The Development of Cognitive Reappraisal for Regulating Emotions

Cognitive reappraisal—or altering the emotional impact of a situation by changing the way an individual thinks about it—is strongly associated with many indicators of well-being, such as increased physiological health, optimism, life satisfaction, and more active attempts to repair negative mood, as well as decreased experience and expression of negative affect. Moreover, the ability to change emotion-related cognitions, achieved via reappraisal, is one of the main determinants of improvement across most psychopathologies. Despite the depth of knowledge reflecting the benefits of reappraisal, there remains a lack of both theory and evidence to explain how this complex emotion-regulation strategy develops. The objective of this chapter is to outline the developmental trajectory of reappraisal by identifying the social and cognitive components necessary for the successful development and use of reappraisal, as well as the maturation of these components from infancy through adolescence.