Prospective relations of girls' emotion regulation and relational aggression: The moderating role of pubertal timing

The goal of the current study was to determine if emotion dysregulation increased risk for relational victimization and subsequent relational aggression for girls who began puberty early. To address this goal, the current study focused on three questions. Is emotion dysregulation associated with increases in relational aggression? If so, does relational victimization mediate the effects of emotion dysregulation on relational aggression? Finally, does early pubertal timing moderate the influence of emotion regulation on relational victimization and its subsequent impact on adolescent relational aggression? The participants were 432 girls, aged 9 to 15, who participated in the National Institute of Child and Human Development Study of Early Child Care (NICHD SECCYD). Regression analyses were performed to examine mediation and moderation hypotheses. Support for mediation was not found. We found that early pubertal timing raised risk for relational victimization and aggression. However, direct effects of emotion dysregulation on age 15 relational aggression via relational victimization were not moderated by early pubertal timing. Three way interactions revealed that early maturers were at particular risk for adolescent relational aggression as a result of either low self-control or a combination of high self-control and peer victimization during the late childhood period. Findings suggest that early pubertal timing interacts with emotion dysregulation factors to heighten processes linking relational victimization and relational aggression.