Janice Zeman

Emotion Regulation in Children With Anxiety Disorders

This study examined emotion management skills in addition to the role of emotional intensity and self-efficacy in emotion regulation in 26 children with anxiety disorders (ADs) ages 8 to 12 years and their counterparts without any form of psychopathology. Children completed the Childrens Emotion Management Scales (CEMS) and Emotion Regulation Interview (ERI), and mothers reported on their childrens emotion regulation using the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC). Results indicated that children who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (4th ed., American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria for an anxiety disorder had difficulty managing worried, sad, and anger experiences, potentially due to their report of experiencing emotions with high intensity and having little confidence in their ability to regulate this arousal. These findings indicate that emotion regulation needs to be considered centrally in research with anxious populations.

Anger and Sadness Regulation: Predictions to Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in Children

Examined the relation between childrens self-reported anger and sadness regulation and the presence of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Participants were 121 boys and 106 girls in the fourth and fifth grades who completed the Childrens Depression Inventory (CDI), State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC), Emotion Expression Scale for Children (EESC), and Childrens Emotion Management Scales (CSMS, CAMS) and rated each other on aggressive behavior. Results of multiple regression analyses indicated that the inability to identify emotional states, the inhibition of anger, the dysregulation of anger and sadness, and the constructive coping with anger predicted internalizing symptoms. The dysregulated expression of sadness and constructive coping with anger were inversely related to externalizing symptoms.

DEVELOPMENT AND INITIAL VALIDATION OF THE CHILDREN'S SADNESS MANAGEMENT SCALE

Although sadness in children is a normal and transient experience, research has not investigated how children manage sadness. Understanding normative sadness management has important implications for helping children who exhibit maladaptive forms of emotional expression. The Childrens Sadness Management Scale (CSMS) was developed to assess childrens inhibition, dysregulated-expression, and coping with sadness experience and expression. Using multiple informants, reliability and validity were established based on a community sample of 227 fourth- and fifth-grade childrens self-report, maternal report (N = 171), and peer ratings of behavior (N = 227). A three-factor solution was supported with strong internal consistency for the Inhibition scale and moderately strong internal consistency for the Emotion Regulation Coping and Dysregulated-Expression scales. Findings indicate that the CSMS provides a reliable and valid measure of normative sadness management.

Socialization of children's emotion regulation in mother-child dyads: a developmental psychopathology perspective.

This study investigated the socialization of childrens emotion regulation in 25 physically maltreating and 25 nonmaltreating mother-child dyads. Maltreating mothers and their 6- to 12-year-old children were recruited from two parenting programs affiliated with Childrens Protective Services with a control group matched on race, SES, child gender, and child age. Children and their mothers were interviewed individually about their (a) management of emotional expression. (b) strategies for coping with emotional arousal, and (c) anticipated consequences following emotional displays. Compared to controls, maltreated children expected less maternal support in response to their emotional displays, reported being less likely to display emotions to their mothers, and generated fewer effective coping strategies for anger. Maltreating mothers indicated less understanding of childrens emotional displays and fewer effective strategies for helping children to cope with emotionally arousing situations than nonmaltreating mothers. Further, findings indicated that maternal socialization practices (e.g., providing support in response to childrens emotional display, generating effective coping strategies for their child) mediate the relation between child maltreatment and childrens regulation of emotional expression and emotional arousal. These findings suggest that childrens emotion regulation strategies are influenced by their relationship with their social environment (e.g.. physically maltreating, nonmaltreating) and that the experience of a physically maltreating relationship may interfere with childrens emotional development.

Emotion management skills in sexually maltreated and nonmaltreated girls: A developmental psychopathology perspective

Research has demonstrated that children who experience familial sexual maltreatment are at risk for developing psychological difficulties characterized by emotional and behavioral dysregulation. Surprisingly, however, little attention has been directed toward identifying processes in emotional development that differ in maltreated and nonmaltreated children. From a developmental psychopathology perspective, the present study examined emotion management skills (i.e., emotional understanding, emotion regulation) in 21 sexually maltreated girls and their nonmaltreated peers to determine how the experience of sexual maltreatment may interfere with normative emotional development. Findings indicated that sexually maltreated girls, in comparison to their nonmaltreated peers, demonstrate lower emotional understanding and decreased ability to regulate their emotions in accordance with cultural expectations. Further, maltreated girls expected less emotional support and more relational conflict from parents in response to sadness displays and from parents and peers in response to anger displays. These findings will be discussed from the functionalist approach to emotional development, emphasizing the importance of social context (e.g., maltreating, nonmaltreating) in the development of childrens emotion management skills.

Initial validation of the Emotion Expression Scale for Children (EESC).

The Emotion Expression Scale for Children (EESC) is a new self-report scale designed to examine 2 aspects of deficient emotion expression: lack of emotion awareness and lack of motivation to express negative emotion. Validity was assessed using self-report measures of emotion regulation and self- and peer-report of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Using a community sample of 208 fourth- and fifth-grade children, reliability analyses revealed high internal consistency and moderate test-retest reliability of the EESC. The results provide initial support for concurrent validity for the EESC factors evidenced by relations with measures of emotion management. Associations were found between the EESC and measures of internalizing symptoms.

Emotional Dysregulation and Interpersonal Difficulties as Risk Factors for Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Adolescent Girls

The purpose of this study was to examine a model of factors that place psychiatrically hospitalized girls at risk for non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). The role of familial and peer interpersonal difficulties, as well as emotional dysregulation, were examined in relationship to NSSI behaviors. Participants were 99 adolescent girls (83.2% Caucasian; M age = 16.08) admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Structural equation modeling indicated the primacy of emotional dysregulation as an underlying process placing adolescents at risk for NSSI and mediating the influence of interpersonal problems through the family and peer domains. When family and peer relationships were characterized by conflict and lack of support for managing emotions, adolescents reported more dysregulated emotion processes. Family relational problems were directly and indirectly related to NSSI through emotional dysregulation. The indirect processes of peer relational problems, through emotional dysregulation, were significantly associated with NSSI frequency and severity. The findings suggest that the process by which interpersonal difficulties contribute to NSSI is complex, and is at least partially dependent on the nature of the interpersonal problems and emotion processes.

Children's Expression of Negative Affect: Reasons and Methods.

This study examined the influence of socialization figures (mother, father, best friend, medium friend), emotion type (anger, sadness, physical pain ), age, and gender on 66 2nd and 71 5th-grade childrens reasons for and methods of affect expression. Children reported expressing sadness in order to receive support, expressing pain because they perceived it was uncontrollable, and regulating anger due to negative consequences. Girls reported using verbal means to communicate emotion, whereas boys cited mild aggressive methods. Younger children indicated expressing emotion to receive assistance because they lack regulation skills, and to adhere to norms. Children expressed emotion in passive ways to fathers more than peers, and mothers were deemed by younger children as most accepting of displays of anger.

The inclusion of fathers in the empirical investigation of child psychopathology: an update.

This investigation provides an update on the inclusion of fathers in child psychopathology research. Articles published from January 1992 to January 2005 that examined parental contributions to child psychological maladjustment were identified. Each article was coded for child age, parental race, how parent gender was analyzed, type of journal, and year of publication. Overall, results replicated previous reviews (Phares & Compas, 1992), suggesting that fathers continue to be neglected in child psychopathology research. Further analyses revealed (a) higher rates of paternal research involvement as child age increased, (b) studies with a predominantly Caucasian sample included separate analyses for mothers and fathers more frequently than those with predominantly African American samples, (c) paternal research inclusion was higher in clinical compared to developmental psychology journals, and (d) over the past 6 years, more research has included fathers as participants than from the previous 7-year period (1992–1998).

Methodological Implications of the Affect Revolution: A 35-Year Review of Emotion Regulation Assessment in Children.

This investigation analyzed the methods used over the past 35 years to study emotion regulation (ER) in children. Articles published from 1975 through 2010 were identified in 42 child clinical, developmental, and emotion psychology journals. Overall, 61.1% of published ER articles relied on one method and 23.6% used two methods. Analyses revealed (a) 82.8% of published ER research occurring within the past decade; (b) higher rates of observational methods with infant and toddler/preschool samples, but more use of self-report methodology with middle childhood and adolescent samples; (c) a longer history of published ER research with samples of infants to 5-year-olds, including the use of more longitudinal design, compared with older samples; and (d) a positive association between journal impact ratings and the use of physiological and observational measurement. Review of the measurement tools used to capture ER revealed great diversity in how emotion processes are understood and evaluated.