Emotion socialization within adolescent friendships: Considering the role of friends' emotion regulation, perceptions of friends, and expectations of support

Abstract

Friends are influential relationships during adolescence (Laursen & Veenstra, 2021), but little research has considered the role of close friends on the development of adolescents' emotion regulation (ER). The current study considered the roles of contagion of ER between friends, friends' modeling of ER (as perceived by the adolescent), and friends' direct feedback for negative emotions on adolescents' ER over a 2-year period. Participants were 202 adolescents (M_age = 12.66, 53% girls, 77% White, 18% Black, largely middle class) who participated with a same-gender close friend (101 dyads). Adolescents and their friends reported on their ER (i.e., inhibition, constructive regulation, dysregulation) at an initial assessment (T1) and 2 years later (T2). At T1, adolescents also reported on their perceptions of their friends' ER and their supportive and unsupportive responses to negative emotions. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models tested whether friends' ER (i.e., contagion effect), adolescents' perceptions of friends' ER (i.e., modeling effect), and friends' expected responses to negative emotions (i.e., direct feedback) predicted adolescents' T2 ER. Results supported the presence of contagion effects such that friends' ER was positively related to adolescents' ER over time for all ER facets. Modeling effects (i.e., perceptions of friends' ER) significantly predicted adolescents' T2 emotion dysregulation. Supportive responses to negative emotion were associated with greater T2 emotion dysregulation. Unsupportive responses to negative emotion were associated with lower constructive regulation and greater dysregulation at T2. Results have implications for the influential nature of close friends during adolescence and the distinct ways that friends influence adolescents' emotional development.