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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
08:09

Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood

Published on: February 11, 2017

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Secure attachment in infancy predicts context-dependent emotion expression in middle childhood

Alexandra R Tabachnick1, Yunqi He1, Lindsay Zajac1

  • 1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware.

Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
|June 17, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Secure infant attachment is linked to better emotional regulation in children. Securely attached children show more appropriate emotional responses across different situations, aiding socioemotional development.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Attachment Theory
  • Childhood Emotional Development

Background:

  • Attachment security is crucial for socioemotional development.
  • Limited research exists on infant attachment's link to middle childhood emotional functioning across contexts.
  • Children with Child Protective Services involvement are at risk for emotion dysregulation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To examine the association between secure infant attachment and context-dependent emotion expression in 9-year-old children.
  • To investigate emotion regulation in at-risk children with varying attachment security.
  • To understand how attachment security influences emotional functioning in middle childhood.

Main Methods:

  • Longitudinal study of 78 families with Child Protective Services involvement.
  • Assessed infant attachment security.
  • Observed parent-child interactions at age 9 to evaluate context-dependent emotion expression.

Main Results:

  • Securely attached infants showed less task-incongruent affect at age 9.
  • Secure children displayed a greater decrease in negative affect between distressing and positive discussions.
  • Secure children were rated as having more appropriate emotion expression than insecure children.

Conclusions:

  • Infant attachment security predicts more adaptive emotion expression in middle childhood.
  • Attachment security is a significant factor in emotion regulation for at-risk children.
  • Attachment serves as a potential intervention target for children experiencing emotion dysregulation.

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