Emotion socialization influences how adolescents learn how to express and regulate their affect, and has ramifications for adolescent psychological adjustment. The majority of emotion socialization research pertains to the influence of parents in childhood; however, close friends gain influence in adolescence. The present narrative review compares parent and friend emotion socialization during adolescence, a developmental period with marked social and emotional challenges in relation to emotion regulation and psychological adjustment. This review suggests that parents and friends are largely similar in their influence on adolescent adjustment, though some socialization strategies and outcomes have yet to be fully examined in friend emotion socialization. Fruitful directions for future research are discussed.

Adolescents learn about emotions through interacting with parents and friends, though there is limited longitudinal research on this topic. This study examined longitudinal patterns in parent and friend emotion socialization and adolescent emotion regulation. Eighty-seven adolescents reported on parent and friend emotion socialization. Parents reported on adolescent emotion regulation. Parents' responses were stable over time and across gender. Friends of girls reciprocated negative emotions more and were less punitive over time, whereas friends of boys increased in comforting and decreased in neglect of negative emotions. Parents and friends evidenced unique effects on adolescent emotion regulation, and the effect of friend socialization responses differed for girls and boys. Future research should examine combinatory influences of multiple socializers on adolescent adjustment.

Parents' reactions to children's emotions shape their psychosocial outcomes. Extant research on emotion socialization primarily uses variablecentered approaches. This study explores family patterns of maternal and paternal responses to children's sadness in relation to psychosocial outcomes in middle childhood. Fifty-one families with 8-to 12-year-old children participated. Mothers and fathers reported their reactions to children's sadness and children's social competence and psychological adjustment. Cluster analyses revealed three family patterns: Supportive (high supportive and low non-supportive reactions from both parents), Not Supportive (low supportive reactions from both parents), and Father Dominant (high paternal supportive and non-supportive reactions, low maternal supportive and non-supportive reactions). Supportive families had children with higher social competence and more internalizing symptoms whereas Father Dominant families had children with lower social competence and fewer internalizing symptoms. Not Supportive families had children with average social competence and fewer internalizing symptoms. Findings are discussed in relation to the "divergence model" which proposes that a diverse range of parental responses to children's sadness, rather than a uniformly supportive approach, may facilitate children's psychosocial adjustment. K E Y W O R D S emotion, internalizing/externalizing, middle childhood, parent-child communication, social competence

No abstract

No abstract