# “Close to the teacher, believe in the teaching”: the advantageous effect of interpersonal emotion regulation and the role of teacher-student closeness

## TL;DR

This study shows that graduate students regulate emotions better with help from their teachers, especially when they have a close relationship.

## Contribution

The study empirically demonstrates the effectiveness of interpersonal emotion regulation in teacher-student interactions and highlights the role of closeness.

## Key findings

- Interpersonal emotion regulation is more effective than self-regulation for graduate students.
- Higher teacher-student closeness enhances the benefits of interpersonal emotion regulation.
- The findings support building mental health systems around teacher-student relationships.

## Abstract

Interaction is a key element in sustaining the development of human society. The Social Baseline Theory suggests that individuals can regulate emotions through social interactions, thereby promoting physical and mental wellbeing.

This study focuses on the interaction between graduate students and their supervisors within the educational ecosystem, exploring the advantages of interpersonal emotion regulation and the role of teacher-student closeness.

Study 1 recruited 9 university teachers and 58 graduate students, and Study 2 62 of each, with behavioral experiments implemented in both.

The results indicate that, whether employing cognitive reappraisal or expressive suppression strategies, the effectiveness of interpersonal emotion regulation is significantly superior to that of self-emotion regulation. Moreover, higher levels of teacher-student closeness enhance the positive effects of interpersonal emotion regulation on graduate students.

These findings highlight the advantage of interpersonal emotion regulation in teacher-student interactions and emphasize the critical role of high closeness. This study not only provides empirical support for understanding the effectiveness of interpersonal emotion regulation in teacher-student interactions but also offers important theoretical foundations and practical implications for constructing a mental health support system for graduate students.