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Preschoolers' use of suppression influences subsequent self-control but does not interfere with verbal memory
Learning and Individual Differences 32 (2014) 219–224
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Learning and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif
Preschoolers' use of suppression influences subsequent self-control but does not interfere with verbal memory☆ Catherine Gunzenhauser ⁎, Antje von Suchodoletz University of Freiburg, Research Group “The Empirics of Education”, Freiburg, Germany
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Article history: Received 11 December 2012 Received in revised form 3 December 2013 Accepted 17 March 2014 Keywords: Emotion regulation strategies Suppression Self-control Ego-depletion
a b s t r a c t This study examined cognitive consequences of preschoolers' suppression of emotional responses. We investigated two research questions that specify potentially unfavorable cognitive consequences of suppression use: depletion of self-control resources and decreased memory of verbal information. Children (N = 119) were assigned to suppression and control conditions and received standardized emotion regulation instructions before watching an emotionally arousing film clip. Findings suggest that children who have used suppression experience depletion of self-control resources but do not suffer from impairments in verbal memory. This study confirms the importance of creating a preschool environment where children are supported in appropriate emotional displays. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Five-year-old Anna enters her preschool classroom with a new haircut. The class bully points at her, taunting: “Anna looks like a boy!” Anna feels very embarrassed. Avoiding the other children's gazes, she tries to keep from crying. When the teacher introduces a new numbers game, Anna has trouble learning the rules. Preschool children are increasingly able and expected to control their emotional displays (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). However, regulation of emotional responses can involve cognitive costs, which might hamper learning (Richards & Gross, 2000). For example, sub-vocal self-monitoring of emotional displays has been suggested to interfere with the processing of verbal information (Richards & Gross, 2000). During the preschool period, children acquire early academic skills that lay the foundation for later achievement (Duncan et al., 2007). Therefore, it is important to understand possible cognitive consequences of regulating emotional responses in this age group. So far, research on this topic has focused almost exclusively on adults (for a review, see Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010). Specifically, adult research suggests that suppressing the external signs of emotion may imply unfavorable cognitive consequences (Richards & Gross, 2000; Schmeichel, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2003). The
☆ This research was funded by grants given to the Research Group “The Empirics of Education: Economic and Behavioral Perspectives” in the context of the German Initiative of Excellence at the University of Freiburg, Germany. The funding source was not involved in the study design, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the article for publication. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Saarland University, Department of Education, Campus A5 4, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany. Tel.: +49 681 302 57473; fax: +49 681 302 57488. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Gunzenhauser).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2014.03.007 1041-6080/© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
aim of the present study was to investigate cognitive consequences of preschoolers' suppression. 1.1. Regulation of emotional responses in preschoolers Emotion regulation “refers to attempts individuals make to influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how these emotions are experienced and expressed” (Gross, Richards, & John, 2006, p. 14). Development of social competence involves learning to regulate emotional responses according to social demands (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, & Robinson, 2007). Suppression is a strategy for controlling emotional responses and refers to an inhibition of the external signs of emotion (Gross & John, 2003). At around age four, physiological and structural changes in the prefrontal cortex improve preschool children's ability to inhibit responses (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011). At the same time, preschoolers' developing theory of mind allows them to understand that a person's overt emotional expression does not necessarily reflect that person's true feelings (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). In line with this developmental progress, preschool children start to suppress their emotional responses as necessary (Cole, 1986; Eisenberg et al., 1998). Notably, preschool children are not necessarily aware of why they are using suppression (Cole, 1986). 1.2. Cognitive consequences of suppression: ego-depletion and verbal interference Suppression use is related to unfavorable cognitive consequences in adults (see Richards & Gross, 2000). Two different but not mutually exclusive underlying processes have been discussed in the literature:
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ego-depletion and interference with verbal encoding. To our knowledge, however, neither of these processes has yet been investigated in children. 1.2.1. Ego-depletion: suppression and self-control Self-control refers to attempts at “altering one's responses, especially to bring them in line with standards” (Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007, p. 351). Empirically, exerting self-control results in poorer performance in subsequent acts of self-control, also referred to as ego-depletion (Baumeister et al., 2007; Hagger et al., 2010). While there is still some controversy concerning the processes underlying ego-depletion, Inzlicht and Schmeichel (2012) suggested that the effort needed to exert self-control might result in lower motivation to expend any further effort, and thus in lower attention to stimuli that signal the need for self-control. Attention restoration theory (e.g., Kaplan & Berman, 2010) consistently argues that ego-depletion phenomena result in a decrease of directed attention, that is, effortful, top-down controlled attention (Kaplan & Berman, 2010). Remarkably, egodepletion effects do not depend on whether individuals succeed at self-control, but rather on their attempt to do so (e.g., Hagger et al., 2010; Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998). Suppression involves an attempt to alter one's emotional response and can thus be expected to draw on self-control resources (Richards & Gross, 2000). Experimentally induced suppression consistently results in a decline of subsequent selfcontrol in adults (Gross et al., 2006; Muraven et al., 1998). 1.2.2. Verbal interference: suppression and verbal memory Richards and Gross (2000) proposed that most adults use sub-vocal speech to self-monitor their emotional expression, which interferes with their capacity for processing verbal information. In a series of experimental and correlational studies, the authors found that adults who used suppression scored lower on self-reported and objective measures of verbal memory but not on nonverbal memory (Richards & Gross, 2000). Again, this association does not depend on adults' objective emotional expressive behavior, but rather on their attempt to suppress. Although preschoolers use sub-vocal speech, they do not yet use it as frequently, spontaneously, and consistently as adults do (Winsler & Naglieri, 2003). Thus, they may self-monitor suppression in different ways. For instance, Jones, Rothbart, and Posner (2003) reported on children who used physical strategies such as sitting on their hands when trying to inhibit an action. Such nonverbal strategies might not impair the encoding of verbal information. It is thus an open question whether verbal interference occurs for preschool children when they use suppression. 1.3. The present study Taken together, evidence suggests that suppression might imply unfavorable cognitive consequences. This may be critical for children in preschool age, who are acquiring academic skills that are crucial for later achievement (Duncan et al., 2007). The present study investigated the effects of suppression on children's self-control resources (depletion) and their memory for verbal information (interference). We used an experimental design in which children were explicitly instructed how to suppress in the face of a specific situation. In order to create a control condition where children could undergo the same procedure as children in the suppression condition without suppressing their emotional response, we used a neutral reappraisal instruction. Neutral reappraisal involves a reframing of the emotion-eliciting situation. It diminishes the experience of negative emotion, making response regulation unnecessary (Gross & John, 2003). Spontaneous reappraisal occurs from preschool age onwards (Davis, Levine, Lench, & Quas, 2010). In adults, neutral reappraisal is related neither to depletion of self-control resources nor to memory impairment (Richards & Gross, 2000; Vohs & Schmeichel, 2003).
Several control variables were included. In order to control for children's cognitive engagement with the film clip, we measured their understanding of the basic emotional message of the film clip. Although attempts to use suppression and neutral reappraisal are inner processes that cannot be observed from the outside, we aimed to obtain an estimate of how likely every child was to try and follow the emotion regulation strategy. Therefore, we included children's behavior regulation as a control variable. We refer to behavior regulation as the behavioral manifestation of the integration of attention, working memory, and inhibitory control, which enables children to remember rules, follow instructions, and complete tasks (Cameron Ponitz, McClelland, Matthews, & Morrison, 2009). Moreover, as all instructions were administered verbally, we included children's receptive language as a control variable. Following Muraven et al. (1998), we also controlled for children's baseline self-control when investigating ego-depletion effects. 1.3.1. Research questions Our research questions were twofold. First, we expected that children who had used suppression would show lower levels of self-control than children in the control condition, also taking into consideration prior self-control (ego-depletion; Muraven et al., 1998; Schmeichel et al., 2003). Second, there is evidence for verbal interference of suppression in adults, but the existing literature does not allow for predictions considering verbal interference of suppression in preschool children (Richards & Gross, 2000; Winsler & Naglieri, 2003). Thus, we treated this part of the analyses as exploratory and examined whether suppression interferes with verbal memory in preschool children. 2. Material and methods 2.1. Participants Participants were N = 119 German preschool children (53% girls; MAge = 68.29 months, SD = 7.34). Parents' written consent was obtained. After participation, the children received a “researcher's medal” as a reward. When planning the assignment for the experimental condition, we considered adult research suggesting that individuals with higher initial self-control are less vulnerable to ego-depletion (see Hagger et al., 2010). As there is evidence that preschool-aged girls have higher selfcontrol than their male counterparts (see McClelland, Cameron Ponitz, Messersmith, & Tominey, 2010) and that children's self-control grows between ages four and six (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011), ego-depletion effects might be stronger for boys and younger children. In order to minimize the risk of unequal age or gender distributions between conditions, we first grouped the children into four strata (boys/next-to-last preschool year, girls/next-to-last preschool year, boys/last preschool year, girls/last preschool year). Within each of these strata, we randomly assigned children to the suppression condition (n = 59) and control condition (n = 60). Consequently, the suppression and control conditions did not differ in terms of the children's mean age (t(117) = −0.05, p = .96) or gender distribution (Mann–Whitney-U = 1665.00, p = .52). 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. Emotion induction We induced emotional arousal by having participants watch a 1-min 35-s film clip taken from an age-appropriate animated movie. The clip was about a young polar bear being chased by a huge ship that attempted to swallow him. It also contained scenes about the polar bear's friends expressing their agitation. There is also a funny moment when a penguin uses a wooden plank as a snowboard. Following Rottenberg, Ray, and Gross (2007), we chose the clip because it was in
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color, easily intelligible, and contained movement and a soundtrack. The clip was shown on a notebook screen placed on the table at which the child was seated. 2.2.2. Dependent variables 2.2.2.1. Self-control. We operationalized self-control via directed attention (Kaplan & Berman, 2010), using a short version of the “Kaseler Konzentrationsaufgabe” (Kasel Concentration Task (KKA); Krampen, 2007). The KKA is a cross-out task used to assess directed attention and concentration. According to the validation studies reported by Krampen (2007) for children aged 3 to 8, the KKA has a high internal consistency (α ≥ .89) and parallel test reliability (rtt ≥ .88) and correlates substantially with related measures. 2.2.2.2. Memory. We measured memory for verbal information with a test referring to verbal information provided in the film clip. The assessor read each question aloud and then asked the child to pick one of four alternative answers in a forced-choice format. Each answer was illustrated with a picture. The test contained six questions (e.g., “Who yelled, ‘We need to save him!’?”). 2.2.3. Control variables 2.2.3.1. Cognitive engagement with the film clip. In order to control for the children's cognitive engagement with the film clip, we checked their understanding of its emotional implications with two questions on a five-point scale. Valence was assessed with the question: “How good or bad does the polar bear feel?” (valence: 1 = very good, 5 = very bad). Arousal was assessed with the question: “How calm or aroused does the polar bear feel?” (arousal: 1 = very calm, 5 = very aroused). 2.2.3.2. Behavior regulation. Behavior regulation was assessed with the Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders task (HTKS; Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009). The HTKS task requires children to pay attention when rules are explained, to keep the rules in working memory, and to apply them while inhibiting a dominant reaction. HTKS raw scores can range between 0 and 40. 2.2.3.3. Receptive language. Receptive language was measured with a subtest of the “Heidelberger Sprachentwicklungstest” (Heidelberg Language Development Test, HSET, Grimm & Schöler, 1991). The task requires children to enact short scenes with toy figures. For instance, children carried out the instruction: “let the little child go to the sheep.”
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participant feels are from Richards and Gross (2000; study 2). We also added an example (“for example, don't laugh when you feel happy”) to further facilitate the children's understanding (cp. Rice, Levine, & Pizarro, 2007). The control instruction was: “While watching the film clip, it is important for you to remember that this is just a movie. Someone made up the story, and the animals are just cartoon characters. Remember, the story did not happen in real life. Are you ready?” The instructions of (a) remembering that it is just a movie and (b) that it did not happen in real life are the same as reported by Davis and Levine (2013) for a neutral reappraisal instruction used with children. We added the additional sentence to this instruction to make the lengths of both instructions comparable. Subsequently, the children watched the film clip and answered the questions on arousal and valence. Next, they completed a parallel version of the KKA as the outcome self-control measure. After a further task unrelated to the present study (a vocabulary assessment), we administered the memory assessment. Last, the children were shown another film clip reassuring them about the happy ending. The HTKS task and the HSET were administered during a second session. 2.4. Analytic strategy We used a dual approach to investigate our hypotheses. First, we analyzed the data of all participants (total sample). As the total sample might include children who did not reliably try to follow their respective emotion regulation instructions, we repeated our analyses with a subsample of children with very high behavior regulation (high behavior regulation subsample), that is, those children from the total sample who had reached a score of 90% or above in the HTKS task. Children in the high behavior regulation subsample can be considered highly likely to have followed the emotion regulation instructions. However, relying solely on findings from the high behavior regulation subsample is not advisable because children with very high behavior regulation may systematically differ from their age mates in their self-monitoring skills (see McClelland et al., 2010). The high behavior regulation subsample included n = 15 children in the suppression condition and n = 18 children in the control condition. 2.4.1. Missing data There was missing data on engagement with the film clip and the memory assessment (one child, respectively), behavior regulation and receptive language (two children, respectively), and the outcome selfcontrol assessment (three children). The overall rate of missing data was less than 5%. Following a recommendation by Schafer (1999), we used single imputation.
2.3. Procedure 3. Results Data were collected by five trained experimenters during two individual sessions (usually within one week) in a quiet room at the child's preschool. Data collection followed a standardized protocol. There were no experimenter effects. This was indicated by nonsignificant experimenter × condition interactions when including the experimenter as a second factor in an ANOVA comparing mean differences in the dependent variables, self-control and memory. During the first session, the children first completed the KKA as a baseline self-control measure. Next, they were given condition-specific emotion regulation instructions. Following Richards and Gross (2000), our experimental instructions for both conditions (a) contained the notion that it was “important” for the participant to do as told and (b) gave not just one but several complementary explanations of what exactly participants were supposed to do. The suppression instruction was: “While watching the film clip, it is important for you not to show with your face or your body how you are feeling. For example, don't laugh when you feel happy. Nobody should be able to see what you are feeling. Are you ready?” The instructions of (a) not showing the feelings and (b) behaving in a way that an observer could not see what the
3.1. Descriptive analyses Means and standard deviations of all study measures are reported in Table 1. We computed mean difference tests to compare children in the suppression and control conditions with regard to all control variables. Within both the total sample and the high behavior regulation subsample, there were no significant mean differences between children in the suppression and control conditions as regards baseline selfcontrol, cognitive engagement with the film clip, behavior regulation, and receptive language. 3.2. Ego-depletion Referring to van Breukelen (2006), we used both ANCOVA and ANOVA of change approaches to take into account baseline selfcontrol. As both methods are susceptible to different specific biases, a convergence of results from ANCOVA and ANOVA of change indicates reliable findings (van Breukelen, 2006). In an ANCOVA, we compared
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics of all measures administered. Total sample
Baseline self-control Outcome self-control Memory Film clip — valence Film clip — arousal Behavior regulation Receptive languagea (T) a
High behavior regulation subsample
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
18.84 20.50 3.32 4.41 3.08 28.13 47.26
5.04 5.52 1.46 1.13 1.73 10.38 10.16
19.58 21.15 3.85 4.49 3.06 37.36 51.05
5.33 5.53 1.30 1.12 1.85 1.56 9.79
Receptive language scores are T-values. All other scores refer to raw scores.
outcome self-control directly between conditions, controlling for baseline self-control as well as for child age and gender, cognitive engagement with the film clip, behavior regulation, and receptive language. ANCOVA results revealed lower levels of outcome selfcontrol in the suppression condition, F(1; 110) = 5.72, p = .02, partial η2 = .05. In an ANOVA of change approach, we compared the mean change in self-control between conditions. Again, child age and gender, cognitive engagement with the film clip, behavior regulation, and receptive language were included as control variables (which technically expanded the ANOVA of change to an ANCOVA). Results revealed a smaller change in the suppression condition (M = 0.77, SD = 3.88) than in the control condition (M = 2.54, SD = 3.81; F(1; 111) = 6.32, p = .01, partial η2 = .05). Within-condition analyses showed that KKA baseline and outcome scores were not significantly different for children in the suppression condition, whereas children in the control condition improved their KKA scores by 14%, t(59) = − 5.17, p b .01. The same pattern of results was found in the high behavior regulation subsample, Mann–Whitney-U = 55.00, p b .01.1 3.3. Verbal interference We computed an ANCOVA to compare children's scores on the memory test between conditions. We entered child age and gender, cognitive engagement with the film clip, behavior regulation, and receptive language as control variables. Findings indicated no significant differences in memory scores between children in the suppression condition (M = 3.49, SD = 1.44) and children in the control condition (M = 3.15, SD = 1.48; F(1; 111) = 1.85, p = .18, partial η2 = .02). Again, this pattern of findings was replicated in the high behavior regulation subsample, Mann–Whitney-U = 126.50, p = .76.1 4. Discussion This study aimed at providing initial evidence of the cognitive consequences of suppression in preschool children. It used an experimental design. Informed by findings from adult research, we investigated effects of suppression on ego-depletion and verbal memory. 4.1. Ego-depletion In the total sample, a comparison of outcome self-control controlling for baseline self-control revealed that children in the suppression condition showed lower levels of outcome self-control than those in the control condition. A comparison of changes in self-control indicated smaller changes in self-control in the suppression condition than in the control condition. In fact, children in the control condition were even able to improve their performance in the self-control task after the film clip. We see two possible explanations for this finding. First, 1 Due to the small sample size in the high behavior regulation subsample, group mean differences were tested using the nonparametric Mann–Whitney-U-Test without including control variables.
children in the control condition might have experienced a restoration of self-control resources while watching the film clip. However, in their review on restoration of self-control resources, Kaplan and Berman (2010) point out that watching television, which might be considered an activity comparable to watching a film clip, generally does not contribute to restoration. More likely, children in both conditions may have profited from practice effects in the KKA despite our use of parallel versions. Practice effects have been reported for similar cross-out tasks (e.g., Bühner, Ziegler, Bohnes, & Lauterbach, 2006). Thus, improvement of scores in the control condition might mirror practice effects, whereas stability of scores in the suppression condition might be due to a counterbalance between practice effects (performance improvement) and depletion of self-control resources (performance impairment). This may suggest that suppression drew more heavily on self-control resources than the control instruction did. Taken together, these findings have to be interpreted with caution but indicate, in line with adult research (Richards & Gross, 2000), that children in the suppression condition may have experienced ego-depletion. In the preschool context, suppression might not be the only source of ego-depletion. For instance, other potential sources of ego-depletion include attentional control (i.e., focusing on tasks) and behavioral control (i.e., complying with classroom rules). The prevalence and significance of such ego-depletion effects should be investigated in future research. 4.2. Verbal interference Contrary to similar experiments with adults, our results revealed no impairment of memory for verbal information for children in the suppression condition as compared to children in the control condition. This finding might be a consequence of preschoolers' self-monitoring strategies. In contrast to adults, children might use nonverbal strategies to self-monitor their suppression (Jones et al., 2003). These selfmonitoring strategies are possibly less effective at ensuring successful suppression than the sub-vocal self-monitoring applied by adults. However, non-verbal self-monitoring might have a beneficial side-effect in not interfering with children's processing of verbal information, enabling them to remember just as well as age-mates who are using a strategy that does not require constant self-monitoring, such as neutral reappraisal in our study. This result is also informative for adult research on cognitive consequences of suppression, supporting the assumption that ego-depletion effects and verbal memory effects result from distinct underlying processes. 4.3. Limitations and next steps This study has several shortcomings. Due to a lack of validated German emotion-eliciting film clips for this age group, we had to rely on a film clip that met the criteria formulated by Rottenberg et al. (2007) but was not formally validated. Also, the KKA that we used to assess self-control shares pitfalls of other cross-out tasks. Specifically, there has been some debate considering the theoretical foundation of this
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kind of tasks (see Oehlschlägel & Moosbrugger, 1991). Also, paper-and pencil versions do not allow to control for the strategies used during completion (e.g., skipping items; cp. Oehlschlägel & Moosbrugger, 1991). Therefore, future replication studies should include diverse measures. Moreover, it was not possible to verify via direct observation that all children attempted to obey their suppression and control instructions. Although the instructions entailed processes that are clearly observable (such as “don't laugh”), an observer would not be able to distinguish children who did not attempt to suppress from those who attempted unsuccessfully. However, the children's behavior regulation was controlled as a proxy to their motivation and ability to follow the instructions. Although this might seem rather indirect, it has been shown that individual differences in children's ability to follow rules are consistent across different measures in the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral domains (for a summary see Morrison, Cameron Ponitz, & McClelland, 2009). Therefore, between-condition differences in the rate of children not complying with their respective instructions seem unlikely. Also, the pattern of findings was replicated in a subsample of children with very high behavior regulation. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the pattern of results was not significantly biased by some children's possible failure to follow their respective emotion regulation instructions. We compared the effect of suppression to that of neutral reappraisal as a control condition. We chose neutral reappraisal because it is an effective emotion regulation strategy (thus reducing the probability for children's spontaneous use of other emotion regulation strategies). Nevertheless, potential effects of neutral reappraisal should be considered. In this respect, the findings reported by Richards and Gross (2000) and Vohs and Schmeichel (2003) are particularly relevant to the present study because they used similar experimental designs and operationalizations of reappraisal. Both groups of authors found no differences between neutral reappraisal and “do nothing/just watch” conditions concerning their effects on ego-depletion, while the suppression condition was associated with comparatively higher depletion. These results might provide a hint that it is actually suppression and not neutral reappraisal that influences performance (i.e., ego-depletion). Nevertheless, there are some studies that suggest positive effects of reappraisal on diverse measures of performance (e.g., Davis & Levine, 2013). These studies, however, investigated other forms of reappraisal (i.e., positive or retrospective reappraisal or reappraisal of the emotion) and did not relate reappraisal to ego-depletion. Nevertheless, they provide evidence that positive effects of reappraisal do not seem impossible and warrant further investigation. Finally, the experimental design of the present study does not allow for conclusions concerning cognitive consequences of habitual suppression use in preschoolers. Although the findings suggest that habitual suppressors may be affected more strongly by cumulative effects of ego-depletion than children who use suppression less frequently, formal studies on individual differences are needed to investigate this assumption. 5. Conclusions This study provides preliminary evidence that children's use of emotion regulation strategies implies cognitive consequences and might therefore be relevant for learning. Specifically, suppression seems to contribute to the depletion of children's self-control resources. A child's preferred use of suppression may hamper his or her ability to acquire early academic skills that lay the foundations for later achievement. Although the ability to self-regulate emotional displays can be adaptive in some social situations (Eisenberg et al., 1998), it matters which strategies children use to attain emotion regulation goals. As Morris et al. (2007) highlight, adults can coach children on using emotion regulation strategies. Thus, parents and teachers should be encouraged to be attentive to children's use of emotion regulation strategies, and create an environment where appropriate emotional displays
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are supported in order to prevent unfavorable cognitive consequences of suppression use.
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Muraven, M., Tice, D.M., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Self-control as limited resource: Regulatory depletion patterns. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 774–789. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.774. Oehlschlägel, J., & Moosbrugger, H. (1991). Konzentrationsleistung ohne Konzentration? Zur Schätzung wahrer Aufmerksamkeitswerte im Konzentrations-Belastungstest d2 [Concentration performance without concentration? On the estimation on true attention scores in the attention task d2]. Diagnostica, 37, 42–51. Rice, J. A., Levine, L. J., & Pizarro, D. A. (2007). “Just stop thinking about it”: Effects of emotional disengagement on children's memory for educational material. Emotion, 7, 812–823. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.4.812. Richards, J. M., & Gross, J. J. (2000). Emotion regulation and memory: The cognitive costs of keeping one's cool. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 410–424. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.3.410. 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Preschoolers' use of suppression influences subsequent self-control but does not interfere with verbal memory☆ Catherine Gunzenhauser ⁎, Antje von Suchodoletz University of Freiburg, Research Group “The Empirics of Education”, Freiburg, Germany
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 11 December 2012 Received in revised form 3 December 2013 Accepted 17 March 2014 Keywords: Emotion regulation strategies Suppression Self-control Ego-depletion
a b s t r a c t This study examined cognitive consequences of preschoolers' suppression of emotional responses. We investigated two research questions that specify potentially unfavorable cognitive consequences of suppression use: depletion of self-control resources and decreased memory of verbal information. Children (N = 119) were assigned to suppression and control conditions and received standardized emotion regulation instructions before watching an emotionally arousing film clip. Findings suggest that children who have used suppression experience depletion of self-control resources but do not suffer from impairments in verbal memory. This study confirms the importance of creating a preschool environment where children are supported in appropriate emotional displays. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Five-year-old Anna enters her preschool classroom with a new haircut. The class bully points at her, taunting: “Anna looks like a boy!” Anna feels very embarrassed. Avoiding the other children's gazes, she tries to keep from crying. When the teacher introduces a new numbers game, Anna has trouble learning the rules. Preschool children are increasingly able and expected to control their emotional displays (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). However, regulation of emotional responses can involve cognitive costs, which might hamper learning (Richards & Gross, 2000). For example, sub-vocal self-monitoring of emotional displays has been suggested to interfere with the processing of verbal information (Richards & Gross, 2000). During the preschool period, children acquire early academic skills that lay the foundation for later achievement (Duncan et al., 2007). Therefore, it is important to understand possible cognitive consequences of regulating emotional responses in this age group. So far, research on this topic has focused almost exclusively on adults (for a review, see Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010). Specifically, adult research suggests that suppressing the external signs of emotion may imply unfavorable cognitive consequences (Richards & Gross, 2000; Schmeichel, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2003). The
☆ This research was funded by grants given to the Research Group “The Empirics of Education: Economic and Behavioral Perspectives” in the context of the German Initiative of Excellence at the University of Freiburg, Germany. The funding source was not involved in the study design, in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the article for publication. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Saarland University, Department of Education, Campus A5 4, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany. Tel.: +49 681 302 57473; fax: +49 681 302 57488. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Gunzenhauser).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2014.03.007 1041-6080/© 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
aim of the present study was to investigate cognitive consequences of preschoolers' suppression. 1.1. Regulation of emotional responses in preschoolers Emotion regulation “refers to attempts individuals make to influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how these emotions are experienced and expressed” (Gross, Richards, & John, 2006, p. 14). Development of social competence involves learning to regulate emotional responses according to social demands (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, & Robinson, 2007). Suppression is a strategy for controlling emotional responses and refers to an inhibition of the external signs of emotion (Gross & John, 2003). At around age four, physiological and structural changes in the prefrontal cortex improve preschool children's ability to inhibit responses (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011). At the same time, preschoolers' developing theory of mind allows them to understand that a person's overt emotional expression does not necessarily reflect that person's true feelings (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). In line with this developmental progress, preschool children start to suppress their emotional responses as necessary (Cole, 1986; Eisenberg et al., 1998). Notably, preschool children are not necessarily aware of why they are using suppression (Cole, 1986). 1.2. Cognitive consequences of suppression: ego-depletion and verbal interference Suppression use is related to unfavorable cognitive consequences in adults (see Richards & Gross, 2000). Two different but not mutually exclusive underlying processes have been discussed in the literature:
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ego-depletion and interference with verbal encoding. To our knowledge, however, neither of these processes has yet been investigated in children. 1.2.1. Ego-depletion: suppression and self-control Self-control refers to attempts at “altering one's responses, especially to bring them in line with standards” (Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007, p. 351). Empirically, exerting self-control results in poorer performance in subsequent acts of self-control, also referred to as ego-depletion (Baumeister et al., 2007; Hagger et al., 2010). While there is still some controversy concerning the processes underlying ego-depletion, Inzlicht and Schmeichel (2012) suggested that the effort needed to exert self-control might result in lower motivation to expend any further effort, and thus in lower attention to stimuli that signal the need for self-control. Attention restoration theory (e.g., Kaplan & Berman, 2010) consistently argues that ego-depletion phenomena result in a decrease of directed attention, that is, effortful, top-down controlled attention (Kaplan & Berman, 2010). Remarkably, egodepletion effects do not depend on whether individuals succeed at self-control, but rather on their attempt to do so (e.g., Hagger et al., 2010; Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998). Suppression involves an attempt to alter one's emotional response and can thus be expected to draw on self-control resources (Richards & Gross, 2000). Experimentally induced suppression consistently results in a decline of subsequent selfcontrol in adults (Gross et al., 2006; Muraven et al., 1998). 1.2.2. Verbal interference: suppression and verbal memory Richards and Gross (2000) proposed that most adults use sub-vocal speech to self-monitor their emotional expression, which interferes with their capacity for processing verbal information. In a series of experimental and correlational studies, the authors found that adults who used suppression scored lower on self-reported and objective measures of verbal memory but not on nonverbal memory (Richards & Gross, 2000). Again, this association does not depend on adults' objective emotional expressive behavior, but rather on their attempt to suppress. Although preschoolers use sub-vocal speech, they do not yet use it as frequently, spontaneously, and consistently as adults do (Winsler & Naglieri, 2003). Thus, they may self-monitor suppression in different ways. For instance, Jones, Rothbart, and Posner (2003) reported on children who used physical strategies such as sitting on their hands when trying to inhibit an action. Such nonverbal strategies might not impair the encoding of verbal information. It is thus an open question whether verbal interference occurs for preschool children when they use suppression. 1.3. The present study Taken together, evidence suggests that suppression might imply unfavorable cognitive consequences. This may be critical for children in preschool age, who are acquiring academic skills that are crucial for later achievement (Duncan et al., 2007). The present study investigated the effects of suppression on children's self-control resources (depletion) and their memory for verbal information (interference). We used an experimental design in which children were explicitly instructed how to suppress in the face of a specific situation. In order to create a control condition where children could undergo the same procedure as children in the suppression condition without suppressing their emotional response, we used a neutral reappraisal instruction. Neutral reappraisal involves a reframing of the emotion-eliciting situation. It diminishes the experience of negative emotion, making response regulation unnecessary (Gross & John, 2003). Spontaneous reappraisal occurs from preschool age onwards (Davis, Levine, Lench, & Quas, 2010). In adults, neutral reappraisal is related neither to depletion of self-control resources nor to memory impairment (Richards & Gross, 2000; Vohs & Schmeichel, 2003).
Several control variables were included. In order to control for children's cognitive engagement with the film clip, we measured their understanding of the basic emotional message of the film clip. Although attempts to use suppression and neutral reappraisal are inner processes that cannot be observed from the outside, we aimed to obtain an estimate of how likely every child was to try and follow the emotion regulation strategy. Therefore, we included children's behavior regulation as a control variable. We refer to behavior regulation as the behavioral manifestation of the integration of attention, working memory, and inhibitory control, which enables children to remember rules, follow instructions, and complete tasks (Cameron Ponitz, McClelland, Matthews, & Morrison, 2009). Moreover, as all instructions were administered verbally, we included children's receptive language as a control variable. Following Muraven et al. (1998), we also controlled for children's baseline self-control when investigating ego-depletion effects. 1.3.1. Research questions Our research questions were twofold. First, we expected that children who had used suppression would show lower levels of self-control than children in the control condition, also taking into consideration prior self-control (ego-depletion; Muraven et al., 1998; Schmeichel et al., 2003). Second, there is evidence for verbal interference of suppression in adults, but the existing literature does not allow for predictions considering verbal interference of suppression in preschool children (Richards & Gross, 2000; Winsler & Naglieri, 2003). Thus, we treated this part of the analyses as exploratory and examined whether suppression interferes with verbal memory in preschool children. 2. Material and methods 2.1. Participants Participants were N = 119 German preschool children (53% girls; MAge = 68.29 months, SD = 7.34). Parents' written consent was obtained. After participation, the children received a “researcher's medal” as a reward. When planning the assignment for the experimental condition, we considered adult research suggesting that individuals with higher initial self-control are less vulnerable to ego-depletion (see Hagger et al., 2010). As there is evidence that preschool-aged girls have higher selfcontrol than their male counterparts (see McClelland, Cameron Ponitz, Messersmith, & Tominey, 2010) and that children's self-control grows between ages four and six (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011), ego-depletion effects might be stronger for boys and younger children. In order to minimize the risk of unequal age or gender distributions between conditions, we first grouped the children into four strata (boys/next-to-last preschool year, girls/next-to-last preschool year, boys/last preschool year, girls/last preschool year). Within each of these strata, we randomly assigned children to the suppression condition (n = 59) and control condition (n = 60). Consequently, the suppression and control conditions did not differ in terms of the children's mean age (t(117) = −0.05, p = .96) or gender distribution (Mann–Whitney-U = 1665.00, p = .52). 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. Emotion induction We induced emotional arousal by having participants watch a 1-min 35-s film clip taken from an age-appropriate animated movie. The clip was about a young polar bear being chased by a huge ship that attempted to swallow him. It also contained scenes about the polar bear's friends expressing their agitation. There is also a funny moment when a penguin uses a wooden plank as a snowboard. Following Rottenberg, Ray, and Gross (2007), we chose the clip because it was in
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color, easily intelligible, and contained movement and a soundtrack. The clip was shown on a notebook screen placed on the table at which the child was seated. 2.2.2. Dependent variables 2.2.2.1. Self-control. We operationalized self-control via directed attention (Kaplan & Berman, 2010), using a short version of the “Kaseler Konzentrationsaufgabe” (Kasel Concentration Task (KKA); Krampen, 2007). The KKA is a cross-out task used to assess directed attention and concentration. According to the validation studies reported by Krampen (2007) for children aged 3 to 8, the KKA has a high internal consistency (α ≥ .89) and parallel test reliability (rtt ≥ .88) and correlates substantially with related measures. 2.2.2.2. Memory. We measured memory for verbal information with a test referring to verbal information provided in the film clip. The assessor read each question aloud and then asked the child to pick one of four alternative answers in a forced-choice format. Each answer was illustrated with a picture. The test contained six questions (e.g., “Who yelled, ‘We need to save him!’?”). 2.2.3. Control variables 2.2.3.1. Cognitive engagement with the film clip. In order to control for the children's cognitive engagement with the film clip, we checked their understanding of its emotional implications with two questions on a five-point scale. Valence was assessed with the question: “How good or bad does the polar bear feel?” (valence: 1 = very good, 5 = very bad). Arousal was assessed with the question: “How calm or aroused does the polar bear feel?” (arousal: 1 = very calm, 5 = very aroused). 2.2.3.2. Behavior regulation. Behavior regulation was assessed with the Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders task (HTKS; Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009). The HTKS task requires children to pay attention when rules are explained, to keep the rules in working memory, and to apply them while inhibiting a dominant reaction. HTKS raw scores can range between 0 and 40. 2.2.3.3. Receptive language. Receptive language was measured with a subtest of the “Heidelberger Sprachentwicklungstest” (Heidelberg Language Development Test, HSET, Grimm & Schöler, 1991). The task requires children to enact short scenes with toy figures. For instance, children carried out the instruction: “let the little child go to the sheep.”
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participant feels are from Richards and Gross (2000; study 2). We also added an example (“for example, don't laugh when you feel happy”) to further facilitate the children's understanding (cp. Rice, Levine, & Pizarro, 2007). The control instruction was: “While watching the film clip, it is important for you to remember that this is just a movie. Someone made up the story, and the animals are just cartoon characters. Remember, the story did not happen in real life. Are you ready?” The instructions of (a) remembering that it is just a movie and (b) that it did not happen in real life are the same as reported by Davis and Levine (2013) for a neutral reappraisal instruction used with children. We added the additional sentence to this instruction to make the lengths of both instructions comparable. Subsequently, the children watched the film clip and answered the questions on arousal and valence. Next, they completed a parallel version of the KKA as the outcome self-control measure. After a further task unrelated to the present study (a vocabulary assessment), we administered the memory assessment. Last, the children were shown another film clip reassuring them about the happy ending. The HTKS task and the HSET were administered during a second session. 2.4. Analytic strategy We used a dual approach to investigate our hypotheses. First, we analyzed the data of all participants (total sample). As the total sample might include children who did not reliably try to follow their respective emotion regulation instructions, we repeated our analyses with a subsample of children with very high behavior regulation (high behavior regulation subsample), that is, those children from the total sample who had reached a score of 90% or above in the HTKS task. Children in the high behavior regulation subsample can be considered highly likely to have followed the emotion regulation instructions. However, relying solely on findings from the high behavior regulation subsample is not advisable because children with very high behavior regulation may systematically differ from their age mates in their self-monitoring skills (see McClelland et al., 2010). The high behavior regulation subsample included n = 15 children in the suppression condition and n = 18 children in the control condition. 2.4.1. Missing data There was missing data on engagement with the film clip and the memory assessment (one child, respectively), behavior regulation and receptive language (two children, respectively), and the outcome selfcontrol assessment (three children). The overall rate of missing data was less than 5%. Following a recommendation by Schafer (1999), we used single imputation.
2.3. Procedure 3. Results Data were collected by five trained experimenters during two individual sessions (usually within one week) in a quiet room at the child's preschool. Data collection followed a standardized protocol. There were no experimenter effects. This was indicated by nonsignificant experimenter × condition interactions when including the experimenter as a second factor in an ANOVA comparing mean differences in the dependent variables, self-control and memory. During the first session, the children first completed the KKA as a baseline self-control measure. Next, they were given condition-specific emotion regulation instructions. Following Richards and Gross (2000), our experimental instructions for both conditions (a) contained the notion that it was “important” for the participant to do as told and (b) gave not just one but several complementary explanations of what exactly participants were supposed to do. The suppression instruction was: “While watching the film clip, it is important for you not to show with your face or your body how you are feeling. For example, don't laugh when you feel happy. Nobody should be able to see what you are feeling. Are you ready?” The instructions of (a) not showing the feelings and (b) behaving in a way that an observer could not see what the
3.1. Descriptive analyses Means and standard deviations of all study measures are reported in Table 1. We computed mean difference tests to compare children in the suppression and control conditions with regard to all control variables. Within both the total sample and the high behavior regulation subsample, there were no significant mean differences between children in the suppression and control conditions as regards baseline selfcontrol, cognitive engagement with the film clip, behavior regulation, and receptive language. 3.2. Ego-depletion Referring to van Breukelen (2006), we used both ANCOVA and ANOVA of change approaches to take into account baseline selfcontrol. As both methods are susceptible to different specific biases, a convergence of results from ANCOVA and ANOVA of change indicates reliable findings (van Breukelen, 2006). In an ANCOVA, we compared
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics of all measures administered. Total sample
Baseline self-control Outcome self-control Memory Film clip — valence Film clip — arousal Behavior regulation Receptive languagea (T) a
High behavior regulation subsample
Mean
SD
Mean
SD
18.84 20.50 3.32 4.41 3.08 28.13 47.26
5.04 5.52 1.46 1.13 1.73 10.38 10.16
19.58 21.15 3.85 4.49 3.06 37.36 51.05
5.33 5.53 1.30 1.12 1.85 1.56 9.79
Receptive language scores are T-values. All other scores refer to raw scores.
outcome self-control directly between conditions, controlling for baseline self-control as well as for child age and gender, cognitive engagement with the film clip, behavior regulation, and receptive language. ANCOVA results revealed lower levels of outcome selfcontrol in the suppression condition, F(1; 110) = 5.72, p = .02, partial η2 = .05. In an ANOVA of change approach, we compared the mean change in self-control between conditions. Again, child age and gender, cognitive engagement with the film clip, behavior regulation, and receptive language were included as control variables (which technically expanded the ANOVA of change to an ANCOVA). Results revealed a smaller change in the suppression condition (M = 0.77, SD = 3.88) than in the control condition (M = 2.54, SD = 3.81; F(1; 111) = 6.32, p = .01, partial η2 = .05). Within-condition analyses showed that KKA baseline and outcome scores were not significantly different for children in the suppression condition, whereas children in the control condition improved their KKA scores by 14%, t(59) = − 5.17, p b .01. The same pattern of results was found in the high behavior regulation subsample, Mann–Whitney-U = 55.00, p b .01.1 3.3. Verbal interference We computed an ANCOVA to compare children's scores on the memory test between conditions. We entered child age and gender, cognitive engagement with the film clip, behavior regulation, and receptive language as control variables. Findings indicated no significant differences in memory scores between children in the suppression condition (M = 3.49, SD = 1.44) and children in the control condition (M = 3.15, SD = 1.48; F(1; 111) = 1.85, p = .18, partial η2 = .02). Again, this pattern of findings was replicated in the high behavior regulation subsample, Mann–Whitney-U = 126.50, p = .76.1 4. Discussion This study aimed at providing initial evidence of the cognitive consequences of suppression in preschool children. It used an experimental design. Informed by findings from adult research, we investigated effects of suppression on ego-depletion and verbal memory. 4.1. Ego-depletion In the total sample, a comparison of outcome self-control controlling for baseline self-control revealed that children in the suppression condition showed lower levels of outcome self-control than those in the control condition. A comparison of changes in self-control indicated smaller changes in self-control in the suppression condition than in the control condition. In fact, children in the control condition were even able to improve their performance in the self-control task after the film clip. We see two possible explanations for this finding. First, 1 Due to the small sample size in the high behavior regulation subsample, group mean differences were tested using the nonparametric Mann–Whitney-U-Test without including control variables.
children in the control condition might have experienced a restoration of self-control resources while watching the film clip. However, in their review on restoration of self-control resources, Kaplan and Berman (2010) point out that watching television, which might be considered an activity comparable to watching a film clip, generally does not contribute to restoration. More likely, children in both conditions may have profited from practice effects in the KKA despite our use of parallel versions. Practice effects have been reported for similar cross-out tasks (e.g., Bühner, Ziegler, Bohnes, & Lauterbach, 2006). Thus, improvement of scores in the control condition might mirror practice effects, whereas stability of scores in the suppression condition might be due to a counterbalance between practice effects (performance improvement) and depletion of self-control resources (performance impairment). This may suggest that suppression drew more heavily on self-control resources than the control instruction did. Taken together, these findings have to be interpreted with caution but indicate, in line with adult research (Richards & Gross, 2000), that children in the suppression condition may have experienced ego-depletion. In the preschool context, suppression might not be the only source of ego-depletion. For instance, other potential sources of ego-depletion include attentional control (i.e., focusing on tasks) and behavioral control (i.e., complying with classroom rules). The prevalence and significance of such ego-depletion effects should be investigated in future research. 4.2. Verbal interference Contrary to similar experiments with adults, our results revealed no impairment of memory for verbal information for children in the suppression condition as compared to children in the control condition. This finding might be a consequence of preschoolers' self-monitoring strategies. In contrast to adults, children might use nonverbal strategies to self-monitor their suppression (Jones et al., 2003). These selfmonitoring strategies are possibly less effective at ensuring successful suppression than the sub-vocal self-monitoring applied by adults. However, non-verbal self-monitoring might have a beneficial side-effect in not interfering with children's processing of verbal information, enabling them to remember just as well as age-mates who are using a strategy that does not require constant self-monitoring, such as neutral reappraisal in our study. This result is also informative for adult research on cognitive consequences of suppression, supporting the assumption that ego-depletion effects and verbal memory effects result from distinct underlying processes. 4.3. Limitations and next steps This study has several shortcomings. Due to a lack of validated German emotion-eliciting film clips for this age group, we had to rely on a film clip that met the criteria formulated by Rottenberg et al. (2007) but was not formally validated. Also, the KKA that we used to assess self-control shares pitfalls of other cross-out tasks. Specifically, there has been some debate considering the theoretical foundation of this
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kind of tasks (see Oehlschlägel & Moosbrugger, 1991). Also, paper-and pencil versions do not allow to control for the strategies used during completion (e.g., skipping items; cp. Oehlschlägel & Moosbrugger, 1991). Therefore, future replication studies should include diverse measures. Moreover, it was not possible to verify via direct observation that all children attempted to obey their suppression and control instructions. Although the instructions entailed processes that are clearly observable (such as “don't laugh”), an observer would not be able to distinguish children who did not attempt to suppress from those who attempted unsuccessfully. However, the children's behavior regulation was controlled as a proxy to their motivation and ability to follow the instructions. Although this might seem rather indirect, it has been shown that individual differences in children's ability to follow rules are consistent across different measures in the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral domains (for a summary see Morrison, Cameron Ponitz, & McClelland, 2009). Therefore, between-condition differences in the rate of children not complying with their respective instructions seem unlikely. Also, the pattern of findings was replicated in a subsample of children with very high behavior regulation. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the pattern of results was not significantly biased by some children's possible failure to follow their respective emotion regulation instructions. We compared the effect of suppression to that of neutral reappraisal as a control condition. We chose neutral reappraisal because it is an effective emotion regulation strategy (thus reducing the probability for children's spontaneous use of other emotion regulation strategies). Nevertheless, potential effects of neutral reappraisal should be considered. In this respect, the findings reported by Richards and Gross (2000) and Vohs and Schmeichel (2003) are particularly relevant to the present study because they used similar experimental designs and operationalizations of reappraisal. Both groups of authors found no differences between neutral reappraisal and “do nothing/just watch” conditions concerning their effects on ego-depletion, while the suppression condition was associated with comparatively higher depletion. These results might provide a hint that it is actually suppression and not neutral reappraisal that influences performance (i.e., ego-depletion). Nevertheless, there are some studies that suggest positive effects of reappraisal on diverse measures of performance (e.g., Davis & Levine, 2013). These studies, however, investigated other forms of reappraisal (i.e., positive or retrospective reappraisal or reappraisal of the emotion) and did not relate reappraisal to ego-depletion. Nevertheless, they provide evidence that positive effects of reappraisal do not seem impossible and warrant further investigation. Finally, the experimental design of the present study does not allow for conclusions concerning cognitive consequences of habitual suppression use in preschoolers. Although the findings suggest that habitual suppressors may be affected more strongly by cumulative effects of ego-depletion than children who use suppression less frequently, formal studies on individual differences are needed to investigate this assumption. 5. Conclusions This study provides preliminary evidence that children's use of emotion regulation strategies implies cognitive consequences and might therefore be relevant for learning. Specifically, suppression seems to contribute to the depletion of children's self-control resources. A child's preferred use of suppression may hamper his or her ability to acquire early academic skills that lay the foundations for later achievement. Although the ability to self-regulate emotional displays can be adaptive in some social situations (Eisenberg et al., 1998), it matters which strategies children use to attain emotion regulation goals. As Morris et al. (2007) highlight, adults can coach children on using emotion regulation strategies. Thus, parents and teachers should be encouraged to be attentive to children's use of emotion regulation strategies, and create an environment where appropriate emotional displays
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are supported in order to prevent unfavorable cognitive consequences of suppression use.
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