Associations Between Psychosocial Well-Being, Stressful Life Events and Emotion-Driven Impulsiveness in European Adolescents

Abstract

Knowing the extent to which mental well-being and stressful life events during adolescence contribute to personality characteristics related to risk-taking behaviors, such as emotion-driven impulsiveness, is highly relevant for the development of health promotion measures. This study examined whether psychosocial well-being and different stressful life events are associated with emotion-driven impulsiveness. In total, 3,031 adolescents (52% girls; Mage = 13.6 years) were included from the I. Family Study, a cross-sectional examination on lifestyle-related behaviors conducted across eight European countries in 2013/14. Linear mixed-effects regression models showed that higher psychosocial well-being was associated with lower emotion-driven impulsiveness independent of socio-demographic, health-related, and parental variables. A higher number of stressful life events was associated with higher emotion-driven impulsiveness. Psychosocial well-being and stressful life events need to be further considered in the development and tailoring of health promotion strategies that aim to reduce emotion-driven impulsiveness.

The role of psychosocial well-being and emotion-driven impulsiveness in food choices of European adolescents

“…As part of (Q2) we estimated that higher psychosocial well-being decreased emotion-driven impulsiveness by an average of 4.95 points on the negative urgency scale (CI: 4.12 to 5.79) which complements previous findings on an inverse association between psychosocial well-being and emotion-driven impulsiveness [ 13 , 40 , 41 ]. Furthermore, our results suggest an indirect effect of psychosocial well-being on average sweet propensity (0.61, CI: 0.24 to 1.09) as well as fat propensity (0.55, CI: 0.13 to 0.86) via emotion-driven impulsiveness.…”

“…Lower psychosocial well-being is associated with higher levels of negative emotions [ 11 ], and may hence increase the risk of acting impulsively, which, in turn may be a pathway to unhealthy food choices. For instance, emotion-driven impulsiveness, which is the tendency to act impulsively in response to negative emotions [ 12 ], was previously reported to be associated with lower levels of psychosocial well-being [ 9 , 13 ] as well as with consuming more energy-dense snacks in adolescents [ 14 ].…”

The Risk-Taking and Self-Harm Inventory for Adolescents: Validation of the Italian Version (RTSHIA-I)

“…The first correlation highlights the important role of emotional awareness in Risk-taking and Self-harm. Both are characterized by limited emotional awareness: when the adolescents are guided by emotion-driven impulsiveness [ 9 ], they can be engaged in risk-taking behaviors; when the adolescents do not recognize their own emotional states, they can try to calm an undetectable emotional pain by causing physical harm.…”

“…Indeed, poor self-regulatory control would increase the likelihood of risk participation [ 8 ]. Additionally, impulsiveness driven by emotions, which is closely related to poor emotion regulation, is considered a risk factor for RT behaviors, along with a low level of psychosocial well-being, exposure to stressful events [ 9 ], and sensation seeking [ 10 ]. In contrast, cognitive regulation plays a role in RT as it is common to observe failures of executive function skills, such as inhibition, planning, and maintaining attention when youth engage in reckless behaviors [ 11 ].…”

Consequences of digital media on the health of children and adolescents with a focus on the consumption of unhealthy foods

“…Die Literatur liefert Hinweise darauf, dass die Exposition gegenüber digitalen Medien, einschließlich Smartphones, Internet und Medien-Multitasking, ein unabhängiger Risikofaktor für die kognitive Leistungsfähigkeit von Kindern und Jugendlichen ist [ 44 ]. Ebenso deuten Forschungsergebnisse darauf hin, dass lange Medienzeiten das Risiko für emotionale Probleme und geringes Wohlbefinden von Grundschüler:innen erhöhen [ 45 ] und dass ein geringes Wohlbefinden wiederum emotionsgetriebene Impulsivität verstärkt [ 46 ].…”