Reliability and validity of a temporal distancing emotion regulation task in adolescence

Emotion Regulation by Psychological Distance and Level of Abstraction: Two Meta-Analyses

Self-reflection is suggested to attenuate feelings, yet researchers disagree on whether adopting a distant or near perspective, or processing the experience abstractly or concretely, is more effective. Given the relationship between psychological distance and level of abstraction, we suggest the "construal-matching hypothesis": Psychological distance and abstraction differently influence emotion intensity, depending on whether the emotion's appraisal involves low-level or high-level construal. Two meta-analyses tested the effects of psychological distance (k = 230) and level-of-abstraction (k = 98) manipulations on emotional experience. A distant perspective attenuated emotional experience (g = 0.52) but with weaker effects for high-level (g = 0.29; for example, self-conscious emotions) than low-level emotions (g= 0.64; for example, basic emotions). Level of abstraction only attenuated the experience of low-level emotions (g = 0.2) and showed a reverse (nonsignificant) effect for high-level emotions (g = -0.13). These results highlight differences between distancing and level-of-abstraction manipulations and the importance of considering the type of emotion experienced in emotion regulation.

Relationship between early language competence and cognitive emotion regulation in adolescence

Cognitive emotion regulation improves throughout adolescence and promotes good mental health. Here, we test whether language skills at school entry predict success in emotion regulation in an experimental task at age 10-11, using longitudinal data from the Surrey Communication and Language in Education Study. We additionally compared the performance of children with and without language disorder (LD). Across the whole sample (N = 344), language skills at school entry predicted emotion regulation success in Year 6 (β = 0.23), over and above the concurrent association between language and regulation success. There was no evidence that children with LD that could engage in the task were less successful regulators compared to peers with typical language. However, a quarter of children with LD were unable to complete the task. These children had more severe language difficulties, lower non-verbal IQ and more comorbid conditions. This has implications for clinicians addressing mental health needs for children with neurodevelopmental conditions that affect language, as conversations about emotions and emotion regulation are an integral part of therapy. The longitudinal relationship between language skills and the capacity to use temporal distancing for emotion regulation in early adolescence suggests that language may drive improvements in emotion regulation.

Reliability and validity of a temporal distancing emotion regulation task in adolescence

Adopting a temporally distant perspective on stressors, also known as using a temporal distancing emotion regulation strategy, can alleviate distress. Young adults’ ability to adopt a temporal distancing strategy has previously been measured using an experimental temporal distancing task (Ahmed, Somerville, & Sebastian, 2018). In the current study, we evaluate the psychometric properties of this task in younger (N = 345, aged 10–11) and older (N = 99, aged 18–21) adolescents and explore developmental differences in the ability to use temporal distancing to alleviate distress. Participants listened to scenarios and rated negative affect when adopting a distant-future perspective, a near-future perspective, or when reacting naturally. We evaluated the test–retest reliability of the measure in older adolescents and its construct validity in both younger and older adolescents by assessing correlations with self-report measures of emotion regulation strategy use. Our findings broadly replicated those of Ahmed et al. (2018): Adopting distant- and near-future perspectives produced significantly lower self-reported distress relative to reacting naturally, with the distant-future strategy producing the least distress. Older adolescents alleviated their distress more effectively than younger adolescents and reported projecting further into the future. Regulation success scores on the temporal distancing task showed adequate test–retest reliability. However, these scores did not correlate with self-reported habitual use of temporal distancing or reappraisal strategies generally. These findings suggest that the ability to use a temporal distancing strategy for emotion regulation improves during adolescence, but that ability may not be related to habitual use of this strategy.