EMOTIONAL REACTIVITY IN FAMILY AND SCHOOL CONTEXTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR ADOLESCENT INTERNALIZING PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Chiang, Shou Chun
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies (PHD)
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- January 24, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Heidemarie Laurent, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies
Sunny Bai, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Jose Soto, Outside Unit & Field Member
Ashley Linden-Carmichael, Major Field Member
Zachary Fisher, Major Field Member - Keywords:
- emotional reactivity
psychopathology
adolescent
family conflict
school problems
emotion security
emotional security - Abstract:
- Adolescence is a developmental period of frequent and intense emotional experiences that poses increased risk for mental health problems. A growing body of literature has indicated that emotional reactivity is a robust risk factor associated with adolescent internalizing psychopathology and psychiatric disorders. However, less is known about how emotional reactivity is shaped by contextual factors in family and school. Assessing how these contextual factors are related to adolescents’ emotional reactivity would increase our understanding of why individuals are at risk for psychological problems during adolescence, and help to identify targets of preventive interventions. This dissertation aims to extend the literature by examining emotional reactivity in adolescents’ daily lives, and the implications of emotional reactivity for the development of internalizing psychopathology. Specifically, the dissertation consists of three studies that investigate (1) the within-person sensitization of daily emotional reactivity to family conflicts, (2) the associations between emotional reactivity to family conflict and school problems, and adolescent psychopathology 6 months later, and (3) the mediating role of emotional reactivity to peer conflicts in the relationship between parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent psychopathology. This dissertation utilizes two daily diary samples of adolescents collected in Taiwan. Study 1 tested the sensitization hypothesis which posits that individuals with a history of high family conflicts tend to exhibit greater emotional reactivity to later occurrence of conflicts. Specifically, I examined whether same day emotion reactivity to family conflicts (i.e., interparental and parent-adolescent conflicts) is greater among adolescents who experience more conflicts, given that these youths may be more hypersensitive and emotionally aroused to conflicts. Data for Study 1 came from 163 families, consisting of parents (Mage = 45.46, SDage = 4.91; 78% female) and adolescents (Mage = 12.79, SDage = 0.73; 55% female) who participated in a daily diary study of 10 days in Fall 2021. The results showed that baseline parent-adolescent conflict moderated the daily associations between parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent positive and negative emotions, suggesting that adolescents who had higher parent-adolescent conflict at baseline exhibited greater emotional reactivity to daily parent-adolescent conflict. Using the same dataset with a 6-month follow-up assessment, Study 2 investigated the prospective associations between emotional reactivity to interparental conflict, parent-adolescent conflict, and school problems with adolescent internalizing problems, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms. The results indicated that negative emotional reactivity to interparental conflict predicted increases in internalizing problems, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms six months later, over and beyond mean levels of adolescent negative emotions and outcomes at baseline. Building on Study 1 and Study 2, Study 3 evaluated whether emotional reactivity to peer conflict was linked to past parent-adolescent conflict as a test of family-of-origin emotional reactivity, which hypothesized that family conflict may increase emotional reactivity in non-familial contexts such as peer conflicts. This study utilized a college sample of adolescents (Mage = 18.53, SDage = 0.39; 64% female) who participated in a 14-day long daily diary study in Fall 2022, as well as a 6-month follow-up assessment in June 2023. The results showed that higher parent-adolescent conflict was associated with greater negative emotional reactivity to peer conflicts, which then prospectively predicted increased depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms six months later. Mediation analyses indicated that negative emotional reactivity to peer conflicts fully mediated the association between parent-adolescent conflict and depressive symptoms, and partially mediated the association between parent-adolescent conflict and anxiety symptoms. The current dissertation represents a novel theoretical test of emotional reactivity across multiple contexts by leveraging two daily diary samples in early and late adolescence. Findings suggest that emotional reactivity is context-specific, and that reactivity to specific conflicts pose risk to internalizing psychopathology in adolescence. Furthermore, this dissertation exemplified the importance of testing current theories in the contexts of life as lived, in different interpersonal relationships and among adolescents in different cultures. Findings strengthen our current understanding of emotion reactivity and provide novel directions for future research. Investigating the developmental processes by which emotional reactivity impacts adolescent psychopathology has critical implications for prevention and intervention programs that can target daily emotional reactivity to promote emotional well-being.