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Profiling children's emotion regulation behaviours
Angela Callear1, Shane T Harvey1, David Bimler1
1School of Psychology, Massey University, Massey, New Zealand.
Insights
This study identifies five distinct emotion regulation styles in children by analyzing nine core behavioral clusters. These findings help parents and clinicians better understand and support children's emotional development.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychology
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Existing measurements of children's emotion regulation often focus on internal processes or isolated behaviors.
- Previous research has explored anger and anxiety emotion regulation styles but not broader behavioral patterns.
- Callear, Harvey, and Bimler (2016) developed the Children's Emotion Regulation Inventory (CHERI) for observable strategies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify core patterns and clusters of children's emotion regulation behaviors.
- To investigate how different emotion regulation behaviors co-occur in children.
- To identify distinct emotion regulation behavioral styles in children.
Main Methods:
- Utilized the Children's Emotion Regulation Inventory (CHERI) with 85 behavioral items.
- Employed an ordinal sorting procedure (Method of Successive Sorts) with 151 parent responses.
- Applied hierarchical and k-means clustering to aggregate responses into empirical scales and identify patterns.
Main Results:
- Identified nine key 'hotspots' or clusters of children's emotion regulation behaviors.
- Discovered five distinct summary styles of children's emotion regulation based on these clusters.
- These styles represent common co-occurring patterns of emotion regulation behaviors.
Conclusions:
- The identified hotspots and styles offer a framework for assessing and supporting children's emotional development.
- Provides valuable insights for clinicians, parents, and educators.
- Advances understanding of the complex interplay of children's observable emotion regulation behaviors.
Abstract:
Callear, Harvey, and Bimler (2016, International Journal of Behavioral Development, 41, 456) organized children's emotion regulation behaviours into a coherent structure. However, further investigation is needed to identify core patterns of these emotion regulation behaviours. To identify clusters and prototypal constellations of emotion regulation behaviours, the 85 behavioural items comprising the Children's Emotion Regulation Inventory (ChERI) were ranked by 151 parents in order of applicability, using an ordinal sorting procedure (Method of Successive Sorts). Responses were aggregated in empirical scales, for classification of the cases using hierarchical and k-means clustering. The scales were based on nine key 'hotspots' of children's emotion regulation behaviours, interpreted as Outward Engagement, Inward or Somatic Focus, Disengagement, Disruptive, Impulsive/Labile, Social Connectedness/Compliance, Generating Closeness/Intimacy, Establishing Order and Generating Disorder. Five summary styles of children's emotion regulation emerged and are characterized on those scales. These hotspots and styles provide guidance to clinicians, parents, teachers, and other invested adults to assess and support children's emotional development. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Measurements of children's emotion regulation predominantly focus on internal processes and/or isolated expressions of emotion regulation behaviours. Research detailing anger and anxiety emotion regulation styles exists (e.g., Carthy, Horesh, Apter, & Gross, 2010, Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 32, 23; Zalewski, Lengua, Wilson, Trancik, & Bazinet, 2011, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 110, 141). Callear, Harvey, and Bimler (2016, International Journal of Behavioral Development, 41, 456) developed the Children's Emotion Regulation Inventory to identify children's observable emotion regulation strategies. What does this study add? Research does not investigate which clusters of children's emotion regulation behaviours are most commonly exhibited and nor does it investigate emotion regulation behavioural styles. Examines how children's emotion regulation behaviours co-occur. Identifies nine core clusters (groupings) of emotion regulation behaviours most commonly observed to be exhibited in children. Identifies five emotion regulation behavioural styles (common co-occurring patterns of emotion regulation behaviour clusters) in children.