The Developmental Course of Regulation Capacity from Middle Childhood to Adolescence

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The experience of negative and positive emotions is an inevitable part of the human existence, and the ability to monitor and manage emotional experiences, known as emotion regulation, is of central importance. Despite recent advances in our understanding of emotion regulation, it remains to be understood exactly how these regulatory processes function and develop throughout childhood. In particular, the scarcity of research during the middle childhood-to-adolescence developmental period is problematic because the transition to adolescence is marked by significant developmental changes in experiences of arousal and stress and physiological changes due to puberty. The proposed research will examine the stability of autonomic nervous system activity and its functional impact on the biobehavioural regulation of emotion in youth spanning middle childhood to adolescence. The research will also examine a construct proposed to be closely related to regulation - emotion granularity (i.e., the ability to identify nuanced distinctions between emotions). Together, these objectives will inform integrated models of normative emotion regulation in youth during an essential developmental period. To achieve these aims, two cohorts of youths (cohort 1: ages 7 to 9 and cohort 2: ages 11-13) will visit the laboratory and participate in a range of well-established tasks designed during which real-time observations of behaviour, autonomic nervous system activity (i.e., heart rate variability and skin conductance level), and self-ratings of emotion will be collected. Then, youth will be followed longitudinally to measure the developmental course of biobehavioural emotion regulation. Finally, real-life, day-to-day variation in emotion and physiology will be examined in youth's natural environment by having youth wear the innovative Empatica E4 wristband during 10 consecutive days. This wristband acquires physiological signals and will shed light on the nuanced interplay between physiological functioning, regulation and emotion granularity. This research program has great potential to contribute significantly to both theory and methodology in the field of youth emotion science. Findings will set the stage for additional work on contextual factors impacting emotion activation/regulation and on the voluntary/involuntary deployment of regulation strategies. The proposed combination of methodologies is quite innovative, contributes to the natural sciences, and stands to affect interdisciplinary and translational research. It should also be noted that the proposed research will offer students rich opportunities for HQP training in varied research endeavors and is likely to form the foundation of their development as academics and researchers.