Emotion Regulation: A Matter of Time

One of the most important advances in the study of emotion regulation is understanding it as a dynamic process that develops across the life span. Emotion Regulation focuses on current conceptual and methodological issues in terms of change over various time scales: developmental change across years, as well as changes from day to day, from situation to situation, and from moment to moment. Written by top experts in the field, the volume is organized around three age periods of the life span: infancy and childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

By taking the matter of time seriously, these chapters represent promising and necessary approaches to broadening our knowledge of emotion regulation as a dynamic process that changes with age. The volume provides guidance for future research that will enable researchers to leave behind facile and static conceptualizations of emotion regulation in favor of richer and more explanatory frameworks.

Pamela M. Cole is Liberal Arts Professor of Psychology and Human Development and Family Studies at The Pennsylvania State University. She studies the early childhood development of emotion regulation and its implications for competence and psychopathology.

Tom Hollenstein is Associate Professor in the Developmental Psychology Program at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He studies the development of emotion regulation across adolescence.