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Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
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Preschoolers' emotion reactivity and regulation: Links with maternal psychological distress and child behavior

Stella Tsotsi1, Jessica L Borelli2, Mumtaz Backer3

  • 11PROMENTA Research Centre, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

Development and Psychopathology
|November 15, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Maternal psychological distress impacts preschoolers' socio-emotional development. Lower child emotion regulation, linked to maternal depression, predicts externalizing problems, highlighting early intervention needs.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Child Psychiatry
  • Behavioral Neuroscience

Background:

  • Maladaptive emotion regulation links maternal and child psychological well-being in school-aged children.
  • The role of emotion regulation in preschoolers' development remains unclear.
  • Maternal psychological distress is a significant factor in child socio-emotional development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Investigate preschoolers' emotion reactivity and regulation.
  • Examine the association between maternal psychological distress and child internalizing/externalizing problems.
  • Determine if emotion regulation mediates the link between maternal distress and child behavioral issues.

Main Methods:

  • Assessed preschoolers' emotion reactivity and regulation via observed behavior and physiology (heart-rate variability).
  • Utilized a fear induction task at 42 months.
  • Collected maternal self-reports on depressive mood and anxiety, and parent-reported child internalizing/externalizing problems at 48 months.

Main Results:

  • Higher maternal depressive mood correlated with lower child fear-related reactivity and regulation (heart-rate variability).
  • Child emotion regulation mediated the association between maternal depressive mood and externalizing problems.
  • Findings support the role of preschoolers' emotion regulation in the maternal distress-child difficulties link.

Conclusions:

  • Preschoolers' emotion reactivity and regulation play a role in the relationship between maternal psychological distress and child socio-emotional difficulties.
  • The specific emotion assessed (fear) may influence the observed associations.
  • Early emotion regulation skills are crucial for mitigating negative outcomes associated with maternal distress.

Keywords:
depressive moodexternalizing problemsfear-related regulationrespiratory sinus arrhythmia

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