Senior Seminar Test Questions

According to Diener et al, which behavioral strategy was used most frequently by infants with both moms and dads during the "competing demand" stuation (where parent was busy)

Distraction

pick one of the following ER strategies and describe the age differences in the use of that strategy across the lifespan (infancy, childhood, adolescence, and emerging, middle and late adulthood). Support your answer with evidence from the relevant readings. The question requires you to integrate materials from more than one article. choose one: problem solving, cognitive reappraisal, behavior suppression, external regulation/social support seeking

During infancy, there is a limited about of emotion regulation in infancy. Mechanisms such as associative learning and social smiling may help the infant gain attention from the caregiver. In Diener's study, securely attached babies tended to use more associative learning and attempted to gain more attention from their caregiver. They cry to get their diapers changed or when they feel hunger or fatigue to regulate their emotions through the caregiver. Sala, Pons, & Molina (2014) conducted a study on elementary aged children and emotion regulation strategies. Research yielded that there was a small difference in the amount of social support seeking in the different age groups. However, girls used more social support seeking than boys. Research also suggests that seeking social support is tied to the attachment quality the children have with their parents. During adolescence, 13-15 year olds decrease in social support seeking due to the sudden increase of independence they may feel as they attend middle school. However, in the late twenties and early adulthood, they begin to seek social support much more. In the study conducted by Zimmerman & Iwanski (2014), the results yielded that adolescents and adult females tended to seek more social support than males. Zimmerman & Iwanski (2014) found that there was a significant decrease in social support seeking during adolescence and increases significantly in emerging adulthood. Due to the reduction of their inner social network, those in middle adulthood do not seek as much social support compared to late adulthood. Fear is one emotion that adolescence and emerging adulthood utilize social support seeking. In late adulthood, they use more emotion focused strategies such as social support seeking due to their lack of time and their priority to focus their energy on family and close friends. Due to the increase of moral support from their loved ones, older adults tend to focus more on the positive aspects of their life.

Explain the premises of selection, optimization, and compensation theory with emotion regulation in your own words. Using the information (hint: the table) from Urry and Gross (2009), give an example of how SOC-ER can be applied to understand emotion regulation in late adulthood

In late adulthood, most of the elderly tend to select and optimize a few emotion regulation strategies; such as, situation selection and modification. By this stage of life, most feel that they know their capabilities and decide more carefully how much time and effort they'd like to spend on certain situations that elicit emotion. Due to the decrease of resources in late adulthood, they spend their time with those who offer support and encouragement and strive to maintain a positive outlook in life. However, there is a significant decrease in cognitive control due to the decrease in function that occurs as one ages. An elderly woman decided to avoid going to her sister's Christmas party due to the amount of conflict that always arise when she goes. Instead, she celebrates Christmas with her closest friend due to her healthier friendship and the moral support they give each other. This would be an example of SOC-ER applied in late adulthood.

which of the following IS/are a measure(s) of ER in infancy (lecture)

all of the above

which of the following is the main concern of using observational methods to assess emotion and ER in school age children

children learn to behave in a socially desirable way, and are capable of hiding their emotions

Shiota and Levenson (2009) suggested that there are age differences in use of different emotion regulation strategies because younger and older adults differ in their _____________

cognitive ability

which of the following is NOT an external source of individual differences in infants' ER suggested by Calkins

cognitive maturation of the infant :)

According to Halligan et al (2013), which of the following is unrelated to externalizing behaviors in childhood

emotion regulation capacity during the neonatal period

What of the following is true about the findings of Sala, Pons, and Molina (2014)

higher levels of emotional understanding were related to children's tendency to make reference to behavioral strategies during the story stem task (wrong)

According to Kopp, which of the following is NOT a principle of ER in infancy

infants are too young to regulate their own emotions

According to Diener... consistent findings were reported across parents in all of the following aspects of the study

infants' emotional expressions with mothers and fathers ex: fussy with mom, not dad

According to Stroud et al (2009) the age difference in physiological responses to stress as measured by sAA enzyme is pronounced for _______ with adolescents showing ________ levels of sAA enzyme than children

performance oriented stressor, higher (wrong)

which of the following is true about the findings of Silk, Steinberg and Morris (2003)

poor regulation of sadness and anger was associated with more use of disengagement and involuntary engagement

by the end of the first year, infants become better at __________ which means they would turn their primary caregiver for emotional cues about how to react in an ambiguous situation (stranger's house)

social referencing

According to Zimmerman & Iwanski (2004), middle adolescence age 13-15 is characterized by lower levels of ___________ compared to other age groups

social support seeking

Which of the following statements is not correct about the findings of Livingstone and Isaacowitz (2015)

there is no age difference in the effectiveness of situation selection (wrong)

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory states that older adults tend to spend more time with their close friends and family because:

they view the future as limited and they want to reap more benefits from these relationships