Poster #72 - Emotional Experiences of African American Adolescents from Low-income Families across Social Contexts

• In Event: Poster Session 15

Abstract

The social context, specifically, location and companions, may contribute to changes in adolescents’ emotional experiences. Previous research suggests that adolescents’ mood is generally more positive in the presence of parents than when they are alone (Wikle & Hoagland, 2020). However, other work shows that non-Hispanic white adolescents report higher levels of positive emotions in the presence of peers than in the presence of parents (Kim et al., 2018). To our knowledge, there is only one study examining the impacts of different locations on emotions; Dutch adolescents reported higher levels of anxiety when they were at school than at home (Nicolson et al., 2007). That said, there is limited understanding of adolescents’ emotional experiences across social contexts. The bioecological model of human development emphasizes interactions between person characteristics and contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 2005). The meaning and influence of social contexts may vary depending on one’s experiences of poverty and racial discrimination. Thus, in this study, we examined the levels of positive and negative emotions of African American adolescents from low-income families across different locations and companions.
Data was drawn from a pilot study of 14 African American adolescents with low socioeconomic backgrounds (11-18 years old, M = 13.4, SD = 2.2, 6 girls). We used ecological momentary assessment to measure participants’ emotional experiences across different contexts. The data was collected over 21 consecutive days, with five measures per day. Participants rated their current positive and negative emotions on an 11-point scale (0 = not at all, 10 = very much) (Bàmaca et al., 2022). They were also asked to report where they were and who they were with when they responded to the questionnaire. Adolescents provided data on a median of 64 moments of all 105 possible responses (range = 9 ~ 83). The final dataset consisted of 788 surveys, 53.6% of the original 1470 surveys.
We conducted a series of one-way ANOVAs and independent-sample t-tests to compare the levels of positive and negative emotion across social contexts. Adolescents reported significantly higher levels of negative emotions when they were alone (M = 0.78, SD = 1.02) than when they were with family members (M = 0.46, SD = 1.04), F(2, 714) = 5.97, p = 0.003. Regarding locations, adolescents reported significantly higher levels of positive emotions when they were in their neighborhood (M = 8.23, SD = 2.53) than when they were outside of their neighborhood (M = 7.42, SD = 2.83), t(714) = 3.55, p < 0.001. Also, adolescents reported significantly higher levels of positive emotion when they were at home (M = 8.23, SD = 2.57) than when they were at recreational facilities (M = 6.79, SD = 3.39), F(6, 772) = 2.68, p = 0.01, which were more likely to be outside of their neighborhood.
Overall, these preliminary findings indicate the salience of a location and companions in adolescents’ emotional experiences. Discussion will focus on the importance of family and (non)neighborhood locations as social contexts for emotional experiences among African American adolescents from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Authors

• Jihee Im, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Dawn Paula Witherspoon, Pennsylvania State University, University Park