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1. Emotion regulation as a complex system: A multi‐contextual and multi‐ level approach to understanding emotion expression and cortisol reactivity among Chinese and US preschoolers

   https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13446  

   Ip, Ka I. ; Miller, Alison L. ; Wang, Li ; Felt, Barbara ; Olson, Sheryl L. ; Tardif, Twila ( September 2023 , Developmental Science)

   Are children from “Eastern” cultures less emotionally expressive and reactive than children from “Western” cultures? To answer this, we used a multi‐level and multi‐contextual approach to understand variations in emotion displays and cortisol reactivity among preschoolers living in China and the United States. One hundred two preschoolers from China (N = 58; 55% males) and the United States (N = 44, 48% males) completed three (i.e., control, interpersonal‐related, and achievement‐related) emotion‐challenging paradigms over 3 days. Behavioral emotion expressions were coded, and salivary cortisol was sampled 30 minutes before and across 90 minutes post‐task. Without considering context, Chinese preschoolers displayed fewer levels of positive and negative emotion expressions relative to their United States counterparts. However, Chinese preschoolers displayed similar levels of expressions as their United States counterparts during an achievement‐related challenge that is more salient to their sociocultural emphases and showed higher negative emotion expressions in this challenge, relative to other contexts. Moreover, only the achievement‐related challenge elicited increased cortisol levels among Chinese preschoolers, and this was correlated with higher levels of negative expressions. For US preschoolers, no cortisol increase was observed in any challenging paradigms, nor was cortisol associated with emotional expressions. Findings counter prior notions that East Asian children are generally less emotionally expressive. Instead, an achievement‐related challenge elicited higher emotion expression and cortisol reactivity among Chinese preschoolers, suggesting that children's emotion expression and biological reactivity may be most responsive to contexts salient to their socio‐cultural environments. We discuss the importance of considering cultural contexts when studying emotion regulation.

   Chinese preschoolers displayed lower overall positive and negative expressions relative to their US counterparts without considering situational contexts.

   Chinese preschoolers displayed similar levels of emotion expressions as their US counterparts during an achievement‐related challenge salient to their social‐cultural environment.

   Chinese preschoolers are particularly responsive to achievement‐related challenges, relative to other emotion‐challenging situations that are less culturally salient.

   No cortisol increase was observed in any of the emotion‐challenging paradigms among US preschoolers.

   Children's emotion expression and biological reactivity may be most responsive to challenges relevant to their socio‐cultural environments.

    

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2. Linking autonomic physiology and emotion regulation in preschoolers: The role of reactivity and recovery

   https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21746  

   Kahle, Sarah ; Miller, Jonas G. ; Helm, Jonathan L. ; Hastings, Paul D. ( June 2018 , Developmental Psychobiology)

   Physiological recovery from negative emotions may be important for effective self‐regulation, but little is known about recovery processes in children. The current study investigated links between autonomic physiology, anger expressions, and emotion regulation in a sample of eighty‐three 3.5‐year‐olds. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia and pre‐ejection period were measured during an anger induction task as parasympathetic and sympathetic indices, respectively. We examined whether preschoolers’ anger expressions and emotion regulation behaviors were associated with individual differences in physiology. Autonomic changes were more strongly linked with emotion regulation than with expressed anger. Verbalized regulatory strategies were linked with greater sympathetic reactivity and also with greater recovery. In contrast, attention diversion was associated with blunted patterns of sympathetic reactivity followed by increased sympathetic arousal in the recovery phase. Disengaging from an emotional challenge may be linked with reduced physiological arousal in the short term, this behavior but also appears to have delayed consequences for physiological recovery.

    

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3. Children's physiological reactivity in emotion contexts and prosocial behavior

   https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.1380  

   Coulombe, Brianne R. ; Rudd, Kristen L. ; Yates, Tuppett M. ( September 2019 , Brain and Behavior)

   Building on prior evidence that prosocial behavior is related to the regulation of personal distress in difficult situations, and given that physiological regulation is a central contributor to effective emotion regulation, this investigation evaluated whether and how children's autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity during emotion challenges influenced later expressions of prosocial behavior.

   The current study utilized a diverse sample of school‐aged children (N = 169; 47.9% female; 47.3% Latinx) to evaluate relations between children's parasympathetic (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) and sympathetic (i.e., pre‐ejection period; PEP) reactivity in response to each of three film‐elicited emotion challenges (i.e., sadness, happiness, and fear) at age 7 and both observed and parent‐reported prosocial behavior one year later.

   Children's parasympathetic reactivity to a film eliciting sadness evidenced a nonlinear relation with later prosocial sharing such that children who evidenced either RSA withdrawal or augmentation in response to the sad emotion challenge engaged in higher levels of prosocial behavior than children who evidenced relatively low or absent reactivity. Parasympathetic reactivity to films eliciting happiness or fear was not significantly related to later prosocial behavior. Likewise, children's sympathetic reactivity in response to the emotion challenges did not significantly predict later prosocial behavior.

   These findings provide preliminary support for a nonlinear association between children's parasympathetic emotion reactivity and later prosocial behavior, and suggest that children's ANS regulation in sad emotion contexts may be particularly important for understanding prosocial development.

    

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4. Empathy for others versus for one's child: Associations with mothers’ brain activation during a social cognitive task and with their toddlers’ functioning

   https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.22313  

   Ojha, Amar ; Miller, Jonas G. ; King, Lucy S. ; Davis, Elena G. ; Humphreys, Kathryn L. ; Gotlib, Ian H. ( July 2022 , Developmental Psychobiology)

   Caregivers who are higher in dispositional empathy tend to have children with better developmental outcomes; however, few studies have considered the role of child‐directed (i.e., “parental”) empathy, which may be relevant for the caregiver–child relationship. We hypothesized that mothers’ parental empathy during their child's infancy will be a stronger predictor of their child's social‐emotional functioning as a toddler than will mothers’ dispositional empathy. We further explored whether parental and dispositional empathy have shared or distinct patterns of neural activation during a social‐cognitive movie‐watching task. In 118 mother–infant dyads, greater parental empathy assessed when infants were 6 months old was associated with more social‐emotional competencies and fewer problems in the children 1 year later, even after adjusting for dispositional empathy. In contrast, dispositional empathy was not associated with child functioning when controlling for parental empathy. In a subset of 20 mothers, insula activation was positively associated with specific facets of both dispositional and parental empathy, whereas right temporoparietal junction activation was associated only with parental empathy. Thus, dispositional and parental empathy appear to be dissociable by both brain and behavioral metrics. Parental empathy may be a viable target for interventions, especially for toddlers at risk for developing social‐emotional difficulties.

    

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5. Emotion regulation and reactivity are associated with cortical thickness in early to mid‐childhood

   https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.22412  

   Ewell, Arcadia ; Allard, Tamara ; Botdorf, Morgan ; Ji, Angela ; Riggins, Tracy ( July 2023 , Developmental Psychobiology)

   This study explored the neural correlates of emotion regulation and emotional reactivity in early to mid‐childhood. A sample of 96 children (70% White, mid‐to‐high socioeconomic status) aged 3–8 years provided structural neuroimaging data and caregivers reported on emotion regulation and emotional reactivity. The amygdala, insula, inferior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex, and medial orbitofrontal cortex were explored as a priori regions of interest (ROIs). ROI analyses revealed that emotion regulation was positively associated with cortical thickness in the insula, whereas emotional reactivity was negatively associated with cortical thickness in the inferior frontal gyrus. Exploratory whole‐brain analyses suggested positive associations between emotion regulation and both left superior temporal thickness and right inferior temporal thickness, as well as negative associations between emotional reactivity and left superior temporal thickness. There were no significant associations between emotional regulation or reactivity and amygdala volume or cortical surface area. These findings support the notion that surface area and cortical thickness are distinct measures of brain maturation. In sum, these findings suggest that children may rely on a wider set of neural regions for emotion regulation and reactivity than adults, which is consistent with theories of interactive specialization across the life span.

    

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