Reassessing Emotion Regulation

Developmental research on emotion regulation is increasingly advancing toward a systems view that integrates behavioral and biological constituents of emotional self-control. However, this view poses fundamental challenges to prevailing conceptualizations of emotion regulation. In portraying emotion regulation as a network of multilevel processes characterized by feedback and interaction between higher and lower systems, it becomes increasingly apparent that emotion regulation is a component of (rather than a response to) emotional activation, that it derives from the mutual influence of multiple emotion-related systems (rather than the maturation of higher control processes alone), and that it sometimes contributes to maladaptive behavioral outcomes, especially in conditions of environmental adversity. The implications of this perspective for the developmental study of emotion regulation are discussed. KEYWORDS—emotion regulation; systems theory; brain-behavior relations Article: Emotion regulation is a compelling but challenging issue in developmental science. It is compelling because the association of developing self-regulatory skills with social and emotional competence promises to enhance therapeutic approaches to emotion-related disorders of many kinds. It is challenging because emotion regulation is a broadly inclusive construct whose definition, empirical operationalization, development, and outcomes are complex and poorly defined (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004). Although most conceptualizations of emotion regulation focus on the processes by which emotional responses are modified to accomplish individual goals, developmental researchers continue to disagree over core features of emotion regulation and its definition (cf. Bridges, Denham, & Ganiban, 2004; Campos, Frankel, & Camras, 2004; Cole et al., 2004; Gross & Thompson, 2007; Thompson, 1990,1994). Much of this disagreement centers on the association of self-regulatory processes with other influences on emotion, and the implications of this association for the constructive, adaptive functions that emotion regulation may provide. Research efforts to incorporate developmental neuroscience and psychobiology into the study of emotion regulation may help to resolve a number of these conceptual problems. Biological formulations favor a multidirectional systemic view that encourages researchers to understand, in concert, the component processes of emotion regulation at multiple levels. But the integration of behavioral and biological approaches is also likely to present further challenges for current conceptualizations of emotion regulation. In particular, it challenges the view that self-regulatory processes follow from (rather than being integrated with) activated emotion, that emotion self-regulation results in adaptive (rather than sometimes maladaptive) behavioral outcomes, and that it derives from the influence of higher levels of control over lower emotive processes (rather than from their mutual influence). Our purpose here is to profile these conceptual challenges and to suggest several ways they can be addressed in the next generation of research on the development of emotion regulation. DEVELOPING CONSTITUENTS OF EMOTION REGULATION In developmental research, the breadth of the concept of  ̳ ̳emotion regulation‖ means that scientists are studying a multi-faceted phenomenon whose development arises from the growth and integration of many behavioral and biological processes (Thompson & Goodvin, 2007). Some of these processes are regulatory and emotion-specific, but others are not. Early in infancy, for example, self-regulation of emotional arousal is tied to the growth of executive attentional control, with the redirection of attention enabling the infant to disengage from emotionally arousing stimuli (Posner & Rothbart, 2000; Rothbart, Posner, & Boylan, 1990; Ruff & Rothbart, 1999). Developing language ability subsequently becomes incorporated into emotion regulation as self-management develops through extrinsic talk (which can also be used to solicit assistance from another) and, later, internal speech (Bloom, 1993; Bloom & Tinker, 2001; Bretherton, Fritz, Zahn-Waxler, & Ridgeway, 1986). In early to middle childhood, executive function progressively fosters emotion self-management through processes such as self-directed inhibition, self-distraction, reappraisal, and action monitoring, which are also enlisted into broader forms of strategic control (Zelazo & Cunningham, 2007; Zelazo & Mueller, 2002). Emotion self-regulation is also enhanced by growth in episodic and semantic memory, causal reasoning, and advances in perceived self-efficacy (Kopp, 2008). With increasing age, emotion regulation is influenced by growth in theory of mind, emotion understanding, and developing knowledge of sociocultural display rules (Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Saarni, 1999; Thompson & Lagattuta, 2006). A variety of biological processes are associated with these developmental acquisitions, and we consider them in some detail in the next sections of this article. ―Emotion regulation‖ is thus a conceptual rubric for a diffuse network of allied processes, from within and outside the child, that contribute to emotional self-management. Consequently, the nature of developmental change in emotion regulation is also multifaceted. Children become more competent at emotional self-control as they acquire a greater variety of self-initiated strategies of emotion management that rely less on external support. In addition to behavioral tactics, these strategies increasingly entail mental regulators of emotion (including attentional, linguistic, and representational influences), are more flexibly applied to specific contextual demands, and gradually incorporate cultural expectations. Children also enlist emotion regulatory skills to accomplish increasingly complex social and personal goals. In light of these multifaceted developmental changes, it should not be surprising that early-emerging individual differences in emotion regulation are not very stable over time because they are based on a changing constellation of behavioral and neurobiological capacities with different maturational timetables and origins (see Calkins, Gill, Johnson, & Smith, 1999; Grolnick, Bridges, & Connell, 1996). The complexity of these developmental constituents of emotion regulation argues for a systems perspective involving reciprocal influences among multiple control processes. Such a systems perspective should lead to research questions focused specifically on these components and how they interact. In behavioral research, for example, one could assess how in-creases in executive function contribute to the child‘s use of other selfregulatory capacities (such as language) in emotion management, or one could assess the association between response inhibition and the use of emotional displays in social situations. Moreover, as we illustrate below, biological research can also elucidate the interactions among multiple components of emotion regulation. By emphasizing the emergence of emotion regulatory competence from a constellation of emerging capacities at many levels of analysis rather than from the maturation of higher order regulatory functions alone, developmental researchers are in a better position to understand how regulation occurs in different contexts and at different ages and what exactly is being regulated when emotions arise. Emotion regulation is multifaceted not only in its constituents but also in its manifestations. Children in supportive contexts who are overwhelmed with uncontrollable emotions that under-mine competent functioning are usually understood as deficient in emotion regulation. However, children may appear to be emotionally dysregulated in situations where they are functioning quite well as emotional tacticians (e.g., a toddler fussing for candy, an adolescent becoming moody to gain attention from sympathetic friends) because their goals for managing emotion are different from those of an adult observer. In these circum-stances, emotions are managed in ways that may lead to socially inappropriate conduct. For children who are not in supportive contexts, such as those facing severe environmental stresses or biological vulnerability to emotional problems, emotion regulation often entails inherent trade-offs that can increase rather than diminish affective problems (Thompson & Calkins, 1996; Thompson, Flood, & Lundquist, 1995). In families with significant marital conflict, for example, children may employ a variety of strategies for managing their emotions, such as maintaining hypervigilance to signs of impending conflict so that they can avoid exposure to it or act to head it off (Cummings & Davies, 1994; Davies & Forman, 2002). Such strategies are problematic because although they may sometimes provide immediate safety or relief, they leave the child emotionally vulnerable in the long run. But there may be no more adaptive manner of regulating emotion in these circum-stances. In a similar manner, children who live with a depressed parent, or who are behaviorally inhibited, or who are biologically prone to anxious affect have also been found to enlist strategies of emotion regulation that buffer against immediate stresses while increasing their emotional vulnerability in other ways (see reviews by Calkins & Hill, 2007; Thompson, 2000; Thompson & Calkins, 1996). That their efforts at emotion regulation do not result in psychologically healthy outcomes derives from the emotionally impossible circumstances they face more than from their lack of emotional regulatory skill or effort. Emotion regulation can, in short, contribute outcomes that may not be psychologically healthy or adaptive in an overarching sense. BIOLOGICAL CONSTITUENTS OF EMOTION REGULATION Emotion regulation is multifaceted biologically as well as behaviorally. Many neural constituents, including functioning of the