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This work was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology – FCT under Pluriannual Funding Program for Research Units 2020-2023 (UIDB/00050/2020) and by Ph.D. grant (2022.14551.BD)

Network Analysis of Maternal Emotion Socialization and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation in Adolescents

Topic: Social, emotional, and moral development

Márcia Silva Azevedo, Liliana Meira, Tiago Bento Ferreira, and Eva Costa Martins

University of Maia - UMAIA, and Center for Psychology at University of Porto - CPUP, Portugal

• Reward
• Override
• Punishment
• Neglect
• Magnify

• Supportive
• Unsupportive
• Unsupportive

• Unsupportive
• Unsupportive

e.g., Miller et al., 2015

e.g., Howe & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2022, 2023; McKee et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2019

• Coaching/accepting
• Blended
• Punishing/minimizing
• Low-involvement
• High-involvement

(Breaux et al., 2018; Cui et al., 2020; Eisenberg 1998; Eisenberg, 2020; Spinrad et al., 2020)

Multifaceted process in which adolescents learn to understand, experience, express and regulate their emotions based on their parents’ reactions/responses. ES seems to impact adolescents’ difficulties in emotion regulation (ER), which in turn impacts their overall psychological adjustment.

Maternal Emotion Socialization (ES)

Introduction

Variable-Centered Approach

Tomkins’ Affect theory delineates five ES strategies that are often used by parents to respond to their children’s negative emotions

Person-Centered Approach

Analyze potential profiles/patterns of parents' responses to adolescents' emotions. Different studies identified several and different profiles.

Network comprised of ES strategies and ER difficulties

Different methodological approach

Background

Context of dynamic patterns between these strategies

Parental ES strategies may have emergent properties, rather than intrinsic ones!

Expected Symptom Activity (ESA; Lunansky et al., 2021) Statistical method that estimates the impact of external factors on the activation of the networks’ variables based on the existing connections between those variables.

Introduction

The adaptive/maladaptive nature does not inherently belongs to the strategy itself but emerges from a complex system of interactions and relationships between the different ES strategies.

Aims

Describe the interactive and dynamic patterns between the different parental ES strategies (in response to adolescent’s negative emotions), clarifying which combinations are associated with fewer adolescents’ ER difficulties, and ultimately the supportive or unsupportive quality of each ES strategy in the presence of other parenting strategies.

Aim 1

Variable-centered approach expanded by a network dynamic pattern

Aim 2

Person-centered approach expanded by a network dynamic pattern

Aim 3

Network Approach

• 8th grade (n = 142; 28.2%)
• 9th grade (n = 120; 23.9%)
• 10th grade (n = 130; 25.8%)
• 11th grade (n = 111; 22.1%)

13 - 17 years old (M = 14.54; SD = 1.17)

4 middle and high schools:

60.8% female

Method

Participants

503 adolescents

Measures

• Sociodemographic questionnaire

Emotion Socialization Scale (ESS; Magai & O’Neal, 1997; Portuguese version Martins et al., 2018)Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004; Portuguese version Coutinho et al., 2010

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Method

Procedures

Project was approved by the Council of Ethics and Deontology of the University of Maia (nº 100/2022). Data collection was authorized by the administration of each school. (1) the objectives of the study and the Informed Consent (IC) were presented;(2) the signed IC’s were collected, and the questionnaires were administered.

Data Analysis

R version 4.1.3 program was used (R Core Team, 2022)Expected Symptom Activity (ESA; Lunansky et al., 2021) was carried out to analyze how increasing or decreasing the ES strategies influence the activity of the difficulties in ER.

Network density = .14Network stability = .75

The thickness of the edges and color intensity represents the strength of the edges.

Mixed Graphical Model (N = 503)

Results

Emotion Socializations Strategies and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Network

Blue Nodes: Emotion Socializations Strategies Pink Nodes: Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Green Edges (lines): positive associationsRed Edges (lines): negative associations

*Difference Network Activity: difference between Baseline Network Activity and Expected Network ActivityBSA = 95.53

Results

Aim 1

We conditioned one ES strategy with their maximum score at a time and the other four strategies with their minimum score

*Difference Network Activity: difference between Baseline Network Activity and Expected Network ActivityBSA = 95.53

Results

Aim 2

Simulation 6: we conditioned reward and override with their maximum score and the other strategies with their minimum score.Simulation 7: we conditioned punishment, neglect, and magnify with their maximum score and the other strategies with their minimum score.Simulation 8 & 9: we conditioned the five strategies with their minimum or maximum score.

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Howe et al., 2022; 2023

Overall, these results substantiate reward and override as supportive strategies, while punishment, neglect and magnify as unsupportive strategies. Also, reinforces that being low-involved parents may be related with better youth outcomes than more high-involved parents.

Aim 1

Discussions

Adolescents may perceive:Low involved parents as being coherent, that is, as being not very reactive to their emotional communication overall, adolescents may develop their own ER competencies in order to deal with their emotion activation. Highly involved parents may seem incoherent when their emotional reactions are unpredictable, alternating between highly positive and highly negative. This inconsistency may leed adolescents to feel insecure and unsure about how to respond, making it difficult to understand and regulate their emotions effectively.

Aim 2

*Difference Network Activity: difference between Baseline Network Activity and Expected Network ActivityBSA = 95.53

Results

Aim 3

(1) Focus on reward: we conditioned RWD with their maximum score and OVR with their minimum score, and alternately conditioned the other three ES strategies.

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1. Adolescents perceive neglect responses as more detrimental to their ER, than disapproval or parents responding with the same emotion.
2. The impact of neglect, especially when contrasted with reward, can be explained by their opposite effects on adolescents’ emotional development.

Therefore, despite the significant positive impact of reward, its effectiveness appears to be limited when multiple high maladaptive strategies are interconnected in the network, as well as in the present of high neglect.

8. Development

Aim 3

The presence of reward buffers the negative effect of parents using punishment or magnify (when only one of these are present). When neglect is perceived to be frequently used by parents, reward does no longer hold its buffering effect.

*Difference Network Activity: difference between Baseline Network Activity and Expected Network ActivityBSA = 95.53

Results

Aim 3

(2) Focus on override: we conditioned RWR with their minimum score and OVR with their maximum score, and alternately conditioned the other three ES strategies.

*Difference Network Activity: difference between Baseline Network Activity and Expected Network ActivityBSA = 95.53

Results

Aim 3

(3) Focus on reward and override: we conditioned RWD and OVR with their maximum score and alternately conditioned the other three ES strategies.

*Difference Network Activity: difference between Baseline Network Activity and Expected Network ActivityBSA = 95.53

Results

Aim 3

(4) Focus on punishment, neglect and magnify: we conditioned RWD and OVR with their minimum score and the other three ES strategies with their maximum score, conditioning one of a time with their minimum score.

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8. Development

Aim 3

For override to lose its proactive effect it only takes that parents also extensively use one unsupportive ES strategy. Compared to the protective effect of reward, override shows to be less effective.

• Presence of high neglect by itself eliminated the protective role of reward, and this is not the case when high override is also present.

Adolescents may view parental distraction positively as it provides immediate relief, reduces conflict, and promotes enjoyable activities. However, balancing distraction with emotional processing seems crucial.

• Combining reward with override enhances their positive effects, improving ER.

However, more use of unsupportive strategies by parents is associated with more severe adolescence ER difficulties, regardless of the presence of adaptative strategy.

(Azevedo et al., 2022; Hu et al., 2023; Lamoreau et al., 2023; Lougheed et al., 2022; O’Neal & Magai, 2005; Sprinrad et al., 2020)

Future Research

Limitations & Future Research

(1) Focus on self-report measures as adolescents may perceive their parents’ reactions to their emotions differently from parents themselves. (2) Focus on negative emotions without differentiating/separating emotions (e.g., sadness, anger, and fear).

(Arikan & Kumru, 2023; Borsboom, 2017; Breaux et al., 2022; Eisenberg, 2020; Lamoreau et al., 2023; Miller el al., 2015; Spinrad et al., 2020)

Conclusions

A new approach based on psychological networks

• Complex systems where psychopathology emerges from the interactions of network components.

• We extended this approach by applying ESA, which allowed us to describe the interactive and dynamic patterns between the different parental ES strategies in response to adolescent’s negative emotions, using adolescents' ER difficulties as outcome measure.
• This helped us clarify the supportive or unsupportive quality of each ES strategy.

Mains findings

• Rewarding adolescents’ negative emotions is an important target for interventions.
• Even in the presence of highly reward, neglect appears to have the highest negative impact on adolescent, suggesting that future interventions should also focus on reducing parental neglect behaviors.
• When higher override behaviors are added, it appears to help reward buffer the impact of neglect.
• Greater use of unsupportive strategies is associated with severe ER difficulties in adolescents, regardless of the presence of adaptative strategy.
• The adaptative impact of the supportive strategies also has limits.

Our study, emphasize that no specific parental strategy is always supportive or unsupportive, since parents adapt their strategies based on contextual demands to aid their children ER abilities. In reality, parenting involves the use of multiple strategy, and engaging in behaviors considered unsupportive does not necessarily have a negative impact on adolescents’ ER.

References

References

marciaazevedo@umaia.pt

Thank you!

Consistent findings:

• Higher parental comfort, empathy and problem solving (reward) showed a adaptive role;
• Higher parental disapproval (punishment), unavailability (neglect), and response with the same emotions with equal or stronger intensity (magnify) showed a maladaptive role;

Regarding higher parental dismissing or distracting behaviors (override), for which mixed results were found in the literature, we found support that this may be an adaptive ES strategy,

A new approach based on psychological networks:

• Conceptualized as complex systems where psychological phenomena emerge from the result of the relations between the network’s components.
• Networks are dynamic models of the phenomena and display nontrivial connectivity and activation patterns.

(1) Parents’ perspectives should also be considered, going further by comparing them with adolescents’ perspective. (2) Parental ES reaction to the different adolescents’ negative emotions demands further analyses. (3) Map the interactions between ES strategies and between these strategies and adolescents’ outcomes (i.e., specific ER strategies/difficulties and psychopathological symptoms) in more detail and with additional methodologies.

Reward: providing comfort, empathy and problem solving; Override: silence/downplay the expression of the emotion through dismissing or distracting behavior; Punishment: express disapproval for the expressed emotions; Neglect: appear unavailable or ignore the adolescent’s emotion expression; Magnify: respond with equal or stronger intensity the same expressed emotion.

• Cronbach's α ranged from .751 to .914
• McDonald's ω ranged from .743 to .937

Consistent findings:

• Supportive profiles (high reward and override) had adolescents with more ER difficulties;
• Unsupportive profile (high punishment, neglect and magnify) had adolescents with less ER difficulties.

Inconsistent findings:

• Low involvement profile (minimal use of all strategies) had adolescents with less ER difficulties;
• Higt involvement profile (high use of all strategies).

• Override is associated with increased difficulties in adolescents’ ER when parents rarely use reward and highly use one or more unsupportive strategy.
• When combined with high reward, the presence of any unsupportive strategies is not associated with increased ER difficulties in adolescents;
• However, when two or more unsupportive strategies are present at a high level the result was always associated with increased difficulties in ER, whether reward and override are present at a low or high level.

• Higher reward is co-occurring with parents’ highly punishment or magnify there is no association with increased adolescents’ difficulties in ER;
• When parents highly neglect, the supportive role of higher reward does not prevail, and there are increased adolescents’ ER difficulties;
• Presence of two or more unsupportive strategies eliminates that positive effect of reward, since there are association with increased adolescents’ ER difficulties.

Strategies: Limited access to emotion regulation strategies; Nonacceptance: Nonacceptance of emotional responses; Awareness: Lack of emotional awareness; Impulse: Impulse control difficulties; Goals: Difficulties engaging in goal directed behavior;Clarity: Lack of emotional clarity.

• Cronbach's α ranged from .773 to .930
• McDonald's ω ranged from .782 to .931

(1) Network model of the associations between ES strategies and ER difficulties;(2) Two centrality indices to assess the nodes’ importance and capacity to influence other nodes and the overall network (Strength and Expected Influence); (3) The mean of ER difficulties was determined to estimate the Baseline Symptom Activity (BSA).(4) Using ESA, we conditioned the five ES strategies with their minimum score (i.e., 3), as well as with their maximum score (i.e., 15), creating thirty-two possible simulations.