Carmen VILLEGAS
This research had two aims. The first aim focused on the link between motives for social sharing of emotions and the quality of friendships, as well as emotional regulation strategies and the quality of friendships. Indeed, studies have shown that a person will share emotions in 80% of everyday situations (Rimé, 2009). This sharing of emotional experiences is an explanatory factor for the well-being in adolescents, as long as they share their emotions with immediate people and implement certain emotional regulation strategies (Gable et al., 2004; Cicchetti et al., 1995, Thompson, 1991, cited in Garnefski et al., 2001). The second aim is to investigate the influence of emotion regulation strategies on the motives for social sharing of emotions and the quality of friendships among adolescents. To our knowledge, these aims have not been studied on the adolescent population, which is what makes this research original, providing interesting elements for understanding friendships in adolescence.
It can be seen that adolescence, due to the biological transformations linked to puberty and the changes in cognitive and social reference, period favourable to stress and anxiety (Solmi et al., 2022). In fact, adolescents need spaces to express themselves in which they can talk about their feelings about an emotional event (Christophe et al., 2009). Adolescence is a period characterized by decentralization from the family circle and social-emotional investment by peers (Claes, 2014). These spaces of expression are generally reserved for close, intimate friends; central figures in adolescent development (Claes, 2014). Friends are seen as a base of emotional and social support that allows the adolescent to share, in safety, the experienced events (Claes, 2014), as well as the emotions that accompany them. Emotion is therefore omnipresent in everyday interactions, and particularly in adolescence, within social and friendship interactions (Christophe et al., 2009). Authors like Carstensen (1995) have shown that emotional support and the sharing of everyday events are a favourable context for the development of emotional regulation skills. However, when an adolescent doesn’t meet social expectations in terms of emotional regulation, he is susceptible to present difficulties in social integration, in establishing a harmonious relationship with a significant figure, a friend (Mathieu, 2012) and would develop emotional disorders (Cloutier, 1994, cited in Claes, 2014). However, given the importance placed on friends in adolescent development, the literature on the association between the quality of friendships and adolescents’ emotional regulation abilities is surprisingly scarce (Farley & Kim-Spoon, 2014). The study of friendships, in relation to social sharing of emotions, and emotion regulation is important (Telzer et al., 2018, cited in Dumontheil, 2021). This research therefore aims to better understand the links existing within adolescent friendships since usually they are mainly studied on adult (third age) populations (Rimé, 2009).
To do this, 119 adolescents between 15 and 19 years old were asked to fill in three questionnaires on intimacy of friendships, motives for social sharing of emotions (SSMS-39), and cognitive regulation of emotions (CERQ). The results show that only one social sharing motive, Venting, is a predictor of friendship quality. No emotional regulation strategy stood out except for the “Rumination and Catastrophization” pattern, which seems to improve the quality of the friendships. However, there was no influence of emotional regulation strategies on the motives for social sharing and the quality of friendship.
For future research, it would be interesting to study the social sharing of emotions and the place of social networks in friendships among adolescents. The dematerialization dimension of the social sharing of emotions is currently only slightly taken into account. Teenagers of our generation have grown up with these social networks and most of them have been registered on them for many years. Today, social networks are involved in the creation and maintenance of friendships and can increase or decrease their quality. They can also have an impact on emotional regulation. Indeed, teenagers release their emotions continuously on social networks via comments, smileys, etc. They will have the feeling of being part of a group. However, when a teenager is confronted with the silence of his or her community, i.e. if they do not respond to him or her, if they do not give him or her any feedback, it is possible that he or she will end up rumbling and feeling that he or she is no longer understood. Social sharing of emotions can also work on the digital side. The idea would be to open up and continue research on social sharing of emotions in the field of social networks.