Emotion Regulation: Solving a Scientific Conundrum

Pamela M. Cole Penn State University Tracy A. Dennis Hunter College, CUNY Sarah E. Martin Bradley Hospital

ABSTRACT

The development of emotional self-regulation is an important task in the first five years of life.

Emotions allow us to assume a stance toward events in regard to our goals for well-being.

Self-regulatory processes allow us to do so in the face of competing goals and social constraints. The concept of regulation helps us understand why emotional processes that are so adaptive also psychopathology.

become implicated in We try to distinguish emotions from regulatory processes as we study the development and meaning of individual differences in emotion regulation (including emotional dysregulation).

Conceptually, regulation as we regard intricately emotion related and elements.

Current knowledge and research tools do not permit the precise and accurate assessment of these two facets of emotion regulation. Thus, in pursuing research purposes ability to reactions our research interests Our – the development of the manage one’s own emotional – we attempt to use a number of methods to objectify this emergent process and to distinguish emotion from regulation.

We use a combination of methods to infer that an emotion is active and, independently, that regulation occurred and was or was not effective.

To infer emotion, we rely on standardized situations that afford particular stances (e.g., removing a nice toy from a toddler affords an angry stance), trying to provide empirical evidence that a child had changed stances (e.g., went from calm to angry). We base judgments of regulation on further changes in emotions associated with independently assessed self-regulatory efforts (e.g., self-distraction). Whenever possible, we use multiple measures and contrasting social conditions as a further basis for our inferences.

Taken together, these methods allow us to capture the complex and fluid phenomenon of emotion regulation.

This poster attempts to: (a) define emotion, (b) define emotion regulation given the definition of emotion, (c) describe methods for inferring emotion regulation based on these definitions.

WHAT IS EMOTION?

We find ourselves moving away from views of emotions that have their foundation in defining emotion as a subjective feeling state or even as a facial expression. We continue to move toward views of emotions as ongoing processes that are goal-oriented. Emotional processes are “on” at all times. Facial expressions of emotion in others, or subjective awareness of feelings in ourselves, are special instances when largely unconscious emotional processes are accessible to awareness or observation. From this view, what is emotion? As Joseph Campos, a leading emotion theorist argues, emotions are not nouns, they are verbs. We agree. That is, emotions are not material or concrete. They are “emergent processes” at the conceptual level of analysis. To study them, requires that we try to capture them, objectify them. For the purposes of our research, we think of emotions as

stances

,

to connote that the individual is oriented in a particular attitude in relation to circumstances

.

In sum, emotions are appraising action readying stances, reflecting an individual’s relation to the environment in regard to maintaining well-being. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WHAT IS EMOTION REGULATION?

This is a difficult and perplexing concept to define and operationalize. It is particularly challenging because emotions may be inherently regulating processes (e.g., changes in sympathetic ANS activity precipitate parasympathetic activity).

If emotional processes involve the ebb and flow of changes in one’s stance toward one’s circumstances, emotional self-regulation must involve self initiated changes in those stances. These can be conscious but often occur outside of conscious awareness. Because much of this occurs quickly and beyond our ability to observe it, we need to use methods that provide evidence on which we can reasonably infer emotional self-regulation. Emotional stance have two elements: appraising and readying for action. Various theorists have attempted to specify the appraisal and action readiness aspects of emotion (Arnold, 1960; Frijda, 1986; others). There is not consensus on whether they are simultaneous or sequenced. Perhaps at a neural level, a clear temporal relation between these two elements will be revealed. For now, this is a matter of scientific debate. At the behavioral level, they are intertwined and operating “behind” the behaviors we observe. Nonetheless, we think that studying emotional behaviors and regulatory behaviors in sequence can be useful.

With the goal of understanding how normal emotional processes become implicated in psychopathology (risk and outcome), we are interested in the changes in processes that involve an individual’s efforts to modify emotional stances. Regulation means adjusting in relation to some set point. The set point itself may change as a function of challenges presented to the individual (allostasis). In the spirit of the functional perspective on emotional development, we can say that the set point involves an individual’s goals for well-being, understanding that these shift with experience and learning.

In sum, emotion regulation is the term used to refer to processes that modify emotional stances.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ METHODS

I. Independent assessment of emotions

and regulatory efforts

Emotional processes cannot be captured like molecules, bar presses, or butterflies! As things presently stand, emotions are fluid targets, which we must infer are occurring. Advances in neuroscience offer promise for more elucidation of these processes. But even advances in neuroscience may not reduce emotions to material things. In much ER research, evidence of the quality of emotional regulation is based almost entirely on the emotional valence of the child’s affective signals. In the end, higher anger = poorer regulation and we think this is simplistic and mistaken. Anger, even strong anger, has its place in adaptive functioning. To measure

emotion

independently of regulatory efforts, we observe children in natural or laboratory situations. One team of trained coders judges a class of behaviors that have an empirical basis for inferring emotions. These depend upon nonverbal signals.

Using the same observations, a different trained team codes

regulatory efforts

. We select judge children’s purported self-regulatory behaviors &/or parents’ parenting/socialization behaviors (based on the literature). We link these observations, often in time, after independent coding. Studies by Buss & Goldsmith, Stifter, Calkins, Grolnick, & Diener that did this were convincing evidence of ER.

II. Analysis of temporal relations between

emotion and regulatory phenomena

This is a method that has caused confusion. Readers of our work assume we mean that emotion and regulation are temporally related at a fundamental level. The evidence is not clear on this point and many (e.g., Lewis, 2004) doubt that even neural evidence will support a clear temporal relation. We ONLY mean to say that temporal analyses of independently assessed emotion and regulatory behaviors is the basis for stronger inferences about ER than procedures that fail to measure both or relate them to each other. In our work, we have sometimes use sequential analyses, using formal statistical programs (e.g., Bakeman, Sackett). At other times, we simply construct contingent variables (e.g., Cole, Teti, & Zahn-Waxler, 2003), following a suggestion that Bakeman makes in his workshops on sequential analyses. We think work on infant-mother interactions provides particularly compelling evidence of mutual ER (Cohn & Tronick, Field). Field integrated synchronized facial activity and physiological changes, providing interesting evidence of mutual ER. In work in progress, we examined typical 3 and 4-year olds’ emotions & independently their use of purported regulatory strategies, during the transparent box task from LABTab. After each class of behavior was coded, a new team related the two sets of codes, creating contingent scores, such as angry-on task, angry-off task, sad-on task, and sad-off task. We found that anger was significantly more likely to be followed by persistence (on task) whereas sadness was more likely to be followed by giving up (off task; Wiggins et al., 2003).

III. Contrasting conditions

The observational procedures we use in the lab allow us to manipulate conditions to increase inferences that a child is regulating an emotional state. For example, we adapted the disappointment task (Saarni) to include RA present & absent conditions. In our first study, these were between group, and in later studies they were within group, contrasts. This method allowed us to easily witness a child attempting to hide disappointment with the RA present and then dissolving that attempt at happiness once the RA left. This was helpful in a task where there was not a variety of regulatory behaviors.

IV. Converging methods

Finally, inferences are better made when multiple sources of evidence can be garnered and combined. If ER represents an effort to organize behavior in the service of a goal (and often competing goals), then there should be a convergent pattern of responses. Maughan & Cicchetti created groups of children using composite information to study different types of converging patterns. We have done this and we have also studied component variables separately, accumulating convergent evidence across measures (e.g., Cole, Zahn-Waxler, Fox, Usher, 1994).

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This work was supported by RO1 MH61388. Special thanks to Kristy Finlon for helping us put this poster together!

REFERENCES Upon request. Not enough room here!