Adolescents’ Positive Emotion Regulation is Longitudinally Associated with Happiness, Depressive Symptoms, Anxiety, and Substance Use

• In Event: Novel Associations between Positive Affect Regulation and Mental Health in Adolescence

Abstract

Research on positive affect (PA) regulation usually focuses on well-being or mood disorders, where PA is especially relevant. For example, savoring (responses that enhance PA; Bryant, 2003) predicts sustained well-being (Gentzler et al., 2013) whereas dampening (responses that lessen PA; Wood et al., 2003) predicts more depressive symptoms in teens (Bittjebier et al., 2012). However, learning if PA (and hence, tendencies to increase/decrease it) affect risk for other disorders, such as anxiety (where anxiety has been linked to elevated or low PA; Young et al., 2019) and substance use (where increasing PA is sometimes a goal of substance use; Weiss et al., 2022), can offer important preventative information.

This study furthered the literature by examining novel outcomes in a longitudinal study. We hypothesized: 1) Wave 1 (W1) savoring and dampening would predict happiness and depressive symptoms one year later (Wave 2; W2); 2) though speculative, PA regulation would similarly predict anxiety and substance use (savoring predicting less and dampening more); 3) effects may depend on W1 levels, expecting savoring to help higher-risk teens (e.g., those with more initial depressive symptoms; consistent with Moran et al., 2019) or dampening to be more impactful for low-risk teens. We covaried common negative affect (NA) regulation strategies (reappraisal and suppression) to test for additive effects of PA regulation.

Adolescents (N=240) completed 2 sets of surveys a year apart (Mdays = 395.75; SD=43.42). Teens (aged 14-16 at W1; 51.5% girls) were recruited from high schools/online in the southeastern US. Scales assessed savoring and dampening (Gentzler & Ramsey, 2016), depressive symptoms (Kovacs, 2012), subjective happiness (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999), anxiety symptoms (Spitzer et al., 2006), substance use (adapted from World Health Organization, 2002), and NA regulation (Gross & John, 2003).

Models included W1 savoring and dampening to predict W2 outcomes while covarying W1 outcomes, gender, reappraisal, suppression, W2 timing (pre or during COVID-19). Models for happiness, depression, and anxiety were regression analyses; the model for number of substances used was a generalized linear model with a negative binomial distribution and loglinear link.

Results indicated that savoring was only associated with later happiness (Table 1). Dampening never directly predicted W2 outcomes but it was moderated by W1 levels wherein higher dampening was associated with more depressive and anxious symptoms one year later only for those initially reporting low symptoms (Figure 1). Testing simple slopes for substance use only showed that dampening was a marginal predictor of fewer drugs at W2 (p=.094) for teens initially reporting one or more drugs at W1.

Overall, adolescents using more savoring later reported greater happiness, whereas low-risk adolescents (initially lower depression/anxiety) who dampened more reported elevated symptoms a year later. Findings underscore the importance of PA regulation for mental health, given these results held when accounting for earlier well-being/symptoms and for common NA regulation strategies. The study has novel findings for anxiety and has clinical and preventative implications by suggesting that dampening may be particularly harmful for lower-risk adolescents whereas savoring could be helpful for a range of adolescents in fostering happiness.

Authors

• Matthew Johnston, West Virginia University
  Presenting Author

• Amy L Gentzler, West Virginia University

• Yeawon Park, West Virginia University

• Riley Harris, West Virginia University

• Amy Elizabeth Kennedy Root, West Virginia University

• Christa L Lilly