Conscious and resilient? Associations between temperament, emotional awareness, and emotion regulation strategies in youth

Introduction: Emotion regulation (ER) is of utmost importance for emotional wellbeing. However, during early adolescence the use of adaptive ER strategies is challenging since the underlying cognitive systems for ER are still maturing. Furthermore, youth show large variation in ER strategy use as various child factors including temperament (i.e., Positive Emotionality (PE), Negative Emotionality (NE)) and emotional awareness (EA) contribute to the development of ER strategies. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the way in which temperament, EA and ER strategies interact. We predicted temperament to contribute to the development of ER strategies whereby EA was associated with ER and moderated the association between (a) PE and adaptive ER strategies, and (b) NE and adaptive ER strategies in a facilitating way - and in a buffering way for the relationship between (c) PE and maladaptive ER strategies, and (d) NE and maladaptive ER strategies. Methods: Using a cross-sectional design, the study included a community sample of adolescents (n = 220). Temperament was measured using the PANAS-C (Laurent et al., 1999) and EA was measured with the DERS (Gratz Roemer, 2004). ER strategies were assessed using the FEEL-KJ (Braet et al., 2013). Results Conclusions: Multiple hierarchical regressions revealed an interaction effect for NE and EA on maladaptive ER strategies. Yet, this moderating role of EA could not be described as buffering. The present findings suggest that the role of EA is complex in youth with temperamental vulnerability.