Measuring children's regulation of emotion-expressive behavior

Emotion regulation has become a pivotal concept in developmental and clinical research. However, the measurement of regulatory processes has proved extremely difficult, particularly in the context of within-subject designs. Here, we describe a formal conceptualization and a new experimental procedure, the Balloons Game, to measure a regulatory component of emotion-expressive behavior. We present the internal consistency and stability of the indices derived from the Balloons Game in a sample of 121 kindergarten children. External validation against measures that have been associated with emotion regulation processes is also provided. The findings suggest that the Balloons Game provides a reliable tool for the study of regulation of emotion expression in young children.