The function of regulator's empathy and social distance in adolescent interpersonal emotion regulation effectiveness: A dyadic approach.

Previous studies have indicated that adolescents are susceptible to emotional cues and can benefit from peers' interpersonal emotion regulation (IER). However, it remains unclear how an adolescent regulator's personal traits shape an effective IER. The present study examined the role of regulator's trait empathy and social distance between the regulator and the target on IER effectiveness among adolescents and explored the underlying behavioral mechanism. A total of 420 adolescent dyads with ages ranging from 12 to 18 years participated (212 dyads of friends; 208 dyads of strangers). After reporting their empathy levels, each regulator inferred the emotional intensity of the target based on the given negative events the target had experienced and then wrote down regulation strategies. Targets rated their own emotions before and after reading regulation strategies and evaluated the suitability of the strategies for them. The results showed that regulators with higher cognitive empathy were better at accurately perceiving targets' negative emotions, which, in turn, enhanced their regulation effectiveness. Similarly, regulators' behavioral empathy was positively related to regulation effectiveness through target-perceived strategy suitability. Additionally, close social distance enhanced the role of regulator's cognitive empathy in emotion perception accuracy and strengthened the impact of the regulator's behavioral empathy on regulation effectiveness. In contrast, closer social distance weakened the positive effect of regulator's behavioral empathy on target-perceived strategy suitability. These findings first highlight how and when different components of an adolescent regulator's trait empathy are linked to IER effectiveness, emphasizing the importance of adopting a dyadic design in the field of IER. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).