Shifting qualities of negative affective experience through adolescence: Age-related change and associations with functional outcomes.

Abstract

Research shows negative affect increases in healthy adolescents, and this normative change is paralleled by increasing risk for the onset of psychopathology. However, research is limited in characterizing qualitative differences in the type of negative affect experienced beyond the positive-negative valence dimension. In the current study, we establish the relationship between different forms of negative affect and functioning outcomes (i.e., different facets of social functioning and life satisfaction), and examine whether these forms of negative affect are differentially prevalent across late childhood and adolescence. Seven-hundred and 70 participants aged 8-17 years completed self-report measures that assessed a wide range of negative affective experiences. A factor analysis on the negative affect items revealed a four-factor solution that characterized the dimensions of affective experience, with factors reflecting general anxiety, anger, evaluative anxiety, and sadness. Generalized additive model approaches revealed general anxiety increased nonlinearly with age and was associated with decreased reports of emotional support, a facet of social functioning. Anger was associated with increased perceived hostility, perceived rejection, and decreased life satisfaction, and remained stable across the age range. Evaluative anxiety was associated with greater loneliness and increased linearly with increasing age. Sadness was associated with all outcome measures and showed nonlinear changes with age, with notable increases in midadolescence. These results show that subsuming these subtypes of negative affect under a singular concept may obscure meaningful relationships between affect, age, and functioning. Exploring diverse forms of negative affect may help refine theories of emotional development and ultimately inform windows of risk for psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).