Are Profiles of Adaptive and Maladaptive Anger Regulation Differently Related to Adjustment in Early Adolescence?

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.