The role of co-regulation for the development of reflective emotion regulation - An intervention study in the preschool context

本研究旨在为幼儿教师充分的情绪挑战事件协同调节在4 ~ 6岁幼儿反思性情绪调节发展中的构成作用提供实证证据。有意识地调节情绪需要运用调节策略（即分散注意力、重新评价、抚慰和反应调节），以便用一种次要的行为替代替代主导的行动准备。反思性情绪调节一旦得到发展，就能使儿童掌握具有情感挑战性的事件，并以社会协调和理想的方式满足自己的欲望。从个体发生的角度出发，本研究的基本假设是：幼儿时期通过重要照顾者对情绪的人际调节（即共同调节）逐渐产生情绪的自我调节。到目前为止，还没有详细的理论模型来说明这种逐渐转变是如何发生的，到目前为止，只有相关证据表明，共同调节过程对后来的自我调节起着重要作用。基于反思性情绪调节的内化模型解决了这一概念上的差距，本研究将日托机构作为一个重要的发展环境。这种环境为孩子们提供了关于他们情绪调节能力的关键体验和挑战。在这些情况下，幼儿教师在支持儿童发展方面发挥着重要作用。本研究建议的主要特点是，首先，治疗前-治疗后-控制干预设计，其次，教师培训促进情绪指导（即，验证和探索情绪），并根据所选择的调节策略和共同调节的类型（即，采用共同调节，提供特定提示，或提供元认知提示）提供适合发展的共同调节。提出的研究至少在三个方面有助于当前的话语。首先，这是第一批将日托环境中的同伴冲突互动视为发展反思性情绪调节的重要生态位的研究之一。其次，本研究强调了幼儿教师作为家庭之外的重要社会化中介的重要性，当儿童面临情感挑战时，教师可以提供支持。第三，这是第一批超越相关性研究设计的研究之一，它着眼于有针对性的教师培训对学龄前儿童情绪自我调节的影响。最后，通过测试教师培训对儿童反思性情绪调节发展的影响，本研究有助于更广泛地探讨共同调节对儿童发展的作用。

The proposed study aims at providing empirical evidence for the constitutive role of preschool teachers' adequate co-regulation of emotionally challenging events for the development of 4- to 6-year-olds' reflective emotion regulation. Regulating emotions volitionally requires the application of regulation strategies (i.e., distraction, reappraisal, soothing, and response modulation) in order to replace the dominant action readiness by a subdominant behavioral alternative. Once developed, reflective emotion regulation enables children to master emotionally challenging events and to satisfy own desires in socially coordinated and desirable way. From an ontogenetic perspective, the study starts from the basic assumption that self-regulation of emotions gradually emerges from the interpersonal regulation (i.e., co-regulation) of emotions through important caregivers during the preschool years. To date, there is no elaborated theoretical model that specifies how this gradual shift occurs and so far there is only correlational evidence that suggests that co-regulatory processes play an important role for later self-regulation. Based on the internalization model of reflective emotion regulation that addresses this conceptual gap, the proposed study focuses on day care institutions as an important developmental context. This setting provides children with critical experiences and challenges with regards to their emotion regulatory competence. In these situations, preschool teachers play a significant role in supporting children's development. Key features of the study proposal are, first, the pre-post treatment-control intervention design and, second, a teacher training that is fostering emotion coaching (i.e., validating and exploring emotions) and the provision of developmentally appropriate co-regulation, in terms of the regulation strategy chosen and the type of co-regulation (i.e., adopting co-regulation, providing specific prompts, or providing meta-cognitive prompts) provided. The proposed study contributes to the current discourse in at least three ways. First, it is one of the first studies that looks at conflictual peer interactions within the day care setting as an important ecological niche for the development of reflective emotion regulation. Second, the study highlights the significance of preschool teachers as important socialization agents beyond the family that support children when confronted with emotionally challenging situations. Third, this is one of the first studies that goes beyond a correlational study design and looks at the effects of a targeted teacher training on preschoolers' self-regulation of emotions. Finally, by testing the effects of the teacher training on children's development of reflective emotion regulation, the study contributes to the more general discourse on the role of co-regulation for child development.