The present study focus on children's cognitions of how to stop feeling sad and angry, which implies an exploration of their meta mood strategies, i.e. thoughts about how to regulate emotions. It was asking 5, 7, and 9-year-old Brazilian and Norwegian children how sadness and anger could be stopped in 4 different contexts for each emotion. The results showed that ER strategies varied with context and age, that Brazilian children used more social interaction and Norwegian children more cognitive strategies for anger, but not for sadness, and that even three year old children could state different strategies in different emotion contexts. There was not observed a clear difference in ER strategy for sadness and anger.
dealing with emotions; anger; sadness
