Age Differences in Young Children’s Strategies for Regulating Frustration

Abstract

In early childhood, effortful self-regulation, including self-regulation of emotions, first emerges. Our lab defines self-regulation as the influence of the engagement of intrinsic (e.g., cognitive) resources on changes in prepotent responses. We tested theoretically driven hypotheses that there are age differences in young children’s intensity of frustration (less intensity with age), extent of cognitive resources in their strategic efforts (use of more cognitive resources with age), and the relation between these (more related with age). The participating 154 children were between the ages of 30-60 months old. Video records of their behavior during the Transparent Locked Box (LB) procedure, which induces mild frustration, were later coded by two independent teams to rate (a) anger and sadness intensity and (b) extent of engagement of cognitive resources. Results indicate that sadness increased as age increased, and their relationship was modestly significant. Increasing age revealed a positively correlated relationship with anger. Age and engagement of cognitive resources in strategies used had no relationship. Anger decreased as engagement of cognitive resources increased and one partial effect for sadness decreasing with engagement of cognitive resources was also found. The results are discussed in relation to both prior and future research.

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