Poster #166 - The effects of an intervention program for adolescent girls on emotional awareness, social skills, and well-being

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Prevention and Interventions

Integrative Statement

The current longitudinal study evaluated the efficacy of a three-week overnight summer program focused on improving adolescent girls’ personal growth and leadership skills. Girls are at risk for lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depression during adolescence (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001). Given these risk factors for girls, the program’s curriculum emphasized promoting increased emotional awareness and improved social skills. Emotional awareness refers to the ability to consciously monitor emotional responses in addition to the ability to differentiate between various emotions (Rieffe et al., 2008), whereas social skills refer to one’s competency in social situations with peers (Nilsen et al., 2012). While individuals may vary in the understanding, perceiving, and regulating of emotional information, and have varying levels of social skills, overall, lower emotional awareness and poorer social skills leads to worse emotional well-being, such as higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower levels of self-esteem (Nilsen et al., 2012; Sedzik et al., 2017). The current study hypothesized that emotional awareness and social skills would negatively predict depressive symptoms and positively predict self-esteem and that depressive symptoms would decrease, and emotional awareness, social skills, and self-esteem would increase at the end of the program.
In the current study, 135 adolescent girls (Mage = 13.44 years) were surveyed at two time points: at the beginning of the program (T1) and at the end of the program (T2). Questionnaires measured constructs including emotional awareness (Rieffe, Oosterveld, Miers, Terwogt, & Ly, 2008), social skills (Harter, 2012), depression (Kovacs, 1992), and self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965). This study was part of a larger evaluation study.
Paired t-tests revealed that social skills increased significantly from T1 to T2 (M = 2.80, SD = .78 versus M = 2.91, SD =. 75), t(106) = -2.51, p = .01, and there was a trend for an increase in emotional awareness from T1 to T2 (M = 2.19, SD = .31 versus M = 2.23, SD =. 29), t(123) = -1.90, p = .06 . Similarly, depressive symptoms significantly decreased from T1 to T2 (M = .43, SD = .41 versus M = .34, SD = .37, respectively), t(93) = 3.05, p = .003. Self-esteem did not change significantly.
Regression analyses revealed that T2 emotional awareness and T2 social skills independently predicted T2 depressive symptoms in different steps (β = -.53, t = -2.94, R² =.28, p = .004, and β = -.34, t = -2.15, R² =.14, p = .03, respectively). Similarly, T2 emotional awareness and T2 social skills independently predicted T2 self-esteem symptoms in different steps (β = .28, t = 2.14, R² =.31, p = .04, and β = .36, t = 2.36, R² =.15, p = .02, respectively). Neither T1 emotional awareness nor T1 social skills predicted T2 depressive symptoms and self-esteem.
These findings support the connection between increased emotional awareness social skills and well-being symptoms. In addition, given the changes over time, these findings provide preliminary support for the efficacy of this intervention program.

Authors

• Sally Theran, Wellesley College
  Presenting Author

• Celeste Glober, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author

• India Kerle, Wellesley College
  Non-Presenting Author