Cognitive Reappraisal in Middle Childhood

Cognitive reappraisal (CR) involves changing one’s mental states in response to an emotionally eliciting event in order to down regulate the potential emotional impact. In this study, 50 children who were 9-10 years old were instructed to engage in CR during a sad film. Children were then exposed to a disappointing situation and asked to self-report on their CR after the disappointment task. As hypothesized, there was variability in level of CR use during the disappointment task. Contrary to hypothesis, children’s CR was not related to parent CR. Nor was the association between parent CR and child CR moderated by child baseline frontal EEG asymmetry, as hypothesized. Post-hoc analyses revealed that parent CR moderated the association between child baseline frontal EEG asymmetry and task-related frontal EEG asymmetry, such that children presenting with left frontal asymmetry at baseline and who had parents with higher CR showed left frontal asymmetry during the disappointment task. This was conceptualized as physiological regulation during an emotion event. Post-hoc analyses also revealed that children’s CR after the disappointment task was predicted by task-related frontal EEG asymmetry, as well as self-reports of ER strategies. I conclude that task-specific CR can be assessed in preadolescents but that much research is needed to determine the correlates of child use of CR during emotional situations.