Since from the earliest months of birth up to old age, emotions characterize humans¿ everyday life, affecting their actions, behaviors and thoughts. A recent study demonstrated that both adolescents and young adults experienced at last one emotion 90% of the time. However, people differently face with the same emotion cues, with the result of engaging in a different set of response involving physiological, experiential and behavioral systems. How people react to emotion-eliciting situations has received a huge attention in the last years, emphasizing the role played by emotion regulation strategies on different aspect of health, social and adaptive functioning. At the same time, theoretical speculation corroborating by empirical researches has suggested that personal beliefs on the one¿s own ability to manage positive and negative emotions ¿ namely emotional self-efficacy ¿ impact on the engagement in social behavioral problems.
The aim of the current research project is to provide insight on the complex interrelation between regulation and beliefs relating to emotions and maladjustment in middle adolescence. Specifically, the moderating role of emotional self-efficacy on the relation between emotion regulation strategies ¿ differentiating cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression ¿ and the engagement in externalizing and internalizing behavior, respectively, will be investigated. To do this aim, five hundred adolescents attending the first and the second grades of high schools will be enrolled in the study. Trough collective administration session at school, the participants will be required to fill out questionnaires dealing with the key variables of the research project.
The identification of mediators that may enhance, buffer or act as antagonist on social behavior problems in adolescence may be helpful to plan early interventions, thus appropriately contrasting negative outcomes in adulthood.
