Dynamics of Children’s Emotion Regulation and Mother’s Regulatory Strategies in Relation to Maternal and Child Characteristics

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Emotion regulation, the ability to modify one’s emotion in a goal directed manner, is a hallmark of early socioemotional development (Thompson, 1994). Importantly, emotion regulation is a dynamic process that involves moment-to-moment changes in observed emotions in relation to the changes in regulatory strategies (Cole et al., 2017). Maternal regulatory strategies used in mother-child interactions play a key role in shaping the dynamics of young children’s emotion regulation (Eisenberg et al., 1998). Moreover, maternal and child characteristics could moderate the temporal patterns of emotion regulation (Morris et al., 2007). Thus, this symposium will explore the role of maternal regulatory strategies, maternal and child characteristics in the dynamics of children’s emotion regulation using temporal analytic approaches. The first paper examined the change of child negative emotions led by maternal strategies and the moderating role of child and maternal characteristics among U.S., Turkish, Romanian, and Indian families with toddlers. The second paper investigated the temporal effects of maternal regulatory strategies on child positive and negative emotions using 2-second lag and explored the moderating role of maternal depression and child characteristics. The third paper studied the effect of maternal depressive symptoms on the latencies of negative emotions in children during a frustrating task and the moderating effect of child sex. All papers will discuss the importance of using a dynamic approach when studying children’s emotion regulation. A prominent researcher who is an expert in this area will discuss the overarching implications and applications of the papers and directions for future research.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chairs

• Meingold Hiu-Ming Chan, University of British Columbia (UBC)

• Wolfgang Josef Friedlmeier, Grand Valley State University

Discussant

• Pamela M Cole, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Individual Presentations

• Temporal Change of Toddlers’ Negative Affect as a Consequence of Maternal Regulatory Strategies in US, Turkey, Romania, and India - Presenting Author: Wolfgang Josef Friedlmeier, Grand Valley State University; Non-Presenting Author: Tripti Kathuria, N/A; Non-Presenting Author: Feyza Corapci, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi (BOUN); Non-Presenting Author: Georgiana Susa; Non-Presenting Author: Oana Benga, University of Bucharest

• Bidirectional, Dynamic Association Between Mother’s Regulatory Behavior and Child Emotion Expression - Presenting Author: Meingold Hiu-Ming Chan, University of British Columbia (UBC); Non-Presenting Author: Xin Feng, The Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Micah Gerhardt, Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Karis Inboden, Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Emma Hooper, California Lutheran University

• Maternal Depressive Symptoms Predict Girls’ but Not Boys’ Emotion Regulation: A Prospective Moment-to-Moment Observation Study - Presenting Author: Jia Yan, Utah State University; Non-Presenting Author: Xin Feng, The Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Sarah Jane Schoppe-Sullivan, Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Micah Gerhardt, Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Qiong Wu, Florida State Univeristy