Emotion regulation as a moderator of the relation between friendship jealousy and poor social adjustment

The present study explored the moderating role of emotion regulation in the association between friendship jealousy and several negative social outcomes including poor friendship quality, inappropriate social skills, and behavior problems. It was expected that jealous children with ineffective emotion regulation abilities would have poorer friendship quality, fewer appropriate social skills, and more behavior problems. Participants included 75 6-year-old children and their parents. Several parent-child interaction tasks were videotaped for coding of emotion regulation. Parents reported on children's social skills and behavior problems. Children answered questions about their vulnerability to jealousy and the quality of their friendship with their best friend. The sample was approximately 50% female and 40% non-Caucasian. Results indicated that the moderating role of emotion regulation in the relation between jealousy and negative social outcomes is different for boys and girls. For girls only, being jealous and emotionally dysregulated is associated with internalizing behavior problems according to mothers and externalizing behavior problems according to fathers.