THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND COGNITIVE EMOTION REGULATION AMONG ADOLESCENTS

Abstract

Autonomy and cognitive emotion regulation both are important aspects of
adolescent years. Previous research also indicates that an individual’s cognitive
emotion regulation (CER) and autonomy is correlated. The present study aimed
to gain more insight into the relationship between autonomy and cognitive
emotion regulation of Bangladeshi adolescents. Cross sectional survey design was
used covering 100 adolescents having an age range of 12-15 years of age for data
collection. Participants completed the questionnaires including a demographic
questionnaire, adolescent autonomy questionnaire and cognitive emotion
regulation questionnaire. Correlation analysis suggests that autonomy support
showed an increase in the adaptive emotion regulation. Regression analysis
models revealed that adolescent autonomy significantly explained 14.6% of
variance for adaptive emotion regulation, and 4.6% of variance for less adaptive
emotion regulation. Findings from the present study embodied that Bangladeshi
adolescents use more adaptive cognitive regulation than maladaptive emotion
regulation. These findings have implications for parents, primary caregivers, child
psychologists, and other relevant professionals who are and will be working with
children/ adolescents in helping them to learn and enhance their autonomy for
their future and effective cognitive regulation of emotion.