Team sport as a potential context for interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescence: a quasi-experimental comparison with individual exercise
- 1School of Sport Training, Chengdu Sport University , ,
- 2School of Teacher Education (Physical Education), Taizhou University , ,
Abstract
Objective: Emotion regulation deficits are a transdiagnostic risk factor for adolescent emotional disorders. This quasi-experimental study examined whether different exercise contexts were associated with intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescents.
Methods: A quasi-experimental cluster-allocated design was conducted with 114 sixth-grade students from three intact classes, with each class allocated to one of three conditions: team exercise, individual exercise, or control condition. Participants completed measures of emotion regulation at pre-test, mid-test, and post-test during an 8-week intervention.
Results: Team exercise was associated with a significantly different trajectory of interpersonal emotion regulation over time compared with individual exercise and control conditions, with the team exercise group showing a more favorable pattern of change. Changes in expressive suppression showed a small negative association with changes in interpersonal emotion regulation.
Conclusion: Team-based cooperative exercise may provide a potentially relevant context for supporting interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescents, although the association involving expressive suppression should be interpreted cautiously given the low reliability of this subscale.
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BibTeX
@article{li2026team,
title = {{Team sport as a potential context for interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescence: a quasi-experimental comparison with individual exercise}},
author = {Xilin Li and Qiuping You and Yunfei Tao and Chengbo Yang and Dawei Yu},
journal = {Frontiers in psychiatry},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1948213},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13668848},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Team sport as a potential context for interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescence: a quasi-experimental comparison with individual exercise
AU - Xilin Li
AU - Qiuping You
AU - Yunfei Tao
AU - Chengbo Yang
AU - Dawei Yu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
JO - Frontiers in psychiatry
DO - 10.3389/fpsyt.2026.1948213
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13668848
AB - Objective: Emotion regulation deficits are a transdiagnostic risk factor for adolescent emotional disorders. This quasi-experimental study examined whether different exercise contexts were associated with intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescents. Methods: A quasi-experimental cluster-allocated design was conducted with 114 sixth-grade students from three intact classes, with each class allocated to one of three conditions: team exercise, individual exercise, or control condition. Participants completed measures of emotion regulation at pre-test, mid-test, and post-test during an 8-week intervention. Results: Team exercise was associated with a significantly different trajectory of interpersonal emotion regulation over time compared with individual exercise and control conditions, with the team exercise group showing a more favorable pattern of change. Changes in expressive suppression showed a small negative association with changes in interpersonal emotion regulation. Conclusion: Team-based cooperative exercise may provide a potentially relevant context for supporting interpersonal emotion regulation in early adolescents, although the association involving expressive suppression should be interpreted cautiously given the low reliability of this subscale.
SN - 1664-0640
ER -