acase@tulane.edu / Sensitive parenting requires modulation of emotions in order to effectively organize and orient behavioral responses. There is considerable evidence that psychological distress is one of many factors that can negatively impact parenting practices. Difficulties in emotion regulation may be a pathway for the impact of psychological distress on parenting, as emotion regulation has been implicated in psychological distress; however, emotion regulation is not often examined in parenting models. The current study tested these relations in a low-income, community sample of caregivers of preschoolers (n = 64; age range 18-74 years). Results indicated that difficulties in emotion regulation mediated the relation between psychological distress and parenting sensitive engagement (b = -0.48, SE = 0.24, CI [-1.04, -0.07]). Difficulties in emotion regulation predicted decreased sensitive engagement, above and beyond the effect of psychological distress (b = -.69, SE = .33, t = -2.07, p = .044, CI [-1.35, -.20]). However, there was no total effect of psychological distress on sensitive engagement (b = -0.04, SE = 0.26, t = -0.13, p = .893, CI [-0.56, 0.49]). Acceptance of emotional responses (b = -0.34, SE = 0.15, p = .017, CI [-0.66, -0.11]) and clarity (b = -0.50, SE = 0.24, p = .025, CI [-0.97, -0.05]), or understanding of emotions, were found to predict sensitive engagement above and beyond the other dimensions of emotion regulation. Results suggest that emotion regulation is a process by which psychological distress affects parents’ sensitive engagement with their preschool-aged children. Additionally, acceptance and clarity are two dimensions of emotion regulation that may be more relevant for parents’ sensitive engagement than other dimensions. / 1 / Justin Thomas Carreras

Emotion dysregulation is a transdiagnostic clinical feature of many psychological disorders. Prior research has focused on generalized emotion dysregulation, whereas specific emotion regulation difficulties have not been explored in as much depth. The current study expanded this body of research by examining specific emotion regulation difficulties and relationships with broader emotion regulation functioning, including strategy use, affect intensity, and flexibility. College students (N = 380) completed a self-report battery of emotion regulation measures. A MANOVA indicated that patterns of emotion regulation functioning differentially predict specific emotion regulation difficulties. A multivariate regression (GLM) identified the facets of emotion regulation that predict specific emotion regulation difficulties. Our results suggest that examining specific emotion regulation difficulties may yield more nuanced information than solely examining generalized dysregulation, which may benefit treatment planning for clinical intervention of emotion dysregulation.

Better understanding difficulties in emotion regulation may help integrate a conceptualization for the etiology of a number of emotional disorders, such as depression or anxiety, and personality disorders. However, one deficit in extant literature has been in identifying a widely accepted measure in assessing problems with emotion regulation. A number of emotion regulation measures are currently used in the literature. Because each measure addresses regulation from a different perspective, the definition of emotion regulation remains unclear. Gratz and Roemer (2004) provide an integrated conceptualization for emotion regulation that accounts for the many ways in which emotions may affect the expression of psychological disorders. Gratz and Roemer constructed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) to assess various areas in which one might experiences problems with emotion regulation. The DERS is a 36-item scale that has six factors related to emotion regulation: Awareness, Non-acceptance, Clarity, Impulsivity, Strategies, and Goals. The purpose of this study was to perform a confirmatory factor analysis on the DERS, and to examine its predictive validity for disorders that are associated with difficulties in emotion regulation. The data for this study was collected from part of a larger study on emotion regulation. Participants consisted of undergraduates at a rural mid-western university who completed a survey packet including the DERS, the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS) the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESDS), and the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist (PCL). It hypothesized that a six factor solution would be found, validating the findings of Gratz and Roemer (2004). It was also expected that total DERS scores will be associated with CESDS and PCL scores, suggesting that participants who scored higher on these measures of depression and PTSD would also report difficulties with emotion regulation. The DERS factors were expected to be related to corresponding factors on the TMMS. Results indicated that although a 6-factor solution was supported, several modifications were needed to the original model in order to achieve acceptable goodness of fit index values. Additionally, a number of other suggestions for changes to the measure, including re-wording several of the items or the possible removal of the Awareness factor, are discussed.

An aim of this research was to gain prevalence rates of emotional abuse (EA) and emotional neglect (EN) in a community based adolescent sample. This exploratory research also attempted to determine the impact of EA, EN and a combination of the two (emotional maltreatment; EM) on adolescent’s emotion regulation (ER). The impact of temperament, gender and age was also considered, along with the adolescent’s subsequent quality of life ratings. Method: A total of 540 adolescents (mean age 14 years) were recruited through their secondary schools, and completed the following questionnaires: the EN and EA subtests of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ; Bernstein & Fink, 1994); the Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire – Short Form (EATQ – SF; Ellis & Rothbart, 1999); the Basic Emotions Scale (BES; Power, 2006); the Regulation of Emotions Questionnaire (REQ; Phillips & Power, 2007) and the Kid Screen -10 item Health Questionnaire for Children and Young People (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2005). Results: Prevalence rates of EA and EN were reported. Differences were detected between EA and EN in terms of how they affect experiences of basic emotions and how they impact on ER, even after controlling for temperament. Only EA was associated with aggression, whereas both EA and EN were associated with depressive mood and reduced quality of life. Conclusions: EA and EN are different maltreatment experiences which have different detrimental effects on the individual, therefore requiring different interventions.

Parent education programs were introduced nearly 30 years ago with a primary focus on teaching parents strategies to identify and reduce incidences of noncompliance in their children, and have been the single most successful treatment approach for reducing problem behavior. However, few parent education programs address emotion regulation and its role in children's development despite the fact that research has consistently demonstrated that children who are unable to successfully regulate emotions are more likely to develop behavioral problems. Specifically, most programs fail to address the concepts of effortful control and negative affectivity, two important components of child temperament, and their effects on children's behavior. Research has suggested that children who are emotionally regulated develop greater social competence, resulting in better, more positive, relationships. Thus, parents who teach their children to express and regulate their emotions in socially appropriate ways promote the development of prosocial behaviors in their children. In response, the goal of this study was to examine whether adding an emotion component aimed at teaching parents successful strategies for socializing children's emotions would affect overall parenting and children's emotion regulation above and beyond a traditional behavioral model. Twenty-five parents participated in a three-week parent education program. Parents learned strategies for managing their children's misbehavior. Moreover, parents learned about temperament, how these dispositional traits affect children's behavior, and successful strategies for aiding children in emotion management. At each session, parents completed measures designed to assess their children's temperament and behavior. Additionally, parents completed measures regarding their parenting practices and styles as well as feelings of parental efficacy. Repeated measures ANOVAs were run to determine whether changes in children's temperament or parenting emerged over time. Hierarchical multiple regressions were also computed to determine the effects of parents' practices, styles and efficacy on change in children's levels of effortful control and negative affectivity. Results suggest that parents' choice of disciplinary strategies affects children's ability to regulate their emotions, and that participation in the emotion module positively affected overall parenting and children's emotion regulation.

The current investigation examines the relationship between parenting, emotion regulation, and symptoms of psychopathology in maltreating and non-maltreating parent-child dyads. The participants in this study were 114 children (67 maltreated and 57 non-maltreated) from ages 1 to 4. Child affect and effortful control along with parent affect were observed during a parentchild interaction procedure. Symptoms of psychopathology were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist. The maltreated children in this study exhibited more irritability/anger, affect lability, and internalizing symptomatology, along with less positive affect than their non-maltreated peers. These data also suggest that parental affect is related to internalizing symptomatology; but this relationship is stronger for the maltreated group. Contrary to expectations emotion regulation did not fully mediate the relationship between parenting and psychopathology. Clusters of maladaptive affect, "angry" and "labile", emerged in the maltreated group along with a more "resilient" group characterized by positive affect, positive parental affect, and lower levels of psychopathology.

Resilience implies the ability to quickly recover from a negative life event and adapt to changing situations. The goal of the current study was to explore the mechanisms underlying resilience, including the roles of cognitive emotion regulation (reappraisal) and cognitive flexibility. Although all aforementioned mechanisms were investigated, there was a particular focus on the relationship between resilience and "affective flexibility," a term used to describe cognitive flexibility in processing affective stimuli. In the current study, participants completed several self-report personality and behavioral scales, including measures of trait-resilience and cognitive reappraisal, a cognitive flexibility task, a working memory task and two novel affective flexibility tasks. Results showed that one of the two affective flexibility tasks was a valid measure of the affective flexibility construct; affective flexibility significantly predicted level of resilience above and beyond cognitive flexibility and working memory. Cognitive flexibility was also a unique predictor of resilience when controlling for affective flexibility and working memory. Cognitive reappraisal was positively correlated with resilience but it did not appear to mediate the relationship between affective flexibility and resilience. This study was the first to demonstrate that resilience is related to specific cognitive abilities rather than general executive functioning. It is also the first to introduce and operationalize the construct of affective flexibility and show that it is a distinct process from cognitive flexibility. Research limitations and future directions are discussed.

Two experiments compared the effects of two cognitive responses (i.e., rumination and cognitive reappraisal) individuals may adopt when confronted with a threat to self-regard. In Study 1, participants received negative feedback about their social skills and then rated the credibility of the source of the criticism. In Study 2, participants received negative feedback and then were given the opportunity to enhance the self on an unrelated task. Compared to reappraising the negative feedback, ruminating about the feedback led to poorer evaluations of the source of negative feedback and increased self-enhancement, respectively. These findings suggest that, compared to rumination, cognitive reappraisal helps to minimize defensive responses to ego threat.

Personlighetsdragen openness och extraversion respektive situationsfaktorerna variation, intensitet, samt frekvens och deras påverkan på emotionsregleringsstrategierna reappraisal samt suppression skiljer sig inom yrkesgrupperna vård respektive handel. Åtta regressions-analyser med data från sammanlagt 178 anställda visade att (1) inom vården har extraversion, openness, samt frekvens betydelse för reappraisal, och intensiteten påverkar suppression, och (2) för handel visade sig openness och situationen som helhet ha betydelse för suppression, medan inga samband kunde påvisas för reappraisal. Skillnaderna tyder på att det finns ett behov av fortsatt forskning inom emotionsreglering, inriktad på skillnader mellan olika yrkesgrupper. / Personality traits openness and extraversion, and situational factors variation, intensity and frequency respectively influence emotion regulation techniques reappraisal and suppression differently within the professions of human service and service/sales. Eight regression analyses with data from a total of 178 employees showed that (1) within human service, extraversion, openness, and frequency are important to reappraisal whereas intensity plays a role for suppression. (2) Within service/sales none of the variables influenced reappraisal, and only openness and the situation “as a whole” played a role for suppression. The results indicate a need for more scientific research regarding differences in predictions of emotion regulation between occupations.

Two experiments compared the effects of two cognitive responses (i.e., rumination and cognitive reappraisal) individuals may adopt when confronted with a threat to self-regard. In Study 1, participants received negative feedback about their social skills and then rated the credibility of the source of the criticism. In Study 2, participants received negative feedback and then were given the opportunity to enhance the self on an unrelated task. Compared to reappraising the negative feedback, ruminating about the feedback led to poorer evaluations of the source of negative feedback and increased self-enhancement, respectively. These findings suggest that, compared to rumination, cognitive reappraisal helps to minimize defensive responses to ego threat.