1-160 - Adolescent Mood Variability and Emotional Reactivity – Personal and Social-Environmental Influences

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by significant affective changes, possibly due to age-specific developmental tasks (e.g., adjusting to physical maturation or changes in interpersonal relationships). Adolescents need to learn to adapt to possible high negative, low positive, and more instable moods likely to occur in early adolescence. This symposium presents multidisciplinary and innovative approaches to address personal and social-environmental factors in normative and non-normative mood variability and emotional reactivity during adolescence.
The first study (A) used 5-year longitudinal diary-data to examine the developmental trajectories of positive and negative mood level and variability in adolescents (ages 13-18). It found that towards late adolescence, youths seem to have adapted to relatively instable moods that characterized the first years of adolescence. The second study (B) investigated whether mechanisms underlying the observed adolescent reduction in parental buffering of emotional reactivity to stress should be sought in processes associated with puberty or other age-related changes. It found that both pubertal status and age contribute to the reduced effectiveness of parents as stress buffers. The third study (C) aimed to clarify the variability in depressed youths’ emotional responding by linking rumination to adolescents’ physiological response to developmentally salient stimuli: peer acceptance and rejection. It found that depressed adolescents who ruminate are especially sensitive to social feedback, displaying greater physiological reactivity to both peer acceptance and rejection. These studies’ results will be discussed from a developmental social and affective neuroscience perspective.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Hans M Koot, Vu University Amsterdam

Discussant

• Jennifer S. Silk, University of Pittsburgh

Individual Presentations

• A 5-year Longitudinal Study on Mood Variability Across Adolescence Using Daily Diaries - Developmental Trends and Sex Differences - Presenting Author: Dominique Francoise Maciejewski, Vu University Amsterdam; Pol van Lier, Vu University Amsterdam; Susan J.T. Branje, Utrecht University; Wim Meeus, Utrecht University; Hans M Koot, Vu University Amsterdam

• Puberty, Age, and Depressive Symptoms Contribute to Stress Reactivity and Sensitivity to Parental Support in Adolescence - Presenting Author: Jenalee Doom, University of Minnesota; Adrienne VanZomeren-Dohm, Institute of Child Development; Camelia E Hostinar, Northwestern University; Megan R Gunnar, Univ of Minnesota

• Depressed Adolescents’ Pupillary Response to Peer Acceptance and Rejection: The Role of Rumination - Presenting Author: Lindsey B Stone, Univ of Pittsburgh; Jennifer S. Silk, University of Pittsburgh; Greg J. Siegle, University of Pittsburgh; Laura R Stroud, Brown Medical School; Eric Nelson, NIMH, Natl Institutes of Health; Ronald E Dahl, University of California, Berkeley; Neil P Jones, Duke University