Previous research demonstrates that writing about life’s difficult moments benefits the writer cognitively and emotionally. However, it is unclear whether the benefits of writing are specific to the event written about or whether the benefits are global. This study was designed to address this issue. Participants were 120 undergraduate students who had experienced at least two difficult life events. Participants were randomly assigned into experimental and control groups. Experimental participants wrote about one of these difficult events and control participants wrote about an interesting life event of their choosing. Experimental participants reported their positive and negative emotions as well as their cognitive avoidance and intrusion concerning the event written about and another event not written about. Control participants reported their emotions and cognitions concerning two difficult life events. All participants also reported their general distress. These assessments were done immediately after writing and one week later. The results indicated that experimental participants were emotionally stronger, less upset, and less cognitively avoidant about the particular difficult life event they wrote about compared to an event they did not write about. Similar comparisons between ratings of a written-about and a not-written-about event were not significant for passion, fear, and cognitive intrusion. There was evidence for a possible indirect effect of writing on general distress through changes in event-specific cognitions and emotions. Discussion of these results focuses on how writing may specifically help change a writer’s feelings and thoughts about a particular situation.

Previous research indicates that the behavioral profile of high-status children is not monolithic but varied. This study contributes to the existing research on high-status children by showing that they are also an emotionally diverse group in terms of their anticipated shame and guilt experiences. Children ( N = 163, aged 8–12 years) nominated classmates who were perceived as popular, socially preferred, respected, and overtly aggressive. Regarding anticipated shame and guilt experiences, children also related how much they would experience shame and guilt and display correlated behaviors after reading stories which varied the transgression type (intentional harm, unintentional harm, and incompetent behavior) and the transgression frequency (many times vs. once). We found that children who were perceived by other children to be both highly popular and high in another area of social status related to a communal goal orientation (social preference, respect, and nonaggression) anticipated significantly more shame and guilt feelings than children who were perceived to be only highly popular and children who were low in social status. Moreover, these children also anticipated using significantly more appeasement than apologetic strategies when they imagined acting incompetently many times; a pattern not in evidence with other children. These findings suggest that children who are viewed as both popular and communal are more sensitive to the ways transgressions could influence what they would feel and what they would do, compared to children who are viewed as popular but not communal and children who are neither popular nor communal.

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During middle childhood, Chinese boys are particularly at risk to develop both externalizing (e.g., overt aggression) and internalizing behavioral problems (e.g., social withdrawal). A possible contributor to these problems is that boys cannot regulate their anger very well. Inability to manage anger may cause a particular social challenge for Chinese boys. Open expression of anger may be prohibited by prevailing Chinese cultural norms, because it emphasizes individuality over harmony. But anger is a socially disengaging emotion which works against social harmony. This situation requires Chinese boys to manage and express anger appropriately in social interactions. Based on the hierarchical model of social relationships and the three trends of human interactions, this study examined three pathways—aggression, social withdrawal, and sociability-leadership—that lead from Chinese boys’ anger dysregulation to their lower social status among peers at school. Participants of this study were 267 boys in Grades 3-6 from an elementary school in urban China. A self-report questionnaire of anger dysregulation was used to evaluate how often Chinese boys express their anger in dysregulated ways (e.g., attacking things or people). Peer nominations were used to measure children’s overt aggression (moving against peers), social withdrawal (moving away from peers), and sociability-leadership (moving toward peers). Social status was assessed by a sociometric measure which evaluates the degree to which children were liked by their classmates. Results showed that boys’ anger dysregulation was negatively associated with their social status. Moreover, aggression, social withdrawal, and social skills fully mediated this association. This study enriches our understanding of the mechanisms linking anger dysregulation to lower social status and provides practical implications to help Chinese boys improve social and emotional functioning in middle childhood.