Early adolescents' temperament, emotion regulation during mother–child interactions, and depressive symptomatology

Abstract

This study examined the relations among temperament, emotion regulation, and depressive symptoms in early adolescents. Early adolescents provided self-reports of temperament on two occasions, as well as reports on emotion regulation and depressive symptomatology. Furthermore, 163 of these adolescents participated in event-planning and problem-solving interactions with their mothers. Adolescents with temperaments that were high in negative emotionality or low in effortful control displayed more emotionally dysregulated behaviors during the interaction tasks, reported having maladaptive responses to negative affect more often and adaptive responses less often, and had more depressive symptoms. In particular, adolescents with the high negative emotionality and low effortful control temperament combination reported the highest levels of depressive symptomatology. Sequential analyses of family interactions indicated that adolescents with more depressive symptoms were more likely to reciprocate their mothers' negative affective behaviors. Adolescents' adaptive and maladaptive responses to negative affect mediated the associations between their temperament and concurrent depressive symptoms.

Associations Between Temperament, Emotion Regulation, and Depression in Youth: The Role of Positive Temperament

“…On the contrary, the total range of maladaptive ER strategies is assumed to reflect one's general dysregulation, since the use of such strategies leads to more maladjustment in the long term. Interestingly, Yap et al (2011) found that overall, self-reported adaptive and maladaptive ER strategies partially mediated the relation between NE and depressive symptoms in early adolescents. Notably, these results call for further research concerning this domain.…”

A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective on ADHD and Comorbid Conditions: The Role of Emotion Regulation

“…In particular, children and adolescents with low inhibitory control, consistent with temperamental features of children with ADHD, may demonstrate both internalizing and externalizing problems. For instance, if a child is prone to negative affect and exhibits low inhibitory control, he/she may have difficulty attenuating negative thoughts (e.g., rumination), and may exhibit negative withdrawal, possibly predisposing him/her to depression [153]. If this child has a parent who responds with anger or negative inferential feedback, the child's risk for depression is further exacerbated [154].…”

“…Emotion regulation deficits among children with depression include negative emotionality and increased intensity of sadness, decreased positive emotions, emotional lability, and poor effortful control [88,153,[176][177][178][179]. Thus, children with both ADHD and depression would likely exhibit increased emotional lability, low effortful control, increased negative emotions, and decreased positive emotions, relative to children with ADHD or depression only.…”

Family Functioning and Parental Invalidation of Depressed Adolescents with Borderline Personality Disorder Traits

“…Adolescent girls who experienced less positive interactions and satisfaction with their mothers reportedly experienced stable levels of BPD symptom severity when compared to the decreasing severity of BPD symptoms experienced by those with positive maternal interactions [41]. Furthermore, adolescent girls with mothers who reported using invalidating behaviours utilized more maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, thus putting them at risk for BPD symptom development [42]. This study thus extends evidence for the contribution of maternal invalidation to BPD symptom severity to a clinical adolescent sample by providing initial evidence of the context which may foster such communication style.…”