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The Affective, Cognitive, and Physiological Effects of Implementing Antecedent-Focused Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
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  • Elizabeth Davis,
  • Shannon Brady,
  • Kasey Pankratz,
  • Zariah Tolman,
  • Parisa Parsafar,
  • Emily Shih
Elizabeth Davis
University of California Riverside

Corresponding Author:elizabeth.davis@ucr.edu

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Shannon Brady
University of California Riverside
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Kasey Pankratz
University of California Riverside
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Zariah Tolman
University of California Riverside
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Parisa Parsafar
University of California Riverside
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Emily Shih
University of California Riverside
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Abstract

Different components of emotional responding may be affected by using specific emotion regulation strategies that enable children’s volitional self-regulation. This study examined the affective, cognitive, and physiological effects of experimentally instructing children to deploy distraction and reappraisal to regulate negative emotion during an evocative film clip. One-hundred eighty-four 4- to 11-year-old children (M = 7.66 years; SD = 2.33 years; 94 girls) participated. Neither strategy affected observed distress or self-reported negative emotion. Relative to a control condition, children instructed to use reappraisal reported marginally less happiness after the emotional film and attenuated rumination. Distraction also predicted attenuated rumination, as well as a pattern of parasympathetic reactivity indicative of disengagement that correlated with parents’ reported use of minimizing and punitive emotion socialization practices. Findings underscore the utility of multi-method approaches that examine parasympathetic activity in conjunction with volitional measures of self-regulation.
31 Aug 2023Submitted to Infant and Child Development: prenatal, childhood, adolescence, emerging adulthood
01 Sep 2023Submission Checks Completed
01 Sep 2023Assigned to Editor
05 Sep 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
13 Nov 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
07 Feb 20241st Revision Received
08 Feb 2024Submission Checks Completed
08 Feb 2024Assigned to Editor
21 Feb 2024Reviewer(s) Assigned
17 Mar 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending