Do Anger Control and Social Problem-Solving Mediate Relationships Between Difficulties in Emotion Regulation and Aggression in Adolescents?

Abstract

Emotions are an individual's reaction to their environment to either maintain or change the environment (Saarni, Mumme, & Campos, 1998) and provide individuals with very useful knowledge about themselves, their environment, and their relationships (Zeman, Cassano, Perry-Parrish, & Stegall, 2006). Emotion regulation is the ability to modify and adapt emotions to the social context (Campos, Mumme, Kermoian, & Campos, 1994). It is described as the intrinsic and extrinsic processes responsible for observing, assessing, and modulating emotional responses for personal purpose and adaptive social functioning (Thompson, 1994). Studies indicated that effective emotion regulation is connected with fewer internalizing and externalizing issues (Rydell, Thorell, & Bohlin, 2007), while ineffective emotion regulation is associated with mental health problems (Gross & John, 2003).The skill to communicate one's emotional experiences to another person develops during late childhood and adolescence (Kopp, 1992). Adolescents experience more frequent and stronger emotions than both younger and older people (Larson & Lampman-Petraitis, 1989). It is important for adolescents to regulate emotions in adaptive ways, without the assistance of the adults who guide them in their childhood (Steinberg & Avenevoli, 2000). Adolescents who were less capable of regulating negative feelings during actual-life emotional experiences mentioned more problems compared with those who handled negative experiences more readily (Silk, Steinberg, & Morris, 2003). In particular, poor emotional understanding and difficulties in regulating negative emotions has been linked to aggression in adolescence (Bohnert, Crnic, & Lim, 2003; Herts, McLaughlin, & Hatzenbuehler, 2012).Indeed, adolescents who are capable of managing their emotional behavior are less likely to act aggressively (Underwood, Coie, & Herbsman, 1992). However, those with great difficulties in emotion regulation had problems with anger control and aggressive behavior (McLaughlin, Hatzenbuehler, Mennin, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2011). However, only a few studies have researched the relationship between aggression and difficulties in emotion regulation (Laible, Carlo, Panfile, Eye, & Parker, 2010). Because most of the evidence on this topic comes from results that have indicated a relationship between anger control and aggression (Roberton, Daffern, & Bucks, 2012), a better comprehension of difficulties in emotion regulation during adolescence can identify individual differences in aggression at the time of increased risk (Silk, Steinberg, & Morris, 2003).Aggressive behavior is predicted by anger in adolescents. Anger leads to adolescent to misinterpret existing cues, and this misinterpretation is more likely results in physical, verbal, and indirect aggression (Fives, Kong, Fuller, & DiGiuseppe, 2010). The cognitive contents specificity model, the most commonly discussed model, suggests that increased anger results in socially constructed apparent behavioral reactions in the shape of aggression, and these reactions mainly function to remove the anger (Kassinove & Tafrate, 2002). At the same time, research shows that aggressive behavior does not decrease the level of experienced anger. Indeed, conversely, research indicates that discharging aggressive behavior (i.e., kicking a punch-bag) makes the anger worse (Bushman, 2002).It is claimed that individuals with increased anger may become angry because of a lack of emotion regulation ability and, in turn, perpetrate aggression (Harper, Austin, Cercone, & Arias, 2005). Difficulties in emotion regulation are associated with increased anger (Wilkinson & Robinson, 2008) and decreased anger control (McLaughlin et al., 2011), suggesting that a failure to control one's emotions might cause increased anger and then aggression. An understanding of one's own emotions is important for the appropriate expression and management of emotional experiences (Saarni, Mumme, & Campos, 1998). …