Citation

Parsafar P, Davis EL. Child Dev. 2018; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

University of California, Riverside.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/cdev.13070

PMID

29660774

Abstract

Little work has tested how emotion regulation (ER) processes influence children's memory for negative experiences. We investigated how two intrapersonal ER processes (affect-biased attention and changes in negative feelings) predicted children's (N = 184, 93 girls, ages 3-11) memory. Recall of a sad or scary film was tested after a delay. The way discrete emotional information was remembered varied with ER and children's age. Older children with greater affect-biased attention or less reduction of fear demonstrated privileged memory for central information from the scary film. Older children with greater affect-biased attention but greater reductions in sadness recalled more from the sad film overall.

FINDINGS suggest ER processes should be considered when examining children's memory for negative emotional information.

© 2018 Society for Research in Child Development.

Language: en