Understanding Family–Peer Linkages

The Interplay Among Family Emotional Expressiveness, Social Skills, and Friendship Quality From Middle Childhood to Early Adolescence

Bibliographic Data

ID21444507
AuthorsMing‐Chen Zhang (0000-0003-4509-1500, Faculty of Education University of Macau Macau (SAR) China), Nan Zhou (0000-0001-9566-2768, Faculty of Education University of Macau Macau (SAR) China), H Cao (0000-0003-3635-9499, Department of Psychology The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong (SAR) China), Ruiji Bao (0000-0003-1073-7543, Faculty of Business and Economics The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China), Yue Liang (0000-0003-2166-8934, School of Sociology Beijing Normal University Beijing China, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume98
Issue4
Pages1322-1335
Publication date2026-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Adolescence (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0140-1971 • E-ISSN: 1095-9254
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/jad.70144
PMID41873934
OpenAlexW7140235895
LanguageEN
References cited67

INTRODUCTION: Family emotional expressiveness (FEE) is an important manifestation of parental emotion socialization that influences children's socioemotional development. However, previous research examining FEE and social skills from the perspective of parental emotion socialization has primarily focused on socioemotional skills and has simply treated FEE as a global construct. More importantly, whether parental emotion socialization can spill over to other social systems (e.g., friendship) and form a reciprocal association with them remains unknown. METHODS: = 8.41, SD = 0.50, 50.9% female) in the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD SECCYD), this study examined the reciprocal associations among positive and negative FEE, social skills, and friendship quality. The potential gender differences were also examined. RESULTS: Results showed that positive FEE predicted later social skills and vice versa only among girls. Moreover, for girls, positive FEE was related positively to the subsequent friendship quality via social skills whereas this indirect effect was not observed among boys. Moreover, boys' friendship quality-but not girls'-was negatively associated with negative FEE over time. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlights that parental emotion socialization appears to be particularly effective for girls, as positive FEE provides a foundation for girls' subsequent social skills and the formation and maintenance of high-quality friendships. However, for boys, friendship is the important source of social support during this developmental stage and can mitigate negative emotional dynamics within their families. These findings offer new insights for gender-specific socialization interventions from middle childhood to early adolescence.

Early childhood · Emotional development · Foundation (evidence) · Friendship · Intervention (counseling) · Psychological intervention · Quality (philosophy) · Social relation · Socialization · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development

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