Toddlers can learn how to regulate their emotions by observing strangers, not just parents or other family members, a study published Wednesday by the journal Child Development found.

They also tend to increase their use of "distraction" as a mechanism to calm themselves in stressful situations after they watched others use the same approach, the data showed.

"It was encouraging to learn that toddlers in this study imitated emotion regulatory behavior from a stranger," study co-author Sabine Seehagen said in a press release.

"[This] suggests that emotion regulation skills can be strengthened by observing individuals outside of the family," said Seehagen, a professor in developmental psychology at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany.

Humans need to constantly regulate how they feel to successfully navigate the challenges of everyday living, according to Seehagen and her colleagues.

This emotion regulation includes actions such as managing feelings in a long line at the grocery store to those needed for work and in relationships.

However, emotion regulation is particularly challenging for toddlers, who experience frequent emotional outbursts, the researchers said.

For this study, Seehagen and her colleagues assessed toddlers' temperament, their use of distraction as a strategy for regulating their emotions and how they learned through observing adults' behaviors.

They recruited participants using public birth registers in Bochum, Germany, and enrolled 94 24-month-old German toddlers, half of whom were female.

Among the participating toddlers, 61% of mothers and 67% of fathers had a university degree. In addition, 82% of the toddlers had parents whose native language was German.

Toddlers in the study were randomly assigned to two of three conditions: two experimental and one control.

Initially, all toddlers in the study freely played with their parents, then were placed in two "waiting situations" in which they waited for something they wanted such as a wrapped gift or a snack.

The waiting situations were designed to elicit negative emotions, specifically frustration, the researchers said.

Between the two waiting situations, toddlers in the experimental conditions watched a female researcher play with toys while she apparently had to wait for something -- she modeled how she distracted herself when dealing with the wait -- according to the researchers.

Initially, the researcher told the child she wanted to play with a toy under a blanket but explained that she had to wait until a lamp in the room turned green.

In one experimental condition, 37 toddlers then watched the researcher actively play with a push-along animal and heard her state how much better she felt while playing.

In the other experimental condition, 37 toddlers watched a researcher model calm behavior while playing and waiting for the toy she wanted.

In the control condition, 22 toddlers participated in an imitation game unrelated to emotion regulation between the two waiting situations and did not see the researcher distract herself.

For all study groups, toddlers' activity level was measured by their parents' reporting on a temperament questionnaire, as well as using a monitoring device worn on their ankles.

The toddlers who observed how the researcher distracted herself subsequently showed increased distraction themselves, the data showed.

In addition, toddlers benefited from the observation of both calm and active distraction strategies, regardless of their own temperamental predisposition and preferences for active or calm play, the researchers said.

Toddlers who showed more distraction also demonstrated less negative emotions, which suggests that when experiencing frustration, they may be able to use previously learned strategies to calm themselves down in a range of different situations.

"Adults can also help toddlers regulate their emotions by providing them with toys that match their temperaments," Seehagen said.

"Future research should look into the relationship between temperamental dispositions and different strategies for coping with anger and other emotions," she said.

Related Links
All About Human Beings and How We Got To Be Here

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Study finds a striking difference between neurons of humans and other mammals
Boston MA (SPX) Nov 11, 2021
Neurons communicate with each other via electrical impulses, which are produced by ion channels that control the flow of ions such as potassium and sodium. In a surprising new finding, MIT neuroscientists have shown that human neurons have a much smaller number of these channels than expected, compared to the neurons of other mammals. The researchers hypothesize that this reduction in channel density may have helped the human brain evolve to operate more efficiently, allowing it to divert resource ... read more