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Pathways to Reciprocated Friendships: A Cross-Lagged Panel Study on Young Adolescents’ Anger Regulation towards Friends

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Abstract

Adolescents’ close friendships are an important and unique learning context in which adolescents can practice and hone their emotion regulation skills within an egalitarian, supportive relationship structure that provides important feedback on the effectiveness of the regulation strategies. This longitudinal study examined whether adolescents’ involvement in supportive reciprocal friendships influenced the way in which they regulated angry feelings arising in these friendships. A sample of 299 German adolescents began a 30-month, 3-wave longitudinal study in grade 7 (151 boys, M age = 12.6 years; 100% White). They completed a social network inventory (LueNIC), a peer-nomination measure, and the questionnaire on Strategies of Anger Regulation for Adolescents (SAR-A) in every wave. Cross-lagged-panel modeling indicated a pattern of socialization effects even when controlling for previous friendship involvement, previous anger regulation, peer acceptance, gender, classroom membership, and possible friendship selection influences. Adolescents with more reciprocal friends at Time 1 (T1) reported using aggressive strategies of anger regulation (i.e., verbal and relational aggression, fantasies of revenge) and ignoring the friend less often at Time 2 (T2). Similar results were obtained between T2 and Time 3 (T3). There was a marginally significant effect for one of three non-aggressive strategies such that a higher involvement in friendships at T2 explained more reappraisal of the anger-eliciting event at T3 but significant effects did not emerge for the strategies of redirection of attention and explanation and reconciliation. The results are discussed within a socialization of emotion framework with implications for social skills training modules.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the adolescents, and their teachers for their patience in answering our many questionnaires, as well as the school administration for their permission. Our gratitude extends to Dr. Rimma Kanevski, Dr. Maik Philipp, Dr. Annegret Schmalfeld, Dr. Marko Toska, Nadine Lüpschen, Antje Boeck, and our student research assistants for help with collecting and transforming the data.

Authors’ Contributions

M.v.S. conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and drafted the manuscript; J.L.Z. participated in the design and interpretation of the data and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

German Federal Ministry for Education and Research and the European Social Fund provided continued grant support (GTS0808 and GTS0410).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Psychology, Leuphana University Lueneburg, Scharnhorststrasse 1, Lueneburg, 21332, Germany

    Maria von Salisch

  2. Department of Psychology, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, 23187-8795, USA

    Janice L. Zeman

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  1. Maria von Salisch
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Correspondence to Maria von Salisch.

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Compliance with Ethical Standards

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. School administrators of the Land of Brandenburg, where the study took place, approved the questionnaires and other measures of the PIN-study. Participation was voluntary.

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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Ethics approval was obtained for the project from Leuphana University.

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Informed consent was received from participating students and their parents. Only students with parental permission participated.

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von Salisch, M., Zeman, J.L. Pathways to Reciprocated Friendships: A Cross-Lagged Panel Study on Young Adolescents’ Anger Regulation towards Friends. J Youth Adolescence 47, 673–687 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-017-0683-7

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