The effects of distraction and reappraisal on children’s parasympathetic regulation of sadness and fear

Abstract

Children commonly experience negative emotions like sadness and fear, and much recent empirical attention has been devoted to understanding the factors supporting and predicting effective emotion regulation. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a cardiac index of parasympathetic function, has emerged as a key physiological correlate of children's self-regulation. But, little is known about how children's use of specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies corresponds to concurrent parasympathetic regulation (i.e., RSA reactivity while watching an emotion-eliciting video). The current study describes an experimental paradigm in which 101 5- to 6-year-olds were randomly assigned to one of three different emotion regulation conditions (Control, Distraction, Reappraisal). All children watched a sad and a scary film (order counterbalanced), and children in the Distraction and Reappraisal conditions received instructions to deploy the target strategy to manage sadness/fear while they watched. Consistent with predictions, children assigned to use either emotion regulation strategy showed greater RSA augmentation from baseline than children in the Control condition (all children showed an overall increase in RSA levels from baseline), suggesting enhanced parasympathetic calming when children used Distraction or Reappraisal to regulate sadness and fear. But, this pattern was found only among children who viewed the sad film before the scary film. Among children who viewed the scary film first, Reappraisal promoted marginally better parasympathetic regulation of fear (no condition differences emerged for parasympathetic regulation of sadness when the sad film was viewed second). Results are discussed in terms of their implications for our understanding of children's emotion regulation and affective physiology.

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

“…This is in line with other reports of children's distraction or diverting attention leading to reduced autonomic reactivity via increased parasympathetic activity (Davis et al, 2016;Perry et al, 2012), but the present study is the first to link this behavior with children's sympathetic activity. This suggests that, at least for young children, turning one's attention away from a stressful stimulus is effective for reducing concurrent sympathetic arousal.…”

“…For example, children can reduce the intensity of exposure to a stimulus by looking away or otherwise diverting their attention (Dennis & Kelemen, 2009). By late preschool-age, children can begin to use more cognitive strategies, such as reframing or reappraisal (Cole, Dennis, Smith-Simon, & Cohen, 2009;Davis, Quiñones-Camacho, & Buss, 2016;Dennis & Kelemen, 2009). By late preschool-age, children can begin to use more cognitive strategies, such as reframing or reappraisal (Cole, Dennis, Smith-Simon, & Cohen, 2009;Davis, Quiñones-Camacho, & Buss, 2016;Dennis & Kelemen, 2009).…”

“…Because emotion regulation can serve to intensify or decrease an emotional response (Gross & Thompson, 2007), any accompanying physiological changes might be similarly diverse (Butler et al, 2014;Gross, 1998). Davis et al (2016) found that instructions to reframe the situation also produced increases in RSA. Davis et al (2016) found that instructions to reframe the situation also produced increases in RSA.…”

Parent emotion regulation socializes children's adaptive physiological regulation

“…This is consistent with reasoning that greater RSA augmentation would be indicative of more adaptive emotion regulatory responses and effective recovery (e.g., Santucci et al, ). RSA augmentation was an adaptive pattern of responding to the recovery phase of the structured disappointment task (e.g., Davis et al, , Sulik et al, ). Our results extend previous research findings by showing that RSA augmentation corresponding to emotion regulation strategy implementation is not limited to contexts in which children are viewing emotion‐eliciting film clips (e.g., Davis et al, ).…”

“…RSA augmentation was an adaptive pattern of responding to the recovery phase of the structured disappointment task (e.g., Davis et al, , Sulik et al, ). Our results extend previous research findings by showing that RSA augmentation corresponding to emotion regulation strategy implementation is not limited to contexts in which children are viewing emotion‐eliciting film clips (e.g., Davis et al, ). Because we found a similar pattern of RSA augmentation while children regulated disappointment in a more naturalistic emotional challenge context, our findings provide additional evidence that the interpretation of children's RSA reactivity must carefully account for context and that the patterns of RSA reactivity and recovery that are most adaptive will depend on the parameters of the task being used.…”