Emotion Regulation across Adolescence: Behavioural Age-Related Differences and Brain Structure Correlates

Background. Affective states frequently influences human beings on a daily basis, and hthe ability to regulate emotions is imperative to human adaptation in a social environments. Successful emotion regulation depends on brain structural correlates and is thus expected to improve over the course of normal development from childhood into adulthood. Objectives. The first aim of the current study was to characterize age-related differences in emotion regulation across adolescence. Our second aim was to investigate the associations between emotion regulation in the context of fear and brain structural correlates. Method. To assess age-related differences in behavioural emotion regulation, 68 participants aged 8-26 years performed an Emotional Go/Nogo task with photographs of fearful, happy and neutral emotional expressions as stimuli. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data was collected and analyzed to estimate vertex-wise cortical thickness, as well as volumes of subcortical structures of interest, specifically bilateral volumes of the amygdalae and ventral striatum. Associations between emotion regulation in the context of fear and brain structure correlates were then analyzed. Results. Our results indicated age-related changes in emotion regulation, reflected by improved performance on all task accuracy measures across adolescence. Our analyses of the MRI data suggested associations between emotion regulation in the context of fear, the left superior and middle temporal gyri, and volumes of the left and right amygdalae. When corrected for multiple comparisons by an adjusted Bonferroni procedure, none of the associations remained significant. Conclusion. Our results were in line with predictions of overall improvement in, and prolonged development of, emotion regulation across adolescence on a behavioural level, as would be predicted in a young and healthy sample. Cortical and subcortical regions are implicated as important for emotion regulation but we were not able to make a conclusion based on our results

The economic well-being of nations is associated with positive daily situational experiences

People in economically advantaged nations tend to evaluate their life as more positive overall and report greater well-being than people in less advantaged nations. But how does positivity manifest in the daily life experiences of individuals around the world? The present study asked 15,244 college students from 62 nations, in 42 languages, to describe a situation they experienced the previous day using the Riverside Situational Q-sort (RSQ). Using expert ratings, the overall positivity of each situation was calculated for both nations and individuals. The positivity of the average situation in each nation was strongly related to the economic development of the nation as measured by the Human Development Index (HDI). For individuals’ daily experiences, the economic status of their nation also predicted the positivity of their experience, even more than their family socioeconomic status. Further analyses revealed the specific characteristics of the average situations for higher HDI nations that make their experiences more positive. Higher HDI was associated with situational experiences involving humor, socializing with others, and the potential to express emotions and fantasies. Lower HDI was associated with an increase in the presence of threats, blame, and hostility, as well as situational experiences consisting of family, religion, and money. Despite the increase in a few negative situational characteristics in lower HDI countries, the overall average experience still ranged from neutral to slightly positive, rather than negative, suggesting that greater HDI may not necessarily increase positive experiences but rather decrease negative experiences. The results illustrate how national economic status influences the lives of individuals even within a single instance of daily life, with large and powerful consequences when accumulated across individuals within each nation