Edited by: Ilaria Grazzani, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy
Reviewed by: Andrea Baroncelli, University of Florence, Italy; Vanda Zammuner, University of Padua, Italy
This article was submitted to Developmental Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
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Emotional regulation, understood as the skills and strategies needed to influence and/or modify the emotional experiences, has a very remarkable implication within numerous emotional and behavioral disorders in childhood and adolescence. In recent years there has been a significant increase in research on emotional regulation, however, the results are still divergent in terms of differences in emotional regulation in relation to age and gender. This study aimed to assess emotional regulation in adolescents in relation to their age and gender. Two hundred and fifty-four adolescents from eight schools in the Valencian Community and aged between 9 and 16 years participated in the study. The adolescents completed the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the FEEL-KJ questionnaire. We analyzed the differences in emotional regulation strategies and a latent emotional regulation variable in two age groups (9–12 years and 13–16 years) and by gender. The results suggested that children and pre-adolescents in the 9–12 year group obtained lower scores in the emotional regulation strategies than the 13–16 year group. Girls reported higher scores on the use of emotional regulation strategies when experiencing sadness, anxiety and anger than boys, and on the overall average of regulation according to these specific emotions. Age, but not gender, had a major effect on scores for the latent variable of emotion regulation. An interaction effect between age and gender was identified in the latent emotion regulation scores. Girls tended to have higher scores than boys when they were younger and lower scores than boys when they were older. These results could be relevant for designing prevention and intervention programs for adolescents and at different ages.
Emotions are an essential part of human functioning, whose aim is to fulfill an adaptive function (
One of the most widely used definitions of emotional regulation is proposed by
Differences in regulation and emotional expression according to gender have been a topic of much study in scientific literature. Emotional expression, a skill associated with the regulation of emotions, as pointed out by
Emotion regulatory processes involve three mechanisms: input regulation, reappraisal and output regulation (i.e. strategies used to regulate emotional responses including expression of emotion) (
Other theories emphasize the importance of the cultural patterns of education received.
Finally,
In general, studies on differences in the expression of emotions in boys and girls indicate that boys are more likely to present externalizing expressions of emotions while girls are more likely to internalize them. Gender differences in emotional expression are the result of a combination of biologically based temperamental predispositions and on the other hand, the socialization of boys and girls will adopt gender related rules for the expression of emotions (
In this regard, a meta-analysis by
The factors that modulate these gender differences are age, interpersonal context and the type of task in which they are observed (
Focusing on the use of specific emotional regulation strategies, studies show that girls use more adaptive strategies, such as re-evaluation or active coping, and maladaptive ones, such as rumination and suppression (
This suggests that, although women may use more adaptive strategies than men, this does not help prevent the development of emotional problems. Instead, women’s use of maladaptive strategies, to a greater extent than men, predisposes them to a higher risk for the development of emotional disorders (
With regard to age and emotional regulation, studies show that during childhood and adolescence, the acquisition of skills to modulate emotional responses is closely related to the neurobiological maturation that shapes different levels of organization at the physiological, cognitive and behavioral levels. Similarly, certain characteristics of the context in which children and adolescents develop can favor or hinder the skills with which each learns to express emotions (
The interest in the study of emotional variables in child psychopathology has been growing in recent years (
The coping repertoires of children and adolescents increase with age. As children grow older, instrumental action is complemented by planned problem-solving, they are more capable of attending to and reflecting on their own internal emotional states, and they are increasingly dependent on more sophisticated strategies for coping with emotions (
The regulation of emotions through cognition is an essential part of people’s management of emotions in the face of stressful events (
Studies on the development of cognitive processes, and of brain structures related to the regulation of emotions, suggest that as adolescents mature, they develop more effective regulation of emotions so that they use more adaptive strategies such as the cognitive re-evaluation strategy. However, there is also an increase in the maladaptive
Other authors (
Along the same lines, other research has found that in mid-adolescence there is less use of suppression and cognitive reevaluation compared to younger age groups (
Emotional regulation has traditionally been considered in the literature as something linked to psychopathology, although as
There is a growing body of research that points to difficulties in emotional regulation at the base of different psychological disorders and health problems (
If emotion regulation is a risk factor for future psychopathology, techniques aimed at developing adaptive emotion regulation skills should be incorporated into both treatment and preventive interventions. Psychopathology is increasingly considering a transdiagnostic orientation, that is, studying and deepening the basic processes, dimensions, mechanisms, etc. that underlie, maintain and explain the psychopathology of different disorders and diagnostic categories in adults (
In ligth of the above, we plan to analyze these three questions:
What are the emotion regulation strategies used the least and the most by the children and youth in our sample?
Are there differences in the mean scores of children and youth in the CERQ and FEEL-KJ emotion regulation strategies by gender and age group?
Are there differences in the mean scores of children and youth in the three FEEL-KJ emotions (i.e. anger, sadness, and anxiety) by gender and age group?
Are there main and interaction effects of gender and age group on the Emotion Regulation Latent scores of children and youth?
Two-hundred and fifty-four children and adolescents, recruited from eight schools in the Valencian Community (i.e. Spanish State), participated in the study. Participants’ ages ranged from 9 to 16 years old. Children and adolescents were classified in one of two groups based on their age and according to the classification of adolescence periods of the World Health Organization (
Criteria for inclusion of the participant students in the study were to be attending between 4th grade of elementary school (i.e. students turning 10 years old during the school year) and 4th grade of secondary school (i.e. students turning 16 years old during this school year) and having their parents or legal guardian signature in the informed consent form.
The exclusion criterion for children was having an established diagnosis of intellectual disability.
FEEL-KJ: Vragenlijst over emotieregulatie bij kinderen en jongeren [Questionnaire to Assess Children’s and Adolescents Emotion Regulation Strategies
It is a self-report measure composed of 90 items that evaluate 15 emotional regulation strategies in response to three basic emotions, anxiety, sadness and anger. Each strategy is evaluated by two items on a Likert scale (from 1 = rarely to 5 = almost always). The instrument consists of 15 primary scales (average of the three emotions together for each regulation strategy) and three secondary scales: a scale of 7 adaptive strategies (acceptance, problem-oriented action, cognitive problem solving, distraction, neglect, reassessment and use of sense of humor), another of 5 maladaptive strategies (giving up, aggressive action, withdrawal, self-assessment and perseverance) and another of 3 additional external regulation strategies (social support, expression and control over the emotion) (
Emotion regulation strategies of the FEEL-KJ.
Emotion regulation strategies | Example of the strategies |
Problem solving | “I try to change what makes me angry” |
Distraction | “I do something fun” |
Forgetting | “I think it will pass” |
Acceptance | “I accept what makes me angry” |
Humor enhancement | “I think about things that make me happy” |
Cognitive problem solving | “I think about what I can do” |
Revaluation | “I tell myself it is nothing important” |
Giving up | “I don’t want to do anything” |
Withdrawal | “I don’t want to see anyone” |
Rumination | “I cannot get it out of my head” |
Self-devaluation | “I blame myself” |
Aggressive actions | “I get into a quarrel with others” |
Social support | “I tell someone how I am doing” |
Expression | “I express my anger” |
Emotional Control | “I keep my feelings for myself” |
The internal consistency index (i.e. Cronbach’sα) for the scores in our study by strategy, emotion, and factor are shown in
Descriptive Statistics for the FEEL-KJ and CERQ Participants’ Overall Scores.
Subscales and dimensions | Min – Max | |||||
Adaptive | 40–207 | 136.09(28.2) | −0.2(0.15) | −0.19(0.3) | 0.94 | 0.96 |
Maladaptive | 24–130 | 75.66(16.22) | 0.23(0.15) | 0.54(0.3) | 0.83 | 0.97 |
External Regulation | 18–90 | 52.32(13.72) | −0.01(0.15) | −0.14(0.3) | 0.85 | 0.96 |
Anger | 44–121 | 87.22(12.21) | −0.23(0.15) | 0.64(0.3) | 0.68 | 0.96 |
Sadness | 46–121 | 87.92(13.35) | −0.3(0.15) | 0.51(0.31) | 0.75 | 0.98 |
Anxiety | 20–131 | 88.11(13.77) | −0.41(0.15) | 2.08(0.3) | 0.73 | 0.98 |
Problem solving | 6–30 | 20.92(4.79) | −0.45(0.15) | −0.11(0.3) | 0.74 | 0.96 |
Distraction | 6–30 | 20.83(6.32) | −0.28(0.15) | −0.91(0.3) | 0.86 | 0.91 |
Forgetting | 6–30 | 20.81(6.2) | −0.34(0.15) | −0.74(0.3) | 0.85 | 0.64 |
Acceptance | 4–30 | 17.32(4.61) | 0.08(0.15) | 0.05(0.3) | 0.64 | 0.77 |
Humor Enhancement | 4–30 | 19.69(4.8) | −0.18(0.15) | 0.03(0.3) | 0.65 | 0.92 |
Cognitive Problem Solving | 6–30 | 20.57(5.18) | −0.36(0.15) | −0.18(0.3) | 0.80 | 0.61 |
Revaluation | 4–30 | 15.96(5) | 0.26(0.15) | −0.08(0.3) | 0.76 | 0.86 |
Giving Up | 5–30 | 14.72(4.73) | 0.42(0.15) | 0.08(0.3) | 0.67 | 0.81 |
Withdrawal | 4–30 | 13.24(5.61) | 0.62(0.15) | −0.17(0.3) | 0.80 | 0.94 |
Rumination | 5–30 | 18.22(4.82) | 0.1(0.15) | −0.16(0.3) | 0.60 | 0.70 |
Self-Devaluation | 6–30 | 17.31(4.37) | 0.09(0.15) | −0.3(0.3) | 0.58 | 0.85 |
Aggressive Actions | 4–27 | 12.17(4.72) | 0.66(0.15) | −0.16(0.3) | 0.75 | 0.98 |
Expression | 2–34 | 14.79(5.88) | 0.56(0.15) | 0.07(0.3) | 0.75 | 0.92 |
Social Support | 6–30 | 18.61(6.62) | −0.08(0.15) | −0.9(0.3) | 0.88 | 0.65 |
Emotional Control | 5–30 | 16.87(5.38) | 0.11(0.15) | −0.34(0.3) | 0.69 | 0.80 |
Maladaptive | 17–66 | 40.68(9.67) | −0.08(0.15) | −0.38(0.31) | 0.80 | 0.91 |
Adaptive | 30–93 | 62.16(12.06) | 0.03(0.15) | −0.26(0.31) | 0.82 | 0.97 |
Self-Blame | 4–19 | 9.74(3.4) | 0.57(0.15) | −0.09(0.31) | 0.69 | 0.94 |
Acceptance | 4–19 | 11.29(3.39) | 0.04(0.15) | −0.67(0.31) | 0.58 | 0.94 |
Rumination | 4–20 | 12.46(3.72) | 0.14(0.15) | −0.55(0.31) | 0.73 | 0.91 |
Positive Refocusing | 4–20 | 12.28(4.55) | 0.04(0.15) | −0.91(0.31) | 0.84 | 0.72 |
Refocus on Planning | 4–20 | 13.56(3.7) | −0.31(0.15) | −0.44(0.31) | 0.77 | 0.77 |
Positive Reappraisal | 4–20 | 12.21(3.69) | 0.08(0.15) | −0.65(0.31) | 0.69 | 0.83 |
Putting into Perspective | 4–20 | 12.81(3.63) | −0.003(0.15) | −0.38(0.31) | 0.64 | 0.83 |
Catastrophizing | 4–19 | 9.98(3.57) | 0.39(0.15) | −0.43(0.31) | 0.68 | 0.96 |
Other-Blame | 4–20 | 8.5(3.31) | 0.53(0.15) | −0.05(0.31) | 0.74 | 0.73 |
Total enclosure | 52–151 | 102.84(16.44) | 0.53(0.15) | 0.15(0.31) | 0.82 | 0.97 |
The FEEL-KJ is a tool that can be used both to explore the use of adaptive, maladaptive and external strategies for each individual emotion (anger, anxiety and sadness), and to determine a child or adolescent’s strengths and weaknesses by strategy. Therefore, the goal is not only to identify deficits, but also competencies. The FEEL-KJ can be a valuable tool in studies on the prevalence of adaptive and maladaptive emotional regulation strategies in normal and clinical populations (
The FEEL-KJ has been used in different research on emotional regulation and binge eating in children and adolescents from 8 to 13 years old (
The
Cognitive strategies of the CERQ.
Cognitve strategies | Description of the strategies |
Putting into perspective | Decrease and relativize the severity of the event |
Acceptance | To resign and accept the irreversibility of the negative experience |
Positive reappraisal | Thoughts that highlight some positive aspect of the unpleasant event |
Positive refocusing | Having pleasent and joyous thougths different from the negative event |
Refocus on planning | Thinking about how to solve the problem |
Rumiation | State of excessive worry by negative thoughts and feelings |
Catastrophizing | To think about the horrible thing of what happend and conclude that it is the worse experience lived, even compared with what other people have experienced |
Self-blame | Thoughts that attribute the cause of the negative event and emotion to oneself |
Other-blame | Make others responsible for the negative event that happened |
The
The internal consistency indices for the scores in our study for adolescents in the CERQ and CERQ-K and the different subscales are as follows: The internal consistency (α Cronbach’s) of the scores was 0.82 for overall CERQ, 0.82 for adaptive emotional regulation strategies and 0.80 for maladaptive ones. In terms of CERQ dimensions, the α-values ranged from 0.58 to 0.84 (
The CERQ is a widely used instrument in the research of emotional regulation due to its focus on cognitive regulatory strategies (e.g.
Other studies using CERQ analyze how children increase strategies as they grow, learn to regulate emotions, and use more cognitive strategies (
Therefore, the CERQ is a very interesting instrument to evaluate a set of emotional regulation strategies that are being developed in the different ages of the present study (9 to 16 years old). Furthermore, the CERQ allows a distinction to be made between adaptive and maladaptive strategies and is therefore very useful for comparison with the results of the FEEL-KJ, which also establishes this distinction between the strategies evaluated.
To our knowledge, this is the first study that uses the FEEL-KJ with a Spanish sample. Therefore, before data collection started, all scale items were translated into Spanish using translation (Dutch–Spanish) and back-translation (Spanish–Dutch;
To evaluate the validity of the translated version of the FEEL-KJ to measure the emotion regulation construct in our study, the scores of the participants in the FEEL-KJ factors have been correlated with the scores in the CERQ dimensions. The CERQ has been validated in the Spanish population (
This study is part of a bigger project regarding the emotion regulation of children and youth living in the Valencian Autonomous Community, Spain. After an Institutional Review Board approved the project, we contacted the principles of the schools to request permission to invite students to participate in the study. Parents signed an informed consent, and we met with the leaders of each school to coordinate the most appropriate schedules for evaluating the participants.
The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of the Catholic University of Valencia “San Vicente Mártir”, Spain.
The statistical package SPSS 21 (
The M-Box test and Levene’s test were used to ensure homogeneity of group variance. The normal distribution of the data set was evaluated using the skewness and kurtosis values of each variable and Shapiro–Wilk’s test (
A latent variable, called Emotion Regulation, was created using LISREL 9.2 (
To facilitate the interpretation of the generated Emotion Regulation latent scores in logits, we scaled the logit latent scores to a range from 0 to 100. For this purpose, we calculated a mean and standard deviation based on the logit scores and the new proposed scale (
The overall scores on FEEL-KJ and CERQ showed participant children and youth had higher scores in Adaptive Emotion Regulation strategies and lower scores in Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies (
The mean of the participants’ scores in the FEEL-KJ emotion subscales revealed higher scores in the anxiety subscale (
As for the FEEL-KJ emotion regulation strategies, participant children and youth were more likely to use a problem solving strategy (
No statistically significant differences were identified for boys and girls when considering the nine CERQ strategies scores. The cut-off
Mean differences on the FEEL-KJ and CERQ emotion regulation strategies scores by gender and age group.
Gendera |
Age Groupb |
|||||||||
Emotion regulation strategies | Girls | Boys | 9–12 years old | 13–16 years old | ||||||
Problem solving | 21.06(4.58) | 20.83(4.66) | –0.366 | 0.715 | –0.050 | 20.87(5.13) | 21.08(4.36) | –0.329 | 0.743 | –0.044 |
Distraction | 21.09(5.98) | 21.06(6.52) | –0.028 | 0.978 | –0.004 | 21.26(6.86) | 20.76(5.77) | 0.609 | 0.543 | 0.079 |
Forgetting | 21.23(5.98) | 20.50(6.29) | –0.864 | 0.389 | –0.119 | 21.66(6.28) | 20.17(6.01) | 1.846 | 0.066 | 0.242 |
Acceptance | 17.16(4.87) | 17.60(4.28) | 0.698 | 0.486 | 0.096 | 17.09(4.89) | 17.62(4.21) | –0.873 | 0.383 | –0.116 |
Humor Enhancement | 20.30(4.80) | 19.05(4.58) | –1.934 | 0.054 | –0.266 | 19.68(5.00) | 19.63(4.49) | 0.083 | 0.934 | 0.010 |
Cognitive Problem Solving | 21.49(4.57) | 19.62(5.48) | –2.677 | 0.008 | –0.369 | 20.33(5.37) | 20.85(4.79) | –0.782 | 0.435 | –0.102 |
Revaluation | 16.20(4.87) | 15.76(4.85) | –0.649 | 0.517 | –0.089 | 15.44(5.21) | 16.39(4.46) | –1.494 | 0.137 | –0.196 |
Giving Up | 15.07(4.74) | 14.40(4.54) | –1.041 | 0.299 | –0.143 | 14.6(4.82) | 14.63(4.52) | –0.040 | 0.968 | –0.006 |
Withdrawal | 13.34(5.81) | 12.97(5.37) | –0.481 | 0.631 | –0.066 | 12.81(5.87) | 13.57(5.23) | –1.031 | 0.303 | –0.137 |
Rumination | 19.54(4.66) | 17.39(4.51) | –3.395 | –0.468 | 17.92(4.29) | 18.79(5.03) | –1.416 | 0.158 | –0.187 | |
Self-Devaluation | 17.57(4.54) | 17.05(4.23) | –0.866 | 0.387 | –0.119 | 17.22(4.57) | 17.52(4.21) | –0.524 | 0.601 | –0.068 |
Aggressive Actions | 13.09(4.98) | 11.37(4.31) | –2.69 | 0.008 | –0.371 | 11.94(4.82) | 12.3(4.57) | –0.577 | 0.565 | –0.077 |
Expression | 16.43(6.68) | 13.33(4.83) | –3.883 | –0.535 | 14.38(5.76) | 15.25(6.12) | –1.118 | 0.265 | –0.146 | |
Social Support | 20.10(6.88) | 16.98(6.43) | –3.401 | –0.469 | 18.19(6.32) | 18.87(7.05) | –0.769 | 0.442 | –0.101 | |
Emotional Control | 16.77(5.25) | 17.30(5.41) | 0.718 | 0.473 | 0.099 | 17.09(5.71) | 17.05(4.92) | 0.059 | 0.953 | 0.007 |
Self-Blame | 9.55(3.30) | 10.18(3.37) | 1.369 | 0.172 | 0.192 | 9.08(3.44) | 10.44(3.25) | –3.065 | –0.406 | |
Acceptance | 11.28(3.403) | 11.56(3.29) | 0.593 | 0.554 | 0.083 | 10.77(3.39) | 11.91(3.36) | –2.535 | 0.012 | –0.337 |
Rumination | 13.06(3.77) | 12.07(3.57) | –1.926 | 0.056 | –0.269 | 12.04(3.77) | 12.83(3.65) | –1.588 | 0.114 | –0.212 |
Positive Refocusing | 12.10(4.92) | 11.97(4.33) | –0.203 | 0.840 | –0.028 | 13.08(4.59) | 11.27(4.41) | 3.039 | 0.402 | |
Refocusing on Planning | 14.20(3.83) | 13.20(3.49) | –1.942 | 0.054 | –0.272 | 12.97(3.69) | 14.37(3.53) | –2.896 | –0.387 | |
Positive Reappraisal | 12.44(3.84) | 11.88(3.54) | –1.094 | 0.275 | –0.153 | 11.91(3.73) | 12.51(3.63) | –1.239 | 0.128 | –0.163 |
Putting into Perspective | 13.21(3.81) | 12.69(3.60) | –0.989 | 0.324 | –0.138 | 12.56(3.68) | 13.10(3.62) | –1.115 | 0.217 | –0.147 |
Catastrophizing | 9.53(3.53) | 10.13(3.56) | 1.217 | 0.225 | 0.170 | 10.01(3.78) | 9.70(3.27) | 0.661 | 0.311 | 0.087 |
Other-Blame | 8.19(3.29) | 8.87(3.32) | 1.481 | 0.140 | 0.207 | 8.58(3.59) | 8.55(3.05) | 0.058 | 0.026 | 0.009 |
Descriptive statistics and hotelling T2 test results for differences in the FEEL-KJ emotions Subscales Scores by participants’ gender.
FEEL-KJ Emotion | η2 |
||||
Boysa | 86.36 (11.63) | 1,06 | 1–203 | 0.30 | 0.17 |
Girlsb | 88.48 (13.09) | ||||
Boys and Girlsc | 87.40 (12.38) | ||||
Boysa | 84.85 (12.65) | 8,56 | 1–203 | <0.01 | 0.43 |
Girlsb | 90.63 (14.08) | ||||
Boys and Girlsc | 87.67 (13.64) | ||||
Boysa | 86.10 (12.84) | 8,24 | 1–203 | <0.01 | 0.41 |
Girlsb | 91.33 (12.78) | ||||
Boys and Girlsc | 88.66 (13.04) | ||||
Boysa | 85.77 (12.37) | 4.72 | 3–201 | <0.01 | 0.07d |
Girlsb | 90.15 (13.32) | ||||
Boys and Girlsc | 87.91 (13.02) |
Regarding the nine CERQ strategies, older participants (13–16 years old) scored statistically significantly higher in Self-Blame (
Children ages 13 to 16 scored higher on the Sadness, Anxiety and Joint or Grand Mean emotion regulation scores. However, no statistically significant differences were seen in the use of emotional regulation strategies when considering emotion scores by age (
Descriptive statistics and hotelling T2 test results for differences in the FEEL-KJ emotions subscales scores by participants’ age group.
η2 |
|||||
9 to 12 years olda | 86.53 (12.40) | 0.60 | 1–225 | 0.44 | 0.003 |
13 to 16 years oldb | 87.79 (11.89) | ||||
Both age groupsc | 87.14 (12.15) | ||||
9 to 12 years olda | 87.78 (14.07) | 0.01 | 1–225 | 0.97 | 0.000 |
13 to 16 years oldb | 87.83 (12.84) | ||||
Both age groupsc | 87.81 (13.46) | ||||
9 to 12 years olda | 87.69 (13.52) | 0.54 | 1–225 | 0.46 | 0.002 |
13 to 16 years oldb | 88.97 (12.91) | ||||
Both age groupsc | 88.3 (13.21) | ||||
9 to 12 years olda | 87.33 (13.33) | 0.40 | 3–223 | 0.76 | 0.005 |
13 to 16 years oldb | 88.20 (12.55) | ||||
Both age groupsc | 87.75 (12.94) |
The variance analysis results revealed a main effect of age group on the emotion regulation latent scores,
Mean and standard deviations of the latent emotion regulation variable by age group and gender.
Age groups | ||
Boys | 59 | 55.33(17.17) |
Girls | 37 | 64.84(17.42) |
Boys and Girls | 96 | 58.99(17.8) |
Boys | 49 | 59.94(16.47) |
Girls | 60 | 50.41(16.99) |
Boys and Girls | 109 | 54.7(17.35) |
Boys | 108 | 57.42(16.94) |
Girls | 97 | 55.91(18.46) |
Boys and Girls | 205 | 56.71(17.65) |
The objective of this study was to analyze the emotional regulation of children and adolescents from 9 to 16 years old in relation to age and gender. The results obtained with the FEEL-KJ and CERQ show that Adaptive Emotion Strategies were used to a greater extent than Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies by the study participants. The characteristics of the instruments used have allowed this conclusion to be affirmed in a more convincing way since both tests distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive strategies. These results are to be expected since this is a non-clinical sample and is in line with different studies that analyze emotional regulation strategies in children and adolescents (
Specifically, the results show that the strategies that present higher scores measured with the CERQ are Refocusing on planning and Putting into perspective, being these adaptive strategies, and those that present lower scores are Other blame and Self blame, which are maladaptive. These results are similar to those observed by
The results obtained with the FEEL-KJ show a higher use of Problem solving and Distraction (Adaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies) and a lower use of Agressive actions and Withdrawall (Maladaptive Emotion Regulation Strategies). These results are in line with previous studies that show that emotional regulation strategies considered as adaptive are used more frequently than strategies considered as maladaptive in adolescents (
In terms of gender differences, the FEEL-KJ results show that girls receive statistically significant higher scores on Sadness and Anxiety emotions, which may suggest a greater use of regulatory strategies when experiencing these emotions. However, since it’s outside the scope of this study, no analysis by emotion-based strategies has been conducted. Therefore, we cannot determine with certainty whether there is greater use of adaptive, maladaptive or external regulation strategies or the specific strategies that received the highest or lowest emotion-based scores. However, the results regarding differences between boys and girls generally indicate that girls express more positive and negative internalizing emotions than boys. This is in line with other research (
Following the results obtained by the FEEL-KJ, we observe that girls have significantly higher scores than boys in the maladaptive strategy of Rumination and in the external regulation strategies of Expression and Social support. These differences are consistent with the results found in previous research (
Analyzing the age differences in emotional regulation provided by the FEEL-KJ, children from 9 to 12 years old showed slightly lower scores than adolescents from 13 to 16 years old in emotional regulation strategies but the differences were not statistically significant. This is in line with research that indicates that the older the child, the greater the emotional regulation (
Regarding the age differences in emotional regulation shown in the CERQ, we observed that adolescents from 13 to 16 score significantly higher in the Self-blame and Refocusing on Planning strategies. Children and adolescents from 9 to 12 score statistically significant higher in the Positive Refocusing strategy. The Self-blame strategy is associated with a greater propensity to develop depressive and anxiety symptoms. On the other hand, the Refocusing on Planning and Positive Refocusing strategies may have a positive effect on the prevention of depression (
Analyzing the previous results we see that to study the differences of emotional regulation according to gender we have obtained significant results through the FEEL-KJ but not through the CERQ and the opposite case to what happened when we wanted to study the differences of emotional regulation according to age. This may be interesting when considering future research on gender and age variables, since it seems that the FEEL-KJ could be more sensitive to detect strategies of emotional regulation according to gender and the CERQ according to age. However, this thesis will have to be investigated in greater depth to be able to affirm it with greater certainty. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that in this study CERQ was used for participants over 12 years old and CERQ-Kids for those participants under 12 years old, which could indicate that the way questions are posed according to the developmental level of children or adolescents may have an impact on identifying differences in the use of emotional regulation strategies. As indicated in the introduction, the ability to modulate emotions is closely related to neurobiological maturation (
One of the strengths of our study is the creation of a latent variable, called
When we analyzed the results of gender and age separately, we found significant results for gender when we used the FEEL-KJ, when we used CERQ we found significant results for age. However, when we use both scales to generate a latent variable, the differences by gender disappear and the statistically significant differences by age remain. As indicated by
With regard with
Studies on emotional regulation tend to take into account age and gender separately, therefore, these results become more relevant since they focus on the interaction between gender and age, providing interesting information for a better understanding of emotional regulation in children and adolescents, thus allowing the design of more specific intervention programs.
The study has clear limitations that must be taken into account when interpreting and generalizing the results. One of the limitations of our study is given by the sample, future studies should have a random sample with a greater number of centers and subjects to ensure the representativeness of the results.
On the other hand, social desirability or poor introspection can alter the validity of results measured by self-reporting. This type of measurement may not be consistent with behavior in real situations. It would be interesting for future research to obtain information not only from children, but also from parents and teachers so that the information can be contrasted.
Likewise, the analysis of the emotional regulation strategies according to the FEEL-KJ emotions was done at the level of emotion (obtaining a general score of the use of strategies), the scores in the emotional regulation strategies according to each emotion (sadness, anger, anxiety) were not analyzed. Future studies could focus on this type of analysis to determine if by separating out emotion regulation strategies by emotion, differences in the use of certain strategies over others can be identified according to the emotion experienced. These differences could also be assessed in relation to the gender and age of the participants, to detect whether the differences found in this study are maintained when considering the choice of emotional regulation strategies based on the emotion being experienced.
Finally, as this is a transversal study, no causal relationships can be established, so it would be very interesting to carry out a longitudinal study.
As mentioned above, emotional regulation can be considered a transdiagnostic dimension. Since emotion regulation is a risk factor for the development of future psychopathology, techniques aimed at developing adaptive emotion regulation skills should be incorporated, both in treatment and in preventive interventions in childhood and adolescence. Our study highlights the adaptive and maladaptive strategies presented by children and adolescents and can indicate how to design prevention strategies and specific interventions according to gender and age.
The datasets generated for this study are available on request to the corresponding author.
The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Comité de Ética de la Investigación, Universidad Católica de Valencia (IRB #: UCV-2017-2018-05). Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.
All the authors have contributed jointly to the interpretation of the data as well as to the writing and review of the manuscript in order to obtain the final text.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.