Developmental Pathways of Emotion Regulation Processes from ages 3 to 10: The Mediating Role of Executive Control

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

One of the key developmental tasks during childhood is to acquire skills necessary for modulating emotional experiences. Children’s ability to effectively regulate negative emotions plays a significant role in their development and adjustment, whereas difficulty in managing emotional expressions poses many long-term challenges, including the development and maintenance of various psychopathologies (Aldao, Gee, de Los Reyes, & Seager, 2016; Morris et al., 2007). However, there are significant gaps in our understanding of how multiple components of emotion regulation processes develop in young children. Moreover, few studies have investigated developmental sequences of emotion lability and adaptive regulation encompassing multiple domains of factors and considering dynamic interplay of those characteristics. Therefore, we aimed to understand developmental pathways underlying emotion regulation in preadolescence by examining ecological-transactional processes among contextual, parenting, and child characteristics from age 3 to age 10. We highlighted the development of executive control as an explanatory mechanism between contextual risks (e.g., multiple familial risks, parenting quality) during early childhood and emotion regulatory processes (e.g., emotion lability, adaptive regulation) during preadolescence.
Participants were 241 children (123 boys) of middle-income families who were at risk for school-age conduct problems (Olson & Sameroff, 1997). Data were collected at 3, 6, and 10 years of child age, using multiple informants and assessment contexts. Specifically, a multiple familial risk index was created from the domains of social resources (family income, perceived social isolation), family resources (marital aggression, total family functioning) and maternal resources (marital status, maternal mental health) that were measured when children were 3 years of age. Parenting quality consisted of four different measurements: mother’s negative appraisals of child behavior (Olson et al., 1982), mother’s self-perceived caregiving efficacy (Abidin & Abidin, 1990), parental warm responsiveness (Power, 2002), and parental corporal punishment (Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1994). Child executive control was rated by mothers at 3, 6, and 10 years of the child’s age using Rothbart’s Child Behavior Questionnaire (Rothbart et al., 2001). Finally, children’s emotional lability and adaptive regulation at 10 years were assessed by teachers using Emotion Regulation Checklist (Shields & Cicchetti, 1997).
Results of a structural equation modeling (Figure) indicated a significant pathway from multiple familial risk to emotion lability mediated by parenting quality and initial levels of executive control. Moreover, there was a trend level of mediation pathway such that higher levels of multiple familial risks were associated with attenuated growth of child executive control, which in turn was predictive of higher emotion lability.
The results of this study indicated that both child characteristics and surrounding environment in early childhood may play significant roles in preadolescence emotion regulatory process in school context. It is particularly intriguing that both the initial level and the growth of executive control serve as important mediators linking the relationship between contextual factors and emotion lability. This study also has practical implications in that early familial risks and parenting quality may be possible targets for early identification and intervention of later child emotion regulation by improving children’s executive control.

Authors

• Sujin Lee, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Presenting Author

• Margaret Pleas, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sheryl L Olson, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author