Alright. A research team is studying emotion regulation in 3 to 4-year-old children. In their study, they operationalize emotion regulation as the ability to modify the expression of emotion. Which of the following measurement tools would best map onto their operational definition? So remember in psychological research, we want our definition and our measurement tool to be very similar, they should map onto each other nicely, and we should keep everything consistent within our study.

Let's see which of these measurement tools is going to measure emotion regulation in a way that would map onto this specific definition of it. So first up, we have the emotion expression scale designed for children 2 to 8. So that does fit into our age range nicely. It includes questions about how frequently the child expresses the following emotions: fear, anger, sadness, joy, and excitement. Now that is giving me pause because how frequently you express an emotion is not the same thing as your ability to modify the expression of emotion.

The modification is the really important piece here because that is the regulation piece. Right? It's kind of regulating or changing how you're experiencing emotions. And so, with this scale, we're not getting any information about modification. So that tells me it's probably not going to map onto this definition particularly well.

Let's look at option B. This is the emotion scale designed for ages 8 to 18, already not fitting in our age range. Great. But let's check it out just in case.

It includes questions about how well children can identify their emotions. Sample items being, "I know when I feel fear" and "I can tell when my body is excited versus nervous." Now, this is an important skill and it probably is going to help a child modify the expression of emotion. But again, with items like this, we're not getting at that modification piece. Questions like "I know when I feel fear" or "I can tell when I'm excited" are not telling us if the child can modify the expression of that emotion at all.

So B is looking like it's not going to fit well. And then finally with C, we have the preschool emotion regulation scale designed for children 2 to 5, so that maps on really nicely. Sample items include exhibits unpredictable mood swings, can calm down independently after experiencing anger, and can control excitement during high energy play. And those items sound really great because what they are getting at is that modification piece. Right?

We're looking to see if, you know, when a kid is angry, can they calm down? When they are excited, can they control themselves? Or do they lack this skill entirely? Are they exhibiting unpredictable mood swings because presumably they can't modify the expression of emotion particularly well? So based on that, it's looking like C is going to map onto this definition of emotion regulation really, really nicely and it would be a great measurement tool for this study.

And there you go.