Profiles of Adolescent Emotion Management Strategies by Emotion Type: Links to Internalizing Psychopathology

• In Event: 1-171 - Feeling, Flexibly: Flexibility in Child and Adolescent Emotion Regulation and Its Links with Psychosocial Functioning

Integrative Statement

Emotion regulatory flexibility (ERF) is considered an important aspect of emotional competence and emphasizes the person x situation interaction (Bonanno & Burton, 2013). One type of situation that has received less empirical attention is how individuals’ use of particular emotion regulation strategies by the type of emotional context may differentiate youth and relate to their psychological outcomes. A person-centered approach is helpful in uncovering meaningful patterns of emotion regulation responses to specific emotions. In this study, we examine the contextual aspect of ERF and investigate whether certain patterns of emotion coping and inhibition responses to three discrete emotions are related to symptoms of depression and anxiety concurrently and longitudinally.

Participants were 196 youth (53.1% girls; 80.4% White; middle-class SES) who participated twice (Time1 Mage = 12.69 years; Time2 Mage = 14.71 years; 83.2% retention). At T1, youth completed the Children’s Emotion Management Scales (Zeman et al., 2001) that assessed two ways of managing emotions: constructive control over anger and sadness (Regulation Coping, RC), and the suppression (Inhibition) of anger, sadness, and worry expression. Youth also completed measures of depression, general anxiety, and social anxiety at T1 and T2.

Latent profile analyses were computed via Mplus to determine if distinct profiles of the emotion management variables existed. The model with 3 classes had the best fit (Adjusted BIC = 1157.453, entropy = 0.754, LMR Adjusted LRT test p = .0318). See Figure 1. Profile 1 youth (n = 61) were moderate in their RC and lower in their inhibition across all emotions. Profile 2 youth (n = 13) were low on anger RC and inhibition but moderate in their RC and inhibition of sadness and worry. Profile 3 youth (n = 122) were high on RC and inhibition of all emotions. The profiles differed significantly from each other on all variables except sadness inhibition in which Profiles 2 and 3 did not differ.

To determine whether patterns of RC and inhibition led to internalizing psychopathology, ANOVAs were conducted using profile membership as the independent variable. At T1, members of Profile 2 had significantly higher depression scores while controlling for anxiety than the other two profiles but there were no significant group differences at T2. While controlling for T1 depression, Profile 1 had significantly higher T1 anxiety scores than did profiles 2 and 3. However, at T2, Profile 3 had higher anxiety scores while controlling for T1 anxiety and T2 depression than the other two groups. At T2, general social avoidance and distress was higher for Profile 3 than the other groups.

In sum, Profile 3 appears to have the least ERF because these adolescents appear to control all three emotions using two strategies of control. This “one size fits all” approach leads to more anxiety in the long-term. Profile 2 with lower anger control evinced concurrent higher depression scores but did not persist. These findings highlight the importance of considering emotional context when defining whether an emotion regulation strategy is beneficial or maladaptive.

Authors

• Janice Zeman, William & Mary
  Presenting Author

• Natalee Naomi Price, Miami University
  Non-Presenting Author