Parents and Friends in Adolescence: Does Their Emotion Socialization Matter for Internalizing Symptoms?

• In Event: Friend Socialization of Emotion in Adolescence: A Multicultural Perspective

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) is considered a trans-diagnostic factor underlying psychological functioning with failure to effectively regulate emotions linked to internalizing symptomatology (Kotov et al., 2017; Schäfer et al., 2017). Further, specific types of negative emotions (e.g., anger, sadness) are managed using different strategies (e.g., Folk et al., 2014). Youth continue to hone their ER responses through the process of emotion socialization (ES) by both parents and friends. When a parent is unsupportive of their adolescent’s emotional displays, the adolescent is at greater risk for developing emotion dysregulation and internalizing symptoms (Poon et al., 2017; Shewark & Blandon, 2015). Given the increased interest in and reliance on friendships in adolescence (Furman & Rose, 2016), there is likely a bidirectional relation between adolescents’ ER and close friends’ validation and support for emotionality expressivity (Borowski et al., 2018). Somewhat surprisingly, the roles of multiple socialization agents on adolescents’ ER have rarely been examined simultaneously. The present study builds on research linking parental unsupportive ES to adolescent regulation of anger, sadness, and worry and internalizing symptoms in adolescence while also examining the moderating role of friend supportive ES on the link between ER and internalizing symptoms.
Participants were 132 adolescents (Mage = 16.30 years, SD = 1.72 years, 53.0% girls, 80.3% White) and their parent. Adolescents completed the Child Emotion Management Scales for anger, sadness, and worry (Zeman et al., 2001, 2010) and You and Your Friends Questionnaire for friend ES (Klimes-Dougan et al., 2014). For internalizing symptoms, adolescents completed the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (March, 1997) and the Child Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1992) while parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 1991). Parent-adolescent dyads engaged in a video-recorded discussion about a problem with a friend. Interactions were coded for parent unsupportive ES.
Analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling in Mplus 8.0 where latent variables were modeled for parent unsupportive ES and adolescent internalizing symptoms. Model fit was first assessed for both models. Then, moderated mediation was tested (see Figure 1). Moderated mediation was nonsignificant for the anger regulation model. Sadness and worry regulation and socialization were combined into one model in which parent unsupportive ES was linked to less frequent sadness/worry regulation. The moderation was significant such that friend supportive ES for sadness/worry was related to fewer internalizing symptoms. Regarding simple slope analyses (Figure 2), at low of friend supportive ES, the link between sadness/worry regulation and internalizing symptoms was strongest (1 SD below mean; B = -0.29, SE = 0.09, p = .001), although also significant at medium (sample mean; B = -0.20, SE = 0.06, p = .001) and high (1 SD above mean; B = -0.12, SE = 0.06, p = .038) levels of friend support.
Socialization agents differ in their influence on adolescent emotional competencies and internalizing symptoms (Katz et al., 2012), and these differences extend to the type of emotion regulated by the adolescent. Close friend supportiveness of sadness/worry expression appears to be an important factor that reduces internalizing distress at all levels of sadness/worry regulation.

Authors

• Molly Hale, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author

• Janice L Zeman, William and Mary