Capturing motivation and emotion regulation during a learning process

Emotion regulation (ER) is a relevant transdiagnostic mechanism for mental health, involving cognitive, behavioral, and physiological processes. Children of parents with a mental illness (COPMI) are at increased risk for ER difficulties, yet the integration of state and trait ER assessments remains underexplored. This study employs a multimodal approach to assess ER in COPMI compared to children of parents without a mental illness (COPWMI). We examined trait ER via self-report in 195 children (96 COPMI/99 COPWMI) aged 4 - 16, cognitive state ER using an emotional Go/Nogo task in 243 children (96 COPMI/147 COPWMI) aged 7 - 16, and physiological state ER through heart rate and electrodermal activity responses during an emotional video task in 124 children (49 COPMI/75 COPWMI) aged 7 - 16. No significant group differences emerged in cognitive or physiological measures of state ER. Emotional stimuli affected physiological responses across all participants, but COPMI did not show heightened reactivity or diminished affective inhibitory control compared to COPWMI. Furthermore, trait ER did not significantly predict state ER responses across groups. These findings challenge the assumption of broad ER impairments in COPMI and highlight the importance of considering situational and environmental factors when assessing ER. The absence of universal state ER deficits suggests that some COPMI may compensate for potential vulnerabilities.

Emotion regulation appears to play a key role in eating disorders. However, prior attempts to associate specific emotion regulation abilities with specific types of eating disorders resulted in inconsistent findings. Moreover, far less is known about emotion regulation in eating disorders during adolescence, a critical period of emotional development. The current study addresses this gap, comparing emotion regulation characteristics between adolescents with restrictive types of eating disorders and those with binge eating or purging types of eating disorders. Ninety-eight adolescents with eating disorders (49 with restrictive and 49 with binge eating/purging eating disorders) completed a set of questionnaires including the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). The results revealed that binge eating/purging types of eating disorders were associated with greater difficulties in a variety of emotion regulation dimensions including impulse control, goal-directed behavior and access to effective emotion regulation strategies. Awareness and clarity of emotions were also worse in the binge eating/purging types of eating disorders, but this difference did not remain when comorbid psychopathology measures were controlled for. Moreover, the emotion regulation profile of adolescents with anorexia nervosa-binging/purging type was more similar to that of adolescents with bulimia nervosa than to that of adolescents with anorexia nervosa-restrictive type. While both restrictive and binge eating/purging eating disorders have been associated with emotion regulation difficulties, the current study shows that the presence of binge eating or purging episodes is linked with greater severity of emotion regulation deficits among adolescents with eating disorders.

Modeling the effect of regulation of negative emotions on mood

Caregivers play a central role in promoting emotion regulation throughout infancy, childhood, and adolescence. However, there are no existing psychometric measures to assess how parents assist children in employing emotion regulation strategies for negative emotions. We therefore developed the Parental Assistance with Child Emotion Regulation (PACER) Questionnaire to assess the degree to which parents assist their children in their use of ten different regulation strategies. In this paper, we describe the development of the PACER and examine its psychometric properties (N = 407 parents of children ages birth to 17years). In so doing, we also use the PACER to comprehensively explore the links between parent-assisted emotion regulation and indices of parent and child stress, symptomatology, and attachment. Confirmatory factor analyses of the PACER items supported its intended ten-factor structure (corresponding to ten specific regulation strategies), which was invariant across different child age and sex categories. PACER scale scores had excellent internal consistency and generally acceptable test-retest reliability over a one-week period. Convergent validity was established via correlations between PACER scales and indices of parental emotion sensitivity, expressivity, and regulation, as well as parents' perception of the efficacy of their assistance with children's execution of emotion regulatory strategies. Lower parental facilitation of stereotypically adaptive emotion regulatory strategies was associated with higher child internalizing and externalizing problems and with poorer parent-child relationship quality. Overall, these findings suggest that the PACER may be a useful tool for the assessment of parental assistance with child emotion regulation across development.

An examination of the incremental contribution of emotion regulation difficulties to health anxiety beyond specific emotion regulation strategies

Extant research suggests that individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) have deficits in emotion regulation across a variety of domains. The current study investigated associations between specific difficulties with emotion regulation and the core symptoms of AN. Participants were 192 patients with AN presenting to an intensive eating disorder treatment facility. Emotion regulation was assessed using the multidimensional Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and associations with body mass index (BMI) at admission, eating disorder cognitions, objective binge eating, subjective binge eating, and purging were examined. Eating disorder cognitions were significantly associated with multiple forms of emotion dysregulation; however, only lack of emotional awareness was independently related to these symptoms. In contrast, impulse control difficulties when upset was the only emotion regulation impairment associated with the presence of recurrent objective binge eating and recurrent purging in AN. No significant relationships between emotion regulation and BMI or subjective binge eating were detected. Results point to differential associations between specific emotion regulation deficits and core symptoms of AN. These findings suggest that parsing the construct of emotion regulation as well as the AN phenotype can help to identify the unique ways in which eating disorder symptoms may function to regulate emotions.

Religion can influence multiple points in the process of emotion regulation, including setting emotional goals and influencing intrinsic and extrinsic emotion regulation. First, religion shapes desired emotional states by setting emotional goals which are instrumental to religious values. These include awe, gratitude, joy, guilt, and hatred. Second, religion influences intrinsic processes in emotion regulation, including self-regulation skills, beliefs about the malleability of emotions, and the use of specific emotion regulation strategies. Finally, religion influences extrinsic processes in emotion regulation, including the creation of communities which provide social support in emotion regulation and religious rituals. The role of religion at each point of emotion regulation, as enumerated above, is discussed with regards to implications for well-being.

Emotion regulation mediates the effect of childhood trauma on depression

While emotion regulation often happens in the presence of others, little is known about how social context shapes regulatory efforts and outcomes. One key element of the social context is social support. In two experience sampling studies (Ns = 179 and 123), we examined how the use and affective consequences of two fundamentally social emotion-regulation strategies—social sharing and expressive suppression—vary as a function of perceived social support. Across both studies, we found evidence that social support was associated with variation in people’s use of these strategies, such that when people perceived their environments as being higher (vs. lower) in social support, they engaged in more sharing and less suppression. However, we found only limited and inconsistent support for context-dependent affective outcomes of suppression and sharing: suppression was associated with better affective consequences in the context of higher perceived social support in Study 1, but this effect did not replicate in Study 2. Taken together, these findings suggest that the use of social emotion-regulation strategies may depend on contextual variability in social support, whereas their effectiveness does not. Future research is needed to better understand the circumstances in which context-dependent use of emotion regulation may have emotional benefits, accounting for personal, situational, and cultural factors.

Problem. One's ability to regulate his/her emotions utilizing coping mechanisms and dissuasive mental strategies is partly attained due to the correct functioning of innate biological systems and to life experiences that promote learning/training in this area (cf., e.g., Matsumoto & Hwang, 2012). The field of emotion regulation studies has extensively elaborated on a multivalent description of human emotional development, in which emotions are part of essential mental strategies for an individual's conscious and unconscious goals in life (cf., e.g., Lang & Bradley, 2010; Levenson, 1999). Therefore, as a partly learned ability, one's emotion regulation skills have been shown as positively correlated to a person's caregivers' practices in early life (Saarni, 1999), such as parental emotional responsiveness and absence of emotional withdrawal as a punishment measure (Chang, Schwartz, Dodge, & McBride-Chang, 2003; Thompson, 2014). The parental practices comprising the different parenting styles have increasingly been shown as influencing the mental development of children into adulthood and can potentially be positively correlated with one's ability to regulate his/her emotions (Baumrind, 1996). Considering the relative lack of studies on such correlational dynamics in Brazil, especially among Seventh-day Adventists, the present study investigated the relationship between perceived emotion regulation and perceived maternal care and exigency in that group. Method Due to the need for assessing the potential correlation between two specific observed variables, namely, maternal parenting style and emotion regulation, in a group of Seventh-day Adventists in Southern Brazil, the present study adopts a quantitative, non-experimental, correlational design. The reason is the need for adopting a research design that can identify or suggest whether maternal parenting (comprised of maternal responsiveness and maternal exigency) is correlated to levels of emotion self-regulation. The bivariate correlational study design is tailored to explore the specific correlational coefficients between the variables (McMillan & Schumacher, 2014). The approach is comprised of the systemic and rigorous collection of data for studying the targeted population sample in a nonintervention condition. Data collection is anonymous and includes the individuals' scores in two distinct instruments for measuring their self-perceived ideas about both observed variables. Perceived maternal parenting was measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and perceived emotion regulation was measured by the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) questionnaire. Results The demographic questionnaire showed the adequacy of the sample (N=207) to the originally proposed targeted population, being them all Seventh-day Adventist adults (18–34 years [57%]; 35–50 years [29%]; and above 50 years [13.5%]) currently residing in southern Brazil (Paraná [N=170]; Rio Grande do Sul [N=25]; and Santa Catarina [N=12]). The overall mean of the first observed variable (perceived levels of maternal responsiveness and exigency) was 70.72 (SD=14.76). As for the second observed variable (perceived levels of emotion regulation), the overall mean was 58.72 (SD= 16.14). A Cronbach's alpha test for internal consistency or reliability found ɑ > 0.9 for both PBI (ɑ=0.91) and DERS (ɑ=0.96) sets of answers, pointing to both tests' answer items as highly intercorrelated. Accordingly, a Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was calculated for measuring the linear correlation between the two observed variables. The achieved Pearson correlation coefficient (r=0.42) pointed to a positive linear correlation between the observed variables. Additionally, in the test, p, or the Sig. (2-tailed) index, was less than .001, thus further pointing to the rejection of the null hypothesis. Thus, as r = 0.42 (p < .001), the null hypothesis was confidently rejected, thus confirming this study's research hypothesis, enunciated as follows: "there is a significant correlation between perceived levels of maternal responsiveness and exigency and emotion regulation in a group of Seventh-day Adventists in Southern Brazil". Conclusions The confirmation of the research hypothesis points to the significance of the proposed correlation also among this study's targeted population sample, confirming academic studies suggesting the same dynamic among other population samples. The idea that a mother's role regarding her child is positively correlated to his/her enhanced emotion regulation skills later in life among Brazilian Seventh-day Adventists allows suggesting that psychological and pedagogical interventions that facilitate maternal practices and attitudes promoting authoritative parenting among that group are desirable. Such an emphasis, on par with other populations, has the potential for fostering healthier emotion regulation skills among future generations of Seventh-day Adventists in Brazil. This conclusion suggests some follow-up research lines that can potentially deepen the current knowledge about the proposed correlation among Seventh-day Adventists. Thus, a focus on how or whether the pedagogical practices adopted within Seventh-day Adventists' lifestyle and religiosity impact their outcome parenting could help in that regard.

Learning motivation plays an important role in students’ engagement, persistence, and academic development, especially in vocational education, where learning often involves practical tasks, performance evaluation, and emotional pressure. Although previous studies have shown that socio-emotional competence, self-efficacy, and emotion regulation are all related to motivation, these factors are usually discussed separately. As a result, there is still a lack of an integrated explanation of how learning motivation develops among vocational college students. To address this gap, this paper proposes an integrative conceptual framework to explain learning motivation in vocational education from a socio-emotional perspective. In this framework, socio-emotional competence is viewed as a foundational resource that helps students manage interpersonal and emotional challenges in the learning process. Self-efficacy is positioned as a mediating factor that connects socio-emotional competence with learning motivation, because students who better understand and manage emotions are more likely to believe in their own abilities and stay motivated. Emotion regulation is treated as a moderating factor that can strengthen or weaken this process, especially when students face stress, setbacks, or evaluation pressure. By bringing these three factors together, the paper offers a clearer understanding of why vocational students may show different levels of motivation even in similar learning environments. This framework not only extends current research on learning motivation in vocational education, but also provides useful ideas for future empirical studies and for educational practices that support students’ emotional development, confidence, and sustained motivation.

It is not known how emotion regulation deficits and strategies may differentially relate to nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and suicide ideation in samples of community-based adolescents. The current study examined emotion regulation using comprehensive multi-method assessment to identify which specific deficits are uniquely related to NSSI and suicide ideation in a sample of high school students. Regarding specific deficits, it was expected that lack of emotional awareness, lack of access to emotion regulation strategies, poor cognitive reappraisal, and poorer automatic emotion processing would uniquely associate with past-year NSSI engagement. It was also predicted that lack of access to strategies, lack of impulse control, lack of awareness, and nonacceptance of emotion would uniquely associate with past-year presence of suicide ideation and suicide ideation severity. The sample included 696 adolescents (54.8% female; ages 14-17; mean age = 15.5) recruited from public high schools. Self-report measures were administered assessing suicide ideation, NSSI engagement, dimensions of emotion regulation, and automatic emotion processing (Emotion Stroop). Emotion suppression was the only unique and significant predictor of past-year NSSI engagement, and lack of access to emotion regulation strategies was the strongest predictor of both past-year presence of suicide ideation and recent suicide ideation severity when accounting for all deficits in the same model. Acquiring emotion regulation skills during the period of adolescence has great potential to buffer from occurrence of NSSI and severity of suicide ideation.

RESEARCH ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF BODYBUILDING OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN NINGBO FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SPORTS EMOTION REGULATION PSYCHOLOGY

Academic buoyancy refers to students' ability to come through ordinary challenges they face in the academic context, and it can positively contribute to students' beliefs and behaviours in learning situations. Although buoyancy has been found to be related to positive academic outcomes, previous studies have not examined how buoyancy influences academic emotions in learning situations and how these emotions further affect students' learning-related expectations and behaviours. This study investigated to what extent academic buoyancy predicts students' failure expectations, avoidance behaviour, and task-oriented planning in learning situations, and to what extent academic emotions mediate the effect of academic buoyancy on these expectations and behaviours. A total of 845 Finnish students in the sixth grade of primary school. Self-report data for academic buoyancy and academic emotions in the autumn semester and learning-related expectations and behaviours in the spring semester were analysed using structural equation modelling, controlling for gender, grade point average, and previous levels of learning-related expectations and behaviours. The findings showed that high academic buoyancy indirectly predicted lower avoidance behaviour, fewer failure expectations, and higher task-oriented planning via academic emotions. High academic buoyancy was related to high enjoyment and hope as well as low boredom and hopelessness, which further predicted low failure expectations. High hope and low boredom also predicted low avoidance behaviour, and high hope was associated with high task-oriented planning. The findings suggest that academic buoyancy supports positive expectations and adaptive behaviours in learning situations through the regulation of emotions.

Adolescents with high subjective well being will experience life satisfaction and experience joy more often, and rarely experience unpleasant emotions, such as sadness and anger. Adolescents with high subjective well being will tend to have emotions that are always positive which in the end all life problems and developmental tasks can be resolved properly. This study aims to determine the effect of the relationship between emotion regulation and subjective well being in adolescents who live in boarding schools. The variables of this study are emotion regulation as the independent variable (X) and subjective well being as the dependent variable (Y). This research design uses a correlational approach with a sample of 108 students, using probability sampling technique with simple random sampling type. This research instrument is the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) and Scale of Positive An Negative Experience (SPANE) with Cronbach's Alpha reliability of 0.877 to measure subjective well being. The Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) with Cronbach's Alpha reliability of 0.730 to measure emotion regulation. Data analysis in this study used Pearson product moment correlation. The results of data analysis show that there is no significant relationship between emotion regulation and subjective well being in adolescents at boarding schools with a sig value. 0,383 (p<0,05).