When and how do memory narratives function to regulate anger and sadness?

描述（由申请人提供）：鉴于情绪对一系列心理和生理过程的影响，调节情绪是一项重要的发展成就，包括注意力、感知、记忆、生理唤醒、应激反应和发展结果。该提案的中心目标是：1）与其他已建立的情绪调节形式相比，建立记忆叙述在持久下调愤怒和悲伤方面的有效性-主观和生理评估; 2）确定记忆叙述用于减少对经历的愤怒和悲伤的机制; 3）证明在童年中期和青春期早期，记忆叙事何时可以首先下调愤怒和悲伤;以及4）是否，当儿童和青少年在叙事结构中得到一个成年人了拟议的研究在叙事的构建过程中以及在随后的场合重新暴露于情感事件期间检查愤怒和悲伤，以测试记忆叙事是否有助于以持久的方式下调愤怒和悲伤。四项研究采用实验和横断面设计来回答这些问题。第一项研究将成年人的记忆叙事结构与其他有据可查的情绪调节策略进行了比较：重新评估和分散注意力。第二项研究对比了不同类型的记忆叙事启发，以确定成人情绪调节叙事的关键特征。第三项研究确定了叙事有效调节儿童和青少年愤怒和悲伤的年龄。第四项研究评估了儿童和青少年是否可以有效地使用叙事，以下调情绪在较早的年龄时，他们提供了成人的帮助，以构建叙事。所有研究均通过自我报告和生理测量（呼吸道窦性心律失常和皮肤电导水平）评估情绪反应和调节。拟议的研究结果将提供指导，使用记忆叙事结构的规范样本之间的情绪调节服务，通过阐明的机制，记忆叙事结构可以用来调节情绪，并通过概述时，发展，记忆叙事来服务于情绪调节与专家成人脚手架。研究结果还提供了记忆叙事结构与已知的情绪调节策略，如重新评价和分心的比较。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Regulating emotion is a critical developmental achievement, given the impact of emotion on an array of psychological and physical processes, including attention, perception, memory, physiological arousal, stress responses, and developmental outcomes. The central aims of the proposal are 1) to establish the effectiveness of memory narratives in the lasting down- regulation of anger and sadness- both subjective and physiologically assessed, as compared to other established forms of emotion regulation; 2) to identify the mechanisms by which memory narratives serve to reduce anger and sadness in response to experiences; 3) to demonstrate when, across middle childhood and early adolescence, memory narratives can first serve to down-regulate anger and sadness; and 4) whether, children and younger adolescents can effectively use memory narratives to reduce anger and sadness when they are assisted in narrative construction by an adult. The proposed studies examine anger and sadness both during the construction of narratives and during re-exposure to the emotional events on subsequent occasions, in order to test whether memory narratives help to down-regulate anger and sadness in lasting ways. Four studies employ experimental and cross-sectional designs to answer these questions. A first study compares the construction of memory narratives among adults to other, well-documented strategies for emotion regulation: re-appraisal and distraction. A second study contrasts different types of memory narrative elicitations to identify the critical features of narrative for emotion regulation among adults. A third study identifies the age at which narratives effectively serve to regulate anger and sadness for children and adolescents. The fourth study assesses whether children and younger adolescents can use narratives effectively to down-regulate emotion at earlier ages when they are provided with adult assistance to construct the narratives. All studies assess emotional reactivity and regulation via self-report and physiological measures (Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia and Skin Conductance Level). The findings of the proposed studies will provide guidance for using memory narrative construction in the service of emotion regulation among normative samples, by illuminating the mechanisms by which memory narrative construction can serve to regulate emotions, and by outlining when, developmentally, memory narratives come to serve emotion regulation with and without expert adult scaffolding. The findings also provide comparisons of memory narrative construction with known strategies for emotion regulation, such as reappraisal and distraction.