Biological signatures of emotion regulation flexibility in children: Parenting context and links with child adjustment

The Tuning in to Kids parenting program delivered online improves emotion socialization and child behavior in a first randomized controlled trial

Emotion-focused parenting interventions have only rarely been evaluated systematically in Europe. This study investigates the effectiveness of "Tuning in to Kids" (TIK) from Australia delivered online in a randomized controlled trial. TIK is a six-week emotion-focused group parenting program that has shown to improve many aspects of parent emotion socialization as well as child problem behavior in several different countries across cultures. Parents (N = 141) of children between 3 and 6 years of age were included in the study and randomly assigned to an intervention and wait-list control group. The intervention was delivered online due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2021 (intervention group) and one year later (control group) in Switzerland. Parents' beliefs about emotions, their reported reactions to the child's negative emotions, family emotional climate, and child behavior (internalizing and externalizing) improved after the intervention and stayed better until the 6 months follow-up in the intervention group, but not in the wait-list controls. Adherence to the program was very high. This study shows that parent emotion socialization practice is changeable with small effects even on child behavior and even after online delivery. This possibly makes Tuning in to Kids a promising emotion-focused parenting intervention when delivered online as an interactive group webinar.

Beyond the RewP: The reward feedback-elicited LPP and its potential associations with perceived stress and internalizing symptoms in late childhood

Internalizing problems increase substantially during late childhood and early adolescence, which are known to be associated with elevated perceived stress as children transition into adolescence. One risk factor that may moderate the stress-symptom association is reward processing. While neurophysiological research in this field has focused on the reward positivity component (RewP) elicited during reward processing, little work has examined the reward feedback-elicited late positive potential (LPP) and its association with internalizing psychopathology. The present study examined the moderating roles of the RewP and feedback-elicited LPP in the relationship between perceived stress and internalizing symptoms in late childhood. A community sample of 115 nine-to-12-year-old children (66 girls, Mean age = 11.00 years, SD = 1.16) completed an EEG version of the reward feedback paradigm, the Doors task, and completed questionnaires on perceived stress and internalizing symptoms. A principal component analysis revealed three temporo-spatial factors that were temporally and spatially analogous to the RewP, anterior LPP, and posterior LPP, respectively. As expected, an enlarged RewP was found towards the win condition compared to the loss condition. We also observed a potentiated LPP towards loss relative to win feedback, which may reflect the evaluation and reappraisal processes following unsuccessful performance (i.e., loss). We did not, however, find significant moderating effects of any ERP components on the stress-symptom association. Our study was first to isolate the feedback-elicited LPP in a reward processing paradigm in children and provide initial evidence on the modulation of the ERP component by task conditions. Future research is warranted to further explore the functional significance of the reward feedback-elicited LPP in association with perceived stress and internalizing psychopathology in youths.

Peer facilitation of emotion regulation in adolescence

Emotion regulation is particularly important for adolescents as they undergo normative developmental changes in affective systems and experience heightened risk for psychopathology. Despite a high need for emotion regulation during adolescence, commonly studied emotion regulation strategies like cognitive reappraisal are less beneficial for adolescents than adults because they rely on neural regions that are still developing during this period (i.e., lateral prefrontal cortex). However, adolescence is also marked by increased valuation of peer relationships and sensitivity to social information and cues. In the present review, we synthesize research examining emotion regulation and peer influence across development to suggest that sensitivity to peers during adolescence could be leveraged to improve emotion regulation for this population. We first discuss developmental trends related to emotion regulation at the level of behavior and brain in adolescents, using cognitive reappraisal as an exemplar emotion regulation strategy. Next, we discuss social influences on adolescent brain development, describing caregiver influence and increasing susceptibility to peer influence, to describe how adolescent sensitivity to social inputs represents both a window of vulnerability and opportunity. Finally, we conclude by describing the promise of social (i.e., peer-based) interventions for enhancing emotion regulation in adolescence.

The Temporal Dynamics of Emotion Regulation in Subjects With Major Depression and Healthy Control Subjects

BACKGROUND

Emotion regulation (ER) processes help support well-being, but ineffective ER is implicated in several psychiatric disorders. Engaging ER flexibly by going online and offline as needs and capacities shift may be more effective than engaging ER rigidly across time. Here, we sought to observe the neural temporal dynamics of an ER process, reappraisal, during regulation of responses to negative memories in healthy control subjects (n = 33) and subjects with major depressive disorder (n = 36).

METHODS

To track the temporal dynamics of reappraisal neural systems, we used a functional magnetic resonance imaging neural decoding approach. In task 1, subjects explicitly engaged reappraisal on instruction in response to aversive images, and we used this task to develop the decoder for detecting reappraisal. In task 2, subjects experienced negative autobiographical memories from a distant (third person, ER condition) or immersed (first person, control condition) perspective.

RESULTS

The neural decoder, trained to detect reappraisal in task 1, predicted greater reappraisal occurring during the task 2 distance versus immerse trials and was engaged more intensely during memories that were rated as being more negative. Across time, decoder output manifested a temporal dynamic of early engagement followed by disengagement. These results were replicated in an independent subject dataset (n = 59). Relative to healthy control subjects, subjects with major depressive disorder had a comparable initial increase in decoder engagement at the beginning of the trial but an attenuated decrease at the end.

CONCLUSIONS

Subjects with major depressive disorder evidenced a more rigid neural dynamic of reappraisal compared with healthy control subjects. Rigid ER may indicate diminished ability to flexibly and effectively regulate emotion.

Successful emotion regulation via cognitive reappraisal in authentic pride: Behavioral and event-related potential evidence

The present study explored whether authentic pride (AP) and hubristic pride (HP) were differently associated with cognitive reappraisal strategy. In study 1, undergraduates (n = 235) completed a battery of self-report questionnaires, including the Authentic and Hubristic Pride-Proneness Scale (AHPPS), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), and emotion regulation questionnaire (ERP-R). The results showed that AP significantly predicted successful down-regulation of negative emotions via a spontaneous cognitive reappraisal strategy. However, hubristic pride (HP) was negatively associated with spontaneous cognitive reappraisal. In study 2, participants with trait AP (n = 31) and trait HP (n = 29) undergoing continuous electroencephalogram (EEG) recording were required to reinterpret emotional pictures to down-regulate/up-regulate their negative/positive emotional reactions. The results showed that individuals with AP reported lower levels of emotional arousal and lower amplitudes of late positive potentials (LPPs) than did individuals with HP in response to negative pictures during the down-regulation of negative emotions, but not during passive viewing or up-regulation of positive emotions. Across two studies, these findings showed that individuals with AP could utilize the cognitive reappraisal strategy (spontaneously in daily life and under experimental instructions) to down-regulate negative emotions more successfully relative to individuals with HP.

Observed parental spontaneous scaffolding predicts neurocognitive signatures of child emotion regulation

Emotion regulation (ER), a key predictor of positive adjustment throughout the lifespan, is forged in development with profound contributions from parents. In particular, parent scaffolding of child cognition and emotion serves to bolster child regulatory abilities beyond what they could achieve alone. Through habitual parent-child interactions, scaffolded ER likely becomes internalized and drives foundations of neurocognitive regulatory circuitry. Yet, biobehavioral research is needed to establish predictive links between parent scaffolding behaviors and neurocognitive signatures of adaptive child ER. The present study examined observed parental spontaneous scaffolding of child performance during emotionally and cognitively challenging behavioral tasks to predict a neurocognitive signature of adaptive ER: the late positive potential (LPP). The LPP is an event-related potential (ERP) that is modulated by reappraisal, a widely-studied ER strategy defined as interpreting a stimulus in a more positive light. Reduced magnitude of the LPP via reappraisal is a signature of adaptive ER because it predicts both reduced emotional arousal and increased use of adaptive ER strategies. Ninety-seven (49 females; M_age = 6.96, SD = 1.15) 5 to 9 year olds were recruited along with one parent each. Parents and children then completed a cognitively challenging blocks task and a frustrating waiting task, which were subsequently coded to quantify scaffolding quality. Participants completed a Directed Reappraisal Task (DRT) in which unpleasant pictures were paired with either reappraisal or negative interpretations while EEG was recorded. Results showed that greater parental use of high-quality scaffolding predicted greater reduction of the LPP via reappraisal. These findings suggest that habitual parent scaffolding supports adaptive ER measured at the neurocognitive level in childhood. Further, results highlight the importance of examining parent-child interactions when evaluating biological processes underlying ER in childhood.

Adolescence as a pivotal period for emotion regulation development for consideration at current opinion in psychology

Adolescence is a dynamic period for the development of emotion regulation. For many individuals, emotion regulation skills improve dramatically during adolescence; however, for some youth, adolescence marks the beginning or worsening of psychopathology characterized by difficulties with emotion regulation. In the present review, I describe evidence that caregiving experiences play an outsized role in shaping interindividual variability in emotion regulation during adolescence. After describing work demonstrating links between caregiving - with an emphasis on parental socialization practices - and emotion regulation outcomes, I characterize our current understanding of how behavioral and neurobiological indices of emotion regulation develop normatively across adolescence. Using cognitive reappraisal as an exemplar emotion regulation strategy, I outline ways that caregiving might impact interindividual variability in emotion regulation neurodevelopment. I conclude by identifying two key future directions for adolescent emotion regulation research.