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Considerable attention has been devoted to the concept of flexible emotion regulation, which de-emphasizes the importance of any specific regulatory strategy in favor of the flexible deployment of strategies in response to specific situational challenges. The bulk of research in this area has been conducted on adult samples. Research on emotion reg...
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Introduction
Exposure to natural environments, such as parks, forests, and green areas, is often linked to a decrease in stress, anxiety and depression, while contributing to improved emotional wellbeing. These observations are supported by well-established theories, such as the Stress Reduction Theory and Attention Restoration Theory, which highli...
Citations
... While adolescents tend to prefer informal help and studies demonstrate the potential benefits of best friend support (Ali et al. 2015;Singh et al. 2019;Smit et al. 2022), these benefits may be decreased or even disappear at when adolescents start to co-ruminate. Adolescents may therefore benefit from support in recognizing when they are engaging in co-rumination and learning to flexibly adapt their emotion regulation strategies to fit situational demands by building a diverse repertoire of (dyadic) strategies, such as co-reappraisal and co-problem-solving with friends (Do et al. 2023;Haag et al. 2024). ...
Introduction
Co‐rumination, characterized by excessively discussing problems and dwelling on negative affect within a dyadic friendship, has been associated with adolescents' symptoms of depression, anxiety and perceived stress‐collectively referred to as psychological distress. This study explored whether co‐rumination moderates the association between perceived best friend support and psychological distress.
Methods
The study included 187 adolescents (52.9% girls; 88.0% Dutch ethnic background) recruited from two cohorts between March 2017 and July 2019. Assessments took place at two time points: symptoms of depression, anxiety, and perceived stress were assessed via self‐report measures at the final grade of primary school (T1; Mage = 11.8 years) and in secondary school (T2; Mage = 13.3 years). Co‐rumination and perceived best friend support were measured via self‐report in secondary school.
Results
Findings indicate that best friend support was associated with lower psychological distress and conversely, co‐rumination was associated with higher psychological distress while adjusting for prior distress symptoms. Moderation analysis revealed that moderate levels of co‐rumination (relative to the samples mean) decreased the positive effects of perceived best friend support on symptoms of depression (B = 0.06, SE = 0.03, 95% CI [0.00, 0.11], p = 0.05, β = 0.11) and perceived stress (B = 0.06, SE = 0.01, 95% CI [0.03, 0.08], p = 0.000, β = 0.10). At very high levels of co‐rumination (relative to the samples mean), best friend support exacerbates perceived stress.
Discussion
This study underscores the potential negative impact of co‐rumination in supportive peer relationships and recommends promoting awareness of the risk of co‐rumination while building a repertoire of (dyadic)emotion regulation strategies.
This study aims to explore the nature of emotion regulation strategy selection among students across primary and secondary schools. We investigated the complex relationship patterns in students' emotion regulation strategy selection when faced with emotional situations in school. Using the Student Emotion Regulation Assessment (SERA), we conducted two independent analyses for primary (SERA-P; N = 410) and secondary (SERA-S; N = 724) students. Specifically, we applied the network analysis model to describe the dynamic interconnections among students' use of eight different emotion regulation strategies (avoidance/escape, distraction, emotional support-seeking, acceptance, problem-solving, reappraisal/reframing, rumination/repetitive thinking, somatic relaxation) to manage different types of emotions (anger, sadness, anxiety, boredom) and situations (academic, social, socio-academic, other) in school. The findings show that children exhibit greater variability in their selection of emotion regulation strategies than adolescents, with notably lower use of acceptance and rumination strategies. Adolescents displayed a more balanced pattern of using seven different strategies, though their understanding of somatic relaxation remained limited. This study extends the discourse for supporting students' emotion regulation development in schools.
