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 9 / 13 and potentially even an increasing concentration of, externalising difficulties within some social groups [30]. This result is thereby relevant to educational and clinical applications, as it speaks to the importance of taking into account the peer context of children when treating their externalising problems, in order to avoid problems escalating to clinical levels. Indeed, in contexts where victimising behaviours are virtually as frequent as prosocial behaviour, children’s aggressive behaviour is likely to be socially reinforced by their peer groups, whose social feedback is that this attitude is a usual, tolerated and successful way of interacting [51].With respect to internalising difficulties, the primary reputational driver for the negative association between anxiety and social preference was the presence of shy or socially withdrawn behaviour. As expected, emotional characteristics that inhibit affiliative behaviour are likely to make it difficult to establish positive relationships with peers [52]. Contrary to the hypotheses, however, a more positive classroom social climate, as reported by pupils, was not found to attenuate the link between a shy reputation and lower social preference. We had expected that a generally more prosocial and less victimising classroom would be more sensitive to, and accepting of, those with an internalising profile [27], but our results underline the significant risks of having a disaffiliative behavioural reputation, even

in a classroom that is perceived to be characterised by positive social interactions. Interestingly, an absence of leadership in anxious children’s reputations did not appear to play a role in their level of social acceptance. Perhaps in a similar way to the absence of clear associations between aggression and social prefer- ence, this could underline the potential ambivalence that children have with respect to socially dominant profiles. Those who are seen as leaders and in control of social interactions may not necessarily be preferred interpersonal partners [53]. Contrary to the hypotheses, depressive symptoms did not reveal the same unique pathways to reduced social preference via these reputational characteristics. Although depressive symptoms had significant correlations with various aspects of behavioural reputation as well as with social preference, none of these remained significant once covariation with other negative emotions was included in the model. This suggests that the frequently comorbid negative emotions of anxiety and anger are more likely to drive negative social consequences of depressive symp- toms than the sadness and general negativity tapped by the depressive items. This of course does not diminish the significance of the sadness and hopelessness distinctively associated with depressive experiences, but it does suggest that socially-oriented interventions may need to prioritise the management of comorbid anxious and angry emotions that potentially amplify negative self-schemas by undermining successful social interaction and reducing

social preference [54]. Finally, it is important to note that gender did not serve as a moderating factor. While this was not a substantive focus of the present work, considerable research in the past has focused on gender differences in relation to children’s emotional profiles in the social world [55]. The fact that the patterns of association among emotional experience, behavioural reputa- tion, and overall social preference were constant across gender – after controlling for gender differences in relation to any given construct – suggests that these fundamental links may be more similar for boys and girls than may first be sus- pected. However, it may be the case that there are subtle differences in interpretations of behavioural reputation dimen- sions such as cooperative or disruptive, and this deserves attention in future research. Further work One major direction for future research concerns the study’s restricted window for assessing longitudinal change. Scru- tiny of individual trajectories over a longer period will be essential for answering questions about possible bi-directional associations between emotional adjustment, behavioural reputation, and social preference [56]. Also, there is a lack of clarity regarding the causal links. In this regard, a good explanatory candidate might be variations in adaptive and mal- adaptive forms of emotional self-regulation, relating to skills such as cognitive reappraisal of stressors versus externalising of anger; such aspects of emotion regulation are known to predict social acceptance via behavioural reputation [57]. We

believe that future research should include an assessment of this competence, in order to provide a more thorough picture of the interplay between the emotional experience of the child, his/her behavioural reputation, and social acceptance.