Emotion Crafting: A Proactive View on Adolescents’ Pathways towards Desired Emotions

The purpose of the EMOCRAFT project is to gain more insight into how late adolescents can actively contribute to their own emotional functioning which we call ‘emotion crafting’. Specifically, we want to examine how late adolescents can create more positive emotions in their daily life. This project first aims to examine what fosters such emotion crafting in late adolescents, where we for instance will look at how optimal parenting can increase adolescents' ability to engage in emotion crafting. Second, we want to determine what the consequences are of emotion crafting. It is, for instance, expected that emotion crafting will not only result in more positive emotions but also a higher level of self-esteem and a better quality of social relationships. These questions will be examined by using data from the Trondheim Early Secure Study (TESS), a longitudinal study of a community sample of children so far followed biennially from age 4 to age 16. We will also include an assessment of emotion crafting when these individuals are 18 and 20 years old. Because we expect that there are also differences between cultures in the degree to which individuals engage in emotion crafting, we will also gather international datasets in Belgium, Turkey, and Peru (each country N = 500). That way, we can compare predictors and outcomes of emotion crafting across these countries.

The purpose of the EMOCRAFT project is to gain more insight into how late adolescents can actively contribute to their own emotional functioning by examining the new concept of ‘emotion crafting’. Two studies have already been conducted to develop and validate the Emotion Crafting Scale (ECS). First, we will examine the sources and impact of emotion crafting thereby drawing on existing data from and extending the Trondheim Early Secure Study (TESS), a longitudinal study of a community sample of children so far followed biennially from age 4 to age 16 and for which we seek funding to restudy participants, this time also including an assessment of emotion crafting (study age 18 and 20). Moreover, given substantial differences in emotional development across cultures, international comparisons regarding the predictors and outcomes of emotion crafting will be made, thereby using samples of late adolescents from Norway, Belgium, Turkey and Peru. Method: A stratified sample (N = 1,150; 82% consent) of the 2003 and 2004 birth cohorts in Trondheim tested (4-5 hours) biennially from age 4 to 20. Predictors: Adolescent (e.g., temperament), parent (e.g., autonomy support), peers and teachers (e.g., relationship closeness) factors. Outcomes: Well-being (e.g., self-esteem), mental health (symptoms of psychopathology), emotional functioning (e.g., positive and negative affect), social functioning (in a diverse set of relationships), cognitive functioning (executive functioning), academic performance and physical functioning (physical activity, sleep, eating). Assessments involve objective measures, tests, interviews, and questionnaires. The TESS dataset will also be compared with datasets from Belgium, Turkey, and Peru (each country N = 500).