Interoception and social-emotional competence among adolescents: the role of emotion regulation

Interoception, refers to sensing, interpretating, and integrating the information in the body, has been reported to be associated with emotional experience, but little is known about its role in social influence and particularly, the association with social-emotional competence (SEC). The potential mechanism linking interoception with SEC was also unexamined. This study explores how interoception relates to SEC among adolescents and examines whether emotion regulation mediates this association. A total of 695 adolescents completed Body Awareness Questionnaire, Delaware Social-Emotional Competency Scale, and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. A series of linear regression models revealed that interoception was positively associated with the SEC as well as both strategies of emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression). Emotion regulation mediated the association between interoception and SEC, which explained more than 70% variance of total effect. Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression showed different mediator roles in the association between interoception and the subdomains of SEC. This study has important implications for the use of interoception-based intervention or emotion regulation strategies to promote SEC in conducting high-quality social-emotional learning programs.