Emotion regulation strategies and psychosocial well-being in adolescence

AbstractTo study whether and how emotion regulation (EmR) strategies are associated with adolescents’ well-being, 633 Italian adolescents completed a survey that measured, using the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ), the strategies of cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES), and their relationship with several well-being measures. Factor analysis and reliability results confirmed the validity of ERQ to assess adolescents’ regulation strategies. Correlation and regression results showed that a greater reliance on CR was positively associated with better well-being outcomes for most indicators, especially life satisfaction, social support perception, and positive affect; greater preference for ES conversely was associated with lower well-being level for all indicators, including psychological health, emotional loneliness, and negative affect. Neither gender nor age differences were observed for CR and ES; CR and ES were positively correlated with each other. Both analysis of variance...