Longitudinal relations between emotional awareness and expression, emotion regulation, and peer victimization among urban adolescents.

Introduction: There are potential long-term psychosocial effects of experiencing peer victimization during adolescence, including: internalizing symptoms, externalizing behaviors, and risks behaviors such as substance use. While social-emotional theories of development note associations between deficits in emotion competencies and peer victimization in childhood, these associations are less established among adolescent samples. Identifying which inadequacies in emotional competence place particular adolescents at risk for peer victimization may provide insight into the developmental pathways leading to unfavorable outcomes.