Poster #50 - Children’s emotion-specific narratives and emotion regulation strategies

• In Event: Poster Session 16

Abstract

Family storytelling is an essential cultural tool that provides a format for processing impactful social and emotional events. Children in families that discuss negative life experiences together typically have better self-regulatory competence than children in families that do not. It is less clear however, how storytelling might be related to the specific emotion regulation (ER) strategies individuals use. It is possible that individuals’ interpretations of their emotional experiences shape how they regulate. It is especially important to understand this relationship in children, as their experience of their family’s involvement in emotional challenges (as an instigator, a support, or a bystander) could shape their developing ER skills. Thus, the aim of the current study was to analyze children’s narratives about family members from different emotion contexts in relation to their ER strategies.

Children (n = 184, Mage = 7.22 years, SDage= 2.3, 51% girls) completed structured interviews where they were prompted to recall times they felt very angry, scared, sad, and happy. They recounted each story with as much detail as possible to the experimenter, who then asked what they did or thought about to make themselves feel better. These interviews were transcribed verbatim and then coded using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software for themes, including the mention of family members, friends, and intrapersonal factors (e.g., body and health). Trained coders evaluated the ER strategies children reported using in each emotional context (e.g., changing thoughts, changing goals, problem solving).

About 62% of children mentioned family in their anger narrative, whereas only about 50% of children mentioned family in the sad, scared, or happy narratives. Of the children who mentioned a family member in the angry context, most (91%) told a story in which a family member was the target of their anger; in 9% of stories, a family member was only present or helped resolve the child’s anger at another (e.g., coach, friend). Of the children whose anger was targeted at family, 63.8% targeted a sibling, 33% targeted parents, and 6.4% targeted a cousin or grandparent.

The children whose anger was directed at a family member reported using more different types of ER strategies, making more regulatory attempts, and using more goal changing strategies specifically (ts > 2.02, ps < .05) compared to children whose anger was targeted elsewhere.

It is possible that anger targeted at a family member motivates children to make more attempts and try a wider variety of strategies compared to anger at another due to the high stakes (e.g., needing the relationship to endure). Another explanation is that children may feel safer around family members to display emotions that are otherwise socially discouraged. Future analyses will compare children’s mention of family members and ER strategies across the other emotion stories (e.g., sad, scared, happy) to clarify how different emotions may be related to children’s relationships and regulatory behaviors. In sum, this project represents a first step toward understanding how children’s processing of their emotional experiences relates to their regulatory competencies and strategy choices.

Authors

• Laura Deloretta, University of California - Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth L Davis, University of California - Riverside