's emotion regulation are very limited. The Parental Assistance with Child Emotion Regulation (PACER) Questionnaire is a novel scale developed for this purpose with excellent psychometric properties. The aim of this study is to adapt the PACER to Turkish and investigate its psychometric properties in the Turkish cultural setting. The data were collected from 700 parents who have children aged birth to 17 years. In addition to the PACER, participants filled out some scales about their own beliefs and behaviors, also their children's psychological symptoms. We confirmed the original ten-factor structures of the PACER in a Turkish sample and the measurement invariance supported the PACER's structure across subgroups. The high internal consistencies of factors were achieved; however, the test-retest reliability was lower than expected. The factors of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g., rumination, expressive suppression, avoidance) were positively associated with parents' own emotion regulation deficit, symptoms, and child's symptoms, while others (e.g., reappraisal, problem-solving) were negatively associated with them. Overall, our results suggest that the Turkish version of the PACER is a psychometrically valid and reliable measurement to assess how parents support their children to regulate their emotions. We believe that this adaptation allows the scale to be used in developmental and clinical psychology studies and will pave the way for cross-cultural studies.

How does inhibitory control predict emotion regulation in preschool? The role of individual children's interactions with teachers and peers.

Emotion regulation is foundational to children's psychological wellbeing and future school adjustment. As young children are spending increasing amounts of time in preschool programs, investigating how early childhood classrooms can foster emotion regulation development is warranted. In this study, we tested individual children's interactions with teachers and peers as potential mechanisms through which inhibitory control supports emotion regulation in the preschool classroom. Participants included 767 preschool children (49% female; M = 4.39 years old, SD = .08) from low-income households (income-to-needs ratio M = 1.45, SD = 1.06). Fifty percent of children were Black, 22% White, 13% Latino, and 15% Other race/ethnicity. Children completed direct assessments of inhibitory control in the fall, teachers reported on children's emotion regulation in the fall and spring of the preschool year, and trained observers rated the quality of individual children's interactions with teachers and peers in the fall, winter, and spring. Accounting for earlier emotion regulation, mediation analyses indicated that children's inhibitory control operates through individual children's (a) positive interactions with peers and (b) negative interactions with teachers and peers to support their subsequent emotion regulation. These findings underscore the role of the preschool classroom as an emotion socialization context for children from low-income households, along with providing additional evidence about the importance of social interactions to understand children's emotional development in context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Accompanying the development of emotion regulation: A psychological and pedagogical topic in pre- and primary-school

Emotion regulation is described as a milestone in a child’s emotional and social development. Various psychological studies have shown that children do differ in their development of expression, perception and regulation of their own emotions (Goleman, 2013; Petermann & Gust, 2016; Siegler et al., 2011) and explicit perceptual, language based and cognitive strategies to achieve regulative competences in early childhood. In accordance with international studies the results indicate the importance of enhancing the emotional development of children in kindergarten and at the beginning of school. Especially the role of social-conscious emotional regulation, anger management and inhibition of aversive external behavior seems to be a key element for learning engagement, school success, wellbeing and mental health. This requires professionals in pre- and primary school settings who are able to accompany children in and are capable to work on prevention and intervention in case children show externalizing behavior. The article focuses on the implementation of emotional learning and emotional regulation on a curricular basis for vocational training and discusses a multilevel and systemic approach for prevention.

Supplemental Material for Maternal Socialization of Emotion and the Development of Emotion Regulation in Early Adolescent Girls

Supplemental Material for Maternal Socialization of Emotion and the Development of Emotion Regulation in Early Adolescent Girls

Predicting children's differential trajectories of emotion dysregulation: A study on the intergenerational transmission of child and caregiver maltreatment

BackgroundChild maltreatment and caregiver history of abuse is negatively associated with the development of emotion regulation, and maltreatment in early childhood may be particularly disruptive. ObjectiveWe examined patterns of emotion dysregulation and the contribution of caregiver victimization and early maltreatment history on the development of distinct emotion dysregulation trajectories. ParticipantsThe current study sample (n = 1354) came from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), a longitudinal study of the antecedents and consequences of child maltreatment. Children had a varied risk of maltreatment from high risk but not referred to child protective services to children who were removed from parental care. MethodWe employed a growth mixture modeling approach to model differential trajectories of children's emotion dysregulation from age four to age ten and assessed whether children's experiences of maltreatment prior to age four and caregiver histories of abuse were associated with children's probable class membership in the identified trajectories. ResultsWe identified three classes of emotion dysregulation trajectories: Well-Regulated, Increasingly Dysregulated, and Highly Dysregulated. Early experiences of multiple maltreatment types and caregiver history of abuse were associated with higher odds that children would be in the Increasingly Dysregulated and Highly Dysregulated classes compared to the Well-Regulated class. ConclusionThe current study extends the literature on the negative associations of caregiver histories of abuse and child experiences of multiple maltreatment types to children's emotion dysregulation, which may be long-lasting. Furthermore, our findings highlight the need for intervening early as a crucial component of breaking the intergenerational impact of maltreatment.

Exploring the Impact of Maternal and Paternal Acceptance on Adolescent Girls' Emotion Regulation.

Maternal acceptance is associated with youth emotion regulation (a correlate of depression among adolescent girls); however, less is known about the impact of fathers. In this prospective study, we examined effects of maternal and paternal acceptance on youth sadness inhibition (a facet of emotion dysregulation) among adolescent girls (n = 82; Mage = 13.28; 43% from minoritized racial/ethnic groups) over 1 year. Youth varied on depression risk, which was assessed via clinical diagnostic interviews. Bivariate results showed that maternal acceptance was associated with lower youth sadness inhibition at baseline and 1-year follow-up, while paternal acceptance was only associated with lower youth sadness inhibition at 1-year follow-up. Step-wise regressions showed that paternal acceptance was inversely associated with youth sadness inhibition over time, above and beyond effects of youth age, baseline sadness inhibition, depression risk, and maternal acceptance. Findings highlight the importance of examining both mothers' and fathers' impact on adolescent girls' development of emotion regulation.