THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTION REGULATION AND DYSREGULATION: A CLINICAL PERSPECTIVE

• Published in: Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 1994, Vol.59 (2-3), p.73-102
• Main Authors: Cole, Pamela M., Michel, Margaret K., Teti, Laureen O'Donnell
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Affect - physiology; Affective Behavior; Anger; Antisocial Behavior; Autistic Disorder - diagnosis; Autistic Disorder - psychology; Behavior Problems; Child; Child Behavior; Child Behavior - psychology; Child psychopathology; Child, Preschool; Clinical Psychology; Coping; Culture; Emotion; Emotion Management; Emotion Theory; Emotional adjustment; Emotional development; Emotional expression; Emotional Regulation; Emotional Response; Emotional stability; Emotional states; Emotions; Emotions - physiology; Humans; Individual Differences; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Interpersonal Relations; Mental Disorders - etiology; Mental Disorders - physiopathology; Mental Disorders - psychology; Mood disorders; Neuropsychology; Part 1. Definitions and Concepts of Emotion Regulation; Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; Psychological stress; Psychopathology; Verbal Behavior
• ISSN: 0037-976X; 1540-5834
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5834.1994.tb01278.x

Research on the development of emotions and their functional characteristics as regulators of behavior has grown dramatically over the past 10 years. There is currently renewed emphasis on the importance of emotion regulation and dysregulation for our understanding of normal development and the development of psychopathology. The 11 essays that constitute this Monograph survey theoretical, conceptual, and methodological issues involved in the study of emotion regulation, placing particular emphasis on the role that physiological systems play in the regulation of emotion and on the interface of a biological and a behavioral perspective. The Monograph is divided into three parts. Part 1 contains essays on the definitional issues involved in the study of emotion regulation. Kagan and Thompson attempt to define exactly what phenomenon it is that we are interested in studying. Kagan argues for a descriptive approach to studying emotional behavior, one in which psychological labels are put aside until there is a clear understanding of the behavioral pattern. Thompson provides a thorough review of the possible topics to be studied under the rubric of emotion regulation and emphasizes the importance of context for studying these phenomena. Both authors provide guidelines for approaching the study of emotional behaviors during development. Calkins outlines the influence that individual differences in emotion expression have on emotion regulation. She addresses the role of temperament and temperament/environment interactions and their effect on the development of emotion regulation. Cole, Michel, and Teti deal with the role that emotion regulation plays in developmental psychopathology, outlining the manner in which the development of emotion regulation may become dysfunctional and lead to problem outcomes. Their essay serves as a bridge between traditional developmental work on emotion and research in developmental psychopathology. The four essays in Part 2 focus on three different physiological systems-the neuroendocrine (Stansbury and Gunnar), autonomic nervous (Porges, Doussard-Roosevelt, and Maiti), and central nervous (Dawson and Fox) systems. These essays share common approaches to the study of emotion regulation, even though each system presents novel and potentially nonoverlapping information about the behaviors in question. The reader is provided with the background necessary to understand each complex physiological system and hence to evaluate the researc