Poster #17 - How Adolescent Depression Predicts Parental Socialization of Adolescents’ Positive Affect in Bangalore, India

• In Event: Poster Session 15

Abstract

Adolescent depression is often understood as an affective disorder, with several core symptoms (e.g., anhedonia) marked by low positive affect (PA; Forbes & Dahl, 2005). Among white American families, parental dampening socialization (i.e., downregulation of PA) is associated with increases in adolescent depression while parental enhancing socialization (i.e., upregulation) is associated with decreases in adolescent depression (Katz et al., 2014). Family systems theory posits that family members are interconnected, with all members influencing one another (Chiang & Bai, 2022). Conceivably, adolescents higher in depression may influence how parents socialize their adolescents’ PA. Despite a longstanding call to investigate child-elicited effects on parenting (Bell, 1968), only one study has tested how adolescent depression predicts parental PA socialization, finding that adolescent depression predicted increases in maternal dampening and decreases in maternal and paternal enhancing one year later in a Belgian sample (Nelis et al., 2019). It is important for this research to be extended across sociocultural contexts, as emerging research suggests that the socialization and regulation of emotions follow cultural scripts (Miyamoto & Ryff, 2011). For families in Bangalore, India, previous research suggests that, in addition to dampening and enhancing responses, parents may try to balance or moderate their adolescents’ PA, aligning with beliefs of balancing positive and negative emotions to promote interpersonal harmony (Wick et al., 2022). The first aim of this study is to test how adolescent depression predicts parental dampening, enhancing, and balancing in a sample of families from Bangalore. We hypothesize that adolescent depression will predict increases in parental dampening and decreases in parental enhancing and balancing.

Additionally, previous literature suggests that these relations may differ based on parent depression. For example, Lippold and colleagues (2018) found that for mothers higher in internalizing problems (i.e., depression, anxiety), youths’ internalizing problems predicted increases in the lability of parental warmth whereas for mothers lower in internalizing problems, youth internalizing problems predicted decreases. The second aim of this study is to test whether parent depression moderates the associations between adolescent depression and parental PA socialization. We hypothesize that parent depression will strengthen these associations in the same directions as hypothesized in Aim 1.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, data were collected from 377 adolescents (Mage = 14.46; SDage = .75) and one parent (Mage = 42.02; SDage = 6.03) at two time points five months apart. Given the high percentage of adolescent girls (84.4%) in our sample, only girls and their parents will be included in analyses. See Table 1 for sample demographics. Using path analysis, we will test adolescent depression as a predictor of changes in parental PA socialization to observe main effects. We will then create an interaction term to test parent depression as a moderator of these relations (see Figure 1).

Understanding how adolescent depression may predict parental PA socialization can provide support for bidirectionality of these processes among families in Bangalore. Additionally, understanding how these relations may be moderated by parent depression can inform treatment targeting depression and PA processes for families.

Authors

• Madison N Beedon, Miami University - Ohio
  Presenting Author

• Vaishali V Raval, Miami University - Ohio

• Anuradha Sathiyaseelan, Christ University

• Aaron M. Luebbe, Miami University - Ohio