“The channeling effect” of caregiver–adolescent relationship quality: Associations of caregiver emotion socialization, social competence, and adolescent well-being

Caregivers play an important role in adolescent socialization and well-being. However, the conditions under which caregivers' emotion socialization works in various stages of adolescence are not fully understood. This paper investigates (1) the association between caregiver's emotion socialization, adolescent social competence, and both subjective and psychological well-being as well as (2) the moderating effect of relationship quality on these associations in samples ranging from early adolescence to emerging adulthood. Hypotheses were tested in two majority White American samples using longitudinal (sample 1, n = 241 adolescents, age 11–18, 45.2% girls, 58.01% White) and cross-sectional (sample 2, n = 506 emerging adults, age 18–21, 85.4% girls, 77.86% White) designs, respectively. Results consistently supported the moderation effect of caregiver–adolescent relationship quality in samples ranging from early adolescence to emerging adulthood, highlighting a close caregiver–adolescent relationship as an important “channel” to support caregivers' socialization effort in adolescent subjective and psychological well-being.