Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is a critical component of human development. It is an essential aspect of school readiness during early childhood. It is a key to understanding self and others during adolescence. It is at the core of satisfaction, happiness, and general well-being throughout adulthood. But what is emotion regulation? Regardless of general agreement that emotion regulation is core to healthy psychological development and in spite of much research on emotion regulation and its development across the life span, there is little agreement among developmental and social scientists regarding its precise definition and thus little agreement how to examine it in research studies.

An inclusive definition of emotion regulation focuses on the internal processes (attentional and cognitive skills as well as social decisions) and external processes (such ...