1 / 30

Emotion and Self Regulation

Learn about the emergence of self-regulation and emotion regulation in children, including neurophysiological aspects, influences from external and internal factors, and the importance of social interactions on emotional development. Explore the challenges and considerations in the research area of emotion regulation.

silase
Download Presentation

Emotion and Self Regulation

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  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

  22. Emotion regulation… • …viable scientific construct? • …proposes to account for how and why emotions • organize, facilitate other physiological processes (e.g., promote problem solving) • and/or • have detrimental effects (harm relationships) • …integrates an understanding of typical and atypical development • emotions relate to cognition and behavior --> developmental outcomes Fernandez

  23. Concerns • Use the term without a definition • define emotion & emotion regulation • Do not distinguish between emotion and emotion regulation • emotions are inherently regulatory • physiological systems aren’t clearly distinct from emotions • Use valence to provide information about emotion regulation without evidence of regulatory process • regulating & regulated • intra/interdomain • Optimalfunctioning only or includes maladaptive regulation • Emotions understood in context Fernandez

  24. Areas of Research • Infant Temperament • Reactivity (speed & intensity of initial activity) • Self-regulation (ability to modify the intensity & duration by engaging in behavioral strategies) • Mother-Child Interactions • regulated and regulating in social interactions • quality of emotional exchanges related to child’s ability to regulate own behavior • Early Emotional Self-Regulation • emergence of new (more complex) use of objects and interactions (ages 2-4) • manner of self-regulation is predictive of later outcomes Fernandez

  25. Direction for New Research • Independent measures of emotion & regulation • Avoid confounding valence with regulation • Use of multiple measures • Analysis of temporal relations between emotion & regulation • Demonstration of change over time • Comparison of emotion & regulation in contrasting conditions • Help the researcher infer emotion when its barely detectible • Disentangle activation of emotion & regulatory process • Multiple converging measures • Self-report, expressive behavior, and physiological change • Heightens inferencing Fernandez

  26. Feldman, R. (2009). The development of regulatory functions from birth to 5 years: Insights from premature infants.Child Development, 80(2), 544-561. • Different perspectives of regulation • Posner & Rothbart (1998) – interplay of b/mechanisms of excitation and inhibition • Calkins & Fox (2002) – integration of physiological, emo, attn, cog processes • Neuroscience – relations b/ brainstem, limbic, and cortex to produce behavior • Fogel (1993) – coregulatory function of early relationships • Common assumptions • Integrated , hierarchically ordered system of multiple components of functioning • Synchronized in time • Plastic interplay b/ coregulated and autoregulated processes in development • Hierarchical-integrative course of regulation development • 1st year: Emotion regulation of external and internal stresses • Based in brain-stem function (sleep-wake cycle, vagal tone) • 2nd year: Attention regulation to achieve goals • Based in both physiological and emotional regulation processes • Preschool years: Self-regulation of behavior and cognition • Behavior adaptation, Executive functions, Conscience

  27. Current Study • Goals • Describe expression of multiple regulatory processes in at-risk pop • Describe longitudinal pattern of associations across levels • - Unique and interactive effects of levels 1-3 on 4 • Test causal paths to self-regulation • - Vagal tone  Attn regulation & behavior adaptation • - Sleep-wake cyclicity  Attn regulation Premature infants from birth to 5 yrs Difficulties in physiological and behavioral regulation

  28. Current Study • High vs. Low Medical Risk • Neonates: less organized sleep-wake cycle, higher neg emotion (boys also at risk) • 1 year: worse emotion reg, higher neg emotion • 2 years: worse attn reg • 5 years: poorer EF, no differences in behavior adaptation or self-restraint • Correlations between levels of regulation • Mild – moderate correlations among levels • Predicting self-regulation at age 5 • Vagal tone, sleep-wake, emo reg, attn reg predicted EF • All but sleep-wake predicted behavior problems & self-restraint • Structural modeling

  29. Results & conclusions • High vs. Low Medical Risk • Neonates: less organized sleep-wake cycle, higher neg emotion (boys also at risk) • 1 year: worse emotion reg, higher neg emotion • 2 years: worse attn reg at 12 but not 24 mos, worse delayed response at 24 mos • 5 years: poorer EF only, no differences in behavior adaptation or self-restraint • Vulnerability but effects diminish over time due to other protective factors • Correlations between & within levels of regulation • Mild – moderate correlations between levels • Regulation construct is continuous across time • Physiological measures capture basic feature of orientation to environment • Most variance not shared – suggests malleability in development • Consistent relationship between low neg emotionality and regulatory functions (e.g. sleep-wake cyclicity & less cry states) • Bidirectional influence between development of negative affect and regulatory functions Reactivity Reactivity Negative Emotionality Regulation Environmental stressors Fuccillo Regulation

  30. Results & conclusions (cont.) • Predicting self-regulation at age 5 • Structural model • Sig better fit when indirect paths included • Consistent with hierarchical-integrative model of brain maturation • Unanswered questions • Physiological & emotional regulatory processes across time • Need for person-centered analysis & study of predictors of resilience Fuccillo

More Related