TITLE:
Are Profiles of Adaptive and Maladaptive Anger Regulation Differently Related to Adjustment in Early Adolescence?
AUTHORS:
Nantje Otterpohl, Malte Schwinger, Elke Wild
KEYWORDS:
Emotion Regulation, Latent Profile Analysis, Internalizing, Externalizing, Prosocial Behavior
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.6 No.7,
June
12,
2015
ABSTRACT: Adaptive
and maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) strategies have been found to be important
prerequisites of children’s social competence and psychosocial adjustment.
However, only a few studies have been conducted to examine their interactional
impact on children’s psychosocial adjustment. We collected multiple informant
questionnaire data from N = 608
adolescents (10 - 14 years) and their parents in order to examine the
prevalence of adolescents’ anger regulation profiles by means of latent profile
analysis (LPA) as a sophisticated person-centered method. Overall, LPA
identified four corresponding anger regulation profiles for adolescents
(self-report) and parents (other-report). Furthermore, the different anger
regulation profiles were found to be divergently related to internalizing and
externalizing problems and prosocial behavior. Our findings support the
assumption that specific kinds of psychopathology might be characterized by a
different interplay of adaptive and maladaptive ER strategies. Possible reasons
and practical implications are discussed.