Contextualizing the Development of Emotion Regulation in Early Adolescence: Results from the ABCD Study

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) is known to be an important cognitive process which underlies both adaptive and maladaptive functioning. This thesis aimed to evaluate the associations between key micro- and macro-contexts and the levels of emotion dysregulation and strategy use in a longitudinal sample of early adolescence from the fourth wave of the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study (N = 6,251, Mage = 12.9, SD = 0.64, 47.3% female, 58.1% Caucasian, 12.8% African American, 13.1% Hispanic). Proximal processes associated with family, school, and peer domains included child and parent reported family conflict, child reported school environment, and child reported prosocial and antisocial peer affiliation at the baseline assessment (Wave 1) and the three annual follow-up assessments (Waves 3-4). Key macro-contexts included parent reported family socioeconomic status and neighborhood deprivation at Wave 1. ER outcomes included both parent (overall dysregulation) and child report (strategies), assessed at Wave 4 only. Results indicate that micro-contexts are associated with emotion dysregulation and strategies at varying degrees of strength. On the contrary, macro-contexts were largely unassociated with emotion dysregulation or strategies and there was little evidence of consistent interactions between micro- and macro-contexts as predictors of such outcomes. Findings demonstrate some support for social ecological theory but suggest other factors may be relevant to the development of ER in early adolescence. Future directions addressed include need for analysis of other key micro-contexts (e.g., peer victimization experiences, parent ER). This was the first study to simultaneously investigate key micro- and macro-contexts as predictors of ER in early adolescence which furthers the understanding of how environmental contexts shape youth development during this sensitive period and provides a foundation for investigating the social-ecological predictors of ER.