(PS8-B33) A Qualitative Exploration of College Students’ Emotion Socialization Experiences: The First Step in Measurement Development

Emotion socialization (ES) refers to how others respond to our emotions. Supportive socialization responses (e.g., validation) have been associated with more adaptive emotion regulation and socioemotional functioning (see Leerkes & Bailes, 2019, for a review), while unsupportive responses (e.g., ignoring) have been associated with worse emotion regulation and more distress (Schwartz et al., 2014). Although this work suggests the importance of ES, much of it has been conducted in children and adolescents—thus, emphasizing the role of parents/caregivers. As individuals enter emerging adulthood and specifically attend college, research suggests that peers play a large role in socialization and that this can impact mental health (Moran, 2019). However, initial research on peer-based ES in this age group has relied on measurement approaches that have been upward extended from children and adolescents and thus are based on parents/caregivers’ socialization strategies. The goal of this study was to begin measurement development work on ES in this age group by conducting a comprehensive qualitative assessment of college students’ peer-based socialization experiences—a valid and recommended approach to the development of self-report measures (e.g., Cole et al., 2020).

Participants were N=720 college students (M age=20.75; 41.3% men, 55.0% women, 3.6% non-binary; 51.3% identified as White; 23.9% Black, 9.3% Asian/Asian-American, 6.1% Multiracial. Additional racial identities represented < 5% of the sample) from a variety of institutions. Participants answered two questions via Qualtrics survey. Question 1 pertained to how their friends responded to them when they were feeling upset, which was defined as angry, sad, worried, or a combination of any of those emotions. Question 2 pertained to how their friends responded to them when they were feeling happy. Two research assistants coded responses to these questions based on grounded theory (cut and sort technique; Ryan & Barnard, 2003).

Seventeen unique themes were identified among the responses to Question 1. Only 9 of these themes appear to have been identified in prior research with parents/caregivers and peers; among the 8 additions were using humor, and offering material supports (e.g., buying food). For Question 2, 15 unique themes were identified. Twelve of these themes were identified in response to Question 1, but their manifestations were different (e.g., offering material supports to celebrate rather than distract). One major addition was ‘compounding’, in which peers responded by recounting their own event.

The exploration of socialization surrounding happiness is an important addition to the literature as to our knowledge no existing measure of ES captures responses to this emotion, and harmful socialization to happiness may be implicated in the development of psychopathology (Breaux et al., 2022). These themes will be developed into items for a self-report measure of ES that is designed specifically for use in college students. Additional implications regarding areas of overlap and uniqueness of these themes with socialization from parents/caregivers will be discussed.