Team sport as a potential context for interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescence: a quasi-experimental comparison with individual exercise

Objective Emotion regulation deficits are a transdiagnostic risk factor for adolescent emotional disorders. This quasi-experimental study examined whether different exercise contexts were associated with intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescents. Methods A quasi-experimental cluster-allocated design was conducted with 114 sixth-grade students from three intact classes, with each class allocated to one of three conditions: team exercise, individual exercise, or control condition. Participants completed measures of emotion regulation at pre-test, mid-test, and post-test during an 8-week intervention. Results Team exercise was associated with a significantly different trajectory of interpersonal emotion regulation over time compared with individual exercise and control conditions, with the team exercise group showing a more favorable pattern of change. Changes in expressive suppression showed a small negative association with changes in interpersonal emotion regulation. Conclusion Team-based cooperative exercise may provide a potentially relevant context for supporting interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescents, although the association involving expressive suppression should be interpreted cautiously given the low reliability of this subscale.