Social–emotional expertise and subjective wellbeing in adolescents

As a “toolkit” of affect-related behaviors, social-emotional expertise (SEE) promotes higher-quality social interactions. During adolescence, social dynamics are particularly incisive in the narrative construction of identity and can influence subjective well-being (SWB). This study investigated the factorial structure of SEE in Portuguese adolescents ( n = 730; 45.6 % girls; M = 15.06 years) and its relationship with positive affect, negative affect, and satisfaction with life. A bifactor model, comprising a general factor and two theoretically meaningful specific factors – adaptability and expressivity - had the strongest fit to the data (CFI = 0.877, RMSEA = 0.054[0.049, 0.058], SRMR =0.046). Bifactor indeces suggest the SEE measures a unidimensional construct (ECV = 0.836 and ω H = 0.878) but that some shared variance among sets of items should not be ignored (PUC = 0.48). Finally, we found that adolescents with higher SEE reported more positive affective experiences ( r = 0.41), higher satisfaction with life ( r = 0.33), and higher satisfaction with the “friends” ( r = 0.27), “school” ( r = 0.25) and “myself” ( r = 0.26) domains of life. Our findings underscore the critical role of social-emotional processes as evolved psychological mechanisms that promote human flourishing and positive development. • Bifactor structure provides best model fit for Social-emotional Expertise (SEE). • SEE is mostly unidimensional, with some unique variance from two specific factors. • SEE is associated with a higher frequency of positive affective experiences. • SEE is associated with perceived higher levels of life satisfaction in general. • SEE is associated with satisfaction with “friends”, “school” and “myself” domains.