Assessment of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation

Abstract

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.

Applying Research Domain Criteria to the study of emotion dysregulation in infancy and early childhood

“…Emotion dysregulation is complex, and finding measurement approaches that adequately characterise it is challenging, especially since one individual may have a variety of regulatory strategies they can apply to different situations (Adrian & Berk, 2020). The literature is consistent in showing associations between emotion dysregulation and developmental and socioemotional outcomes, but this literature is fragmented because of the multitude of ways that emotion dysregulation has been defined, assessed and conceptualised (Webb et al, 2020). This fragmentation has resulted in a limited understanding of emotion dysregulation (Webb et al, 2020).…”

“…structuralist and functionalist (Webb et al, 2020). Structuralist theory (e.g., Ekman, 1992;Izard, 1978), also referred to as constructionist theory (Beauchaine & Haines, 2020) or discrete emotion theory (Buss et al, 2019), is based on the idea that humans have a capacity for a universal, basic set of emotions.…”

“…In other words, one core emotion will be consistently manifest across all measures, for example, behaviourally, physiologically and so on. The structuralist theory also predicts that core emotions will be felt, expressed and regulated similarly, regardless of culture (Webb et al, 2020). However, there has been no…”

“…Compared to emotion regulation, there is less consensus in the field regarding a cohesive conceptualisation of emotion dysregulation in early childhood, which may be hindering the progress of research (Webb et al, 2020). Definitions of emotion dysregulation meant to apply to individuals of all ages may not be as applicable in early childhood.…”

“…The development of emotion regulation is dependent upon a multidimensional network of processes, originating intrinsically and extrinsically to the child and occurring on multiple levels (e.g., cognitive, biological, social and neural; Adrian & Berk, 2020; Perry & Calkins, 2018; Beauchaine & Cicchetti, 2019). Few studies have used more than one method of assessing emotion dysregulation in children (Webb et al, 2020). Adrian et al (2011) conducted a 35‐year review of emotion regulation assessment, including those used with infants.…”