Adolescent emotion regulation trajectories: The influence of parent and friend emotion socialization

Abstract

With mounting evidence demonstrating the link between child emotion regulation (ER) and emotion socialization, we conducted a longitudinal study to understand (a) emotion‐specific trajectories of adolescent ER and (b) how specific parent and friend emotion socialization strategies impact ER over 4 years. Participants were 209 adolescents (52.5% girls; Mage = 12.66 years; 75.7% White) and their parents. Latent growth curve models identified unique trajectories for anger and sadness/worry regulation. Anger regulation increased across time, whereas sadness/worry regulation remained highly stable longitudinally, lacking variance for growth modeling. Friend emotion socialization emerged as a more salient predictor of anger regulation than parent emotion socialization. Friend reward, override, and punish responses predicted initial levels. Friend punish and parent magnify responses predicted the slope.

US and Japanese adolescents’ emotions across time: variation by valence and arousal

“…In Japan, LAN emotions increased over time. However, consistent with the evidence on the stability of depressed mood in early adolescents in Western cultural contexts (e.g., Deković et al, 2004;Hale et al, 2023), LAN did not show increases over time in the US. This may be because in Western cultures, LAN emotions are less acceptable and attractive in peer relationships as evidenced by adolescents' endorsement in the belief that sadness is a feeling that should not be expressed (Zeman & Shipman, 1997).…”

“…This is in line with extant literature documenting heightened externalizing behaviors during adolescence (e.g., Deković et al, 2004;Rothenberg et al, 2020), and adolescents' self-reports that suppressing sadness (but not anger) would increase their negative emotion (Zeman & Shipman, 1997). During this developmental period, adolescents may be confronted with tasks (e.g., achieving self-assertiveness, navigating relational aggression) that can prompt negative activated emotions that function to mobilize the resources needed to overcome those obstacles (e.g., Hale et al, 2023).…”

“…A recent longitudinal examination of American adolescents found that they regulated anger increasingly more over the 4-year period of study, and that regulating anger was more related to friend/peer emotion socialization that parental socialization. Thus, early adolescence is marked by increasing importance placed on peer relationships, and those relationships, in turn, are valuable for socializing anger regulation (Hale et al, 2023). This is in line with extant literature documenting heightened externalizing behaviors during adolescence (e.g., Deković et al, 2004;Rothenberg et al, 2020), and adolescents' self-reports that suppressing sadness (but not anger) would increase their negative emotion (Zeman & Shipman, 1997).…”

“…However, that interpretation may only apply to maintaining positive emotional intensity, as we found that HAN emotions increased over time in both countries. Research on European American adolescents has shown that during early adolescence, anger (e.g., Larson et al, 2002) and anger regulation (Hale et al, 2023) present upward trajectories. A recent longitudinal examination of American adolescents found that they regulated anger increasingly more over the 4-year period of study, and that regulating anger was more related to friend/peer emotion socialization that parental socialization.…”

“…This may be because in Western cultures, LAN emotions are less acceptable and attractive in peer relationships as evidenced by adolescents' endorsement in the belief that sadness is a feeling that should not be expressed (Zeman & Shipman, 1997). Thus, American adolescents may have learned to suppress LAN sooner than HAN (Hale et al, 2023). As socialization partners (e.g., parents, siblings, peers) of children in the US may be less accepting of LAN, adolescents in our study may have already responded to mounting social pressures to suppress LAN to keep in line with cultural norms (Ding et al, 2021;Hale et al, 2023).…”