About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 23. Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

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Children with emotion lability difficulties often struggle not only with heightened negative emotion reactions, such as anger and frustration, but also with expressions of strong positive emotions, such as excitement and exuberance. Although increased levels of positive emotion are adaptive in some contexts, an emerging body of literature suggests that dysregulation of intrusive positive emotions can be functionally impairing (see Vogel et al., 2023). However, the vast majority of research on emotion reactivity either fails to differentiate emotional valence or centers on negative affect, with the correlates of positive emotion lability receiving relatively little empirical attention. A recent study found an alternative factor structure for the Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC; Shields & Cicchetti, 1997) that includes a subscale focused separately on positive emotion lability (Silverman et al., 2022). We aimed to explore how select demographic, neural, and behavioral characteristics are associated with positive emotion lability through utilizing this novel measure.
The current study included 111 children between 5 to 10 years of age (58 male, Mage=8.4 years). Positive emotion lability and negative emotion lability were evaluated through parent-report on the respective alternative subscales of the ERC, with higher scores representing more frequent heightened emotional displays of that valence. The Behavior Assessment System for Children, Second Edition-Parent Rating Scale (BASC-2; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004) was used to assess externalizing and internalizing problems. For a sub-group of 80 participants (41 male, Mage=8.4 years), resting EEG data were available to assess midfrontal alpha EEG asymmetry scores, with higher scores (more left activity) reflecting greater approach-oriented affect and appetitive motivation to reward, and lower scores (more right activity) capturing greater withdrawal and behavioral inhibition connected with negative affect (see Reznik & Allen, 2017).
Compared to females, male children displayed greater positive emotion lability (t[109] = 3.20, p = .002). Positive emotion lability was also negatively correlated with age (r[109] = -.21, p = .030). A series of linear regressions were conducted with age and sex as covariates. Midfrontal alpha EEG asymmetry positively predicted heightened positive emotion lability (β = .25, p = .023; age was a significant predictor as well). Greater positive emotion lability predicted significantly higher levels of externalizing problems (β = .37, p < .001), but not internalizing problems (β = .17, p = .075). When negative emotion lability was added to the model as a predictor, greater positive emotion lability remained a significant predictor of greater externalizing problems (β = .28, p = .005).
Combined, these results suggest that males and younger children may be more likely to have greater positive emotion lability, and that midfrontal alpha EEG asymmetry may be an underlying mechanism of such difficulties. Elucidating the demographic and neural underpinnings of heightened positive emotion reactivity will allow better understanding of the construct and identification of at-risk children. Further, identifying the behavioral problem domains that are most related to intrusive positive emotions, as we have for externalizing problems, can help inform targets for interventions that help children learn to regulate such intense emotions of this valence.

Author information

Author	Role
Erica Ferrara, University of Massachusetts Amherst	Presenting author
Adaeze Egwuatu, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research	Non-presenting author
Jennifer M. McDermott, University of Massachusetts Amherst	Non-presenting author

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