Adolescent Positive Affect Research Articles

Parental Educational Practices and Life Satisfaction: The Role of Positive Affect and Agreeableness in Adolescents.

Researchers have investigated the external elements that can condition a person's satisfaction with life, although it has been proven that they do not explain a large part of the phenomenon. For this reason, other variables such as perceived competence, personality styles and personal autonomy are being investigated more successfully. The main objective of this paper is to study the influence of parental educational practices on adolescent life satisfaction considering the role played by adolescent's positive affect and the agreeableness personality trait by implementing a statistical Mediation Model that explains such relationship. The population sample is a total of 742 Spanish adolescents, of which 45.1% were boys and 51.5% were girls. The age ranged between 13 and 19 years (15.63, SD = 1.24). The results revealed that the relationship between parental educational practices and life satisfaction in adolescence was mediated by positive affect and the personality trait of agreeableness. Both variables did act as serial mediators in this relationship. On the other hand, the serial multiple mediation structural model explained 31.72% of the variability in life satisfaction for the dimension of affection and communication and promotion of autonomy, 29.70% for the psychological control dimension, 26.58% for self-disclosure and 28.21% for the humor dimension of parental educational practices. These findings have important implications to understand the relationship between parental educational practices and the adolescent life satisfaction, indicating that different parental educational practices will have a positive or negative effect on adolescent positive affect, which will lead to increased or decreased agreeableness influencing the adolescent life satisfaction.

Parent- and Child-Driven Daily Family Stress Processes between Daily Stress, Parental Warmth, and Adolescent Adjustment.

Emerging evidence suggests that family members’ stress and family interactions vary across days. This study examined the daily associations among parental and adolescent daily stress, parental warmth, and adolescent adjustment with a 30-day daily diary study among 99 ethnically diverse Canadian parent–adolescent dyads (54% White, 23% Asian, 9% multiracial, Mage = 14.5, 55% female). Multilevel structural equation modeling revealed a negative within-day link between parental daily stress and parental warmth, and positive within-day links between adolescent daily stress and their emotional problems and negative affect. Parental warmth was positively associated with the next day’s adolescent positive affect and prosocial behaviors, and explained the cross-day link between parental daily stress and adolescent adaptive outcomes. The findings indicate parent-driven effects in daily family stress processes.

Affective Benefits of Parental Engagement with Adolescent Positive Daily Life Experiences

Positive affect and positive parent-adolescent relationships have been found to reinforce one another across youth development in a pattern of an "upward spiral," yet little is known regarding processes facilitating such "upward spirals" of social and emotional wellbeing among parent-adolescent dyads. This study addressed this gap by examining interpersonal capitalization, or the process of sharing positive news with others, as one candidate interpersonal process contributing to increases in both parent and adolescent experiences of positive affect in naturalistic settings. Participants included 146 adolescents (52.1% girls; ages 10-14; M[SD] = 12.71[0.86]) and a participating caregiver (N = 139; 78.7% mothers; ages 33-58; M[SD] = 44.11[5.08]) who completed a dyadic experience sampling method procedure assessing both parent and adolescent momentary affect and patterns of engagement in interpersonal capitalization in daily life settings (31 surveys across 9 days). Multilevel models indicated that adolescent positive affect increased following instances of interpersonal capitalization, and increases in positive affect were specific to high-arousal positive emotions (e.g., excited, energetic) relative to low-arousal positive emotions (e.g., calm, relaxed). Parental high-arousal positive affect also increased following instances in which they provided validating, enthusiastic responses to their children's capitalization attempts. The results of the present study indicate that interpersonal capitalization may be one mechanism facilitating "upward spirals" of positive affect for both parents and adolescents, with implications for health and wellbeing across development.

Efficacy of a Primary Care-Based Intervention to Promote Parent-Teen Communication and Well-Being: A Randomized Controlled Trial

To evaluate the impact of a primary care-based, parent-directed intervention on changes in parent-teen communication, parental beliefs about adolescents, parent and adolescent well-being, adolescent distress, and adolescent positive affect from baseline to 2-month follow-up. In this randomized controlled trial, 120 adolescents (13-15years of age) scheduled for well visits and their parents were randomized to the strength intervention or control group. The intervention included a booklet highlighting 3 key messages about adolescence, instructions to have a discussion with their teen about each other's strengths, and clinician endorsement. Outcomes were assessed before the well visit and 2months later. Adolescents were 61% female and 65% black. Parents were primarily female (97%); 72% had a 4-year degree or higher. The intervention had a positive impact on adolescent-reported open communication among adolescents with baseline low open communication scores (B=3.55; P=.005; 95% CI, 1.07-6.03). Adolescents in the intervention group reported a decrease in distress (-1.54 vs 3.78; P=.05; partial eta squared [η2]=0.038) and increase in positive affect (1.30 vs -3.64; P=.05; η2=0.04) compared with control group adolescents. The intervention did not affect parent-reported communication, parental beliefs, or adolescent well-being. Control parents demonstrated a marginal increase in well-being, whereas intervention parents did not (0.82 vs -0.18; P=.07; η2=0.029). This study highlights the potential impact of primary care-based, universal, low-intensity interventions targeting parents of adolescents on parent-teen communication and important adolescent health outcomes. Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT03496155.

Comparing adolescent positive affect and self-esteem as precursors to adult self-esteem and life satisfaction

Parents often hope for their children to be happy and to have high self-esteem, but little research has compared how these two constructs are related to long-term self-esteem and life satisfaction. Although self-esteem and positive affect are related, positive affect can be experienced independent of self-worth so it may not have the same limitations associated with self-esteem. We expected that over longer periods the benefits of self-esteem may be due to the positive affect that is a constitutive part of self-esteem. Using longitudinal data (n = 112) across 13 years, we compared age 16 self-esteem and positive affect as predictors of age 29 self-esteem and life satisfaction. Results indicated that only adolescent positive affect predicted adult self-esteem and life satisfaction; adolescent self-esteem did not predict either adult outcome. These findings suggest that positive affect may build key resources that adolescents carry into adulthood. Findings also indicate additional need for longitudinal comparisons of positive affect and self-esteem.

Parental socialization of positive affect, adolescent positive affect regulation, and adolescent girls’ depression in India

AbstractAn emerging body of research shows that parental socialization of positive affect (PA) is implicated in youth functioning, although most evidence comes from Western countries. In this study, focusing on adolescent girls in India, we examined associations among reports of parents’ responses to adolescent PA, adolescent PA regulation, and adolescent depression. A total of 238 adolescent girls (13–18 years) and one of their parents (54% mothers) were recruited. Participants completed questionnaires at the beginning of the school year (time 1) and five months later (time 2). At the bivariate level, parents’ dampening and adolescent girls’ dampening responses were each associated concurrently with adolescent depression at time 1. However, there were no significant direct associations between time 1 parents’ dampening or enhancing responses and time 2 adolescent girls’ depression (after controlling for time 1 depression). Using half‐longitudinal models, a significant indirect effect was found from parental dampening of PA to increased adolescent depression via adolescent girls’ own increased dampening. No indirect effect was found from parental enhancing to adolescent depression via adolescent girls’ increased positive rumination. These findings are the first to demonstrate the relevance of PA socialization for girls in a non‐Western culture.

Early Adolescent Affect Predicts Later Life Outcomes.

Subjective well-being as a predictor for later behavior and health hashighlighted its relationship to health, work performance, and social relationships. However, the majority of such studies neglect the developmental nature ofwell-being in contributing to important changes across the transition to adulthood. To examine the potential role of subjective well-being as a long-term predictor of critical life outcomes, we examined indicators of positive and negative affect at age 14 as predictors of relationship, adjustment, self-worth, and career outcomes a decade later at ages 23 to 25, controlling for family income and gender. We utilised multi-informant methods including reports from the target participant, close friends, and romantic partners in a demographically diverse community sample of 184 participants. Early adolescent positive affect predicted fewer relationship problems (less self-reported and partner-reported conflict, and greater friendship attachment as rated by close peers) and healthy adjustment to adulthood (lower levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness). It also predicted positive work functioning (higher levels of career satisfaction and job competence) and increased self-worth. Negative affect did not significantly predict any of these important life outcomes. In addition to predicting desirable mean levels of later outcomes, early positive affect predicted beneficial changes across time in many outcomes. The findings extend early research on the beneficial outcomes of subjective well-being by having an earlier assessment of well-being, including informant reports in measuring a large variety of outcome variables, and by extending the findings to a lower socioeconomic group of a diverse and younger sample. The results highlight the importance of considering positive affect as an important component of subjective well-being distinct from negative affect.

The Relationship Between Adolescents’ Perceived Parental Involvement, Self-Efficacy Beliefs, and Subjective Well-Being: A Multiple Mediator Model

The aim of this study was to examine the mediation roles of academic self-efficacy, social self-efficacy, and emotional self-efficacy on the relationships between parental involvement (i.e., paternal involvement and maternal involvement) and subjective well-being (i.e., positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction) in Malaysian adolescents. Participants were 802 Malaysian high school students from 14 public schools, with an age range of 15–17 years. Results of a multiple mediator model indicated that academic self-efficacy and social self-efficacy were unique mediators in the relationships between parental involvement (both paternal involvement and maternal involvement) and adolescent positive affect. Besides, academic self-efficacy was found to be the only unique mediator in the relationships between parental involvement and adolescent life satisfaction. Emotional self-efficacy did not uniquely mediate the relationships between parental involvement and adolescent positive affect and life satisfaction. None of the proposed mediators uniquely mediated the relationships between parental involvement and adolescent negative affect. This study suggests that paternal involvement is just as crucial to adolescent positive development as maternal involvement. In addition, this study also extends our insight into the specific roles of academic, social, and emotional self-efficacy in the relationship between parental involvement and the components of subjective well-being among adolescents.

Parental Emotion Socialization in Clinically Depressed Adolescents: Enhancing and Dampening Positive Affect

This study compared parental socialization of adolescent positive affect in families of depressed and healthy adolescents. Participants were 107 adolescents (42 boys) aged 14 - 18 years and their parents. Half of the participants met criteria for major depressive disorder and the others were demographically matched adolescents without emotional or behavioral disorders. Results based on multi-source questionnaire and interview data indicated that mothers and fathers of depressed adolescents were less accepting of adolescents' positive affect and more likely to use strategies that dampen adolescents' positive affect than were parents of healthy adolescents. Additionally, fathers of depressed adolescents exhibited fewer responses likely to enhance the adolescents' positive affect than were fathers of healthy adolescents. These findings build on those of previous work in examining parental responses to adolescent emotions, focusing on positive emotions and including both mothers and fathers.

Maternal responses to adolescent positive affect are associated with adolescents’ reward neuroanatomy

The development of reward-based learning and decision-making, and the neural circuitry underlying these processes, appears to be influenced negatively by adverse child-rearing environments characterized by abuse and other forms of maltreatment. No research to-date has investigated whether normative variations in the child-rearing environment have effects on adolescent brain structure. We examined whether normative variations in maternal responses to adolescents' positive affective behavior were associated with morphometric measures of the adolescents' affective neural circuitry, namely the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Healthy adolescents (N = 113) participated in laboratory-based interaction tasks with their mothers, and underwent high-resolution (3T) structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The mother-adolescent interactions included a pleasant event-planning interaction (EPI) and a conflictual problem-solving interaction (PSI). Adolescents, whose mothers displayed more punishing responses to their positive affective behavior during both tasks, and only during the PSI, had larger left dorsal ACC and bilateral OFC volumes, respectively. In addition, boys whose mothers evidenced this pattern of behavior during the EPI had larger right amygdala volumes. These results suggest that normative variations in maternal responses to affective behavior are associated with the structural characteristics of adolescents' affective neural circuitry, which may have implications for the development of their social, cognitive and affective functioning.

Maternal Socialization of Positive Affect: The Impact of Invalidation on Adolescent Emotion Regulation and Depressive Symptomatology

This study examined the relations among maternal socialization of positive affect (PA), adolescent emotion regulation (ER), and adolescent depressive symptoms. Two hundred early adolescents, 11-13 years old, provided self-reports of ER strategies and depressive symptomatology; their mothers provided self-reports of socialization responses to adolescent PA. One hundred and sixty-three mother-adolescent dyads participated in 2 interaction tasks. Adolescents whose mothers responded in an invalidating or "dampening" manner toward their PA displayed more emotionally dysregulated behaviors and reported using maladaptive ER strategies more frequently. Adolescents whose mothers dampened their PA more frequently during mother-adolescent interactions, and girls whose mothers reported invalidating their PA, reported more depressive symptoms. Adolescent use of maladaptive ER strategies mediated the association between maternal invalidation of PA and early adolescents' concurrent depressive symptoms.

Adolescent Vulnerability following the September 11th Terrorist Attacks: A Study of Parents and their Children

Approximately 2 weeks after September 11th, adolescents from a national sample of households who were indirectly exposed to the terrorist attacks through the media completed a Web-based survey that assessed event-related acute stress symptoms. One year later, these adolescents (N = 142) and a randomly selected parent from their household completed a second survey. On average, adolescents reported mild to moderate acute stress symptoms shortly after the attacks and few trauma-related symptoms, low psychological distress and functional impairment, and moderate levels of positive affect 1 year later. After adjusting for acute stress symptoms reported after the attacks, greater parent-adolescent conflict was positively associated with adolescents' trauma symptoms, distress, and functional impairment at 1 year. Higher levels of adolescent positive affect at 1 year were associated with greater parental positive affect, greater parental support, and higher levels of parenting self-efficacy. Parents may play an important role in adolescents' responses to stressful national events.

Effects of Pubertal Status and Conversation Topic on Parent and Adolescent Affective Expression

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between adolescent pubertal status and the expression of positive and negative affect by parents and adolescents. Parents and adolescents were observed during pleasant and unpleasant conversations. Data were obtained from 85 mother-father-adolescent families who participated in this laboratory study. Four findings emerged. First, the expression of negative affect by both mothers and fathers significantly increased as adolescents physically matured Second, parent and adolescent positive affect did not significantly change as a function of pubertal status. Third, few parent-adolescent dyad differences were found for parent expression of negative affect, although increases in adolescent negative affect occurred mainly with mothers, especially for daughters. Fourth, parents and adolescents were more positive toward each other in pleasant conversations and more negative in unpleasant conversations. Results were discussed in terms of recent theorizing and research on parent-adolescent relations. The relevance of models of the structure of affect to the study of affective expression also is discussed.