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This study examined bidirectional relations between television exposure and effortful control accounting for the effects of family contextual risk factors. Data were from a sample (N = 306) of parents and their preschool-age children (T1 M = 36 mos. in 2008-2010) assessed four times, once every 9 mos. At T1, adolescent parent status predicted lower child delay ability (DA), and maternal depression predicted higher TV time. Above these effects, higher T1 and T2 child executive control (EC) prospectively predicted lower T2 and T3 TV time, while higher T1 TV time predicted lower T2 EC. Higher EC at T4 predicted fewer total problems, greater social competence, and greater academic readiness at T4, and higher TV time at T4 predicted lower academic readiness. DA was unrelated to TV time or adjustment. Findings suggest executive control and TV time predict changes in each other in early childhood, and in turn, executive control predicts better child adjustment while TV time might be more relevant for academic readiness. Moreover, family risk factors appear to play a role in both TV viewing time and effortful control.

Objective: How individuals differentially implement specific emotion regulation (ER) strategies is a critical indicator of the progression of depressive and anxiety disorders. Symptoms of anxiety and depression may be associated with differences in ER, but little evidence to date had examined whether anxiety and depression were associated with individual differences in the real‐time use of ER strategies. Methods: This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in two samples (n = 276) of undergraduate students from a single university who were assessed for 8–10 days. Baseline surveys captured participant self‐reported anxiety symptoms and depressive symptoms using the PROMIS‐Anxiety scale and the PROMIS‐Depression scale, respectively. We measured ER through EMA‐adapted prompts from the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), which participants received on their internet‐enabled cell phones. In pre‐registered analyses, we tested the associations between anxiety symptoms with the use of discrete ER strategies in EMA using generalized estimating equations with a log‐link function to account for nesting of EMA observations within participants, and further tested whether the findings generalized to depression (not pre‐registered). Results: Symptoms of anxiety and depression were associated with greater odds of using both maladaptive and adaptive ER strategy use during the EMA period, and with lower odds of reporting no strategy use. Moreover, associations were generally stronger for maladaptive than adaptive ER strategies. Conclusion: Anxiety and depressive symptoms are related to increased regulatory efforts overall, and results suggest that individuals with anxiety and depressive symptoms may be especially prone to use maladaptive ER strategies. Tracking ER strategies in a natural environment can further inform our understanding of how anxious and depressed individuals attempt to regulate emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotion regulation (ER) is an important factor in resilience and overall well-being throughout development, and youth report increased variation in emotion and capacity for regulation across adolescence and early adulthood. Specific emotions may be associated with the use of different ER strategies, but much evidence exclusively collapses across negative and positive affect or may not reflect the daily experience of emotion and emotion regulation. The present study examined associations between the experience of unique positive and negative emotions and the use of common ER strategies in adolescence and early adulthood during daily life using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). The sample included 184 high school and college students (55% female, M age = 17.88, SD = 1.25) who completed EMA surveys three times daily for 10 days (89% compliance). Participants reported on their recent emotional states and which of eight ER strategies they had used. Multilevel logistic regressions tested emotions as predictors of ER strategies, separately for each emotion-ER strategy combination across 96 total models, using the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure to control the false discovery rate. Individuals had higher odds of engaging in maladaptive ER strategies, particularly suppression or rumination, when reporting most types of negative emotions-with the largest associations among unhappiness and anger. Conversely, positive emotions were generally linked to reported use of no ER strategies, though happiness and engagement were related to higher odds of problem-solving, while calm was related to less use of nearly all strategies. Specific emotion-strategy combinations may have implications for clinical targets. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).