Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T15:10:20.991Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2009

Ross A. Thompson  and
Susan D. Calkins
Ross A. Thompson*
Affiliation:
University of Nebraska
Susan D. Calkins
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
*
Ross A. Thompson, Dept. of Psychology, 209 Burnett Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NH 68588–0308, E-mail: thompson@ulinfo.unl.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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 child's 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 child's efforts to manage emotion may simultaneously buffer against certain stresses while also enhancing the child's 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.

Type
Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 8 , Issue 1: Special Issue: Regulatory Process , Winter 1996 , pp. 163 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aber, J. L., & Cicchetti, D. (1984). The socioemotional development of maltreated children: An empirical and theoretical analysis. In Fitzgerald, H. E., Lester, B. M., & Yogman, M. W. (Eds.), Theory and research in behavioral pediatrics (Vol. 2, pp. 147–205). New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, J. E., & Bayles, K. (1988). Attachment and the development of behavior problems. In Belsky, J. & Nezworski, T. (Eds.), Clinical implications of attachment (pp. 253–299). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bates, J. E., Bayles, K., Bennet, D. S., Ridge, B., & Brown, M. (1991). Origins of externalizing behavior problems at eight years of age. In Pepler, D. & Rubin, K. (Eds.). The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 93–120). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bates, J. E., Maslin, C. A., & Frankel, K. A. (1985). Attachment security, mother-child interaction, and temperament as predictors of behaviorproblem ratings at age three years. In I. Bretherton & E. Waters (Eds.), Growing points in attachment research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50(Serial No. 209), 167–193.Google ScholarPubMed
Calkins, S. D. (1994). Origins and outcomes of individual differences in emotional regulation. In N. A. Fox (Ed.), The development of emotion regulation: Biological and behavioral considerations. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59 (Serial No. 240), 53–72.Google Scholar
Calkins, S. D., & Fox, N. A. (1992). The relations among infant temperament, security of attachment and behavioral inhibition at 24 months. Child Development, 63, 1456–1472.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calkins, S. D., Fox, N. A., & Marshall, T. R. (in press). Behavioral and physiological antecedents of inhibition in infancy. Child Development.Google Scholar
Calkins, S. D., Fox, N. A., Rubin, K. H., & Coplan, R. (1995). Longitudinal outcomes of behavioral inhibition: Implications for behavior in a peer setting. Manuscript under review.Google Scholar
Campbell, S. (1991). Longitudinal studies of active and aggressive preschoolers: Individual differences in behavior and outcome. In Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S. (Eds.), Internalizing and externalizing expressions of dysfunction. Rochester Symposium on Development Psychopathology (Vol. 2, pp. 5790). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D. (1990). The organization and coherence of socioemotional, cognitive, and representational development: Illustrations through a developmental psychopathology perspective on Down syndrome and child maltreatment. In Thompson, R. A. (Ed.), Socioemotional development, Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 36, pp. 259–366). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., Ganiban, J., & Barnett, D. (1991). Contributions from the study of high-risk populations to understanding the development of emotional regulation. In Garber, J. & Dodge, K. A. (Eds.), The development of emotional regulation and dysregulation (pp. 15–48). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Sroufe, L. A. (1978). An organizational view of affect: Illustrations from the study of Down's syndrome infants. In Lewis, M. & Rosenblum, L. (Eds.), The development of affect (pp. 309–350). New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, P. M., & Kaslow, N. J. (1988). Interactional and cognitive strategies for affect regulation: Developmental perspective on childhood depression. In Alloy, L. (Ed.), Cognitive processes in depression (pp. 310–341). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Cummings, E. M. (1994). Marital conflict and children's functioning. Social Development, 3, 16–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummings, E. M., & Cicchetti, D. (1990). Toward a transactional model of relations between attachment and depression. In Greenberg, M. T., Cicchetti, D., & Cummings, E. M. (Eds.), Attachment in the preschool years (pp. 339–372). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. (1994). Children and marital conflict: The impact of family dispute and resolution. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. (1996). Emotional security as a regulatory process in normal development and the development of psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 8, 123–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummings, E. M., Hennessy, K. D., Rabideau, G. J., & Cicchetti, D. (1994). Responses of physically abused boys to interadult anger involving their mothers. Development and Psychopathology, 6, 31–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, P. T., & Cummings, E. M. (1994). Marital conflict and child adjustment: An emotional security hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 387–411.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawson, G., Grofer Klinger, L., Panagiotides, H., Hill, D., & Spieker, S. (1992). Frontal lobe activity and affective behavior of infants of mothers with depressive symptoms. Child Development, 63, 725–737.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dawson, G., Grofer Klinger, L., Panagiotides, H., Spieker, S., & Frey, K. (1992). Infants of mothers with depressive symptoms: Electrocncephalographic and behavioral findings related to attachment status. Development and Psychopathology, 4, 67–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawson, G. (1994). Development of emotional expression and emotion regulation in infancy: Contributions of the frontal lobe. In Dawson, G. & Fischer, K. W. (Eds.), Human behavior and the developing brain (pp. 346–379). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Dodge, K. A. (1991). Emotion and social information processing. In Garber, J. & Dodge, K. A. (Eds.), The development of emotional regulation and dysregulation (pp. 159–181). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A., & Somberg, D. R. (1987). Hostile attributional biases among aggressive boys are exacerbated under conditions of threats to the self. Child Development, 58, 213–224.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Downey, G., & Coyne, J. C. (1990). Children of depressed parents: An integrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 50–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ekman, P. (1984). Expression and the nature of emotion. In Scherer, K. R. & Ekman, P. (Eds.), Approaches to emotion (pp. 319–343). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Emde, R. N., Gaensbauer, T. J., & Harmon, R. J. (1976). Emotional expression in infancy: A biobehavioral study. Psychological Issues 10 (Monograph 37).Google Scholar
Emery, R. E. (1989). Family violence. American Psychologist, 44, 321–328.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erickson, M. F., Egeland, B., & Pianta, R. (1989). The effects of maltreatment on the development of young children. In Cicchetti, D. & Carlson, V. (Eds.), Child maltreatment (pp. 647–684). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, N. A. (1994). Dynamic cerebral processes underlying emotion regulation. In N. A. Fox (Ed.), The development of emotion regulation: Biological and behavioral considerations. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. 59(Serial No. 240), 152–167.Google ScholarPubMed
Fox, N. A., & Calkins, S. D. (1993). Pathways to aggression and social withdrawal: Interactions among temperament, attachment and regulation. In Rubin, K. H. & Asendorpf, J. (Eds.), Social withdrawal, inhibition and shyness in children (pp. 81–100). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Fox, N. A., Calkins, S. D., & Bell, M. A. (1994). Development and neuroplasticity: Behavioral and cognitive outcomes. Development and Psychopathology, 6, 677–696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, N. A., Rubin, K. H., Calkins, S. D., Coplan, R., Marshall, T., Porges, S., Long, J., & Stewart, S. (in press). Frontal activation asymmetry and social competence at four years of age. Child Development.Google Scholar
Gaensbauer, T. J., & Sands, K. (1979). Distorted affective communications in abused/neglected infants and their potential impact on caretakers. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 18, 238–250.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garber, J., Braafladt, N., & Zeman, J. (1991). The regulation of sad affect: An informationprocessing perspective. In Garber, J. & Dodge, K. A. (Eds.), The development of emotional regulation and dysregulation (pp. 208–240). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia-Coll, C., Kagan, J., & Reznick, J. S. (1984). Behavioral inhibition in young children. Child Development, 55, 1005–1019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelles, R. J. (1987). Family violence (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Gordon, S. L. (1989). The socialization of children's emotions: Emotional culture, competence, and exposure. In Saarni, C. & Harris, P. (Eds.), Children's understanding of emotions (pp. 319–349). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Graham, P., Rutter, M., & George, S. (1973). Temperamental characteristics as predictors of behavior disorders in children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 43, 328–338.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Graham, S., Hudley, C., & Williams, E. (1992). Attributional and emotional determinants of aggression among African-American and Latino young adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 28, 731–740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grych, J. H., & Fincham, F. D. (1990). Marital conflict and children's adjustment: A cognitive-contextual framework. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 267–290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hennessy, K. D., Rabideau, G. J., Cicchetti, D., & Cummings, E. M. (1994). Responses of physically abused and nonabused children to different forms of interadult angers. Child Development, 65, 815–828.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herzberger, S. D., & Tennen, H. (1986). Coping with abuse: Children's perspectives on their abusive treatment. In Ashmore, R. D. & Brodzinsky, D. M. (Eds.), Thinking about the family (pp. 277–300). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Holden, G. W., & Ritchie, K. L. (1991). Linking extreme marital discord, child rearing, and child behavior problems: Evidence from battered women. Child Development. 62, 311–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jouriles, E. N., Barling, J., & O'Leary, K. D. (1987). Predicting child behavior problems in maritally violent families. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 15, 165–173.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kagan, J. (1994a). On the nature of emotion. In N. A. Fox (Ed.), The development of emotion regulation: Biological and behavioral aspects. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59(Serial No. 240), 7–24.Google ScholarPubMed
Kagan, J. (1994b). Galen's prophecy. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Kagan, J., & Snidman, N. (1991). Infant predictors of inhibited and uninhibited profiles. Psychological Science, 2, 40–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kagan, J., Reznick, J. S., & Snidman, N. (1987). The physiology and psychology of behavioral inhibition in children. Child Development, 58. 1459–1473.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Katz, L. F., & Gottman, J. M. (1991). Marital discord and child outcomes: A social psychophysiological approach. In Garber, J. & Dodge, K. A. (Eds.), The development of emotional regulation and dysregulation (pp. 129–155). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Masters, J. C. (1991). Strategies and mechanisms for the personal and social control of emotion. In Garber, J. & Dodge, K. A. (Eds.), The development of emotional regulation and dysregulation (pp. 182–207). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, S. M., Birnbaum, A., & Durbin, D. (1990). Etiologic perspectives on depression in childhood. In Lewis, M. & Miller, S. M. (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (pp. 311–325). New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, P. J., & Sperry, L. L. (1987). The socialization of anger and aggression. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 33, 1–31.Google Scholar
Radke-Yarrow, M., Belmont, B., Nottelmann, E., & Bottomly, L. (1990). Young children's selfconceptions: Origins in the natural discourse of depressed and normal mothers and their children. In Cicchetti, D. & Beeghly, M. (Eds.), The self in transition: Infancy to childhood (pp. 345–361). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Radke-Yarrow, M., Cummings, E. M., Kuczynski, L., & Chapman, M. (1985). Patterns of attachment in two- and three-year-olds in normal families and families with parental depression. Child Development, 56, 884–893.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Radke-Yarrow, M., Zahn-Waxler, C., Richardson, D. T., Susman, A., & Martinez, P. (1994). Caring behavior in children of clinically depressed and well mothers. Child Development, 65, 1405–1414.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rubin, K. H., LeMare, L. J., & Lollis, S. (1990). Social withdrawal in childhood: Developmental pathways to rejection. In Asher, S. R. & Coie, J. D. (Eds.), Peer rejection in childhood (pp. 217–249). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rubin, K. H., Hymel, S., Mills, R. S. L., & Rose-Krasnor, L. (1991). Conceptualizing different pathways to and from social isolation in childhood. In Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S. (Eds.), Internalizing and externalizing expressions of dysfunction. Rochester Symposium on Developmental Psychopathology (Vol. 2, pp. 91–122). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Rubin, K. H., Stewart, S. L., & Coplan, R. J. (1995). Social withdrawal in childhood: Conceptual and empirical perspectives. In Ollendick, T. & Prinz, R. (Eds.), Advances in Clinical Child Psychology (Vol. 17, pp. 157–196). New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saarni, C. (1989). Children's understanding of strategic control of emotional expression in social transactions. In Saarni, C. & Harris, P. L. (Eds.), Children's understanding of emotion (pp. 181–208). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shields, A. M., Cicchetti, D., & Ryan, R. M. (1994). The development of emotional and behavioral self regulation and social competence among maltreated school-age children. Development and Psychopathology, 6, 57–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Susman, E. J., Trickett, P. K., Iannotti, R. J., Hollenbeck, B. E., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (1985). Childrearing patterns in depressed, abusive, and normal mothers. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 55. 237–251.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thomas, A., Chess, S., & Birch, H. G. (1968). Temperament and behavior disorders in children. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. A. (1990). Emotion and self-regulation. In Thompson, R. A. (Ed.), Socioemotional development. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 36, pp. 367–467). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. A. (1991). Emotional regulation and emotional development. Educational Psychology Review. 3, 269–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, R. A. (1993). Socioemotional development: Enduring issues and new challenges. Developmental Review, 13, 372–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, R. A. (1994). Emotion regulation: A theme in search of definition. In N. A. Fox (Ed.), The development of emotion regulation: Biological and behavioral aspects. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59(Serial No. 240), 25–52.Google ScholarPubMed
Thompson, R. A., Cicchetti, D., Lamb, M. E., & Malkin, C. (1985). Emotional responses of Down syndrome and normal infants in the Strange Situation: The organization of affective behavior in infants. Developmental Psychology, 21, 828–841.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, R. A., Flood, M. R., & Lundquist, L. (1995). Emotional regulation and developmental psychopathology. In Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S. (Eds.), Rochester symposium on developmental psychopathology, Vol. 6. Emotion, cognition, and representation (pp. 261–299). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. A., & Limber, S. (1990). “Social anxiety” in infancy: Stranger wariness and separation distress. In Leitenberg, H. (Ed.), Handbook of social and evaluation anxiety (pp. 85–137). New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahn-Waxler, C., Cole, P. M., & Barrett, K. C. (1991). Guilt and empathy: Sex differences and implications for the development of depression. In Garber, J. & Dodge, K. A. (Eds.), The development of emotional regulation and dysregulation (pp. 243–272). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zahn-Waxler, C., Cummings, E. M., Iannotti, R. J., & Radke-Yarrow, M. (1984). Young offspring of depressed parents: A population at risk for affective problems. In Cicchetti, D. & Schneider-Rosen, K. (Eds.), Childhood depression (New Directions for Child Development series, No. 26) (pp. 81–105). San Francisco: Jossey-Dass.Google Scholar
Zahn-Waxler, C., & Kochanska, G. (1990). The origins of guilt. In Thompson, R. A. (Ed.), Socioemotional development. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 36, pp. 183–258). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar