Self-Regulation and Emotion Regulation in Children

1. Emotion and Self Regulation Naomi Ekas 9/28/09

2. Self-Regulation • Children do not come into this world with all of the skills necessary to regulate their behavior • It is around 2 years that we really start to see children monitoring behavior

3. Self-Regulation • Ability to comply with a request, initiate and cease activities according to situational demands, to modulate the intensity, frequency, and duration of verbal and motor acts in social and educational settings, to postpone acting upon a desired object/goal, and to generate socially approved behavior in the absence of external monitors (Kopp, 1982)

4. Self-Regulation • Neurophysiological modulation • Birth to 2-3 months • Reflexes

5. Self-Regulation • Sensorimotor modulation • 3 months - 9 months + • Engage in voluntary motor acts (reach & grab, hand to mouth, etc.) and change that act in response to environmental demands • No awareness of meaning of situation

6. Self-Regulation • Control • 9-12 months to 18 + months • Emerging ability of children to show awareness of social or task demands and modulate behavior/emotions • E.g. compliance to demands

7. Self-Regulation • Emergence of self-control and the progression to self-regulation • 24 + months • Compliance, delay an act on request • Representational thinking and recall memory • Limited flexibility

8. Self-Regulation • Self-regulation • 36 + months • Flexibility!!!

9. Emotion Regulation • In addition to regulating behaviors, children must also regulate emotional experiences • Development of emotion regulation abilities follows Kopp’s description of emergence of self-regulation • Reflexes to flexible management

10. Emotion Regulation • Emotion regulation consists of the extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions, especially their intensive and temporal features, to accomplish one’s goals

11. Emotion Regulation • Monitoring, evaluating, modifying • Not only negative emotions • Not only dampening emotions, but also increasing

12. Emotion Regulation • Extrinsic influences • Parents!!! • Critical in the early months • Intrinsic influences • temperament

13. Emotion Regulation • Intensive and temporal features • Intensity - subdue or enhance • Speed or slow onset or recovery • Reduce or increase lability (range) • Limit or enhance persistence over time

14. Emotion Regulation • Accomplish one’s goals • Must be regarded functionally • What are regulator’s goals for that situation?

15. Emotion Regulation • What is regulated? • Control of underlying arousal processes through maturing systems of neurophysiological regulation • Diffuse excitatory processes decline in lability during first year • Cortical inhibitory controls emerge gradually during infancy • Nervous system reactivity

16. Emotion Regulation • Attention processes • Emotion can be regulated by managing the intake of emotionally arousing information • Redirecting attention • As they get older can do things like internal redirection of attention (e.g. thinking of something pleasant during unpleasant situation)

17. Emotion Regulation • Other components of information processing • Alter interpretations • “He didn’t really die, he just got frightened and ran away” • “It’s just pretend”

18. Emotion Regulation • Increase access to coping resources • Regulating emotional demands of familiar situations

19. Emotion Regulation • Importance of social interaction • Others can help regulate our emotions (e.g. mothers soothing young infant) • Importance of attachment relationship • Others can help us with our interpretations of situations • Modeling behavior of those around us

20. Emotion Regulation • Individual differences • Temperament • Attachment • Parenting • Others???

21. Emotion Regulation • Problems with the construct and research area

23. Self-Regulation Background • Internally-directed capacity to regulate attention, affect, and behavior with the goal of responding effectively to environmental and internal cues and demands • Rapidly developing in childhood • Involves managing, modulating, inhibiting, and enhancing attention behavior and emotions • Related to social and academic success • Needed for successful transition into kindergarten • High quality day care may facilitate children’s SR skills

24. Self-Regulation • Increased levels of quality day care linked to increased behavior problems, which may reflect low levels of self-regulation • Genetic and experiential differences may cause children to differentially respond to their experiences (differential susceptibility) • DRD4 7+ allele may moderate the effects of children’s experiences on developmental outcomes thought to reflect SR skills

25. Study Aims • Test the degree to which children’s early childcare experiences (quality, quantity, & type) predict SR skills in prekindergarten • Test the degree to which these relations are conditional on genotype (DRD4 7+)

26. Measures • Self-Regulation: • Continuous Performance Task – computer based task where children press a key if the stimulus is presented on the screen • More errors is associated with lower academic achievement and higher levels of aggression & inattention • Higher errors = higher inattention • Day-Night Stroop – card task where children say “day” if they see a picture of the moon and “night” if presented with a picture of the sun • Higher scores indicate more inhibitory control • Delay of Gratification – children asked to wait 7 minutes to receive a larger prize • Waiting 7 min reflects more “desire based” inhibitory control • Latent measure of inattention – made up of teacher report forms and observational measures

27. Measures cont. • Quantity of childcare - averaged hours in non-maternal care per week • Collected every 3/4 months until 54 months • Quality of childcare – caregiver-child interactions at 6, 15, 24, 36, and 54 months • Rated on various likert scales at different intervals • Type of childcare – center-based care children spent more than 50% of time in non-maternal care

28. Measures cont. • Genotype – DNA collected at 15 years old • DRD4 7+ was coded if homozygous or heterozygous for the 7-repeat allele versus those without a copy of the allele

29. Childcare, Inhibitory Control & Inattention: DNS • DRD4 7+ children who spent fewer hours in nonmaternal care showed more effective performance on the DNS task than DRD4 7+ children who spent more hours in childcare • The beneficial effect was present for DRD4 7+ children in few hours of childcare but was not a risk factor for children with high number of hours in childcare

30. Childcare, Inhibitory Control & Inattention: DOG • DRD4 7+ children in few hours of childcare had better inhibitory control in DOG task • Difference was only present for children attending few hours of childcare

31. Continuous Performance Task Results • Inhibitory control – higher quality care was associated with fewer commission errors on the CPT • Attention – DRD4 7+ allele is associated with more effective attention when children spend fewer hours in childcare

32. Inattention & Impulsivity Results • DRD4 7+ allele is associated with lower levels of inattention/impulsivity if children experience few hours of childcare • Descriptively, DRD4 7+ allele is associated with higher levels of inattention/impulsivity if children experience high number of hours in childcare