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RESEARCH ARTICLE
The role of family conflict and cohesion in
adolescents’ social responsibility: Emotion
regulation ability as a mediator
Wing Yee Cheng
1
, Rebecca Y. M. CheungID
2
*, Kevin Kien Hoa Chung
3,4
1Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 2School of Psychology and
Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom, 3Department of Early
Childhood Education, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 4Centre for Child and
Family Science, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
*rebecca.cheung@reading.ac.uk
Abstract
The social context is crucial for the adolescent development of self-regulatory skills and
social responsibility. To understand the role of social context in adolescent development,
the present study examined family predictors (i.e., family cohesion and conflict) of social
responsibility, with emotion regulation ability as a mediating process. A total of 828 Chinese
adolescents (35.6% female; mean age = 13.92 years, SD = 1.34) were recruited from major
Chinese cities, including Hong Kong and Macau. Path analysis revealed that emotion regu-
lation ability mediated the relation between family factors (i.e., family cohesion and family
conflict) and social responsibility. That is, the ability to regulate emotions serves as a pro-
cess between family factors and social responsibility. More specifically, family cohesion was
positively associated with emotion regulation ability, whereas family conflict was negatively
associated with emotion regulation ability. In turn, emotion regulation ability was positively
associated with social responsibility. The results suggested that the family environment and
adolescent’s emotion regulation ability are important contextual and intrapersonal factors
contributing to their development of social responsibility. As an implication, policymakers
and practitioners might allocate resources to enrich positive family interactions and cultivate
emotional competency to support adolescents’ development of social responsibility.
Introduction
In adolescence, people begin to form a system of beliefs of what a “good citizen” is [1] and con-
solidate an “altruistic identity” by participating in prosocial services [2], both of which contrib-
ute to their development of social responsibility. Social responsibility is a value orientation that
reflects people’s concern for others extending beyond personal interest [3]. Social responsibil-
ity also reflects people’s sense of duty to address social needs [4]. For instance, an individual
who has a strong sense of social responsibility might have a stronger value for helping those
who are less fortunate, working hard to improve society, donating time or money to charities,
and engaging in social movements that benefit the country [5]. Such value orientation could
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OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Cheng WY, Cheung RYM, Chung KKH
(2024) The role of family conflict and cohesion in
adolescents’ social responsibility: Emotion
regulation ability as a mediator. PLoS ONE 19(9):
e0311265. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.
pone.0311265
Editor: Yutaka Horita, Teikyo University - Hachioji
Campus: Teikyo Daigaku - Hachioji Campus,
JAPAN
Received: April 30, 2024
Accepted: September 16, 2024
Published: September 30, 2024
Peer Review History: PLOS recognizes the
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311265
Copyright: ©2024 Cheng et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited.
Data Availability Statement: Participants’
identifying information cannot be shared publicly
motivate adolescents to engage in more prosocial and civic actions to help build a stronger
community [6]. The development of social responsibility in adolescence is beneficial at both
personal and societal levels. At the personal level, greater adolescents’ social responsibility was
found to mediate the relation between in-depth identity exploration and higher civic engage-
ment [4]. Longitudinal studies also found that greater social responsibility was associated with
more civic participation in adolescence [7], which further predicted greater social responsibil-
ity in young adulthood [7,8]. Recent studies showed that greater social responsibility was also
related to more positive public health behaviors [9] and more civic actions toward social injus-
tice [10] in society. The present study examines the possible roles of family cohesion and fam-
ily conflict in the development of social responsibility among adolescents to provide insights
into promoting positive adolescent development and social change.
Family cohesion, family conflict, and social responsibility
Family is one of the primary socializing agents whereby adolescents learn how to interact with
the world around them [11]. In Chinese culture, individuals highly value family relationships
and perceive that the family unit is one of the most basic and important social units [12].
Under the influence of Confucianism in the East Asian context, Chinese families emphasize
common good and harmony over personal interests [12], and prefer to avoid conflict and
maintain harmonious interparental and parent-child relationships [13,14]. Together with the
socioecological framework [15] and family systems theory [16], the family is postulated to be
an important environment for adolescent development, particularly in a Chinese context.
According to Bronfenbrenner’s socioecological framework [15], parental practices have a
direct influence on child and adolescent socioemotional development. As an active agent, chil-
dren also affect their social environment, creating dynamics in the social ecologies. Similarly,
family systems theory [16] describes the family as an organized system composed of interde-
pendent subsystems, such as the interparental subsystem and the parent-child subsystem [6,
15]. The theory highlights the dynamic interaction between family members, generating
mutual influences within the family that foster adolescent development [17]. Based on these
theoretical frameworks, in this study, we propose that the interplay between family relation-
ships and adolescents could facilitate adolescent development of emotion regulation ability
and social responsibility [6,15].
Supporting the socioecological framework [15] and family systems theory [16], studies to
date have found that the indices of the family environment contribute to the development of
social responsibility. A positive family environment plays an important role in predicting ado-
lescents’ social responsibility [6,18] and prosocial behaviors [19]. For instance, family cohe-
sion, which refers to the degree of concern and support among family members [20], is related
to higher social responsibility [18], more prosocial behaviors [21], and a higher level of com-
munity responsibility [22]. Nevertheless, inconsistent findings also exist in the literature to
suggest negative or no associations between family cohesion and other indices of social
responsibility, such as political activism and volunteerism [23,24]. The inconsistent findings
suggest a need to clarify the mechanisms between family cohesion and social responsibility.
Family conflict indicates the extent of anger, aggression, and conflictual interactions
between family members [25]. Conflict can damage families [26] and is destructive to child
development. For instance, family conflict could result in poor parent-child relationships that
further reinforce adolescents’ antisocial behaviors [27,28]. Previous studies found that the dis-
ruption of healthy parent-child relationships was related to adolescents’ self-control and
resulted in adolescents’ problem behaviors [29]. Adolescents who display problem behaviors
might be rejected by conventional peers and join deviant peer groups that further reinforce
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due to ethical concerns. Anonymous data are
available in the supplementary material.
Funding: The present study was funded by The
Education University of Hong Kong and the Centre
for Child and Family Science at The Education
University of Hong Kong (R3669 & CCFS2017-
0003). The funders had no role in study design,
data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or
preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
antisocial behaviors [28]. Although previous research provided insights on the association
between family conflict and antisocial behaviors, few studies to our knowledge have directly
examined the process between family conflict and social responsibility. Although previous
studies did provide preliminary support on the relationship between the family cohesion and
the development of social responsibility [18], a research gap remains for the study of different
aspects of the family factors (i.e., family cohesion and family conflict) in contributing to ado-
lescents’ social responsibility. Given the family environment has a major influence on adoles-
cents’ psychosocial development, understanding the relationship between family cohesion,
family conflict, and social responsibility is deemed necessary.
Adolescents’ social trust might further obscure the link between family factors and social
responsibility. Social trust is defined as an individual’s belief in the fairness and trustworthi-
ness of their treatment within society [30]. Previous research suggested that family cohesion
was positively related to higher social trust among Chinese adolescents [31]. Another study
found that family cohesion was related to social responsibility over and above the effect of
social trust [18], suggesting that social trust may be linked to family cohesion and social
responsibility. Therefore, to identify the unique correlates of social responsibility, we examined
the links between family conflict, cohesion, and social responsibility, over and above social
trust as a covariate.
Emotional regulation ability as a mediator
Emotion regulation ability plays an important role among adolescents, who are prone to react
strongly to emotions [32]. Emotion regulation is the process of “modulating, evaluating, and
modifying emotional reactions, especially their intensive and temporal features, to accomplish
one’s goals” [33]. There are multiple ways of examining emotion regulation. Previous studies
have adopted the process model of emotional regulation [34] and examined emotion regula-
tion strategies, such as attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation.
Nevertheless, other studies adopted a different approach and emphasized emotion regulation
ability [35,36], i.e., an individual’s ability to regulate their emotions for recovering quickly
from psychological distress [37]. Given that emotion regulation ability is associated with adap-
tation in social relationships and academic performance [38–40], this study examined the role
of an overall emotion regulation ability rather than specific emotion regulation strategies.
According to the tripartite model of family impact on the development of emotion regula-
tion [40], family as a social context contributes to adolescents’ development of emotion regula-
tion ability through observational learning, modeling, and social referencing [15,40,41].
Studies involving children and adolescents indicated that family cohesion and conflict was
directly associated with anger regulation [42,43] and indirectly associated with anger regula-
tion through parental support [44]. In contrast, in a situation where family conflict arises, ado-
lescents’ emotional arousal might lower their threshold for subsequent emotional arousals,
which might further impair their emotion regulatory ability by heightening their attentional
sensitivity to negative emotions [45].
Adolescents’ ability to control their own emotions and understand others’ emotions could
motivate prosocial behaviors [46,47]. Of note, empirical findings demonstrated that emotion
regulation ability was associated with more prosocial behaviors and civic engagement during
adolescence [48,49]. Emotion regulation ability was also a predictor of prosocial behaviors
among sixth and tenth graders [48]. In sum, the above studies concluded that adolescents with
adaptive emotional regulation ability could regulate their reactions towards situations in a way
that lowers personal distress and results in appropriate prosocial reactions, suggesting a possi-
ble association between adolescents’ emotion regulation ability and social responsibility.
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As discussed earlier, the tripartite model of family impact on the development of emotion
regulation ability [40] postulated that the family environment is central to emotion regulation
ability and psychosocial development among adolescents. For instance, previous research
found that self-regulation ability mediated the positive association between parenting and pro-
social behaviors [47], thereby suggesting possible links between family cohesion and conflict,
adolescents’ regulatory ability, and social responsibility [6,19]. Nonetheless, to the best of our
knowledge, little has been done to examine the mediating role of adolescents’ emotion regula-
tion ability for the effects of family cohesion and conflict on social responsibility.
The current study
The present study examined the relationship among family cohesion, family conflict, emotion
regulation ability, and social responsibility among adolescents. We hypothesized that family
cohesion and family conflict would have a direct effect on social responsibility, and the effects
would be mediated by emotional regulation ability. Specifically, we hypothesized that family
cohesion would be positively associated with emotion regulation ability, and family conflict
would be negatively associated with emotion regulation ability. Emotion regulation ability, in
turn, would be positively associated with social responsibility. Taken together, we hypothesized
that emotion regulation ability would mediate the effect of family cohesion and family conflicts
on social responsibility. Adolescents’ gender and age were included covariates, as they were
previously found to be associated with emotion regulation ability and prosocial behaviors [50,
51]. Social trust was also examined as a covariate of social responsibility, as its association with
social responsibility had been established in previous research [18]. Extending beyond the cur-
rent theoretical understanding of adolescent development, potential findings could provide
initial evidence of emotion regulation as a process for the effects of family cohesion and family
conflict on adolescents’ social responsibility. Beyond theoretical contributions, the findings
could also inform the design and implementation of interventions aimed at promoting adoles-
cents’ social responsibility.
Methods
Participants
Participants were 828 Chinese adolescents from secondary schools in Hong Kong (n= 442)
and Macau (n= 386). The sample had 35.6% female (n= 295), and the age ranged from 11 to
19 years old (M= 13.92; SD = 1.34). Participants were recruited via school invitations and
mass mailing. The study was conducted with the approval of the Ethics Committee of The
Education University of Hong Kong. Written informed consent and assent were obtained
from the adolescents and their parents prior to their participation in the study. The response
rates of recruitment from Hong Kong and Macau were 90.37% and 90.75%, respectively. The
median household income per month was HK$20,001–HK$30,000 (approximately US$2,564–
US$3,846). 81.92% of mothers and 80.20% of fathers completed high school education. Table 1
summarizes the demographic information. Table 2 shows the means, SDs, and correlations
among all variables.
Measures
Family cohesion. The 9-item family cohesion subscale of the Family Environment Scale
(FES) [20] measured adolescents’ perceived family cohesion. The subscale was rated on a
4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very incorrect) to 4 (very correct). Sample items included,
“Family members will really help and support one another” and “There will be a feeling of
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Table 1. Demographic information of the final sample (N = 828).
Variable M(SD) / Number (%)
Hong Kong Macau Final sample
(n= 442) (n= 386) (N= 828)
Adolescents’ age 13.62 (1.15) 14.29 (1.45) 13.92 (1.34)
Adolescents’ gender
Female 223 (50.57%) 72 (19.30%) 295 (36.24%)
Male 218 (49.43%) 301 (80.70%) 519 (63.76%)
Household size 3.97 (1.07) 4.16 (1.50) 4.06 (1.29)
Adolescents’ number of siblings 0.91 (0.04) 1.12 (0.06) 1.01 (0.99)
Household income per month
1. <HK$10,000 25 (9.62%) 10 (5.18%) 35 (7.73%)
2. HK$10,001–20,000 90 (34.62%) 43(22.28%) 133 (29.36%)
3. HK$20,001–30,000 68 (26.25%) 53 (27.46%) 121 (26.71%)
4. HK$30,001–40,000 36 (13.85%) 43 (22.28%) 79 (17.44%)
5. HK$40,001–50,000 17 (6.54%) 30 (15.54%) 47 (10.38%)
6.>HK$50,000 24 (9.23%) 14 (7.25%) 38 (8.39%)
Fathers’ level of education
1. Primary school or below 35 (11.08%) 54 (19.64%) 89 (15.06%)
2. Secondary school 232 (73.42%) 153 (55.63%) 385 (65.15%)
3. Bachelor’s degree / Higher diploma / Diploma 37 (11.71%) 47 (17.09%) 84 (14.21%)
4. Postgraduate degree or above 12 (3.80%) 21 (7.64%) 33 (5.58%)
Mothers’ level of education
1. Primary school or below 46 (14.07%) 45 (16.30%) 91 (15.09%)
2. Secondary school 239 (73.08%) 164 (59.42%) 403 (66.83%)
3. Bachelor’s degree / Higher diploma / Diploma 35 (10.70%) 51 (18.48%) 86 (14.26%)
4. Postgraduate degree or above 8 (2.14%) 16 (5.80%) 23 (3.81%)
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311265.t001
Table 2. Means, standard deviations, and correlations among all variables.
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9)
(1) Adolescents’ gender (0 = male; 1 = female) —
(2) Adolescents’ age -.08*—
(3) Adolescents’ number of siblings -.03 .04 —
(4) Household income -.07 -.09 .05 —
(5) Family cohesion .02 -.14*** -.04 .19*** —
(6) Family conflict -.00 .12*** .04 -.15** -.58*** —
(7) Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability .04 -.02 .05 .07 .20*** -.24*** —
(8) Adolescents’ social responsibility .04 -.06 .05 .08 .22*** -.08*.17*** —
(9) Adolescents’ social trust .00 -.07*.00 -.00 .23*** -.19*** .20*** .23*** —
MNA 13.92 1.01 3.19 2.81 2.08 4.66 3.35 3.22
SD NA 1.34 0.99 1.39 0.50 0.51 1.33 0.66 0.70
Note.*p = /<.05
**p = /<.01
***p = /<.001. Monthly household income scale ranging from 1 to 6: 1 = less than HK$10,000; 2 = HK$10,001–20,000; 3 = HK$20,001–30,000; 4 = HK$30,001–40,000;
5 = HK$40,001–50,000; 6 = over HK$50,000.
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togetherness in the family.” A higher average score indicated a higher level of family cohesion.
The FES had been validated in Hong Kong for use in a Chinese sample and demonstrated ade-
quate internal consistency, factor structure, and intercorrelations between FES subscales [52].
In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha = .77.
Family conflict. The 9-item family conflict subscale of the Family Environment Scale
(FES) [20] measured adolescents’ perceived family conflict. The subscale was rated on a
4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very incorrect) to 4 (very correct). Sample items included,
“Family members will sometimes get so angry that they throw things” and “Family members
will hardly ever lose their tempers (reversed item).” A higher average score indicated a higher
level of family conflict. The FES had been validated in Hong Kong for use in a Chinese sample
and demonstrated adequate internal consistency, factor structure, and intercorrelations
between FES subscales [52]. In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha = .71.
Emotion regulation ability. The 4-item subscale of the Emotional Intelligence Scale [37]
measured adolescents’ emotion regulation ability. The scale was rated on a 7-point Likert scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and higher averaged scores indicated
higher levels of emotion regulation ability. Sample items included, “I am able to control my
temper and handle difficulties rationally” and “I have good control of my own emotions.” In a
validation study, the scale demonstrated adequate psychometric properties in Chinese univer-
sity students and Spanish university students [53,54]. In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha = .90.
Social responsibility. The 7-item Social Responsibility Scale [5] measured adolescents’
social responsibility. Participants rated the importance of the statement relating to social
responsibility on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all important) to 5 (very impor-
tant). Sample items included, “To help those who are less fortunate”, “To help others improve
their lives”, “To work for the betterment of the society”, and “To help this country.” Higher
averaged scores indicated greater social responsibility. Although the scale had not been vali-
dated in Chinese or Western samples, a previous study reported that the scale had adequate
internal consistency in American adolescents and Chinese adolescents, respectively [18,55].
In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha = .89.
Social trust. The 3-item Social Trust Measure [56] assessed the social trust level of adoles-
cents. Participants rated the statements on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly dis-
agree) to 5 (strongly agree). Sample items included, “Most people can be trusted”, “Most people
are fair and don’t take advantage of you” and “Most people just look out for themselves rather
than try to help others.” Higher averaged scores indicated a higher social trust level. No valida-
tion studies were found in the Chinese or Western population. In this study, the Cronbach’s
alpha = .47. Given that the item “Most people just look out for themselves rather than try to
help others” contributed to the low alpha, the item was removed in the supplementary analysis.
Without the item, the Cronbach’s alpha = .84.
Data analysis. Prior to data analyses, Little’s Missing Completely at Random (MCAR) test
was conducted via SPSS to examine the pattern of missing values and determine how the miss-
ingness should be treated. Path analysis was conducted via MPLUS, Version 8.3 [57] to investi-
gate the emotion regulation ability as a mediator for the effects of family cohesion and family
conflict on adolescents’ social responsibility, over and above the covariates identified in previ-
ous research (i.e., age, gender, family income, number of siblings, and social trust). Mediation
was tested by using 10,000 bootstrapping iterations to obtain the bootstrapped confidence
intervals of the indirect effects. The data file in the S1 Appendix includes the variables under
study, with a score of “999” denoting a missing value. The MPLUS codes are included in the
S1 Appendix. Given the low internal consistency of the three-item Social Trust measure, sup-
plementary path analysis was conducted using a two-item social trust measure that demon-
strated a higher internal consistency.
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Results
Participants between the two sites (Hong Kong and Macau) did not differ in variables, includ-
ing fathers’ level of education, family conflict, and social responsibility (ps>.05). However,
they differed in household income level with t(451) = 3.20, p= .001, household size with t(797)
= 2.05, p= .04, mothers’ level of education with t(601) = 2.15, p= .03, gender with χ
2
(1) =
85.48, p<.001), age with t(810) = 7.29, p<.001, emotion regulation ability (Hong Kong: M
= 4.84; SD = 1.25; Macau: M= 4.65; SD = 1.39) with t(821) = −4.29, p<.001, family cohe-
sion (Hong Kong: M= 2.86; SD = .47; Macau: M= 2.75; SD = .53) with t(825) = −3.11, p
= .002, and social trust (Hong Kong: M= 3.34; SD = .69 ; Macau: M= 3.08; SD = .69)
with t(823) = −5.38, p<.001. At both sites, socioeconomic indices, including family income
and parental education were not significantly associated with the study variables, ps>.05.
Regarding the missing data analysis, the MCAR test was not significant, χ
2
(14) = 22.16, p=
.075, indicating that the data were completely missing at random. As such, full information
maximum likelihood was used to handle the missing data. The zero-order correlations among
all variables are presented in Table 2. Family cohesion was negatively correlated with family
conflict (r= -.58, p<.001) and positively correlated with adolescents’ emotion regulation abil-
ity (r= .20, p<.001), social responsibility (r= .22, p<.001), and social trust (r= .23, p<
.001). Family conflict was negatively correlated with adolescents’ emotion regulation ability (r
= -.24, p<.001), social responsibility (r= -.08, p= .02), and social trust (r= -.19, p<.001).
Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability was positively correlated with social responsibility (r=
.17, p<.001) and social trust (r= .20, p<.001). As for covariates, adolescents’ social responsi-
bility was positively correlated with social trust (r= .23, p<.001). Adolescents’ age was nega-
tively correlated with family cohesion (r= -.14, p<.001) and social trust (r= -.07, p= .04) and
positively correlated with family conflict (r= .12, p<.001). Household income was positively
correlated with family cohesion (r= .19, p<.001) and negatively correlated with family con-
flict (r= -.15, p= .002).
The path model fit adequately to the data, χ
2
(10) = 18.81, p= .04, CFI = .94, TLI = .92,
RMSEA = .03, SRMR = .02 (see Fig 1 and Table 3). In the model, family cohesion was posi-
tively associated with emotion regulation ability (β= .58, p= .003), and family conflict was
negatively associated with emotion regulation ability (β= -.40, p= .02). Emotion regulation
ability, in turn, was related to social responsibility (β= .11, p= .001). Adolescents’ age was
Fig 1. Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability as a mediator between family cohesion, family conflict, and
adolescents’ social responsibility. χ
2
(10) = 18.81, p= .04, CFI = .94, TLI = .92, RMSEA = .03, SRMR = .02.
Standardized parameter estimates are presented. Adolescents’ social trust, age, gender, number of siblings, and family
income were included as covariates but are not depicted in the figure for clarity. *p= /<.05, **p= /<.01, ***p= /<
.001.
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negatively associated with family cohesion (β= -.11, p= .001), positively associated with family
conflict (β= .09, p= .007), and not associated with other variables (ps>.05). Adolescents’ gen-
der was not related to all variables under study (ps>.05). Family income was positively associ-
ated with family cohesion (β= .19, p<.001) and emotion regulation ability (β= .93, p<.001),
negatively associated with family conflict (β= -.15, p= .001), and not associated with other var-
iables (ps>.05). The number of siblings was positively associated with emotion regulation
ability (β= .08, p= .04) and not with other variables (ps>.05). Social trust was positively
related to social responsibility (β= .18, p<.001).
Table 3. Parameter estimates of the path model.
Parameter Unstandardized B(SE) Standardized β
Path Model
Family cohesion
!Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability 1.53 (.52) .58**
!Adolescents’ social responsibility .27 (.06) .20***
Family conflict
!Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability -1.06 (.47) -.40*
!Adolescents’ social responsibility .14 (.05) .10**
Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability
!Adolescents’ social responsibility .06 (.02) .11***
Adolescents’ gender (0 = male; 1 = female)
!Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability .10 (.11) .04
!Adolescents’ social responsibility .05 (.05) .03
Adolescents’ age
!Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability .10 (.05) .10*
!Adolescents’ social responsibility -.01 (.02) -.02
Adolescents’ number of siblings
!Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability .11 (.06) .08*
!Adolescents’ social responsibility .03 (.02) .05
Household income
!Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability -2.99 (1.04) -3.11**
!Adolescents’ social responsibility .03 (.02) .06
Covariates
Family cohesion
! Family conflict -.15 (.01) -.58***
! Adolescents’ social trust .08 (.01) .22***
! Adolescents’ age -.08 (.02) -.11***
! Household income .13 (.03) .19***
Family conflict
! Adolescents’ age .06 (.02) .09**
! Household income -.11 (.03) -.15***
Adolescents’ emotion regulation ability
! Household income 5.53 (1.95) .93***
Adolescents’ social trust
! Adolescents’ social responsibility .17 (.03) .18***
Note.*p= /<.05
**p= /<.01
***p= /<.001.
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The indirect effects of family cohesion and family conflict on social responsibility via emo-
tion regulation ability were significant (family cohesion: β= .06, p= .03; family conflict: β=
-.05, p= .05). Based on 10000 bootstrap samples with replacement, the 95% confidence interval
(CI) indicated that the standardized indirect effect from family cohesion and family conflict to
adolescents’ social responsibility via emotion regulation ability did not include a zero [β= .06,
CI: (.03, .22) and β= -.05 (-.11, .01), respectively], thereby suggesting emotion regulation abil-
ity as a mediator.
Supplementary analysis with a two-item measure of social trust
Supplementary analysis was conducted with a two-item measure of social trust that exhibited a
greater internal consistency. However, the mediation model replaced by the two-item measure
of social trust did not converge, suggesting potential issues with the computations. As such,
predictions were not made in the supplementary analysis.
Discussion
This research examined the mediating role of emotion regulation ability between the indices
of family environment (i.e., family cohesion and family conflict) and social responsibility
among Chinese adolescents. The initial findings generally supported the mediation model,
thereby supporting the idea that contextual and intrapersonal factors shape adolescents’ devel-
opment of social responsibility [6] and enhancing the current understanding of social respon-
sibility from family systems and ecological perspectives [15,16].
From a family systems perspective, our measures of the family environment, namely family
cohesion and family conflict, reflect the mutual influence of the multiple subsystems in the
family (inclusive of a couple, parent-child, and sibling relationships) [17]. Given that existing
research primarily reported only one aspect of family environment, e.g., either family cohesion
or family conflict [18,21,22], this study suggested a more comprehensive view by including
family cohesion as a positive index and family conflict as a negative index of the family envi-
ronment. We found that higher levels of family cohesion and family conflict were both signifi-
cantly associated with adolescents’ higher levels of social responsibility. The finding on the
positive relationship between family cohesion and adolescents’ social responsibility was consis-
tent with previous studies [18,21]. As for the surprising positive association between family
conflict and social responsibility, we speculate that adolescents with higher family conflict
might have sought recognition outside their families, such as from peers and social groups,
which could motivate them to develop a stronger sense of social responsibility [58]. As such,
future studies should include third variables, such as peer and social support, to understand
the relation between family conflict and social responsibility.
In addition to the associations between family cohesion, family conflict, and the develop-
ment of social responsibility, our study also demonstrated the mediating role of adolescents’
emotion regulation ability, thereby supporting previous research in this area [32,40]. Specifi-
cally, our results showed that family cohesion was associated with adolescents’ better emotion
regulation ability, whereas family conflict was associated with poorer emotion regulation abil-
ity. Consistent with the socioecological framework [15], which states that development occurs
as a result of regular exchanges between an individual and the context [15], the findings sug-
gested that the family context is crucial in fostering adolescents’ emotion regulation ability.
Previous studies suggested that parent-child interactions provide modeling and social
referencing opportunities for adolescents to develop their emotion regulatory ability, such as
how they understand emotions and how to manage their emotions [40,41,59]. Thus, a posi-
tive family environment with higher family cohesion and lower family conflict could
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potentially foster adolescent development of emotion regulatory ability. Our study further
indicated that adolescents’ emotion regulation ability was associated with greater social
responsibility, which is consistent with previous research [48,49]. As such, the finding under-
scores the importance of adolescents’ ability to manage and understand emotions in fostering
a sense of social responsibility, such as prioritizing their sense of duty towards group or social
needs over personal interest.
Taken together, this study revealed the mediating role of emotion regulation ability in the
relationship between family cohesion, family conflict, and adolescents’ social responsibility,
suggesting emotion regulation ability as an internal mechanism underlying the association
between family environment and the development of social responsibility. While previous
studies had concluded a solid ground for the importance of the external environment on the
development of social responsibility (e.g., family compassion, school solidarity, community
connectedness, and trusted friendship predicted changes in social responsibility value [58]),
our findings added new insights into the role of an intrapersonal factor (i.e., adolescents’ emo-
tion regulation ability) of social responsibility. In addition, the study was conducted in a Chi-
nese cultural context that emphasizes the importance of family harmony and cohesion as a
foundation of the society [12]. We speculated that this cultural context, which values a high-
cohesion and low-conflict family environment, might have particularly contributed to cultivat-
ing adolescents’ emotion regulation ability and social responsibility. To examine the strength
of associations among the variables across cultures, cross-cultural studies between Eastern and
Western contexts are necessary in the future.
The present findings have implications for fostering adolescents’ social responsibility.
Importantly, they suggest that a family environment characterized by higher family cohesion
and lower family conflict may enhance adolescents’ emotion regulation ability, which in turn
promotes social responsibility. These findings have implications for applied research to involve
caregivers, educators, policymakers, and other practitioners in cultivating adolescents’ emo-
tion regulation ability and social responsibility.
Limitations and future directions
The limitations of this study should be noted in addition to future directions. First, to clarify
the temporal relationships between these variables, future research could adopt a longitudinal
framework. Second, the variables under study were self-reported, thereby introducing self-
report bias revolving around social desirability and a potential lack of authenticity in the
reports. Future studies should, therefore, use a multi-method, multi-informant approach to
minimize the potential biases introduced in the study. Third, the Social Trust Measure [56]
had a low Cronbach’s alpha at .47, which was a major limitation of this study. Pallant [60]
mentioned that measures with fewer than ten items could have low Cronbach’s alphas, which
might be the reason behind the low alpha of social trust in our sample. Upon deletion of the
item contributing to the low alpha, we conducted additional analysis for this study. However,
predictions could not be made as the path model did not converge. Given the poor internal
consistency of the Social Trust Measure [56], validation studies should be conducted to ensure
the measure is valid for use in Chinese samples. Cautions should also be made in interpreting
the present findings and replication studies should be conducted in the future. Similarly, the
Social Responsibility Scale has not been validated in the Chinese context. Future research
should conduct validation studies to assess its factor structure and validity. Fourth, this study
did not include multiple intrapersonal variables such as empathy, which might be a possible
covariate [46,61]. Similarly, other contextual variables such as school, peer relationships, and
neighborhood were not measured. As previous studies indicated that these contextual factors
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were important to the development of emotion regulation ability [45] and social responsibility
[6], future research could explore how contextual variables might interact with emotion regu-
lation ability in cultivating adolescents’ social responsibility. Lastly, although the current study
discussed the role of Chinese culture on family dynamics, we did not conduct a cross-cultural
study or include cultural values as variables under study. Researchers should further examine
the role of cultural values in family dynamics and adolescent development, particularly across
cultural contexts.
Despite the above limitations, our initial findings supported the mediating role of emotion
regulation ability for the relationship between indices of family environment (i.e., family cohe-
sion and family conflict) and adolescents’ social responsibility. The results provided insights
for educators and parents to understand the development of adolescents’ social responsibility
through contextual and intrapersonal factors, including the immediate environment and ado-
lescents’ psychological functioning such as emotion regulation ability. Based on the present
findings, educators and policymakers may consider allocating resources to enrich positive
family interactions and cultivate emotional competency and adolescent social responsibility.
Supporting information
S1 Dataset.
(CSV)
S1 Appendix.
(DOCX)
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dr Hoi Yan Cheung for her support in data collection.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization: Rebecca Y. M. Cheung.
Data curation: Rebecca Y. M. Cheung.
Formal analysis: Wing Yee Cheng.
Funding acquisition: Kevin Kien Hoa Chung.
Investigation: Wing Yee Cheng, Rebecca Y. M. Cheung, Kevin Kien Hoa Chung.
Methodology: Rebecca Y. M. Cheung.
Project administration: Wing Yee Cheng, Rebecca Y. M. Cheung.
Supervision: Rebecca Y. M. Cheung.
Writing – original draft: Wing Yee Cheng, Rebecca Y. M. Cheung.
Writing – review & editing: Wing Yee Cheng, Rebecca Y. M. Cheung, Kevin Kien Hoa
Chung.
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