Parental Psychological Control, Anger Instability, and Sadness Instability: Experience Sampling Study Among Mid Adolescents

• In Event: 1-083 - A Basic and Applied Understanding of the Bidirectional Links Between Parents’ Emotions and Child Well-being

Integrative Statement

Recent findings have suggested that psychological control (PC; e.g., the use of guilt induction and the invalidation of feelings; Barber, 1996) has a detrimental effect on how adolescents handle both anger and sadness and has long-term effects on adjustment (Cui et al., 2014). Yet, previous studies have not examined how PC impacts the way adolescents regulate emotions, and adolescents’ self-efficacy regarding emotion regulation (Bandura et al., 2003). Previous cross-cultural studies on preadolescents found relations between lack of self-efficacy about anger and sadness regulation, hostile and depressive rumination, and dysregulated expression of anger and sadness (Di Giunta et al., 2017). An important facet of emotion regulation is the level of instability of the emotional experience (Cole & Hall, 2008; Maciejewski et al., 2015). However, it is currently unknown whether PC contributes to greater instability of daily negative emotional experience.

Using multi-wave data from a community sample of adolescents, we tested prospective associations between PC and mean levels, as well as, stability of daily emotion, emotion regulation, and self-efficacy beliefs regarding anger and sadness. This study included 103 Italian adolescents (53% males; time 1: Mage = 15.56, SD = .77; time 2: Mage = 16.77, SD = .78). Adolescents’ reports of parental PC were assessed with a subset of items from the Psychological Control and Autonomy Granting Scale (PCAG; Silk et al., 2003) at time 1. At time 2, data were gathered using mobile ecological momentary assessment. For 15 days, adolescents were prompted via mobile-phones to respond to questions about their parents’ PC (items were adapted from the PCAG), as well as ratings of anger and sadness, reports on specific strategies to handle that emotion (Abela et al., 2002; Caprara et al., 1985; Zeman et al., 2002), and current self-efficacy regarding emotion regulation (Bandura et al., 2003). Day-to-day variability in the intensity of a specific emotion (instability scores) for each of the aforementioned emotion regulation-related constructs were examined with the root mean square of successive differences (Ebner-Priemer & Trull, 2012; high score refers to high instability). We also calculated adolescents’ mean levels of these constructs as mean levels and instability are related (Maciejewski et al., 2015).

Separate path analyses to predict anger and sadness regulation were analyzed using Mplus 7 (Muthen & Muthen, 2012). Mean levels of parental PC were associated with frequent sadness and anger, frequent use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in response to sadness and anger regulation (rumination, inhibition, and dysregulated expression), and with low self-efficacy beliefs about emotion regulation (Figures 1 and 2). Moreover, instability of adolescents’ maladaptive strategies related to sadness regulation was predicted by previous parental PC.

These findings are significant, as by clarifying emotion-regulation related processes and their antecedents we can advance scientists’ and practitioners’ abilities to identify, prevent, and ameliorate the antecedents and negative consequences of poor psychological adjustment in adolescence as targets for intervention.

Authors

• Laura Di Giunta, Sapienza University of Rome
  Presenting Author

• Emanuele Basili, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Eriona Thartori, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carolina Lunetti, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Irene Fiasconaro, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nancy Eisenberg, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Concetta Pastorelli, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Lansford, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Candice L. Odgers, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author