Child Maltreatment,Emotion Regulation,and Posttraumatic Stress: The Impact of Emotional Abuse

This study examined the relationship of emotion regulation to multiple forms of child abuse and subsequent posttraumatic stress. Particular consideration was given to emotional abuse, which has received less attention in the literature. Results from a survey of 912 female college students revealed that women who reported a history of sexual, physical, or emotional abuse endorsed greater emotion regulation difficulties compared to women without abuse histories. Notably, emotional abuse was the strongest predictor of emotion deregulation. Mediation analyses indicated that emotion dysregulation partially explained the relationship between physical and emotional abuse and symptoms of posttraumatic stress, suggesting that intervention efforts aimed at improving emotion regulation strategies might be beneficial in decreasing posttraumatic stress among women with child maltreatment histories.     

What's parenting got to do with it: emotional autonomy and brain and behavioral responses to emotional conflict in children and adolescents

Healthy parenting may be protective against the development of emotional psychopathology, particularly for children reared in stressful environments. Little is known, however, about the brain and behavioral mechanisms underlying this association, particularly during childhood and adolescence, when emotional disorders frequently emerge. Here, we demonstrate that psychological control, a parenting strategy known to limit socioemotional development in children, is associated with altered brain and behavioral responses to emotional conflict in 27 at‐risk (urban, lower income) youth, ages 9–16. In particular, youth reporting higher parental psychological control demonstrated lower activity in the left anterior insula, a brain area involved in emotion conflict processing, and submitted faster but less accurate behavioral responses—possibly reflecting an avoidant pattern. Effects were not replicated for parental care, and did not generalize to an analogous nonemotional conflict task. We also find evidence that behavioral responses to emotional conflict bridge the previously reported link between parental overcontrol and anxiety in children. Effects of psychological control may reflect a parenting style that limits opportunities to practice self‐regulation when faced with emotionally charged situations. Results support the notion that parenting strategies that facilitate appropriate amounts of socioemotional competence and autonomy in children may be protective against social and emotional difficulties.     

The relationship between childhood abuse and depression in a sample of Chinese people who use methamphetamine

Background/ObjectivePrevious studies have shown that childhood abuse is associated with symptoms of depression. This study aims to examine the prevalence of childhood abuse or neglect and its correlation with depression among a sample of Chinese people who use methamphetamine.MethodPeople who use methamphetamine (MA) (N = 1,173) were recruited from government-operated drug rehabilitation centres in Anhui province, China. Participants were assessed using the short form of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Beck Depression Inventory-II for childhood abuse or neglect and depression symptoms.ResultsA total of 44.6% of people who use MA reported moderate/severe childhood abuse or neglect, and 56.9% of this sample were diagnosed with depression. Emotional abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect and physical neglect were revealed to increase the risk of depression. Multivariable regression analyses showed that depression scores were significantly predicted by gender, duration of drug use, sexual abuse and emotional neglect (model R² = .08, p < .001). The interaction between emotional neglect and duration of drug use on the depression was statistically significant.ConclusionsThese analyses indicate that sexual abuse and emotional neglect increase the severity of depression in individuals who use MA in drug rehabilitation centres of China.     

Attentional control capacity for emotion: An individual-difference measure of internal controlled attention

The purpose of this study was to develop an individual-difference measure of the ability to apply internal controlled attention to emotional mental representations and investigate this measure's relationship to emotion regulation. Attentional control capacity for emotion (ACCE) was measured by adapting a task-switching paradigm where participants had to shift between emotional and neutral task sets. Undergraduate students (N = 91) were randomly assigned to perform either a task measuring ACCE or an emotionally neutral switching task to determine the discriminant validity of ACCE. ACCE predicted behaviour during a stressful anagram task. Individuals who were more efficient at an emotional to neutral task switch persisted longer on the stressful task. In contrast, individuals who more efficient at a neutral to emotional task switch persisted for a shorter time on the stressful task. These results provide insight into the role of attentional deployment in emotion regulation and clinical theories of rumination and anxiety.     

Gender differences in emotion recognition: Impact of sensory modality and emotional category

Results from studies on gender differences in emotion recognition vary, depending on the types of emotion and the sensory modalities used for stimulus presentation. This makes comparability between different studies problematic. This study investigated emotion recognition of healthy participants (N = 84; 40 males; ages 20 to 70 years), using dynamic stimuli, displayed by two genders in three different sensory modalities (auditory, visual, audio-visual) and five emotional categories. The participants were asked to categorise the stimuli on the basis of their nonverbal emotional content (happy, alluring, neutral, angry, and disgusted). Hit rates and category selection biases were analysed. Women were found to be more accurate in recognition of emotional prosody. This effect was partially mediated by hearing loss for the frequency of 8,000 Hz. Moreover, there was a gender-specific selection bias for alluring stimuli: Men, as compared to women, chose “alluring” more often when a stimulus was presented by a woman as compared to a man.     

Internal States Language in the Childhood Recollections of Adolescents with and without Abuse Histories

This study examined the representation of internal states in childhood recollections of male and female adolescents with and without abuse histories. Participants' (N = 71) exposure to spousal violence, physical abuse, and sexual abuse was documented when they were 6 to 12 years old and 6 years later when they were 12 to 18 years old. At the Year 6 assessment, teens recollected childhood experiences related to positive, negative, and neutral cues. Recollections were coded for references to emotions, cognitions, perceptions, and physiological states. Emotion terms varied according to childhood abuse history, whereas other internal states language did not. Teens with childhood abuse histories used fewer emotion terms than other teens but only for memories related to conflict and punishment. Emotion terms were unrelated to depression measured at the second assessment, regardless of abuse history. Explanations for abuse-related patterns of emotional language and possible links to coping and emotion regulation are discussed.     

Gendered adversity and mental health of adolescents orphaned by AIDS in a rural South African community: An exploratory study

This study explored gender differences in adversity and mental health among South African adolescents orphaned by AIDS. Adolescents (N = 121; females = 45.5%; mean age 14.14 years, SD = 2.09) self-reported their childhood adversities and probable mental ill health on the Child Trauma and General Health Questionnaire. Results revealed that female participants orphaned by AIDS were significantly more likely to report childhood adversity at total score level as compared to male participants. However, both male and female participants reported comparable scores on subscales of childhood adversity (emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and physical neglect). Moreover, female participants displayed higher composite mental ill health and all its subscales except for social dysfunction. Our findings suggest that gender-sensitive programmes and policies to address the effect of childhood adversity and mental ill health among adolescents orphaned by AIDS, are urgently needed.     

Emotion processing and regulation in women with morbid obesity who apply for bariatric surgery

Emotional eating, the tendency to eat when experiencing negative affect, is prevalent in morbid obesity and may indicate that ways to deal with emotions are disturbed. Our aim was to compare emotion processing and regulation between 102 women with morbid obesity who apply for bariatric surgery and 102 women from the general population (control group) and to examine in the group with morbid obesity the association of emotion processing and regulation with emotional eating. The group with morbid obesity reported higher scores on difficulty identifying feelings (alexithymia, p?=?0.002) and suppression of emotions (p?=?0.003) than the control group. In the women with morbid obesity, more negative affect and a higher difficulty identifying feelings were correlated with more emotional eating (r?=?0.36 and r?=?0.35, p?<?0.001). Our study suggests that negative emotions and unhealthy emotion processing may play a role in emotional eating, and it indicates the possible relevance of emotion processing and emotional regulation as initiating or perpetuating mechanisms in morbid obesity.     

A Pilot Study of the Development of a Measure Assessing Adolescent Reactions to Parents in the Context of Emotion Socialization

We conducted a pilot study of the initial development of a self-report measure assessing how adolescents react when parents respond in a helpful manner to their sad emotional experiences. Participants were late adolescents (ages 18–20) attending a large, racially diverse urban university (N = 86; 75% women; 46% racial/ethnic minority). A broad range of relationship-oriented literatures (e.g., early childhood and marital) were considered in creating items for the Adolescent Reactions to Parents (ARP) scale. A 3 factor solution (Accepting, Avoidant, and Attacking) appeared to provide the most parsimonious fit to the data. Adequate levels of reliability were observed for each of the three ARP subscales. Zero-order correlations among subscales of the ARP were moderate in strength. Findings indicated that participants who reported more avoidant and attacking reactions also reported more adjustment difficulties including emotion regulation difficulties and symptoms of depression. Results suggest that the ARP scale has the potential to be a valuable tool for advancing knowledge related to the socialization of emotions.     

Situation selection is a particularly effective emotion regulation strategy for people who need help regulating their emotions

Situation selection involves choosing situations based on their likely emotional impact and may be less cognitively taxing or challenging to implement compared to other strategies for regulating emotion, which require people to regulate their emotions “in the moment”; we thus predicted that individuals who chronically experience intense emotions or who are not particularly competent at employing other emotion regulation strategies would be especially likely to benefit from situation selection. Consistent with this idea, we found that the use of situation selection interacted with individual differences in emotional reactivity and competence at emotion regulation to predict emotional outcomes in both a correlational (Study 1; N?=?301) and an experimental field study (Study 2; N?=?125). Taken together, the findings suggest that situation selection is an effective strategy for regulating emotions, especially for individuals who otherwise struggle to do so.     

Regulating emotions under exposure to negative out-group-related news material results in increased acceptance of out-groups

ABSTRACT

Negative emotions affect the acceptance of out-groups. Here, we investigated whether modifying negative emotions would affect perceptions of out-groups. We experimentally manipulated the use of two emotion regulation strategies: suppression of emotional expression and cognitive reappraisal, the latter involving reframing a situation to mitigate its emotional impact. Using a population-based sample (N = 317), we conducted an online randomized controlled trial. Participants regulated their emotions while reading threatening news about out-groups. Not only reappraisal, but also suppression increased immediate acceptance of out-groups. The effect of reappraisal was partly mediated by decreased disgust, suggesting unique effects of reappraisal on this emotion. In the suppression condition acceptance decreased at high levels of habitual emotion regulation, whereas reappraisal showed an opposite tendency. Previous research may have underestimated the importance of different emotion regulation strategies on prejudice, and that relatively simple interventions can affect prejudice. The findings are of interest to prejudice prevention programs.     

Attachment and depressive symptoms in middle childhood and early adolescence: Testing the validity of the emotion regulation model of attachment

This research examines differential associations between attachment dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) and emotion regulation (ER) strategies (dysregulation and suppression) in middle childhood and early adolescence. Furthermore, the study investigates how attachment and ER relate to depressive symptoms and perceived parenting. Two cross‐sectional studies (N = 339 and N = 746) supported the hypothesized associations between attachment anxiety and avoidance and emotional dysregulation and suppression, respectively. Mixed evidence was found for ER as a mediator in associations between attachment and depressive symptoms. Study 2 found that parental responsiveness and autonomy‐support are related differentially to the attachment dimensions. The Discussion focuses on the dynamics involved in associations between parenting, attachment, ER, and depression and on directions for future research.     

Less is more? Effects of exhaustive vs. minimal emotion labelling on emotion regulation strategy planning

Previous research suggests that labelling emotions, or describing affective states using emotion words, facilitates emotion regulation. But how much labelling promotes emotion regulation? And which emotion regulation strategies does emotion labelling promote? Drawing on cognitive theories of emotion, we predicted that labelling emotions using fewer words would be less confusing and would facilitate forms of emotion regulation requiring more cognitively demanding processing of context. Participants (N?=?82) mentally immersed themselves in an emotional vignette, were randomly assigned to an exhaustive or minimal emotion labelling manipulation, and then completed an emotion regulation strategy planning task. Minimal (vs. exhaustive) emotion labelling promoted higher subjective emotional clarity. Furthermore, in terms of specific emotion regulation strategies, minimal emotion labelling prompted more plans for problem solving and marginally more plans for reappraisal, but did not affect plans for behavioural activation or social support seeking. We discuss implications for the cognitive mechanisms supporting the generation of emotion regulation strategies.     

Family emotion expressivity,emotion regulation,and the link to psychopathology: Examination across race

Research has established links between parental emotion socialization behaviours and youth emotional and psychological outcomes; however, no study has simultaneously compared these relations for White, Black, and Asian individuals. In this study, emerging adults identifying as White (n= 61), Black (n= 51), or Asian (n= 56) retrospectively reported on parents’ emotion socialization behaviours during childhood, existing emotion regulation (ER) skills, and current psychopathology symptoms. Asian participants reported fewer positive displays of emotions in their families during childhood than White and Black participants. Despite this difference, low expression of positive emotions in families during childhood did not relate to negative outcomes for Asian participants but was linked for White and Black participants. Overall, Asian participants reported more difficulties with ER than Black or White participants, and relations between ER difficulties and psychopathology varied by racial group. The findings emphasize the need to consider race when conducting research on emotion functioning with families and highlight emotion dysregulation as a potential treatment target for White, Black, and Asian individuals.     

Influencing and adjusting in daily emotional situations: A comparison of European and Asian American action styles

Emotions are for action, but action styles in emotional episodes may vary across cultural contexts. Based on culturally different models of agency, we expected that those who engage in European-American contexts will use more influence in emotional situations, while those who engage in East-Asian contexts will use more adjustment. European-American (N=60) and Asian-American (N=44) college students reported their action style during emotional episodes four times a day during a week. Asian Americans adjusted more than European Americans, whereas both used influence to a similar extent. These cultural differences in action style varied across types of emotion experienced. Moreover, influencing was associated with life satisfaction for European Americans, but not for Asian Americans.     

Emotion Beliefs,Emotion Regulation,and Emotional Experiences in Daily Life

One potential factor that could influence how individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression cope with upsetting events in their daily lives is the beliefs that these individuals hold about whether emotions are malleable or fixed. The current study adopted an experience sampling approach to examine how the beliefs about emotion’s malleability related to daily positive and negative affect and daily emotion regulation efforts among individuals with at least moderate symptoms of depression (N = 84). Results demonstrated that individuals having at least moderate symptoms of depression who held more malleable beliefs about emotions reported decreased negative affect both overall during the day and specifically in response to daily upsetting events. Additionally, these individuals who held more malleable beliefs about their emotions also reported more daily use of cognitive reappraisal to regulate their emotions in response to upsetting daily events. Results from the current study extend previous work examining the relationship between emotion malleability beliefs, emotional experiences, and emotion regulation to examine these relationships in people who are moderately depressed as they navigate the emotional landscape of their daily lives.     

Risk‐Related and Protective Correlates of Nonsuicidal Self‐Injury and Co‐Occurring Suicide Attempts among Incarcerated Women

Individual and environmental correlates of nonsuicidal self‐injury (NSSI) and co‐occurring suicide attempts (SA) among incarcerated women (N = 104) were examined. Participants completed measures of putative risk and protective factors, including coping styles, childhood maltreatment, and hopelessness. Results indicated that active coping was uniquely, negatively associated with the presence and frequency of NSSI, whereas avoidant coping and childhood physical/emotional abuse were positively associated with NSSI frequency. Conversely, among women with a history of NSSI, hopelessness was uniquely, positively associated with the presence and frequency of SA. Further, childhood sexual abuse was associated with the presence of SA, while physical/emotional abuse was associated with SA frequency. Hopelessness was more strongly related to SA frequency than NSSI frequency. These findings help disentangle the unique risk and protective factors for NSSI and co‐occurring SA in incarcerated samples.     

Cultures of moderation and expression: emotional experience, behavior, and physiology in Chinese Americans and Mexican Americans

Ethnographic accounts suggest that emotions are moderated in Chinese cultures and expressed openly in Mexican cultures. The authors tested this notion by comparing subjective, behavioral, and physiological aspects of emotional responses to 3 (warned, unwarned, instructed to inhibit responding) aversive acoustic startle stimuli in 95 Chinese Americans and 64 Mexican Americans. Subjective reports were consistent with ethnographic accounts; Chinese Americans reported experiencing significantly less emotion than Mexican Americans across all 3 startle conditions. Evidence from a nonemotional task suggested that these differences were not artifacts of cultural differences in the use of rating scales. Few cultural differences were found in emotional behavior or physiology, suggesting that these aspects of emotion are less susceptible to cultural influence.     

Women in the midluteal phase of the menstrual cycle have difficulty suppressing the processing of negative emotional stimuli: An event-related potential study

Emotion regulation deficits have been implicated in anxiety and depressive disorders, and these internalising disorders are more prevalent in women than men. Few electrophysiological studies have investigated sex differences in emotional reactivity and emotion regulation controlling for menstrual phase. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 28 early follicular women, 29 midluteal women, and 27 men who completed an emotion regulation task. A novel finding of increased N2 amplitude during suppression was found for midluteal women compared with men. These findings suggest midluteal women may be significantly less able to suppress cortical processing of negative stimuli compared to men. This ERP finding was complemented by behavioral ratings data which revealed that while both early follicular and midluteal women reported more distress than men, midluteal women also reported greater effort when suppressing their responses than men. P1 and N1 components were increased in midluteal women compared to men regardless of instructional set, suggesting greater early attentional processing. No sex or menstrual phase differences were apparent in P3 or LPP. This study underscores the importance of considering menstrual phase when examining sex differences in the cortical processing of emotion regulation and demonstrates that midluteal women may have deficits in down-regulating their neural and behavioural responses.     

Additive impact of childhood emotional,physical, and sexual abuse on suicide attempts among low-income African American women

This study examines the association between exposures to multiple forms of childhood abuse (emotional, physical, sexual) and adult suicidal behavior in a sample of low-income, African American women. We hypothesized a linear relation between childhood abuse and risk for making a suicide attempt, such that the more forms of childhood abuse to which a woman was exposed, the greater her risk would be to make a suicide attempt. Logistic regression analyses revealed that, compared to women who did not report any experiences of childhood abuse, women who experienced one, two, or three forms of abuse were 1.83, 2.29, or 7.75 times more likely to attempt suicide, respectively (all statistically significant). Furthermore, compared to women who reported one or two types of abuse, women who reported all three types of abuse were statistically more likely to attempt suicide. These findings have implications for clinicians working with African American women who report either childhood abuse or exhibit suicidal behavior.