Poster #80 - Flexible Emotion Regulatory Selection in 10- to 12-Year-Old Children Coping with Negative Emotions

• In Event: Poster Session 11

Abstract

Regulatory strategies involving engagement with emotional stimuli were traditionally considered adaptive, and strategies involving disengagement were considered maladaptive. More recent studies introduced the term ‘emotion regulation flexibility’ to highlight costs and benefits of each strategy in different contexts; in this understanding, an adaptive regulatory strategy in one context could be maladaptive in another. Emotion regulation flexibility has been found essential for mental health and psychological well-being. Studies have demonstrated that healthy adults have an adaptive, flexible regulatory selection pattern when confronted with different stimuli, showing an increased preference for distraction over reappraisal in high intensity emotional situations and an increased preference for reappraisal over distraction in low intensity situations. This study aimed to provide causal evidence of children’s flexible regulatory strategy selection when facing negative emotions. It focused on the regulatory selection stage that involves flexibly choosing between available regulatory strategies according to different emotional intensity levels. Study 1 developed and validated a set of matched high and low intensity emotional stimuli covering major negatively valanced stressors in children’s lives. As a continuation of Study 1, Study 2 tested the impact of emotional intensity levels on regulatory selection patterns with 58 children aged 10-12 years. As predicted, participants showed an adaptive and flexible regulatory selection pattern, demonstrated in their choice of reappraisal (engagement) to regulate low intensity stressors and distraction (disengagement) to regulate high intensity stressors.

Authors

• Yael Enav, University of Haifa
  Presenting Author

• Gili Glantz

• Hadassa Shuan

• Raziel Scheinberger

• Anat Karpel