Emotion-Related Self-Regulation and Its Relation to Children’s Maladjustment

By N. Eisenberg, Tracy L. Spinrad, Natalie D. Eggum. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2010

1,236 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The development of children’s emotion-related self-regulation appears to be related to, and likely involved in, many aspects of children’s development. In this review, the distinction between effortful self-regulatory processes and those that are somewhat less voluntary is discussed, and literature on the former capacities is reviewed. Emotion-related self-regulation develops rapidly in the early years of life and improves more slowly into adulthood. Individual differences in children’s self-regulation are fairly stable after the first year or two of life. Such individual differences are inversely related to at least some types of externalizing problems. Findings for internalizing problems are less consistent and robust, although emotion-related self-regulation appears to be inversely related to internalizing problems after the early years. Self-regulatory capacities have been related to both genetic and environmental factors and their interaction. Some interventions designed to foster self-regulation and, hence, reduce maladjustment, have proved to be at least partially effective.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d1bde81d5bad2f06e0f2033ee45c50ff373a625a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Clinical Psychology

In Education

Citations in the corpus

Foundation for a temperament-based theory of antisocial behavior and criminal justice system involvement (2014, background): “contexts including infancy and toddlerhood (Eisenberg et al., 2010), childhood (Eisenberg et al.”
Executive Functions (2012, neutral): “DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES BETWEEN EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS AND RELATED TERMS Self-regulation refers to processes that enable us to maintain optimal levels of emotional, motivational, and cognitive arousal (Eisenberg et al. 2007, Liew 2011).”
Emotion Regulation in Children with Emotional Problems (2014, background): “Children may for example be less capable of using cognitive strategies that require control over emotional reactions, such as problem-solving thinking (Eisenberg et al. 2010; Steinberg et al. 2006).”
The development of emotional and behavioral self-regulation and their effects on academic achievement in childhood (2018, result): “We found that emotional and behavioral regulation were fairly stable constructs, supporting previous findings (Eisenberg et al., 2010; Murphy et al., 1999; Raffaelli et al., 2005).”
Coping, Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology in Childhood and Adolescence: A Meta-Analysis and Narrative Review (2017, background): “Previous reviews have noted a lack of consensus in the definition and conceptualization of coping and emotion regulation in children and adolescents (e.g., Adrian, Zeman, & Veits, 2011; Compas et al., 2001; Eisenberg et al., 2010; Skinner et al., 2003).”
Emotion regulation and psychopathology: the role of gender. (2012, background): “Low effortful control has parallels with the kinds of emotion regulation strategies that have been discussed in this review (see Eisenberg et al. 2010) and indeed may contribute to the use of maladaptive strategies such as rumination (Henry & Moffitt 1997, Joormann 2010).”
Childhood Maltreatment, Emotional Dysregulation, and Psychiatric Comorbidities (2014, background): “In children, some forms of externalizing problems have been linked with emotional dysregulation.(2) In addition, reactive aggression, which is driven by negative emotional states, is associated with higher cortisol reactivity(26) and decreased emotional regulation.”