Davis Elizabeth L, Parsafar Parisa, Quiñones-Camacho Laura E, Shih Emily W
Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside (UCR);
Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside (UCR).
J Vis Exp. 2017 Feb 11(120):55200. doi: 10.3791/55200.
Effective regulation of emotion is one of the most important skills that develops in childhood. Research interest in this area is expanding, but empirical work has been limited by predominantly correlational investigations of children's skills. Relatedly, a key conceptual challenge for emotion scientists is to distinguish between emotion responding and emotion regulatory processes. This paper presents a novel method to address these conceptual and methodological issues in child samples. An experimental paradigm that assesses the effectiveness with which children regulate emotion is described. Children are randomly assigned to use specific emotion regulation strategies, negative emotions are elicited with film clips, and changes in subsequent psychophysiology index the extent to which emotion regulation is effective. Children are instructed to simply watch the emotion-eliciting film (control), distract themselves from negative emotions (cognitive distraction), or reframe the situation in a way that downplays the importance of the emotional event (cognitive reappraisal). Cardiac physiology, continuously acquired before and during the emotional task, serves as an objective measure of children's unfolding emotional responding while viewing evocative films. Key comparisons in patterns of obtained physiological reactivity are between the control and emotion regulation strategy conditions. Representative results from this approach are described, and discussion focuses on the contribution of this methodological approach to developmental science.
有效的情绪调节是儿童期发展起来的最重要技能之一。该领域的研究兴趣正在扩大，但实证研究主要局限于对儿童技能的相关性调查。与此相关的是，情绪科学家面临的一个关键概念挑战是区分情绪反应和情绪调节过程。本文提出了一种新方法来解决儿童样本中的这些概念和方法问题。描述了一种评估儿童调节情绪有效性的实验范式。儿童被随机分配使用特定的情绪调节策略，通过电影片段引发负面情绪，随后心理生理学的变化指示情绪调节有效的程度。儿童被指示只是观看引发情绪的电影（对照组），从负面情绪中分散注意力（认知分散），或以淡化情绪事件重要性的方式重新构建情境（认知重评）。在情绪任务之前和期间持续获取的心脏生理学指标，作为儿童观看引发情绪的电影时不断变化的情绪反应的客观测量指标。获得的生理反应模式的关键比较是在对照组和情绪调节策略条件之间。描述了这种方法的代表性结果，并讨论集中在这种方法对发展科学的贡献上。
