Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 25, 2025
08:09
Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
11.4K
Emotion Regulation, Peer Acceptance and Rejection, and Emotional-Behavioral Problems in School-Aged Children
Nicoletta Salerni1, Marina Messetti2
1Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milan, Italy.
Children (Basel, Switzerland)
|February 26, 2025
Summary
Peer rejection exacerbates child behavior problems, particularly in boys, by impairing emotion regulation skills. Addressing emotion regulation is key to mitigating these issues.
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Social-Emotional Learning
Background:
- Emotional-behavioral problems in children are linked to reduced psychosocial well-being.
- Emotion regulation and peer relationships are critical predictors of behavioral and emotional difficulties.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how emotion regulation skills and peer acceptance/rejection influence behavior problems in Italian schoolchildren.
- To examine the mediating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between peer rejection and behavior problems.
- To explore gender-specific differences in these associations.
Main Methods:
- 220 Italian schoolchildren (ages 7-9) participated.
- Sociometric Peer Nomination assessed peer acceptance and rejection.
- Teacher-reported Emotion Regulation Checklist and parent-reported Child Behavior Checklist measured emotion regulation and behavior difficulties.
Main Results:
- Behavioral problems were negatively associated with emotion regulation skills and positively with peer rejection.
- Peer rejection's impact on problem behavior was fully mediated by emotion regulation abilities.
- This mediation pattern was significant only for male participants.
Conclusions:
- Clarifies the mechanism linking peer rejection to emotional-behavioral difficulties via emotion regulation.
- Highlights the importance of gender-specific factors in interpersonal risk models for problem behavior.
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