The Relationship Between Middle School Students’ Regulatory Emotional Self-efficacy,Interpersonal Competence And Social Anxiety And Intervention Study

Middle school students are in adolescence and their emotional state is characterized by fluctuations and instability,and the focus of intimate relationships is developing and tilting toward peer relationships.Good emotion regulation and interpersonal relationships play an important role in the psychological health and overall development of middle school students.Study 1 used the Regulatory Emotional Self-efficacy Scale(SRESE),the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire(ICQ),and the Interaction Anxiety Scale(IAS)to conduct a questionnaire study on 361 students in a middle school in Shanghai to verify the relationship between emotion regulation self-efficacy,interpersonal competence and social anxiety.It was found that the overall emotion regulation self-efficacy and interpersonal competence of middle school students in this school were at an intermediate level,and there was some social anxiety.The students’ emotion regulation self-efficacy,interpersonal competence level,and social anxiety were significantly correlated,and interpersonal competence played a mediating role.In Study 2,an intervention on emotion regulation self-efficacy was conducted by selecting seventh grade students in a middle school in Shanghai and randomly dividing them into an experimental group(26 students)and a control group(28 students).Students in the experimental group were given a total of eight expressive arts courses,each course lasting 40 minutes,while students in the control group participated in daily psychology courses.The pre-tests and post-tests were administered to both groups using the same version of the SRESE scale,ICQ questionnaire,and IAS scale as in Study 1.The expressive arts course was found to have a significant intervention effect on middle school students’ self-efficacy for emotion regulation.Combined studies Ⅰ and Ⅱ yielded the following findings:1.Middle school students’ emotion regulation self-efficacy was significantly and positively related to interpersonal competence;emotion regulation self-efficacy was significantly and negatively related to social anxiety;and interpersonal competence was significantly and negatively related to social anxiety.2.Emotion regulation self-efficacy can effectively predict interpersonal competence and social anxiety to some extent.3.As a mediating variable,interpersonal competence partially mediates the relationship between emotion regulation self-efficacy and social anxiety in middle school students.4.The expressive arts course intervention increased the level of emotion regulation self-efficacy of middle school students and also had a positive effect on the improvement of interpersonal competence and the decrease of social anxiety of middle school students.