Pathways to Adaptive Emotion Regulation Among Adolescents from Low-Income Families

The current study examined pathways to adolescent anger and sadness regulation in low-income families. The sample included 206 families with adolescents age 10-18 years. Using a multimethod, multi-informant approach, we assessed neighborhood violence, mutual emotional support, parental emotion coaching, and anger and sadness regulation. The findings indicated that high levels of mutual emotional support and emotion coaching and low levels of neighborhood violence were correlated with adolescent emotion regulation. In addition, the analyses demonstrated multiple pathways to emotion regulation. Specifically, neighborhood violence was directly and indirectly related to anger and sadness regulation. Moreover, mutual emotional support was indirectly related to emotion regulation via emotion coaching. Overall, there was little evidence of adolescent sex and age differences in the model. Implications regarding the socialization of adolescent emotion regulation are discussed.