Friend Socialization of Emotion in Adolescence: A Multicultural Perspective

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) is a dynamic process that when implemented effectively is responsive the sociocultural context (Thompson & Goodman, 2010). A small body of research points to the important role of friends in facilitating adolescents’ ER development (Miller-Slough & Dunsmore, 2016). Unlike parent-adolescent relationships, friendships are voluntary and egalitarian providing a unique context for emotion socialization. There are significant gaps in the literature concerning how ER in adolescence is shaped through friend socialization and how youth learn to support their friends’ emotional expressivity. This symposium presents four papers that examine the role of friend emotion socialization in multiple sociocultural contexts using a variety of methods.
The first paper examines three pathways of how US early adolescent friends may influence each other’s ER over a 2-year period. Based on a sample of daily diary data from Chinese early adolescents, the second paper investigates how supportive friend emotion socialization is associated with adolescents’ regulatory flexibility (i.e., fluctuations, inertia) and peer problems. The third presentation tests a moderated mediation model that examines whether supportive friend emotion socialization in US mid-adolescents moderates the relation between ER (anger, sadness/worry) and depressive symptoms, and how parent unsupportive emotion socialization predicts increased depressive symptoms through ER. The final paper describes a new school-based intervention with Australian adolescents that focuses on building emotional competencies, including peer emotion socialization skills. Together, this set of papers provides exciting insights into the critical role friends play in the continued development of ER during the emotionally intense period of early and mid-adolescence.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Janice L Zeman, William and Mary

Individual Presentations

• Emotion Socialization Within Adolescent Friendships: Considering the Roles of Friend Influence, Socialization Behaviors, and Friends’ Perceptions - Presenting Author: Sarah K Borowski, Lehigh University; Janice L Zeman, William and Mary

• Supportive Friend Emotion Socialization and Daily Dynamics of Emotional and Peer Problems in Chinese Adolescents - Presenting Author: Jianjie Xu, Beijing Normal University; Hui Wang, Beijing Normal University; Sinan Fu, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China; Shurou Zhang, Beijing Normal University; Zhuo Rachel Han, Beijing Normal University

• Parents and Friends in Adolescence: Does Their Emotion Socialization Matter for Internalizing Symptoms? - Presenting Author: Molly Hale, University of Georgia; Janice L Zeman, William and Mary

• Examining Feasibility and Acceptability of an Emotion-focused Program Targeting Students’ Skills in Peer Emotion Socialization - Presenting Author: Christiane Evelyne Kehoe, University of Melbourne; Anne E Harley, University of Melbourne; Sophie Seychelle Havighurst, University of Melbourne