The Measuring Emotional Development Study is a cross sectional examination of emotion competence skill across emotion knowledge, expression, and regulation, as assessed at ages 3, 7, 11, 15, and 19. This study will focus heavily on methodological considerations inherent in measuring these skills behaviorally across development.

 

This study will evaluate caregivers and children in the lab across development, completing a series of challenging games and tasks designed to assess the skills of emotion competence. Along with gathering evidence to describe levels of emotion competence over time, this study is designed to provide valuable information about the utility of using particular tasks at particular ages, and the nature of multi-informant reports as sources of information at various ages.

 

This study is also intended to provide preliminary data to support a future longitudinal study evaluating these skills across time as well as in varying developmental contexts (e.g., child maltreatment).