Preservice teachers' emotion-related regulation and cognition: Associations with teachers' responses to children's emotions in early childhood classrooms

Research Findings: The present research examines preservice teachers' (N = 24) self-reported emotion-related regulation and cognition as predictors of their observed responses to young children's positive and negative emotional displays. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that teachers reporting greater reappraisal strategies in regulating their own emotions provided more supportive responses to children's negative emotions and fewer nonsupportive responses to children's positive emotions. In addition, teachers reporting more accepting beliefs about children's emotions exhibited more supportive responses to children's negative emotions, but only when they also reported high levels of reappraisal. Lastly, teachers reporting higher levels of perspective taking exhibited more supportive and fewer nonsupportive responses to children's negative emotions. Of note is that perspective taking was associated with greater support of negative emotions only when teachers also reported low or moderate levels of suppression in regulating their own emotions. Practice or Policy: The results suggest the importance of considering teachers' emotion-related regulation and cognition when planning professional development to enhance emotion socialization practices. The role of laboratory preschools in preservice teacher education and the dissemination of knowledge of effective social-emotional classroom practices is discussed.