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Attachment theory and previous research on emotion regulation (ER) suggest that ER will be associated with adult attachment orientation, with the expectation of different associations of attachment avoidance, anxiety, and security with specific ER patterns. In addition, research has shown that the emotion under consideration and the context may matter to patterns of ER and associations between attachment and ER. In the present study, we examined associations between attachment representations, and emotion specific (sadness, worry, and anger) ER among late adolescents and young adults aged 16 to 23 years ( M = 19.6, SD = 1.58). In addition, to consider context, participants were randomly assigned to report ER following insecurity priming or no priming. Participants were 383 (181 male, 202 female) students who completed a self-report questionnaire. As expected, multivariate regression results examining all attachment orientations simultaneously showed that attachment anxiety was associated with greater dysregulation (sadness, worry, and anger), but also more anger suppression. In contrast, attachment avoidance was associated with greater suppression (sadness and worry), but also more anger dysregulation. Attachment security was associated with less dysregulation (sadness, worry, and anger), and less sadness and worry suppression. Finally, sadness and anger dysregulation were higher when reported after insecurity priming compared to the standard no prime condition, but few associations between attachment orientations and ER were moderated by condition. The results suggest that individuals’ attachment representations are associated with ER, with security a benefit to adaptive ER, and anxiety and avoidance playing different roles in maladaptive ER for different emotions.

Drawing from dispositional mindfulness research and stress and coping theories, we tested whether adolescents’ dispositional mindfulness was associated with perceptions of peer victimization and exclusion and internalizing symptoms. We further explored the role of dispositional mindfulness as a protective factor buffering the impact of peer victimization and exclusion (PVE) on internalizing symptoms. Participants were 361 (40% boys) adolescents aged between 11 and 18 years ( M = 14.9, SD = 1.4) who completed a questionnaire to assess dispositional mindfulness, perceptions of PVE, social anxiety and depressive symptoms, and loneliness. As expected, more frequent experience of PVE was associated with reporting more symptoms of social anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Further, adolescents who reported higher dispositional mindfulness also reported fewer symptoms of social anxiety, depression, and loneliness, even after controlling for gender and experiences of PVE. Dispositional mindfulness was not protective against (i.e., did not buffer) the effects of PVE on internalizing symptoms. Instead, we found that PVE had a stronger association with symptoms of social anxiety, depression, and loneliness when mindfulness was high relative to when it was medium or low. Yet, victimization was associated with greater social anxiety, depressive symptoms, and loneliness at all levels of mindfulness.

Emotion and the modulation of emotion are inherently human processes with which all readers of this entry will have intimate experience. Yet, defining and measuring emotion regulation, particularly in children, is a vastly more complicated task than it may at first seem. This entry introduces some of the key theoretical perspectives that underpin the understanding of emotion regulation, and presents important conceptual and developmental considerations that, together, result in a great diversity of ways in which emotion regulation is defined, conceptualized, and measured. It provides a summary of the four methods of assessing emotion regulation in children, including a discussion of the strengths and limitations of each, and a review of some of the more widely used measures.

Drawing from attachment and emotion theories, we tested a model whereby emerging adults' anxious and avoidant attachment would have specific associations with dysregulation and suppression of sadness and anger and would be unique correlates of emotional and behavioral problems. Participants were 383 (47% men) students between 16 and 23 years (M = 19.6, SD = 1.58) who completed a questionnaire to assess attachment, emotion dysregulation and suppression, depressive and social anxiety symptoms, and aggressive behavior. In a path model, greater anxious attachment was associated with more emotion dysregulation, whereas greater avoidant attachment was associated with greater emotion suppression. Greater sadness dysregulation was uniquely and significantly associated with depression and social anxiety but not aggression, whereas greater anger dysregulation was associated with aggressive behavior but not depression and anxiety. Also, participants with elevated attachment insecurities reported heightened emotional and behavioral problems. Anxious attachment had the most pervasive impact on all forms of symptoms, either directly or indirectly via emotion dysregulation. Yet, there was also evidence that a focus on regulation of sadness, relative to anger, identified unique links with depression and social anxiety, relative to aggressive behavior. Attachment, ER, and Adjustment 4 Common and Distinct Correlates of Depression, Anxiety, and Aggression: Attachment and Emotion Regulation of Sadness and AngerIn classic attachment theory, early childhood experiences with caregiving are described as the foundations for the formation of a general working model of relationships, which is also sometimes referred to as attachment orientation or attachment style (Bowlby, 1969(Bowlby, , 1973(Bowlby, , 1980Cassidy, 1994). By adolescence and into adulthood, the working model has been described as a general conception of the mental representations of the self (e.g., beliefs about one's worthiness) and others (e.g., expectations about the availability and responsiveness of others) (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007. Along with the development of a working model, early interactions, which include caregivers' assisting children in their nascent attempts to regulate emotions and, later, coregulation and support in self-regulation, are also described as essential for the later formation of intra-individual emotion regulation (ER) skills and competencies (Brumariu, 2015;Brumariu &