The Relation of Emotion Regulation and Emotion Expression Styles with Bullying in Adolescent Students

Introduction: Students bullying, especially in the adolescence period, is a prevalent problem in schools, and emotional dysregulation is posed as one of its causes. Considering this issue, the aim of this study was to investigate the relation of emotion regulation and emotion expression styles with bullying in adolescent students. Method: This was a correlational study. All male students of secondary and high schools in Ardabil during 2011-20112 educational year comprised the statistical population of this research. Two hundred thirty students who were selected by multistage cluster sampling method responded to the questionnaires of bullying / victimization, emotion regulation and emotion expression. Gathered data were analyzed by Pearson correlation and multiple regression tests. Result: The results showed that victimization by bullying has a positive relationship with cognitive reappraisal, emotion suppression and positive expression, but has a negative relationship with impulse severity and negative emotion expression. Furthermore, bullying has a positive relationship with cognitive reappraisal, impulse severity and negative expression, but a negative relationship with emotion suppression and positive expression. In sum, emotion regulation and emotion expression styles explained 36 percent of the variance of the victimization by bullying and 19 percent of the variance of the bullying. Conclusion: This research demonstrated that emotion dysregulation in the adolescence period plays an important role in bullying and victimization. Therefore, emotion regulation ability trainings are suggested as an important intervention method for these behavioral problems