Emotion Socialization Within Adolescent Friendships: Considering the Roles of Friend Influence, Socialization Behaviors, and Friends’ Perceptions

• In Event: Friend Socialization of Emotion in Adolescence: A Multicultural Perspective

Abstract

Substantial research has accumulated on peer influence processes during adolescence (Brechwald & Prinstein, 2011; Laursen & Veenstra, 2021) with a growing focus on how peers contribute to the socialization of adolescents’ emotions (Miller-Slough & Dunsmore, 2016). Research has documented the influence of friends’ emotion regulation strategies on each other’s emotional development over time (e.g., Reindl et al., 2016) and the effects of socialization behaviors on adolescents’ adjustment (e.g., Klimes-Dougan et al., 2014). The current study builds on this work by considering three pathways through which friends contribute to adolescents’ continuing development of emotion regulation: (1) friends’ report of their own emotion regulation, (2) adolescents’ perceptions of their friends’ emotion regulation, and (3) adolescents’ perceptions of friends’ emotion socialization behaviors.
Participants were 202 early adolescents who participated with a same-gender friend (101 dyads; Mage = 12.68 years, SD = 1.01, 53% girls; 77% White, 18% Black). Adolescents completed measures during an initial visit (T1) and 84% of the sample completed measures approximately two years later (T2; M = 23.54 months, SD = 4.14). Adolescents completed the Children’s Emotion Management Scales (CEMS; Zeman et al., 2001; 2010) to assess emotion inhibition (i.e., overcontrol of emotions), emotion dysregulation (i.e., under-controlled emotional displays), and regulation coping (i.e., adaptive ways of managing emotions) at T1 and T2. Adolescents also reported on their perceptions of their friends’ supportive and unsupportive emotion socialization behaviors (You and Your Friends; Klimes-Dougan et al., 2014) and their perceptions of their friends’ emotion regulation (CEMS-friend version; see Borowski & Zeman, 2018).
Analyses were conducted using Actor-Partner Independence Models (Kenny et al., 2006) tested with mixed-effects modeling in SPSS. Separate models were tested for emotion inhibition, emotion dysregulation, and regulation coping. Each model included T2 emotion regulation predicted from the friend’s T1 emotion regulation, adolescents’ perceptions of the friend’s emotion regulation, and friend emotion socialization behaviors. Adolescents’ T1 self-reported emotion regulation was included as a covariate. Missing data were handled using multiple imputation and pooled estimates are reported (see Table 1).
For emotion inhibition, the effect of the friend’s emotion regulation was significant, such that adolescents who had friends with higher emotion inhibition at T1 had higher emotion inhibition themselves at T2. Several effects were significant in the emotion dysregulation model. Adolescents whose friends had higher emotion dysregulation at T1, who perceived their friend to be more emotionally dysregulated, and who expected more supportive emotion socialization behaviors from their friend had higher emotion dysregulation themselves at T2. In the regulation coping model, adolescents whose friends had higher regulation coping at T1 had higher regulation coping themselves at T2. In addition, adolescents who expected unsupportive emotion socialization behaviors from their friend had lower regulation coping at T2.
Results have important implications for how close friends contribute to adolescents’ emotional development. Friends may influence adolescents’ emotional development through distinct pathways for different emotion regulation competencies. Implications for models of emotion socialization and peer socialization (e.g., the Influence-Compatibility Model; Laursen & Veenstra, 2021) will be discussed.

Authors

• Sarah K Borowski, Lehigh University
  Presenting Author

• Janice L Zeman, William and Mary