Developmental change in emotion expression in frustrating situations: The roles of context and gender

Etch the Emotional Life: Mother-Child Emotion Socialization from Age 3 to 6 Years

Emotion socialization is conceptualized as a relational process, yet children's role in socializing parents' emotions is rarely considered. This study explored longitudinal patterns of mother-child emotion socialization from early to middle childhood. Participants were 349 children (51% boys, 49% girls) and their mothers from the southeastern United States. Children were 79.4% White, 12% Black or African American, and 8.3% multi-racial or other; 6.3% were Hispanic/Latino. Mother-child dyads completed an etch-a-sketch task when children were 3, 4, and 6 years old. At each time, mothers' and children's expression, coaching, and dismissing of positive and negative emotions were observed. Hierarchical Linear Modeling analyses identified developmental trajectories and within-dyad associations of emotion coaching and dismissing with emotion expression. Over time, expression of positive emotions decreased and expression of negative emotions showed no change for both mothers and children. Mothers decreased in coaching children's positive emotions and showed no change in coaching children's negative emotions. Children increased in coaching mothers' positive emotions and showed no change in coaching mothers' negative emotions over time. Both mothers and children decreased in dismissing emotions over time. Within dyads, mothers' increases in coaching and in dismissing related to children's increased expression. Children's increases in coaching related to mothers' increased expression. Findings highlight complexity and dynamics of emotion socialization processes over time.

Vocabulary size predicts behavioral problems in emotionally reactive children

Internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems place children at an increased risk for low academic achievement and socioemotional maladjustment. Children's language skills and level of emotional reactivity have been shown to predict behavioral problems later in development. Yet, there is an absence of research investigating vocabulary by negative emotionality interactions with respect to the development of behavioral problems during early childhood. Our study sought to fill this gap by examining whether the relation between preschool (age 3) vocabulary size and internalizing/externalizing problems during the early school years (age 6) is moderated by preschool negative emotional reactivity, even after controlling for preschool behavioral problems as well as children's socioeconomic background. Longitudinal data was collected from 256 typically developing children (129 girls, 75% White) and their mothers (64% held a college degree). Linear regression analyses revealed moderate rank-order stability in children's internalizing and externalizing problems across this period of development. Evidence of an interaction effect emerged in both the internalizing and externalizing problems regression models. That is, age 3 vocabulary was negatively related to age 6 behavioral problems, but only among children exhibiting higher levels of negative emotional reactivity. Our results indicate that early vocabulary acquisition may serve as a buffer against adverse behavioral outcomes in children with a natural propensity toward expressing negative emotions. These findings point to a more nuanced picture of the relations between language, emotional reactivity, and behavioral problems in childhood, which are discussed in greater detail to inform future intervention and educational research.

Maternal invalidation and child RSA reactivity to frustration interact to predict teacher-reported aggression among at-risk preschoolers

BACKGROUND

Aggression is a transdiagnostic indicator of risk and represents one of the most common reasons children are referred for mental health treatment. Theory and research highlight the impact of maternal invalidation on child aggression and suggest that its influence may vary based on differences in child physiological reactivity. Moreover, the interaction between these risk factors may be particularly pronounced among children of mothers with emotion regulation (ER) difficulties. The current study examined the independent and interactive effects of maternal invalidation and child physiological reactivity to frustration on teacher-reported aggression in an at-risk sample of preschool children.

METHOD

Participants included 77 mothers (Mage = 33.17 years, s.d. = 4.83; 35% racial/ethnic minority) and their children (Mage = 42.48 months; s.d. = 3.78; 56% female; 47% racial/ethnic minority). Groups of mothers with and without clinician-rated ER difficulties reported on maternal invalidation, and child respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was assessed continuously during a frustration task as an indicator of physiological reactivity. Teachers or daycare providers reported on child aggression.

RESULTS

Results demonstrated positive associations between maternal ER difficulties and both maternal invalidation and child RSA reactivity to frustration. As expected, the interaction between maternal invalidation and child RSA reactivity was significant, such that higher maternal invalidation and greater child RSA reactivity to frustration predicted more aggression in a daycare or preschool setting. Importantly, this effect was demonstrated while controlling for demographic covariates and baseline RSA.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings are in line with diathesis-stress and biosocial models of risk and point to multiple targets for prevention and early intervention.

Verbal Communication with the Patient Is Not Enough: The Six Languages of the Sick

Evidence shows that verbal communication is just one of the ways patients indicate their wishes. For a sufficiently careful communication, we should also grasp other five unusual though evident languages: (a) body language, (b) the way patients manage their environment, (c) unconscious language, (d) lab-evidenced language, and (e) the way they master technology. So, we have six languages that should be intertwined to understand the real language of the sick. Grasping these languages helps health professionals frame the patient’s mood, their level of suffering or mental growth, and understand what words alone cannot express. Words cannot express completely what a patient senses: for subjection, shyness, because some patients are still non-verbal or because verbal communication is just a useful way of freezing concept but has not the same fluidity and liberty of the other above-described languages. It is mandatory for caregivers to wonder how many of these languages they are actually decrypting during an interview with the patient. On the other hand, caregivers unconsciously communicate much through two unexpected languages: the architectural language and the language of medical procedures. The way they welcome or obstruct the patient, their hesitations across a treatment, or in showing a serene collegiality are forms of subtle communication. A paradigmatic scenario where all these languages should be implemented is the “informed consent” process, which should be turned into a “shared therapeutic pathway”, summing up all the communicative modes illustrated in the text.

Applying new RDoC dimensions to the development of emotion regulation: Examining the influence of maternal emotion regulation on within-individual change in child emotion regulation

While the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) acknowledges that environmental and developmental influences represent important elements of the RDoC framework, there is little specificity regarding how and when to systematically examine the impact of these dimensions on domains of function. The primary aims of this paper are to demonstrate the ways in which the RDoC can be expanded to include an explicit emphasis on 1) examining within-individual change in developmental processes over time and 2) evaluating the extent to which selective and measurable environmental influences drive meaningful change during key developmental periods. We provide data from an ongoing randomized control trial as a proof of concept to highlight how repeated assessments within an experimental intervention design affords the unique opportunity to test the impact of environmental influences on within-individual change. Using preliminary data from 77 mother-child dyads repeatedly assessed across 12 months during the preschool period, we demonstrate the influence of changes in maternal emotion regulation (ER) on within-individual growth in child ER and link that growth to fewer teacher-reported externalizing problems. In line with this Special Issue, findings are discussed within the context of expanding and clarifying the existing RDoC framework to explicitly incorporate environmental and developmental dimensions.

Pretending emotions in the early years: The role of language and symbolic play

Although 3-year-old children sometimes simulate emotions to adapt to social norms, we do not know if even younger children can pretend emotions in playful contexts. The present study investigated (1) what emotions infants of 1-2 years old are capable of pretending and (2) the possible role of language and symbolic play in the ability to pretend emotions. The sample included 69 infants aged 18 to 31 months and their parents. Infants were administrated the Test of Pretend Play, and their parents responded to the MacArthur-Bates CDI-II inventory, part of the MacArthur-Bates CDI-I, and a questionnaire about the expression of pretend emotions. Results suggest that very young children simulate emotions. Furthermore, children's simulation of emotions was related to both symbolic play and language. Specifically, the ability to label emotions was linked to the ability to simulate them. The role of language and symbolic play in the development of the capacity to express and understand pretend emotions is discussed.

Individual and socioenvironmental differences in autobiographical emotional appraisal of preschoolers

Emotions are essential processes for integrating events into autobiographical memory. Different children react differently to the same event. The process through which these different responses are generated from subjective evaluations of an event is called emotional appraisal. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the variations in the emotional appraisal of autobiographical events of 4- and 5-year-old children from homes with different socioenvironmental conditions. We compared preschoolers' emotional appraisal responses with those of their families. The emotional accuracy of the preschoolers was found to differ according to the different socioenvironmental conditions of their homes. Greater appraisal accuracy was observed in the favorable condition, and it was greater for emotional events than for neutral events. Appraisal accuracy also differed with age, with 5-year-olds showing greater appraisal accuracy than 4-year-olds. Therefore, the emotional appraisal of these events may also be affected by age and valence when attributing emotions to personal experiences.

Age-related Changes in the Relation between Preschoolers' Anger and Persistence

Although the functionalist perspective on emotional development posits that emotions serve adaptive functions, empirical tests of the role of anger mostly focus on how anger contributes to dysfunction. Developmentally, as children gain agency and skill at emotion regulation between the ages of 36 months and 48 months, their modulation of anger may facilitate its functional role for behavior. We examined this possibility through study of how 120 children’s anger and sadness were related to persistence during the transparent locked box task at ages 36 and 48 months. Using survival analyses, we examined how children’s anger and sadness were related to their giving up during the challenging task, and whether those relations were moderated by age. Using hidden Markov models (HMMs), we examined how children transitioned among anger, sadness, and on-task behavior states and whether those dynamics differed with age. Survival analysis revealed that age moderated the relation between anger and giving up. Greater anger was associated with greater likelihood of giving up earlier in the task at 36 months but with lower likelihood of giving up at 48 months. HMM analyses revealed that children were more likely to transition from a Calm/On-task to Calm/Off-task state at 36 months than at 48 months; that children were more likely to remain in an Anger/On-task state at 36 months than at 48 months; and that children were more likely to transition from Calm/On-task to Anger/On-task, and from Anger/On-task back to Calm/On-task at 48 months than at 36 months. Taken together, the findings suggest that anger appraisals may facilitate children in maintaining persistence, but that this functionality may develop with age.

From children's expressive control to emotion regulation: Looking back, looking ahead

In 1984, Carolyn Saarni published an important cross-sectional study on the development of children's expressive control. That paper, as with much of her early work, presaged interest in the development of emotion regulation and of the efforts to understand emotion regulation both in typical and at risk children. In this paper, we look back on Dr. Saarni's work on expressive control and studies that used her creative disappointment task. We discuss conclusions from that work and how this germinal work on expressive control contributed to the study of the broader concept of emotion regulation. We look ahead to the next steps that carry this line of research forward contributing to the development of emotional competence and mental health.