Poster #97 - Relations Among Puberty, Emotions and Peer Interactions: an EMA Study

• In Event: Poster Session 15

Abstract

Adolescence, the period between childhood and adulthood marked by the onset of puberty, is a time of great emotional, social and physical change (Choudhury, 2010). The emotional significance of parent and family interactions in early childhood transitions to peer relations. Adolescents’ emotional development is positively and negatively affected by peers (Veenstra et al.) Puberty is thought to affect emotion processing and understanding of one’s own and other’s emotions (Burnett et al.) Studies of the links between puberty, emotions, and peer relations have largely been completed in laboratory settings, but increased availability of mobile devices has led to multiple studies utilizing ecological momentary assessment to conduct repeat sampling of emotions and social interactions in natural environments (Forbes, et al., 2012; Silk et al., 2011; Colombo, et al. 2020).

In this study, 42 adolescents between the ages of 10-15 (Mage=13.12 years, Nmale=12, Nfemale=28, Nother=2) were sent brief surveys via text message 5-6 times each day for a 10-day period. The surveys asked about current mood (8 positive/7 negative emotions on a 5-point-likert scale) current/most recent interaction partner, and interaction quality of their most recent interaction (very good to very bad on a continuous scale). Participants also completed the Pubertal Development Scale (PDS; Carskadon & Acebo, 1993). We hypothesized that adolescents with negative perceived quality of an interaction would report more negative mood. We also hypothesized that interactions with peers would exert more influence on mood than interactions with family members, and this relation would be moderated by pubertal status where adolescents with higher PDS scores would be more emotionally affected by peers than adolescents with lower PDS.

Hypotheses were tested using multilevel models with EMA responses nested within person and examining within-person effects. Emotions were separated into negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA), and PA was further separated into high activation and low activation (three dependent variables). We found that current and recent interactions with a friend predicted greater high activation PA (current friend, b=0.40, p<0.001, recent friend, b=0.26, p<0.001) and current friend interaction predicted lower negative affect (b=-0.07, p<0.05). Current interactions with close family members significantly predicted high activation PA (b=0.15, p<0.001).

Perceived interaction quality was a significant predictor of mood, where perceiving that an interaction went badly predicted greater NA and lower PA, regardless of interaction partner (high activation PA, b=-0.8, p<0.001, low activation PA, b=-0.4, p<0.001, NA, b=0.03, p<0.001).

Finally, pubertal status moderated relations between perceived interaction quality and high activation PA for current and recent interactions with friends. For participants further in pubertal development (1 SD above the mean), poor perceived quality of recent friend interactions (b=-.15, p<0.001) and poor perceived quality of current friend interactions (b=0.14, p<0.001) predicted lower high activation PA. These effects were not significant for participants who scored low in pubertal development (1 SD below the mean; p=0.087 and b=0.47, respectively).

These findings provide evidence that recent and current interactions impact adolescents’ mood in their everyday lives, and that puberty increases affective reactivity to perceived quality of interactions with friends.

Authors

• Paige Munshell, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Edward Lemay

• Heather Yarger, University of Maryland - College Park

• Elizabeth Redcay, University of Maryland - College Park