Social Reorientation of Emotion Regulation: Changing Roles of Family and Peers During Adolescence

The emotional climate of the family and peer group is theorized to play a central role in the development of emotion regulation (ER) in children and adolescents, such that warmer, more supportive environments promote more effective ER. However, most studies demonstrating associations between social interactions and ER use have focused on individual differences in the regulation of negative affect. This study is the first to investigate whether social interactions with family versus peers are differentially associated with ER, of both negative and positive affect, using a unique multi-timescale approach in which daily assessments were nested within a longitudinal design. Our sample included 112 youths, ages 8–15 at baseline and racially/ethnically representative of our northeast American recruitment area, who completed two waves of daily diaries (21 and 28 days) approximately 1 year apart. Every evening, participants reported the number and valence of interactions they had with family members and friends and their use of ER strategies, producing a total of 5,074 diary entries. We found evidence that (a) experiencing more positive interpersonal events was associated with greater use of effective ER strategies, whereas experiencing more negative interpersonal events was associated with greater use of counterproductive ER strategies, and (b) family events were more strongly associated with ER changes in younger youths, while friend events were more strongly associated with ER changes in older youths. Altogether, our results provide novel evidence for a social reorientation effect in ER development, highlighting the lasting influence of close relationships during the transition to adolescence.