Self‐regulation of negative affect at 5 and 10 months

Abstract

One hundred six infants participated in a longitudinal study of cognition–emotion integration exploring the effects of attentional control on regulation of negative affect across infancy. At both 5 and 10 months, attentional control was measured behaviorally (looking time to neutral stimulus), physiologically (cardiac reactivity), and with temperament‐based parental ratings of orienting/regulation. Looking and cardiac measures were examined both before and after a mild stressor. At 5 months, post‐distress negative affect was related only to distress‐related increases in heart rate. At 10 months, however, behavioral, cardiac, and parent‐report aspects of attentional control explained unique variance in post‐distress negative affect. Attentional control measures at 5 months did not predict negative affect at 10 months. This pattern of results is discussed with respect to the development of frontally mediated regulatory mechanisms from infancy into early childhood. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 54:215‐221, 2012.