Interplay of self-esteem, emotion regulation, and parenting in young adolescents' friendship jealousy

Social Media Friendship Jealousy

A new measure to assess friendship jealousy in the context of social media was developed. This one-factor, seven-item measure was psychometrically sound, showing evidence of validity and reliability in three samples of North American adults (Study 1, n = 491; Study 2, n = 494; Study 3, n = 415) and one-, two-, and three-year stability (Study 3). Women reported more social media friendship jealousy than men (Studies 2 and 3) and younger women had the highest levels of social media friendship jealousy (compared with younger men and older men and women; Study 2). Social media friendship jealousy was associated with lower friendship quality (Study 1) and higher social media use and trait jealousy (Study 2). The relation between social media friendship jealousy and internalizing symptoms indicated positive within time associations and longitudinal bidirectional relations (Study 3). Specifically, social media friendship jealousy predicted increases in internalizing problems, and internalizing problems predicted greater social media friendship jealousy accounting for gender and trait levels of social media friendship jealousy and internalizing problems. Anxious and depressed adults may be predisposed to monitor threats to their friendships via social media and experience negative consequences because of this behavior. Although social media interactions can be associated with positive well-being and social connectedness, our results highlight that they can also undermine friendships and mental health due to jealousy.

The influence of insecure attachment on undergraduates' jealousy: the mediating effect of self-differentiation

Background

Jealousy is a complex emotion and can be healthy or pathological, depending on the intensity and the degree of control. Excessive jealousy was characterized by anxiety, anger, and alienation in the insecure attachment relationship.

Objective

To explore how insecure attachment triggered this intense emotion, this study investigated the relationship between two insecure attachment dimensions and jealousy and explored the influence of self-differentiation on the relationship.

Method

A total of 477 undergraduates participated in the study, and the Bringle self-report jealousy scale (BSJS), the relationship questionnaire (RQ), the intimate relationship experience questionnaire (ECR), and the revised edition of self-the differentiation questionnaire (DSR) were used.

Result

The results showed that: (1) attachment anxiety had a significant positive predictive effect on jealousy, but attachment avoidance had no significant positive predictive effect; (2) self-differentiation partially mediated the relationship between attachment anxiety and jealousy, but it has no significant mediating effect between attachment avoidance and jealousy.

Conclusion

The results suggest that attachment anxiety was correlated with jealousy because it strengthened the intensity of anxiety and anger toward their attachment figures and became out of control through a lower level of self-differentiation, which has important implications for clinical intervention.

Family Context Assessment in Middle Childhood: A Tool Supporting Social, Educational, and Public Health Interventions

Quality of the family context has an important role in the physical and mental health of children; that is why it is important to have reliable and updated tools. This study aims to design and validate a new tool, the Haezi Etxadi Family Assessment Scale 7-11 (HEFAS 7-11), to assess family context quality in middle childhood. A sample of two cohorts of 772 Spanish families with children aged between 7 and 11 (M = 9.39 years; SD = 1.57; 51.2% girls), participated in the study. Results showed good psychometric properties for the instrument and the confirmatory factor analysis showed a five individual subscales structure: 1. Promotion of Cognitive and Linguistic Development (α = 0.79); 2. Promotion of Socio Emotional Development (α = 0.83); 3. Organization of Physical Environment and Social Context (α = 0.73); 4. Parental Stress & Conflict (α = 0.75); and 5. Parental Profile Fostering Child Development (α = 0.80). The association between HEFAS 7-11 and Trial Making Test was also analyzed to determine the concurrent validity of the instrument. The new scale shows its potential in the fields of research, social and educational, to know those variables that need to be promoted under the approach of positive parenting from a public health perspective.

The mediating role of friendship jealousy and anxiety in the association between parental attachment and adolescents' relational aggression: A short-term longitudinal cross-lagged analysis

BACKGROUND

Limited research has confirmed the effects of adolescents' interactions with parents on adolescents' engagement in relational aggression. Youth reporting insecure attachment with parents are more likely to be involved in Relational aggression, while the positive association of Relational aggression with emotions such as friendship jealousy and anxiety are well-documented. However, little is known about the longitudinal association between parental attachment and Relational aggression.

OBJECTIVE

The current study expands upon previous research by investigating the short-term longitudinal associations between father and mother attachment (i.e., dependency, availability) and relational aggression, with friendship jealousy and anxiety as potential mediators of this association based on the theoretical framework of General Aggression Model.

PARTICIPANTS

The sample consisted of 2207 Greek adolescents (52.8 % girls) attending the three junior high school grades.

METHODS

Participants completed a self-report questionnaire at two different time points with a six-month interval during the school year.

RESULTS

Results showed that that higher T1 father dependency (β = 0.14) and availability (β = 0.11), and lower mother dependency (β = -0.12) and availability (β = -0.11) were associated with higher relational aggression at T2. Further, the effects of T1 father availability (β = - 0.02), mother availability (β = -0.04), mother dependency (β = -0.03) to T2 relational aggression through friendship jealousy were significant. Finally, the effects of T1 father availability (β = -0.03), father dependency (β = -0.02), mother availability (β = -0.03), mother dependency (β = -0.02) to T2 relational aggression via anxiety were also significant.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings provide an understanding of the relational aggression during adolescence by emphasizing the role of both social parameters and affective characteristics of the perpetrators.

Victimization by Friends and Victimization by Other Peers: Common Risk Factors or Mutual Influence?

Much research effort has been placed on understanding peer victimization. However, few studies have focused on victimization within friendships, which affects up to half of adolescents and bears similar consequences as victimization by the larger peer group. This study examined the temporal stability and the risk factors of victimization within friendships and victimization by other peers. In regard to the first objective, moderate to high levels of stability over a one-year period were expected for victimization by friends and by other peers. In regard to the second objective, two - not necessarily mutual exclusive - hypotheses were tested. The Common Risk Factors Hypothesis postulated that victimization by friends and by other peers share common personal and familial risk factors. Alternatively, the Mutual Influence Hypothesis proposed that victimization within one relationship context may increase the risk of being victimized in the other relationship context. These hypotheses were tested with a sample of 878 adolescents (Mage = 15.08 years, range 14.50-15.75; 52% female) assessed in Grades 8 and 9. Structural equation modeling revealed moderate and weak one-year stability for victimization by friends and by other peers, respectively. No common risk factors emerged, but victimization within one relationship context increased the risk of victimization in the other relationship context one year later. These results are in line with the mutual influence hypothesis and provide evidence of a cross-context transfer of victimization in adolescence.

Beliefs about the controllability of social characteristics and children's jealous responses to outsiders' interference in friendship

Although some jealous children respond to outsider interference in friendships with problem solving and discussion, others withdraw from the relationship or retaliate against the friends or others. Beliefs about the nature of social characteristics are proposed as an explanation for behavioral heterogeneity in response to jealous provocation. Based on learned helplessness theory and research on children’s implicit personality theories, children who subscribed strongly to the belief that social characteristics are fixed and that social outcomes are uncontrollable (high entity beliefs), were expected to more strongly endorse asocial and antisocial responses and less strongly endorse prosocial responses to outsider interference than children who did not have strong entity beliefs, depending on their internal versus external attributions of blame. Two hundred eighty-six children in sixth through eighth grades (primarily Caucasian) participated in an experimental test of this hypothesis. Although hypothesized interactions between beliefs and locus of blame were not supported, results indicated that children who believe social characteristics are changeable also believed they had more control in the internal condition than children who believe social characteristics are immutable. Further, pessimistic children were more likely to tend to endorse asocial and antisocial behavior and less likely to endorse prosocial behavior than optimistic children.