Linking Social-emotional Competence Based on Positive Mood Characteristics and Self-efficacy in Emotion Regulation: Testing the Mediating Role of Social Support

A child's ability to engage positively with others, express emotions positively, and control behavior is referred to as social and emotional competence. Thus, the aim of this study was to explain social-emotional competence based on positive mood characteristics, selfefficacy in emotion regulation with mediating role of social support in female students. The method used in this research was correlation with structural equation modeling method, which was performed in Tehran during the academic year 2018-2019 in December and October. 420 female students with an average age of 17 years in public schools, were randomly selected by cluster sampling method. The following questionnaires were administered to students: Bromes's temperament (2007), the social support questionnaire of Wax et al. (1986), the self-efficacy questionnaire of Caprara et al. (2008), the motivation questionnaire of Mecklenburg et al. (2011), and the emotional intelligence questionnaire of Zhu and Ei (2012). Pearson correlation coefficient test and path analysis methods were used to analyze the data. Data were analyzed using SPSS-21 and AMOS18 software. Based on the presented model (The root-mean-square error (RMSEA) was 0.072, and the square root of the mean squared residual (SRMR) was 0.062, which was less than the criterion (0.08) and thus confirmed the fit of the model. Based on the results, Positive mood traits affect social-emotional competence both directly and indirectly through social support. In order to promote social-emotional competence, social support should consider as an effective variable and important intervention priority of educational systems.