Examining the roles of family emotional climate and emotional intensity in emotional regulation of momentary negative affect among adolescent girls from low-income families

Adolescence is a transitional period in individual development characterized by developmental milestones across multiple domains, including emotional development. An important aspect of adolescent emotional development pertains to the development of emotional competence, the ability to understand, identify, and effectively manage one’s own and others’ emotions (Denham, 1998; Denham, 2010; Izard et al., 2008; Lucas-Molina et al., 2020). Family emotional climate reflects the prevailing mood and affective dynamic within the family unit and consists of family emotional expressiveness, parent-adolescent relationship quality, and parent-adolescent co-rumination (Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Morris et al., 2007). Ample evidence from the literature has shown that emotional competence is influenced by the family emotional climate, manifested through associations between family emotional climate components (family emotional expressiveness, parent-adolescent relationship quality, and parent-adolescent co-rumination) and adolescent emotional expression and regulation (e.g., Bülow et al., 2022; Criss et al., 2016a; Li et al., 2024; Ratliff et al., 2023). Evidence also suggested emotional regulation can be influenced by the intensity of emotions (e.g., Dixon-Gordon et al., 2015; Hiekkaranta et al., 2021; Kozubal et al., 2023) and moderators, such as emotion types, demographic factors, and dispositional traits, can impact this association within individuals (e.g., Kobylińska et al., 2023; Scheibe & Moghimi, 2021; Van Bockstaele et al., 2024). To address the gaps in the literature, the current investigation examined the links between family emotional climate (i.e., family negative expressivity, parent-adolescent relationship quality, and parent-adolescent co-rumination) and adolescent emotional competence towards regulating momentary negative affect, while taking emotional intensity into consideration using a sample of adolescent girls from predominantly low-income, ethnic minority, and single-parent families. There were three goals in the current investigation: 1. The first research goal was to examine the within-person association between peak negative affect and negative affect regulation. 2. The second research goal was to analyze the between-person associations between family emotional climate and negative affect regulation. 3. The third research goal was to investigate whether family emotional climate moderated the within-person association between peak negative affect and negative affect regulation.