Multidimensional Emotion Regulation Moderates the Relation Between Behavioral Inhibition at Age 2 and Social Reticence with Unfamiliar Peers at Age 4

Abstract

Behavioral inhibition (BI), a temperament trait characterized by fearful and wary responses to novelty, has been consistently identified as one of the primary precursors of the behavioral expression of anxious, socially reticent behavior with unfamiliar peers (Fox, Henderson, Marshall, Nichols, & Ghera, 2005). In turn, it has been proposed that the tendency to demonstrate fearful, wary behavior and refrain from interacting with unfamiliar peers may be a key antecedent to social withdrawal, the tendency to avoid social interaction when in the presence of familiar peers (Rubin, Coplan, & Bowker, 2009). Social withdrawal predicts a variety of negative social and emotional outcomes throughout childhood and adolescence. For instance, socially withdrawn children often experience peer rejection and exclusion (e.g. Gazelle & Spangler, 2007), perhaps because they are less socially competent and they demonstrate poor social-cognitive reasoning abilities relative to their non-withdrawn peers (e.g., Burgess, Wojslawowicz, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, & Booth-LaForce, 2006; Stewart & Rubin, 1995). Perhaps as a result of these difficulties, socially withdrawn children come to perceive themselves as less socially competent and experience heightened loneliness, anxiety, and depressive symptoms relative to their non-withdrawn peers (e.g., Ladd, 2006; see Rubin et al., 2009 for a relevant transactional model of the developmental course of social withdrawal). As a result, it is essential to investigate factors that may disrupt the association between early BI and childhood social reticence in order to better understand

The roles of temperamental inhibition in affective and cognitive empathy in Chinese toddlers

“…Specifically, a high level of BI was significantly correlated with low performance in cognitive empathy tasks only for children exhibiting low levels of self‐regulation, but this association was not detected for children showing high levels of self‐regulation. Previous studies have found a similar protective role of self‐regulation in social adaptation for children of temperamental extremes, such that highly inhibited children who are low in self‐regulation can easily be trapped in their own perspectives and avoid social interactions or communications in a social context (Buss, Davis, Ram, & Coccia, 2018; Hipson et al, 2019; Penela et al, 2015; Smith et al, 2019); as a result, they may be at increased risk for internalizing symptomatology (Dougherty, Klein, Durbin, Hayden, & Olino, 2010; Liu, Calkins, & Bell, 2018).…”

“…It will be necessary to follow children over time to determine the long‐term impact of temperament on children's empathy development. Second, the current study only used the snack delay task to measure toddlers’ ability of self‐regulation; it would be more convincing if future research could include an emotion regulation task, which would directly help inhibited children overcome their social fear (Smith et al, 2019). Third, our sample mainly included middle‐class urban children in China, and the social lives of rural children are different from those of urban children (Chen, Wang, & Cao, 2011).…”

“…More importantly, despite the direct contribution, self‐regulation is a key factor that moderates the associations between early temperament and later social adaptation. In particular, for children with high BI, self‐regulation can support them to overcome their social anxiety, engage in or even initiate peer interactions, and develop greater social competence (Hipson, Coplan, & Séguin, 2019; Penela, Walker, Degnan, Fox, & Henderson, 2015; Smith, Hastings, Henderson, & Rubin, 2019). Notably, Lane et al (2013) found that for children low in physiological reactivity (an index of physiological regulation measured by hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical axis reactivity), temperamental withdrawal was positively related to their ToM performance, especially among Chinese participants.…”

Perceptions of Portuguese parents about the acceptability of a multicomponent intervention targeted at behavioral inhibition during early childhood

“…In line with the developmental and transactional framework (Rubin et al., 2009), research showed that parents often respond to children's inhibited behaviors in an overprotective way that did not foster independence and emotion‐regulation skills (Hane, Cheah, Rubin, & Fox, 2008; Lewis‐Morrarty et al., 2012). Given that emotion‐regulation skills are associated with socially competent behaviors, inhibited/withdrawn children who grow up in such family environments were found to refrain from engaging in peer interactions at preschool (Smith, Hastings, Henderson & Rubin, 2019). When withdrawing from the peer group, research showed inhibited children loose important opportunities to acquire age‐appropriate social skills and to be more likely to experience peer difficulties, which, in turn, maintain their self‐imposed isolation in the presence of peers and increase the risk of developing anxiety disorders (Rubin et al., 2018).…”

Perceções dos psicólogos portugueses acerca da aceitabilidade de uma intervenção dirigida a crianças inibidas em idade pré-escolar

“…The recognition of low social and socio-cognitive skills may evoke negative peer responses and lead to the development of negative social self-perceptions ) that contribute to the maintenance of BI/AW and increase the risk of later negative socioemotional outcomes (Rubin et al, 2009). In addition, research has shown that inhibited children who display low emotion-regulation skills are at increased risk of later social maladjustment (Smith, Hastings, Henderson, & Rubin, 2019). The unhealthy developmental pathways associated with high and stable BI/AW can be prevented, if child's social, socio-cognitive and emotion-regulation skills are promoted during early childhood (Chronis-Tuscano et al, 2018).…”