McKone, Kirsten M.P.
(2024)
A change would do you good…or would it? The role of emotion dynamics in adolescent girls’ depressive symptoms.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Depressive symptoms increase considerably in adolescence, especially for adolescent girls at risk for depression due to dispositional factors. Affect dynamics, or change in emotional experience over time, may serve as a mutable mechanistic factor for developing prevention and intervention efforts. Two primary affect dynamics constructs have been investigated in association with adolescent depressive symptoms: affective variability and socioaffective flexibility. Affective variability captures adolescent affective experience across multiple contexts in daily life through momentary methods like ecological momentary assessment (EMA), is operationalized using measures like the standard deviation, and is assumed to be broadly maladaptive, reflecting difficulties with reactivity and regulation. Socioaffective flexibility, on the other hand, typically examines affect change throughout the course of lab-based interpersonal interactions, often between an adolescent and caregiver, and is broadly assumed to be adaptive, reflecting the ability to shift emotion states in response to changes in context. To date, these two constructs have not been examined in the same sample, and it is thus unknown to what extent they provide competing versus complementary understanding of the role of affect dynamics in adolescent depression. In a sample of girls ages 11-13 oversampled for risk for the development of depression, this study examined affective variability and socioaffective flexibility in association with adolescent depressive symptoms, both concurrently and longitudinally over an 18-month period. Results from latent growth curve models indicated that modal negative affect, negative affect variability, and positive affect variability were all positively associated with adolescent depressive symptoms at baseline but were not associated with change in depressive symptoms over time. Notably, higher levels of variability in positive affect were typically the result of larger drops from high modal levels of positive affect and were also associated with maternal depressive symptoms. Socioaffective flexibility was not associated with adolescent depressive symptoms. Findings suggest that the putative difficulties with reactivity and regulation captured by affective variability measures are more strongly related to adolescent depressive symptoms – at least at non-clinical levels – than the ability to flexibly move through multiple emotion states with a close caregiver (here, a biological mother).
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| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
27 August 2024 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
9 May 2023 |
| Approval Date: |
27 August 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
13 June 2024 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
110 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Psychology |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
emotion dynamics; variability; flexibility; adolescence; depression |
| Date Deposited: |
27 Aug 2024 13:44 |
| Last Modified: |
27 Aug 2024 13:44 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/46555 |
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