Pathways of Worry During the Transition to Adolescence: An Exploration of Students’ Emotion Regulation, Metacognitive Beliefs and Coping

This study examined how two metacognitive constructs, cognitive self-consciousness and beliefs about emotion regulation, mediate the link among early adolescents between emotion regulation and engagement in coping with worry, and whether these relationships change with age during this period. A total of 338 Chinese pupils completed a series of measures assessing the metacognitive constructs plus emotional awareness and regulation; scenario-based questions examined coping strategies. Participants were divided into two age groups, 11 to 12 (Mage = 11.9 years) and 13 to 15 (Mage = 13.2 years). Path models showed that younger participants adopted emotion-focused coping whereas older participants adopted more problem-focused coping, and these response patterns were mediated as hypothesized by cognitive self-consciousness and controllability beliefs towards worry. These findings highlight the need for more adaptive coping to be specifically targeted during early adolescence by raising awareness of controllability beliefs.