Poster #26 - What are Parents Doing Right? The Effects of Positive Parental Reactions to Children’s Expressed Emotions

• In Event: Poster Session 06

Abstract

Rationale
The ability to express emotion appropriately and effectively is integral to adolescent development, and parents serve as a critical socializing influence during this time. The literature suggests that negative parenting behavior in response to adolescent emotion expression is associated with the development of emotion dysregulation and depression for adolescents, but less is known about positive parenting behavior in reaction to emotion expression. The current study aims to address this gap in the literature by examining whether positive (e.g., constructive or comforting) parental reactions to adolescents’ expressed emotions are related to adolescent depressive symptoms. The study also aims to examine whether positive parental reactions to positive and negative emotion differentially relate to depressive symptoms over time.
Method
The participants are 129 female adolescents aged 11-13 (M age = 12.27), oversampled for risk for social anxiety and depression, whose data were collected as part of a larger longitudinal study examining social, emotional, and neural development in adolescent girls. Measures of parental reactions to their children’s expressed positive and negative emotions were collected using the Parental Reactions to Children’s Positive Emotions Scale (PRCPS; Ladouceur et al., 2002) and the Emotions as a Child Scale (EAC; Malatesta-Magai, 1991). Measures of adolescent and parental depressive symptoms were collected using the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ; Angold and Costello, 1987). All measures were collected at three time points, each one year apart. Latent growth curve modeling was used to assess whether positive parental emotional socialization at baseline predicted child depressive symptoms at baseline and/or trajectories of depressive symptoms from baseline to two-year follow-up.
Results
A significant random intercept and slope of time indicated that adolescent girls differed in their baseline level of depressive symptoms and in their trajectories of depressive symptoms across the 2-year period. On average across the sample, there was a marginally significant, small increase in depressive symptoms over time (B=0.52; p<0.1). Adolescents who reported higher levels of parental support in response to expressed negative emotion at baseline reported fewer baseline depressive symptoms, adjusting for baseline parental depressive symptoms (B=-0.67; p<0.01).
Discussion
These results indicate that parents who encourage and support the expression of adolescents’ negative emotions may positively influence their adolescent’s overall emotional well-being. The current study adds further insight into the potential protective effect that positive reactions to negative emotion expression may have on adolescent depression, although further research is needed to examine the long-term relationship between parental facilitation of healthy emotion expression and adolescent depressive symptoms. Additionally, future studies examining the longitudinal association of emotion socialization and adolescent depression – such as through cross-lagged panel modeling – are critical to clarifying the nature of these associations.

Authors

• Sasha Hofman, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Kirsten M.P. McKone, University of Pittsburgh

• Cecile D Ladouceur, University of Pittsburgh

• Jennifer S. Silk, University of Pittsburgh