EXCEED THE SPACE PROVIDED. The proposed research will takean ecological approachto examining the influence of meta-emotion processes in the family on the developmental trajectories of emotional regulation and dysregulation in middle childhood and early adolescence. It will drawon physiological and behavioral emotion regulation researchaswell as research on the parental role in emotional developmentto test the impact of meta-emotionstructure in the family on healthy andpsychopathological emotional development paths duringthis important transitional stage of childhood. It will measuregenderdifferences inthe developmental processesassociatedwith internalizing and externalizing behaviors. It will evaluatethe role of pubertal maturation (including timing of pubertal maturation) on the interface betweenfamily variablesand childhood outcomes. The proposed study will see if the familial meta-emotion structure buffers the children from negativeoutcomes during this period of development, the transition to puberty, when children are especially vulnerable. Weplana4wave, multi-method study of 180 families with children. Wewill bring the familiesinto the laboratory for the first timewhen thechildren are 8-years old. There will be90girls and90boys who will serve asthe targetstudyparticipants in the project.We will bringthe familiesinto the laboratoryannually for 4years. Theprocedures involvelaboratory sessionsand home interviewsfor bothparentsandchildren. Wewill use acombination of naturalistic interactions, highly structuredtasks,and semi-structured interviews. Wewill build on Gottman, Katz and Hooven's (1997) methodology by studyingnaturally occurringmeta-emotion moments at home. Wewill extend Gottman et al.'s work byusing growth curve analyses and mathematical modeling techniques to examine the developmental trajectories of adaptive and maladaptive emotionregulationin thechildren. PERFORMANCE SITE ========================================Section End===========================================
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