Dynamics of parental criticism and emerging adult emotional functioning: Associations with depression.

Abstract

Perceived parental criticism is an important measure of the family emotional environment, linked to a variety of psychological difficulties in emerging adults (EAs) and traditionally assessed at a single timepoint. Our study is the first to examine perceived parental criticism as a dynamic construct that fluctuates and interacts with emerging adult (EA) affect across daily life. EAs (N = 141; ages 18–22; Mage = 19.94, 84.5% women) completed a measure of baseline depression symptoms and daily assessments of perceived parental criticism, anger, anxiety, shame, sadness, and happiness across 30 days. Within-person results revealed that previous day perceived parental criticism predicted subsequent day EA anger (but not vice versa). This cross-lagged association only emerged for anger and not other emotions. Additionally, depression moderated this association, with higher depression symptoms increasing the strength of the association. Between-person results revealed that parental criticism was positively associated with mean/trait anger, anxiety, shame, sadness, but not happiness, as well as affect reactivity (innovation variance) for anger. Associations with affect inertia were not significant. Together, these findings suggest parental criticism is more strongly related to negative than positive emotions, is proximally associated with anger in particular, especially among EAs with increased depression, and may be related to aspects of emotion dysregulation. Family interventions aiming to target negative emotionality in EAs should focus on mitigating criticism or educating parents on the importance of considering psychological health such as depression symptomology when providing critical feedback to minimize heightened negative affect or decrease the likelihood of emotional dysfunction in EAs.

Dynamics of daily positive and negative affect and relations to anxiety and depression symptoms in a transdiagnostic clinical sample

“…High emotional inertia for NA, and to a lesser extent, PA, has been linked to several indices of psychological maladjustment, including greater symptoms of depression and anxiety (Koval et al, 2013(Koval et al, , 2016Schoevers et al, 2021). High NA inertia has been attributed to rumination (Koval et al, 2012) and linked to higher mean NA (e.g., Simons et al, 2021;Zhu et al, 2022), suggesting that more persistence of NA deviations from baseline over time may result in more net NA.…”

Family financial socialization during emerging adulthood: Insights from a cross-lagged panel model.

“…From the perspective of the emerging adult, offering factual information (e.g., how to obtain/review a credit report) may be helpful, possibly unnecessary, but not harmful. However, conflictual discussions, especially later in emerging adulthood, may be interpreted as criticism, which may undermine emerging adults financial functioning and contribute to lower levels of well-being beyond the financial domain (Zhu et al, 2022). Strategies for parents whose emerging adults may be struggling with finances may include pointing out that juggling the demands of new social roles is challenging.…”

Examining the Past Injustices Suffered by Those in Corrections and the General Public: A New Therapeutic Approach May Be Necessary

“…The negative effects of excessive anger on internal psychological challenges (Rude et al. 2012; Stringaris and Goodman 2009; Zhu, Simons, and Goldstein 2022), on relationships (Hyatt, Halvorson, and Campbell 2023; Strohschein 2005) and on the displacement of that anger onto unsuspecting victims (Schuster et al. 2022) are well documented in the published literature (Enright and Fitzgibbons 2024).…”