Emotion and Self Regulation

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