A developmental conceptualization that emphasizes coping as regulation under stress opens the way to explore synergies between coping and regulatory processes, including self-regulation; behavioral, emotion, attention, and action regulation; ego control' self-control' compliance; and volition. This volume, with chapters written by experts on the development of regulation and coping during childhood and adolescence, is the first to explore these synergies. The volume is geared toward researchers working in the broad areas of regulation, coping, stress, adversity, and resilience. For regulation researchers, it offers opportunities to focus on age-graded changes in how these processes function under stress and to consider multiple targets of regulation simultaneously--emotion, attention, behavior--that typically are examined in isolation. For researchers interested in coping, this volume offers invigorating theoretical and operational ideas. For researchers studying stress, adversity, and resilience, this volume highlights coping as one pathway through which exposure to adversity shapes children's long-term development.
The authors also address cross-cutting developmental themes, such as the role of stress, coping, and social relationships in the successive integration of regulatory subsystems, the emergence of autonomous regulation, and the progressive construction of the kinds of regulatory resources and routines that allow flexible constructive coping under successively higher levels of stress and adversity. All chapters emphasize the importance of integrative multilevel perspectives in bringing together work on the neurobiology of stress, temperament, attachment, regulation, personal resources, relationships, stress exposure, and social contexts in studying processes of coping, adversity, and resilience.
This is the 124th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. The mission of New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development is to provide scientific and scholarly presentations on cutting edge issues and concepts in the field of child and adolescent development. Each volume focuses on a specific "new direction" or research topic, and is edited by an expert or experts on that topic.
About the Author: Ellen A. Skinner is a professor of human development and psychology in the Department of Psychology at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. Melanie J. Zimmer-Gembeck is associate professor in the School of Psychology at Griffith University, Australia, and deputy director of the Behavioral Basis of Health, Institute of Health and Medical Research.
