Middle Adolescents' Descriptions of Social-Emotional Feelings Longitudinally Predict Cognitive, Creative, and Relational Functioning Controlling for IQ

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: Social and Emotional Learning Development in Preschool, Elementary School, and Middle School

Abstract

Adolescents are learning to think abstractly. We interviewed 65 middle-adolescents from low-SES communities about their feelings about compelling true stories. We qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed how participants invoked: (1) concrete feelings, and sympathy; and (2) abstract reflections about values, and broader meaning. Periodically over five-years, we measured participants’ IQ, cognition, academic achievement, social attitudes, relationship-satisfaction, and self-reported social behavior. Abstract and concrete talk were uncorrelated. Controlling for IQ, abstract talk was associated with greater working memory, creativity, and social reasoning. Concrete talk was associated with more satisfying relationships. Adolescents’ talk was more predictive of life outcomes than were standardized measures of social-emotional skill. Adolescents’ construe feelings in both concrete and abstract ways, which may support different aspects of their development.

Authors

• Rebecca JM Gotlieb, University of California - Los Angeles

• Xiao-Fei Yang, University of Southern California

• Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, University of Southern California