Emotional adjustment and peer relationships: The role of behavioural reputation and classroom social climate

PLOS One | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0332297 September 18, 2025 2 / 13 of negative emotions may be indicative of internalising and externalising psychopa- thologies, which are associated with lower acceptance within the peer group [3,4]. However, the details of these associations have not been adequately elucidated in longitudinal research, and we are far from a complete understanding of the mech- anisms involved. The present study evaluates hypotheses about differentiated associations between emotional adjustment and peer relationships, with attention to the role played by behavioural reputation and the moderating role of the classroom social climate. We sought to shed new light specifically on the pathways that link children’s emotional adjustment to later peer acceptance [5,6] via their behavioural reputation [7]. In this way, the present research was designed to extend theoretical insights into a social-ecological systems approach to children’s development at school, taking the existing conceptualisation of the complex social system of schooling in teaching and learning [8] into an analysis of emotional, behavioural, and socio-relational expe- rience. Of particular theoretical interest is a consideration of how individual pupils’ emotional experience is associated with their peer groups’ collective views on their behavioural reputation, and an analysis of if and how that pattern of associations may be moderated by variations in the wider social climate of the classroom as a whole. Emotional adjustment and peer relationships

Common internalising psychopathologies such as anxiety and depression are typically associated with feelings of worry and fear and with feelings of sad- ness, respectively [9]. In the case of externalising difficulties, core symptoms of aggressive-disruptive and oppositional behaviour are frequently associated with feel- ings of anger [10]. Difficulty in managing these negative emotions is understood to compromise children’s adaptive functioning in everyday life [11]. One highly relevant aspect of this everyday functioning concerns children’s peer relationships. Despite a broad consensus on the critical role of emotions in social skills [12,13], relatively little research has studied the emotional predictors of peer status, particularly in periods of life beyond early childhood. And while a substantial body of evidence links internal- ising and externalising difficulties with peer problems in middle childhood and pre- adolescence [14–16], we still know relatively little about how the negative emotions associated with internalising and externalising difficulties map onto the behavioural reputation of children, and the extent to which they are accepted within their peer group. Such knowledge would have important implications for intervention and pre- vention efforts. A significant body of research has demonstrated that peer acceptance is under- mined by a reputation for socially withdrawn behaviour or aggressive-disruptive behaviour, or indeed an absence of positive social behaviour characterised by

cooperative and leadership qualities [17,18]. Crucially, theoretical models suggest that these behavioural profiles can be tracked back to variations in children’s experi- ence of negative emotions. Functionalist approaches to emotion locate feelings within social context, representing feelings as signals related to the accomplishment of social tasks and goals [19], whether these involve a desire to escape danger or avoid Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.