Although prior research suggests that ER development typically exhibits a positive growth trajectory across adolescence as prefrontal brain regions continue to mature, individual differences in the rate of development have yet to be fully elucidated. The present study illustrates developmental processes in which family context (i.e., socioeconomic status, parent perceived stress, and family emotional climate) influences developmental trajectories of emotion regulation using both growth curve and latent change score analyses. The sample included 167 adolescents (53% males) who were first recruited at age 13 or 14 years and assessed annually four times. Our results support the mediating role of family emotional climate in the association between socioeconomic status and changes in emotion regulation, but not parent perceived stress. Our findings emphasize the constraints placed on ER development as a result of low SES and highlight the need for intervention efforts at proximal levels, such as the family emotional climate, for adolescents who face such distal risk factors. / M.S. / Given continued brain development across the period of adolescence and maturation in specific brain regions related to emotion regulation (the ability to change the experience or expression of an emotion), we expected that emotion regulation abilities would also continue to develop during this period. We were also interested in understanding what family contextual factors may be influencing how emotion regulation develops. For example, we expected that family economic and social position (including education level, income, aid, and satisfaction with finances), parent stress, and the family emotional climate (the degree of both positive and negative emotionality expressed within the family unit through parenting practices and the quality of the parent child relationship) would affect how emotion regulation unfolds in adolescents. That is, we predicted that families demonstrating a higher socioeconomic status, less parental stress, and better parenting practices would create safe and supportive contexts to learn and practice emotion regulation skills, resulting in adolescents with more adaptive emotion regulation abilities. We tested our hypotheses using longitudinal analyses from 167 adolescent participants and their parents. Our results demonstrate that parent stress is not directly related to emotion regulation development, but that socioeconomic status is related to emotion regulation development through family emotional climate. Such results suggest that for adolescents who may be at risk for developing poor emotion regulation abilities, their family can be taught skills related to improving parenting and the quality of the relationship between parent and adolescent in order to lessen the possibility of that outcome.

Interpersonal Emotion Regulation (IER) in adulthood has been the area of attention in a growing number of studies over the last decade. Despite the normality of emotion regulation in social situations, focus has mainly been on pathology. Motivated by the lack of salutogenic perspectives, this cross-sectional study aims to shed light on associations between IER strategies and Quality of Life (QOL). Also, to explore age-related aspects, a developmental angle was taken. A non-clinical sample (N=73) residing in Sweden was recruited and responded to the self-assessments Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (IERQ) and WHOQOL-BREF. The respondents were divided into two age groups, younger (NY=35) and older (NO=38) adults. Furthermore, participants were divided into groups based on whether or not they were temporarily experiencing special circumstances affecting life quality. Multiple bivariate correlation analysis was performed on IER factors and QOL domains for the whole group and also for the two group conditions. All IER strategies represented in IERQ were positively associated with all domains of QOL in all conditions, although only some of them were significant correlations. The results indicated that Soothing and Social Modeling can be effective IER strategies in terms of psychological well-being. In the age condition, this was only valid for the younger adults. In addition, the findings supported Soothing as an effective strategy for those experiencing special circumstances. Hence, different correlational patterns emerged related to the specific conditions examined, giving support for context-dependency of Interpersonal Emotion Regulation.

Prokrastinering är ett utbrett fenomen över hela världen som innebär att frivilligt skjuta upp eller inte fullfölja uppgifter trots vetskapen om de negativa konsekvenserna till följd av det. Det kan ses som en irrationell försening av vissa åtaganden, ofta för att undvika negativa känslor, eller som ett tecken på bristande självreglering när man konfronteras med utmanande eller obekväma uppgifter. Forskning visar att prokrastinering är kopplad till depression, ångest, ökad stress och sämre akademiska prestationer. Det verkar dessutom som att antalet personer som uppvisar uppskjutarbeteende och graden av prokrastinering ökar. Denna studie ämnade att utforskaeventuella samband och förhållanden mellan självskattad prokrastinering, skam och känsloreglering. Den undersökte även om dessa förhållanden modereras av ålder. Studien genomfördes för att öka förståelsen kring prokrastinering och dess negativa effekter. Genom att identifiera mekanismer bakom prokrastinering kan interventioner anpassas för att minska beteendet och öka välbefinnandet. En enkät distribuerades till allmän befolkning där 200 individer svarade, varav 37 män och 163 kvinnor. Medelåldern för samtliga deltagare var 39,21, SD = 11,06. Resultaten visade att skam, känsloregleringssvårigheter och prokrastinering är signifikant korrelerade. Högre nivåer av skam och känsloregleringssvårigheter är associerade med ökad tendens till prokrastinering. Även om ålder inte visade sig vara en signifikant moderator visademedelvärden hur skam och känsloregleringssvårigheter samt prokrastinering minskar med ålder. / Procrastination is a global phenomenon, involves the voluntary delay or non-completion of tasks despite awareness of the negative consequences. Often percieved as an irrational postponement of certain commitments to avoid negative emotions, or as a sign of deficient selfregulation when confronted with challenging or uncomfortable tasks. Research indicates that procrastination is linked to depression, anxiety, increased stress, and poor academic performance. Moreover, it appears that the number of individuals exhibiting procrastinatory behavior and the degree of procrastination are on the rise. This study aimed to explore potential associations and relationships between self-reported procrastination, shame, and emotion regulation. The research also investigated whether these relationships were moderated by age. The study was conducted to enhance understanding of procrastination and its negative effects. By identifying mechanisms behind procrastination, interventions can be tailored to reduce the behavior and increase wellbeing. A survey was distributed to the general population, with 200 individuals responding of which 37 identified as men and 163 as women. The mean age of all participants was 39.21, SD = 11.06. The results showed that shame, difficulties in emotion regulation, and procrastination are significantly correlated. Higher levels of shame and emotion regulation difficulties are associated with an increased tendency to procrastinate. Although age did not prove to be a significant moderator, mean values demonstrated how shame, emotion regulation difficulties, and procrastination decrease with age.

No description available.

This diploma thesis aims to introduce the topic of emotion stimulation and emotion regulation in pre-school age from the perspective of adults and to look for institutional possibilities of development and support of emotional development of pre-schoolers. The text consists of two main parts: theoretical and empirical. In the theoretical part, the main terms of the thesis (emotion stimulation and emotion regulation) are introduced and presented in the context of pre-school age. In this context, the focus is on the two main areas of a pre-schooler's life: family and, primarily, kindergarten. This part of the thesis is concluded by a summary of the importance of the optimal stimulation and support of the emotion regulation skills in pre-schoolers. The empirical part has a qualitative character. It explores how selected kindergarten teachers (n=5) stimulate and regulate emotional expression of their pupils. The empirical survey uses thematic analysis of semi-structured interview and video recording. The results of the analysis are discussed in the final chapter. Keywords: emotion stimulation, emotion regulation, pre-school age, kindergarten, emotion regulation strategies

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is increasingly understood as representing a public health concern and a behavioral marker of emotional and psychological distress among young people. NSSI is prevalent during the period of young adulthood, including among emerging adults pursuing a university education, yet the vulnerability factors associated with NSSI in this population merit more in-depth and contextualized investigation. The current dissertation's overarching objective was to better understand the risk context surrounding university students' engagement in NSSI. Using a sample of 2,579 students (75.2% female; Mage=18.97; SDage=1.54), Study 1 first explored the roles of parental (mother and father pressure) and intrapersonal (emotion dysregulation, academic coping, perfectionism subtypes) risk factors in university students’ likelihood and frequency of engagement in NSSI in the past year. An integrated latent structural equation model revealed that higher levels of perceived mother and father pressure were associated with a greater likelihood of past-year NSSI engagement in the university student sample. Among intrapersonal risk factors, only emotion dysregulation was found to be associated with higher NSSI likelihood and frequency. Building upon these results, Study 2 sought to narrow in further on understanding the emotion regulation profiles of university students with a past-year history of NSSI. Using a person-centered statistical approach, university students who reported having engaged in NSSI within the past year (n = 479; 83.8% female; Mage = 18.77; SDage = 1.43) were classified into latent profiles based on their self-perceived difficulties in regulating both positive and negative emotions. Independent samples of students who had a past history of NSSI but had not self-injured within the previous year (n = 439; 82.9% females; Mage = 19.03, SDage = 1.62) and who had no history of NSSI (n = 1551; 69.9% females; Mage = 19.02, SDage = 1.55) were included as comparison groups. Latent cluster analyses uncovered three emotion regulation profiles within the NSSI sample - the Average Difficulties (47.4%), Dysregulated (33.0%), and Low Difficulties (19.6%) profiles - each of which differed meaningfully from both comparison samples on mean levels of emotion regulation difficulties. Students across the three profiles also differed in their self-reported experiences with parents, particularly with fathers (perceived pressure, antipathy, unresolved attachment, psychological control), and in the extent to which they felt alienated from parents. Lastly, students across profiles differed in the frequency, methods, functions, and addictive properties of their NSSI. Taken together, findings from the current dissertation expanded our awareness of vulnerability factors for NSSI that have historically been understudied (e.g., parental pressure, father-child relationships, dysregulated positive emotions), while also bringing into focus the notion that even well-established NSSI risk factors (emotion regulation difficulties) can manifest quite heterogeneously amongst university students with a history of self-injurious behavior.

No description available.

In our daily lives, we encounter a multitude of emotional challenges in various contexts, necessitating the use of diverse emotion regulation strategies for adaptive responses (Aldao et al., 2015; Bonanno and Burton, 2013). These strategies require cognitive control, making them cognitively demanding processes (Gross, 2015b; Ochsner et al., 2012). Yet, it remains unknown whether different strategies impose different levels of cognitive effort. This thesis aims to address this gap in the literature by conducting a comparative analysis of the cognitive effort required for specific emotion regulation strategies. Our research takes a comprehensive approach to evaluating effort, utilizing physiological and subjective measures. In the field of emotion regulation choice, the role of effort remains less explored. We seek to deepen the understanding by not only investigating the self-reported reasons behind participants’ choice behaviour, but also by employing rigorous statistical analyses to identify the factors that influence these choices. Prior studies on the determinants of emotion regulation choice have faced certain limitations. While some determinants favouring specific strategies have been identified, there is a lack of information regarding the strategies that are not chosen. Additionally, it is unclear to what extent individuals prefer their chosen strategy over other available options. These issues can be addressed by assigning subjective values to all choice options, as these values are central to the decisionmaking process. This thesis has developed and validated a novel paradigm that measures the individual subjective values associated with emotion regulation strategies. We not only examined whether these values can effectively predict actual choice behaviour, but also delved into the variables that predict these subjective values, offering a holistic perspective on the complex interplay between cognitive effort and emotion regulation choice. To enhance comprehension on the impact of cognitive effort on emotion regulation, Study 1 and Study 2 aimed to compare the necessary effort between the two emotion regulation strategies distancing and expressive suppression. To our knowledge, this was the first work striving to comprehensively examine effort during emotion regulation by assessing it through various means. Two studies were carried out to examine the impact of cognitive effort on emotion regulation choice. Specifically, it was explored whether decision-making behaviour is more influenced by the cognitive effort required to implement the strategy or the effectiveness of the strategy. To answer these research questions, cognitive effort and effectiveness of distancing and suppression were quantified through subjective (ratings) and physiological (pupillometry, heart rate) measures. To explore choice behaviour, participants were instructed to finally employ either of the strategies again. Our findings highlight that the strategies did not differ substantially in terms of physiological effort, yet they did exhibit substantial disparities in the subjectively perceived effort. These differences between strategies also manifested in their choice behaviour: Two thirds of the participants opted for suppression once again, despite its lower effectiveness. Participants cited lower effort as the reason for their choice. By measuring effort through various means, these two studies provide a comprehensive understanding of the cognitive effort involved in emotion regulation. Furthermore, the results on the determinants of emotion regulation choice not only enrich research, but also provide starting points for practical applications. Paradigms commonly employed in emotion regulation choice research - as in Study 1 and Study 2 - suffer from a drawback as they entail a loss of information, providing only binary data concerning whether or not a strategy was chosen. However, it is unclear to what extent the favoured strategy was preferred compared to the alternative options. In Study 3, a registered report, the objective was to develop a novel paradigm to determine the subjective values attributed to each emotion regulation strategy at hand. The cognitive effort discounting paradigm by Westbrook et al. (2013) provided the foundation, but was developed and extended further. Participants completed an emotion regulation paradigm whereby they were prompted to employ three strategies - distraction, distancing, and expressive suppression. Next, we conducted our novel discounting paradigm to determine the subjective value of each strategy. In our study, we were not only able to show that subjective values predict subsequent choice behaviour, but that, in addition to self-assessed utility, subjective effort in particular was predictive of subjective values. Our innovative paradigm has extensive potential applications, even beyond the field of emotion regulation. By utilising this paradigm, it becomes feasible to ascertain subjective values of demand levels that lack any objective effort hierarchy. In summary, the present thesis makes an important contribution to deepen the understanding of the role of cognitive effort in emotion regulation and emotion regulation choice. Cognitive effort and regulatory success were comprehensively examined by assessing trait measures (questionnaires), subjective ratings and peripheral physiological measures (pupillometry, electromyography, electrocardiogram). Our main finding, which could be replicated across three pre-registered studies, shows that the use of strategies is associated with different levels of subjective effort for individuals. This leads to the majority of individuals choosing the strategy that is associated with less effort for them, rather than the strategy that is more effective. Finally, the thesis outlines a novel paradigm that enables the calculation of individual subjective values attributed to emotion regulation strategies. This facilitates a more comprehensive evaluation of the determinants of emotion regulation choice, as well as the strength of their preference for such strategies. Thus, it adds to the expanding literature on the field of emotion regulation flexibility by presenting starting points for assessing individuals’ flexibility and adaptability.:Contents Summary Preface 1. Theoretical Background 1.1. Fundamentals of emotions and emotion regulation 1.1.1. Emotions 1.1.2. Emotion regulation 1.2. The cognitive control of emotions 1.2.1. Cognitive control and cognitive effort 1.2.2. Cognitive effort and emotion regulation 1.3. Peripheral physiological consequences of intentional emotion regulation 1.4. Flexible emotion regulation 1.4.1. The extended process model of emotion regulation 1.5. Emotion regulation choice 1.5.1. A conceptual framework of emotion regulation choice 1.5.2. Determinants of emotion regulation choice 2. Scope of the thesis and study overview 3. Effort beats effectiveness in emotion regulation choice: Differences between suppression and distancing in subjective and physiological measures (Study 1 and 2) 3.1. Theoretical Background 3.1.1. Effort and emotion regulation 3.1.2. The present study 3.2. Study 1 3.2.1. Method 3.2.2. Results 3.3. Study 2 3.3.1. Method 3.3.2. Results 3.4. Exploratory analyses 3.4.1. Statistics 3.4.2. Results 3.5. Discussion 3.5.1. Effort plays a crucial role in the selection of an ER strategy 3.5.2. Individual differences in personality traits do not explain individual differences in arousal and effort 3.5.3. Subjective arousal and effort are not reflected in physiological arousal and effort 3.6. Limitations 3.7. Conclusion 4. Estimating individual subjective values of emotion regulation strategies 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Method 4.2.1. Ethics information 4.2.2. Pilot data 4.2.3. Design 4.2.4. Sampling plan 4.2.5. Analysis plan 4.3. Results 4.3.1. Participants and descriptive statistics 4.3.2. Confirmatory analyses 4.3.3. Exploratory analyses 4.4. Discussion 4.4.1. Ecological validity of subjective values of emotion regulation strategies 4.4.2. Trait character of subjective values 4.4.3. Limitations 4.4.4. Conclusion 5. General Discussion 5.1. Summary of results 5.2. The role of cognitive effort in emotion regulation 5.2.1. Effects of effort in the selection stage 5.2.2. Effects of effort in the implementation stage 5.2.3. Post-regulation effects of effort 5.3. Regulatory goals in emotion regulation 5.3.1. The interaction of regulatory goals and cognitive effort 5.4. Individual subjective values of choice options 5.4.1. Factors influencing subjective values 5.4.2. Subjective values: States or traits? 5.5. Methodological considerations 5.5.1. Experimental design 5.5.2. Assessment of physiological effort and arousal 5.6. Future directions 5.7. Conclusion References Appendix A. Supplementary Information Study 1 and Study 2 Appendix B. Supplementary Information Study 3 List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Erklärung

Parenting is one of the most salient influences in children's development, particularly during early childhood. Substantial theoretical and empirical evidence has linked sociodemographic risk to compromised parenting, and has contributed to the development of two-generation programs to support low-income parents and their young children. Despite decades of research on these families, little is known about how styles of parenting change across time, how children's emotion regulation influences parenting styles, or how risks predict longitudinal stability and change to parenting. Furthermore, it is unclear how one two-generation program, Early Head Start, promotes positive parenting styles and buffers against contextual risks. The aim of the three papers in this dissertation study is to describe maternal parenting within a low-income sample, by linking longitudinal trajectories of parenting to contextual risks, Early Head Start, children's emotion regulation (ER), and risk for child maltreatment. Guided by the bioecological model, and components specific to the Ecological-Transactional Model of Child Maltreatment (Cicchetti et al., 2010), these three papers indicate specific risks that are most salient to exhibiting unsupportive parenting behaviors: family conflict, maternal depression, and attitudes and beliefs that indicate risk for child physical abuse. Furthermore, the papers highlight important methodological considerations for the study of parenting at risk, children's ER, as well as for clinicians assessing risk. The three papers, collectively, highlight the complex interplay of determinants of parenting, including sociodemographic characteristics, psychological factors, interpersonal relationships, child effects, family-level characteristics, and Early Head Start involvement.

Executive Functions (EF) and Emotion Regulation (ER) are essential for children´s ability to regulate and control thoughts, behavior and emotions but the developmental relations between them are unclear. The present study was performed within the project PsPATHS with the purpose to investigate the relation between EF and ER. Performance on cognitive tasks tapping inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility were combined with teacher report of ER in 55 four to five year old preschool children. Contrary to the hypothesis, no significant relations could be established between EF and ER in this sample. For the EF components, the result showed a significant association between inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility, however, no further associations could be evidenced. The study demonstrates an advantage in using multiple measures and suggests that attention along with motivational and affective aspects of EF should be considered in future research of children´s ability to regulate emotions.