Article Summary: Emotional Contrast or Compensation
S. Thomaes et al. (2015). (2015). Emotional opposition or compensation? The effect of support reminders on pain of acute peer disapproval in preadolescents. 51(10), 1438-1449. Developmental Psychology
The study sought to determine how manipulated reminders of support affect children’s emotional recovery and reactivity in the face of peer rejection. “How do such reminders of support impact children’s emotional responses to acute experiences of peer disapproval?” was the study’s research question. ” The authors anticipated that support reminders would have a compensatory effect, reducing the emotional impact of disapproval. The study addressed this question by involving children aged 9 to 13. They were put through two between-subjects tests. The first study included 202 children. In this case, the support reminder manipulation occurred before the disapproval. This would aid in determining its impact on disapproval-based emotional reactivity.
In contrast, the second experiment included 167 children. The support reminder manipulation was timed to coincide with the peer rejection. This would aid in determining its impact on the recovery aspect. In both experiments, participants completed similar measures. They completed the measures of perceived friend distance and perceived peer victimization. Both experiments yielded similar results. They agreed with the viewpoint that supports that reminders can have an emotional contrast effect. This contradicts the hypothesis, which supported the intuitive finding that support reminders have compensatory effects. These findings are related to the course book’s topic of peers. It depicts the various effects that peers have on others. Other parties’ efforts to resolve disagreements may not always produce the desired positive outcomes. The method used is one of the study’s strengths.
The children in the study ranged in age from 9 to 13 years old. Accurate results will likely be obtained from such a group because late childhood is when peer difficulties are common and aversive. The methods section also has a flaw. 93% of those who took part were of Dutch origin. Perhaps the results would have been different if other races had been well represented. This is something that future researchers in this field should remember as they conduct their research.
