Abstract
Previous research on interpersonal emotion regulation (ER) in childhood has been rather unsystematic, focusing mainly on children’s prosocial behaviour, and has been conducted in the absence of an integrative emotion theoretical framework. The present research relied on the interpersonal affect classification proposed by Niven et al. (Emotion, 9:498–509, 2009) to investigate children’s use of different interpersonal ER strategies. The study drew on two samples: 180 parents of children aged between 3 and 8 years reported about a situation where their child was able to change what another person was feeling in order to make them feel better. In addition, 126 children between 3- and 8-years old answered two questions about how they could improve others’ mood. Results from both samples showed age differences in children’s use of interpersonal ER strategies. As expected, ‘affective engagement’ (i.e., focusing on the person or the problem) and ‘cognitive engagement’ (i.e., appraising the situation from a different perspective) were mainly used by 7–8 years-old, whereas ‘attention’ (i.e., distracting and valuing) was most used by 3–4 and 5–6 years-old. ‘Humor’ (i.e., laughing with the target) remained stable across the different age groups. The present research provides more information about the developmental patterns for each specific interpersonal emotion regulation strategy.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
See Table 3.
Appendix 2
See Table 4.
Appendix 3
See Table 5.
Appendix 4
Analyses of interpersonal emotion regulation categories previously identified in the literature
For the categories previously identified in the developmental literature, we only conducted analyses for the categories ‘talking about problems’, ‘companionship’, ‘affective display’, and ‘use of comforting objects’ as the frequencies were higher than 5. For ‘talking about problems’ in sample 1, there was only a general effect of the category, χ2 = 1.06, df = 1, p = .98. Thus, there were no significant differences in the use of the strategy between 5–6 and 7–8-year olds (see Appendices E and F). We did not perform any analyses for Sample 2 as the frequencies were lower than 5 for at least two age groups. For ‘companionship’ (χ2 = .91, df = 1, p = .99) and ‘affective display’ (χ2 = .91, df = 1, p = .99), in sample 1, there was only a general effect of the category. In sample 2, there was also a main effect of the category for ‘companionship’ (χ2 = 1.08, df = 6, p = .98), affective display (χ2 = 1.12, df = 6, p = .92), and use of comforting objects (χ2 = 5.96, df = 6, p = .43). Thus, there were no significant differences in the use of the strategy for 3–4 and 5–6-year-olds (Appendix 5). However, in sample 1, for ‘use of comforting objects’ the hi-log-linear produced a final model of Use of comforting objects × Age (χ2 = 1.93, df = 4, p = .75). Thus, 3–4-year-olds used this strategy significantly more than 5–6-year-olds (Appendices E and F).
Overall, these results replicated previous findings. Whereas talking about problems was mainly used by older children, the use of comforting objects was mainly used by younger children, as previously found by McCoy and Masters (1985). Interestingly, although previous literature identified categories such as ‘talking about problems’, ‘optimism’, and ‘account’, according to the IAC model these categories may be classified at affective engagement if they entail only to engage with the target’s feelings or cognitive engagement if they aim to change the target’s mindset about the situation/problem. Thus, although previous categories may provide more fine-grained information the use of models such as the IAC may provide more information regarding the processes targeted by the strategy (i.e., expressive behaviour vs. cognition). Thus, rather than discarding previous categories, the recommendation should be considering different models when analysing children’s ER strategies.
Appendix 5
See Table 6.
Appendix 6
See Table 7.
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López-Pérez, B., Wilson, E.L., Dellaria, G. et al. Developmental differences in children’s interpersonal emotion regulation. Motiv Emot 40, 767–780 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-016-9569-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-016-9569-3