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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
Children's emotion regulation: Self-report and physiological response to peer provocation
Danielle M Hessler1, Lynn Fainsilber Katz
1Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195-1525, USA. dhessler@u.washington.edu
Developmental Psychology
|January 5, 2007
Summary
Children's emotion regulation (ER) is not uniform. Self-reports of ER align with physiological responses like heart rate reactivity but not always vagal tone suppression, especially in context-specific assessments.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychology
- Physiological Psychology
Background:
- Emotion regulation (ER) is crucial for children's social and emotional development.
- Existing research often assumes ER is a uniform skill, potentially overlooking contextual influences.
- Discrepancies between self-report measures and physiological indicators of ER warrant further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the concordance between children's self-reported emotion regulation (ER) and physiological measures.
- To examine ER in both specific contexts (peer provocation) and context-free settings.
- To determine if ER is a uniform skill across different assessment methods and situations.
Main Methods:
- Seventy-two middle childhood children (average age 9 years) participated.
- Measured heart rate reactivity and recovery during a peer provocation task.
- Assessed vagal regulation and utilized context-free and context-specific self-report ER measures.
Main Results:
- Children reporting higher dysregulation exhibited increased heart rate reactivity to provocation.
- No significant differences in heart rate recovery were observed based on self-reported dysregulation.
- Context-free self-report ER measures, but not context-specific ones, correlated with a failure to suppress vagal tone.
Conclusions:
- Children's emotion regulation (ER) is not a monolithic skill and varies across contexts and measurement methods.
- Physiological measures like heart rate reactivity and vagal tone provide nuanced insights into ER.
- Findings have implications for refining ER assessment tools and understanding children's peer interactions.
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