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2 - The role of emotionality and regulation in children's social competence and adjustment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Lea Pulkkinen
Affiliation:
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Avshalom Caspi
Affiliation:
Institute of Psychiatry, London
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Summary

The topic of regulatory processes, especially emotion-related regulation, has emerged as a major focus of psychological interest in the last decade. This seems to be especially true in developmental and clinical psychology, probably because of the role of emotion and its regulation in developmentally important outcomes such as social competence and adjustment. Indeed, emotion-related regulation is a critical aspect of individual functioning because it likely contributes to nearly all domains of human functioning and behavior, including the quality of individuals' interactions with others, the social appropriateness of overt behavior, and the nature of experienced emotion. Consequently, emotion-related regulation, through its effects on behavior and emotional experience, influences others' perceptions of an individual and the individual's self-related cognitions and evaluations. For example, children who are especially unregulated in their peer interactions are likely to be rejected by their peers, which can affect future opportunities for learning about socially competent behavior, willingness to stay in school with peers, self-related evaluations, and adjustment (e.g., problems with anxiety or depression; e.g., Parker and Asher, 1987, 1993; Parker, Rubin, Price, and DeRosier, 1995). Thus, emotion-related regulation in the early years is likely to influence the course of development across the life-span. For these reasons, knowledge about emotion-related regulation is important not only for a basic scientific understanding of social and emotional development, but also for work aimed at preventing and remediating problem behaviors and promoting adaptive coping and socially competent behavior across the life-course.

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Paths to Successful Development
Personality in the Life Course
, pp. 46 - 70
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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