In the past, researchers have treated the development of the emotions and the task of emotional regulation as two separate topics, the former emphasizing normative questions and the latter emphasizing individual differences. An understanding of the first has not been seen as relevant to the second. By bringing them under the perspective of development and emphasizing common core processes, Emotional Development illuminates both topics.

All emotions are expressions of arousal, or "tension": Whether a given emotion can or does occur depends on the developed capacity to generate tension and on the meaning of an event in its context, which changes with age. Emotional Development reveals the common core processes underlying the emergence of specific emotions and the capacity for emotion regulation. It explains the timing of emotional emergence and why emotions function as they do; it also explores individual styles of emotional regulation.

Close ties between emotional, cognitive, and social development are discussed as well. This book will appeal to professors, graduate students, and clinicians who study developmental, cognitive, and social psychology.