Early Adolescent Behaviors in Disagreement with Best Friend Predictive of Later Emotional Repair Abilities

Lauren Cannavo, Elenda T. Hessel, Joseph S. Tan, & Joseph P. AllenUniversity of Virginia.

We would like to thank the National Institute of Child Health & Human Developmentfor funding awarded to Joseph P. Allen, Principal Investigator, (9 R01 HD058305-A11) for funding to conduct this study as well as for the write-up of this study.

IntroductionPremises

• Emotion regulation has widespread implications for adolescents’ well being and has been found to predict changes over time in adolescents’ mental health and interpersonal relationships.

•Emotion regulation has been difficult to reliably assess in younger adolescents because the task of reflecting on one’s own emotions demands an advanced level of mental and emotional awareness.

•Parent reports of early adolescent emotion regulation abilities have yielded some knowledge in this area. However, these reports have limitations, particularly as they pertain to emotional functioning in peer relationships—a crucial context for psychosocial development.

•The behavior of young adolescents may reveal specific behavioral tendencies predictive of lower abilities to repair or regulate emotions later in adolescence. Observational data may provide a more reliable and valid way to identify adolescents at risk for difficulties with this ability.

•Observing adolescents in a peer context, during a disagreement with a close peer—a time during which they are likely going to be called upon to regulate their emotions—may provide additional ecological validity.

•This study’s goal was to identify early adolescent behaviors that may predict a greater risk for difficulties with emotion regulation—in particular the ability to repair negative and improve positive moods—in later adolescence.

Hypotheses

During a disagreement with their best friend at age 13, adolescents’ behaviors promoting autonomy and relatedness will predict greater emotional repair capabilities at age 16.

During a disagreement with their best friend at age 13, adolescents’ behaviors undermining autonomy and relatedness will predict poorer emotional repair capabilities.

Method

Conclusions

ResultsParticipants

•Multi-method longitudinal data were obtained from 184 teenagers (86 male, 98 female) along with their best friends.

•63% Caucasian, 27% African American, and 14% Mixed or Other ethnicity. •Median household income was within the $40,000 to $59,000 range. •Target teen age was 13 years at Time 1 and 16 years at Time 2•.

Procedures.

Time 1 (Age 13)•Target teen filled out questionnaires about themselves and their relationships.•Target teen and their best friend engaged in a 8 minute interaction, during which the dyads were asked to discuss a hypothetical dilemma requiring them to come to a consensus on decisions they disagreed on. The target teen’s behaviors during this disagreement task were observed. Time 2 (Age 16)•Target teen filled out a questionnaire about their emotional repair capabilities.

Measures.

Emotional RegulationTarget teens completed a self-report measure of emotional repair using the 6-item “Repair” subscale of the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (Salovey, et al, 1995). This 30-item scale asked teens to evaluate how strongly they agree with statements on a 5-point likert scale, ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”. Positively valenced items were reverse coded. Interrater reliability on this scale has been shown to be high in this sample (Cronbach’s α = .82).

Autonomy & Relatedness Coding SystemEach adolescent-partner dyad participated in an 8-minute videotaped task in which they were presented with a hypothetical dilemma. Teens and their interaction partners were asked to first separately make decisions to solve the dilemmas, and were then asked to work together with their partner to try to resolve any differences in their choices and to come up with a consensus. The Autonomy-Relatedness Coding System for Peer Interactions was used for the Teen-Peer interactions (Allen et al. 2001). The frequency and intensity of teen’s behaviors promoting autonomy and relatedness (e.g., warmth, use of reasoning, and ability to behave collaboratively) as well as their behaviors undermining autonomy and relatedness (e.g., over personalizing arguments, being pushy, and being rude) were assessed. High scores on these scales indicate increased frequency and intensity of the behaviors in question, whereas low scores indicate very few and low intensity behaviors.

• These results indicate that observable early adolescents’ behaviors in interactions with peers can be used to identify individuals who may be at risk for having greater difficulties with emotional repair capabilities later in adolescence.

• This identification may allow for earlier and more targeted interventions for those adolescents who are most at risk for poor emotional repair.

• Observable behavior as a measurement of emotion regulation may be more reliable than asking adolescents to report on their own emotion regulation abilities.

Future Directions• Continue to search for additional behavioral predictors of emotional

repair.• Investigate whether these findings translate to early romantic relationships

and whether these behaviors, observed in a romantic context, are predictive of later emotional repair capabilities.

Analyses revealed that adolescents’ behaviors promoting autonomy and relatedness, such as their warmth, use of reasoning, and ability to behave collaboratively, predicted greater emotional repair capabilities (β=.20 p<.05, see Table 1). Analyses also revealed that adolescents’ behaviors undermining autonomy and relatedness, such as making arguments overly personal, being pushy, or being rude, predicted poorer emotional repair capabilities (β=.-18 p<.05, see Table 2). Each of these predictions was obtained after accounting for adolescents’ gender and family’s income.

Table 1. Regression Analysis Predicting Increases in Emotional Repair Capabilities at age 16.

β (entry) β (final) Δ R2 Total R2

Step 1. Gender .09 .10

Income .07 .01 .01

Step 2. Adolescent Behaviors Promoting Autonomy and Relatedness with Best Friend (Age 13)

.20* .20* .04** .05

Note. * p ≤ .05, ** p < .01, *** p ≤ .001

Table 2. Regression Analysis Predicting Decreases in Emotional Repair Capabilities at age 16.

β (entry) β (final) Δ R2 Total R2

Step 1. Gender .09 .08

Income .07 .06 .01

Step 2. Adolescent Behaviors Undermining Autonomy and Relatedness with Best Friend (Age 13)

-.18* -.18* .04** .05

Note. * p ≤ .05, ** p < .01, *** p ≤ .001