Susan D. Calkins

Continuity and Discontinuity of Behavioral Inhibition and Exuberance: Psychophysiological and Behavioral Influences across the First Four Years of Life.

Four-month-old infants were screened (N = 433) for temperamental patterns thought to predict behavioral inhibition, including motor reactivity and the expression of negative affect. Those selected (N = 153) were assessed at multiple age points across the first 4 years of life for behavioral signs of inhibition as well as psychophysiological markers of frontal electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry. Four-month temperament was modestly predictive of behavioral inhibition over the first 2 years of life and of behavioral reticence at age 4. Those infants who remained continuously inhibited displayed right frontal EEG asymmetry as early as 9 months of age while those who changed from inhibited to noninhibited did not. Change in behavioral inhibition was related to experience of nonparental care. A second group of infants, selected at 4 months of age for patterns of behavior thought to predict temperamental exuberance, displayed a high degree of continuity over time in these behaviors.

Self-regulatory processes in early personality development: A multilevel approach to the study of childhood social withdrawal and aggression.

Self-regulatory processes are believed to be critical to early personality and behavioral adjustment. Such processes can be observed on multiple levels, including the physiological, attentional, emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal domains of functioning. Data from several longitudinal studies suggest links between early temperamental tendencies such as behavioral inhibition and frustration tolerance, and regulatory developments at the levels of physiological, attentional, and emotional regulation. Deficits in these particular levels of self-regulation may underlie childhood social withdrawal and aggression. Significant gaps remain in our knowledge of the pathways to disordered behavior and the role that self-regulation plays in such pathways. Suggestions are made for the ways in which future longitudinal studies might address these gaps.

The Development of Self-Control of Emotion: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Influences

In this paper, we review evidence that supports the notion that intrinsic and extrinsic factors contribute to the development of self-control of emotions. Intrinsic factors include the infants temperament, and cognitive processes such as attention and inhibitory control. Extrinsic factors involve the caregiving environment, sibling and peer relationships, and cultural expectations regarding emotional displays. Integrative approaches to the study of the development of self-control of emotion will be most fruitful if investigations examine the interplay, over time, among these internal and external factors.

Emotionality, emotion regulation, and preschoolers' social adaptation

It was proposed that the interaction between the constructs of emotion regulation and social interaction would predict social adaptation in preschoolers. Ninety-six 4-year-olds were observed in quartets of unfamiliar same-sex peers. Based on parent temperament ratings and observed free play behaviors, 68 children from the original sample were classified as: low social interaction, good emotion regulators; low social interaction, poor emotion regulators; high social interaction, good emotion regulators; high social interaction, poor emotion regulators; or average. The results indicated that the low social interaction children who were poor regulators displayed more wary and anxious behaviors during free play and other episodes, and were rated as having more internalizing problems than both the low social interaction children who were good regulators and the average group. The high social interaction children who were poor regulators were rated as having more externalizing problems than either the high social interaction children who were good regulators or the average group. Thus, it seems as if emotion dysregulation is associated with psychological maladaptation, but that this association is tempered by the degree to which children engage in social interaction.

Cardiac vagal tone indices of temperamental reactivity and behavioral regulation in young children

The relation between two dimensions of vagal tone (Vna), indexed by a baseline measure of Vna and suppression of Vna and temperamental reactivity and behavioral regulation was investigated. Forty-one children were observed during a series of episodes designed to elicit temperamental reactivity and behavioral regulation. Heart rate was recorded during these baseline, positive, negative, and delay episodes, from which measures of vagal tone were computed. Across the entire sample, vagal tone decreased from the baseline episode to the three affect tasks. Baseline measures of vagal tone were related to the tendency to show a decrease in vagal tone: Children who consistently suppressed vagal tone (showed a decrease to all the affect tasks) had higher baseline vagal tone. Baseline vagal tone was related to temperamental reactivity for the positive and negative tasks, but not the delay tasks. Vagal suppression (vagal difference score) was related to several of the behavioral regulation strategies used by the children in the affect-eliciting situations. These findings are discussed in terms of the adaptive value of physiological regulation in the development of regulatory behaviors that may be critical to social development.

Toddler regulation of distress to frustrating events: temperamental and maternal correlates

Seventy-three mothers and their 18-month-old toddlers were observed in a series of laboratory procedures designed to assess relations among physiological arousal, frustration distress, emotion regulation and maternal interactive style. Physiological arousal was assessed using baseline measures of vagal tone and heart period. Distress was assessed across four separate episodes designed to elicit the intensity, frequency, duration and latency of the distress response to frustrating events. Regulation was assessed by examining the child,s behaviors (aggression, distraction, mother-orientation, constructive coping) when confronted by the four frustration tasks. Maternal interactive style was assessed by examining mothers, strategies for child behavior management (negative controlling, positive guidance, preemptive interference) during four mother-child tasks. Distress to the frustrating tasks was related to aggression/acting-out behaviors, and negatively related to the use of more adaptive strategies. Maternal interference was related to distress to the frustrating events, while maternal positive guidance was related to the use of distraction and mother-oriented regulating behaviors. These findings are discussed in terms of the adaptive value of emotion regulation in early development.

Maternal interactive style across contexts: Relations to emotional, behavioral and physiological regulation during toddlerhood.

Sixty-five mothers and their 24-month-old toddlers were observed in a series of laboratory procedures designed to assess relations between maternal interactive style and emotional, behavioral and physiological regulation. Emotional regulation was assessed by examining the child’s behaviors (aggression, distraction, object focus) when confronted by three emotion-eliciting tasks. Behavioral regulation was measured by examining children’s ability to comply to maternal requests and to inhibit behavior during a delay task. Physiological regulation was derived from children’s cardiac vagal tone responses to emotionally-arousing situations. Maternal interactive style was assessed by examining mothers’ strategies for child behavior management (negative controlling, positive guidance) during three mother-child tasks. Maternal behavior was related to regulation in each of the three domains. Negative maternal behavior was related to poor physiological regulation, less adaptive emotion regulation, and noncompliant behavior. Positive maternal behavior was correlated with compliance, but not with any of the physiological or emotional measures. These findings are discussed in terms of the adaptive value of self-regulation in early development, and the importance of identifying the causal relations between maternal behavior and child regulation.

The double-edged sword: Emotional regulation for children at risk

The capacity to manage emotion is based on the growth of self-regulatory capacities in the early years, but is also affected by situational demands, influences from other people, and the childs goals for regulating emotion in a particular setting. For most children growing up in supportive contexts, the growth of emotional regulation is associated with enhanced psychosocial well-being and socioemotional competence. But for children who are at risk for the development of psychopathology owing to environmental stresses or intrinsic vulnerability (or their interaction), emotional regulation often entails inherent trade-offs that make nonoptimal strategics of managing emotion expectable, perhaps inevitable, in a context of difficult environmental demands and conflicting emotional goals. This analysis discusses how emotional regulation in children at risk may simultaneously foster both resiliency and vulnerability by considering how emotion is managed when children (a) are living with a parent who is depressed, (b) witness or experience domestic violence, or (c) are temperamentally inhibited when encountering novel challenges. In each case, the childs efforts to manage emotion may simultaneously buffer against certain stresses while also enhancing the childs vulnerability to other risks and demands. This double-edged sword of emotional regulation in conditions of risk for children cautions against using “optimal” emotional regulation as an evaluative standard for such children or assuming that emotional regulation necessarily improves psychosocial well-being. It also suggests how the study of emotional regulation must consider the goals for regulating emotion and the contexts in which those goals are sought.

Profiles of externalizing behavior problems for boys and girls across preschool: The roles of emotion regulation and inattention.

Although externalizing behavior typically peaks in toddlerhood and decreases by school entry, some children do not show this normative decline. A sample of 383 boys and girls was assessed at ages 2, 4, and 5 for externalizing behavior and at age 2 on measures of emotion regulation and inattention. A longitudinal latent profile analysis was performed and resulted in 4 longitudinal profiles of externalizing behavior for each gender. Poor emotion regulation and inattention were important predictors of membership in the chronic-clinical profile for girls, whereas socioeconomic status and inattention were important predictors of membership in the chronic-clinical profile for boys. Results are discussed with respect to the development of adaptive skills that lead to normative declines in externalizing behavior across childhood.

Cardiac vagal regulation differentiates among children at risk for behavior problems.

A sample of 335 five-year-old children participating in an ongoing longitudinal study was the focus of a study on the effects of emotional and behavioral challenge on cardiac activity in children with different patterns of early childhood behavior problems. The children were placed in one of three behavior problem groups (low behavior problems, risk for externalizing problems, risk for mixed externalizing/internalizing problems) based on their scores on the Child Behavior Checklist for 4-18-year-olds [Achenbach, T.M., 1991. Integrative guide for the 1991 CBCL/4-18, YSR & TRF profiles. University of Vermont Department of Psychiatry, Burlington, VT], completed by their mothers. To assess cardiac vagal regulation, resting measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and RSA change (vagal withdrawal) to five emotionally and behaviorally challenging tasks were derived. In addition, heart period (HP) and heart period change (HR acceleration) was examined. Results indicated that the behavior problem groups did not differ in terms of resting measures of either RSA or HP. Analyses of the challenge tasks indicated that the children at risk for mixed problems displayed greater cardiac vagal withdrawal across the five tasks than did the other two groups of children. There was a trend for the children at risk for externalizing problems to display less vagal withdrawal than the control group. In addition, the children at risk for mixed problems displayed greater heart rate acceleration to the tasks than did the other two groups of children. Follow-up analyses indicated that the greater cardiac acceleration observed in the mixed group was largely a function of greater vagal withdrawal. These findings are discussed in terms of the emotion regulatory function of cardiac vagal regulation, and its implications for patterns of risk for behavior problems in young children.