Emotion Regulation: Biological and Behavioral Considerations

The eleven essays in this collection combine to present a broad overview of recent work on emotion conceived as a response that is both regulatory and regulated. Starting with a survey of fundamental conceptual issues, the discussion shifts to detailing the major biological systems involved in emotion regulation, and then moves to focus on relationships as a significant source of regulation.

Contributors to Section I include J. Kagan on the nature of emotion, R. Thompson on the multiple definitions of emotion regulation, S. Calkins on the origins of individual differences, and P. Cole et al. on clinical perspectives of emotional dysregulation. Section II presents K. Stansbury and M. Gunnar on adrenocortical activity, G. Dawson on individual differences recorded by EEG, N. Fox on dynamic cerebral processes; and S. Porges et al. on the role of the vagal system. In Section III, the "hidden" biological regulators of early relationships are discussed by M. Hofer, the effects of maternal unavailability by T. Field, and the relation between quality of attachment and emotion regulation strategies by J. Cassidy.

This Monograph contains a series of essays that were first presented as papers at a conference on the development of emotion regulation that was held in Washington, D.C., in March 1991. Two forces motivated the organization of this conference: the great prevailing interest of the time in redefining our conceptual understanding of emotions and development through the articulation of their functionality, and the set of advances in the field's understanding of their biological bases. The meeting and the Monograph present an attempt to define these phenomena and the various methods of approach to their study and to present the most recent psychological and psychophysiological work related to emotion regulation.