The Development of Adolescent Generalized Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in the Context of Adolescent Mood Variability and Parent-Adolescent Negative Interactions

Abstract

This study explored the influence of adolescent mood variability on the symptom development of generalized anxiety and depression in the context of parent-adolescent negative interactions. Participants were 456 adolescents (55.7 % male) from a community sample, who were followed from age 13 to 16 years. During 4 annual assessments, adolescents reported on their generalized anxiety and depressive symptoms, and both parents and adolescents on levels of negative interactions with each other. Within each study year, adolescents rated their daily mood states during 5 consecutive days for 3 times per year (total of 9 weeks). The absolute differences between mood states on consecutive days were summed to construct a mood variability score. Results showed that high levels of adolescent mood variability predicted increases in generalized anxiety and depressive symptoms across the studied period. No influence of negative interactions on anxiety and depression development was found, but positive predictive links from mood variability to negative interactions at age 14 and 15 appeared. The study underscores the role of adolescent mood variability in the development of symptoms of generalized anxiety and depression during adolescence, but found little evidence for an influence of parent-adolescent negative interactions on internalizing problem development.

Daily Dynamics of Adolescent Mood and Identity

“…Sixth, the three emotions that we distinguish are highly correlated with each other (i.e., .57–.81). As this is a common finding in the literature, some studies (e.g., Maciejewski et al., ) use latent general emotional dysregulation factors when relating daily emotions to other constructs. However, there are subtle differences in the effects of different emotions on, for example, different forms of psychopathology (Silk, Steinberg, & Morris, ).…”

“…Finally, there are gender differences in mean levels of mood disorder symptoms (e.g., depressive symptoms) and mood fluctuations, with girls displaying higher levels when compared to boys (e.g., Maciejewski et al., ). In addition, girls tend to have more advanced and better‐explored identities (e.g., Klimstra, Hale et al., ; Luyckx, Klimstra, Duriez, Van Petegem, & Beyers, ) when compared to boys.…”

A 5‐Year Longitudinal Study on Mood Variability Across Adolescence Using Daily Diaries

“…Therefore, studying factors that explain these individual differences or distinguish subpopulations with specific mood variability trajectories seems warranted. For instance, it might be that some adolescents do not show a decline in mood variability, a pattern that is likely linked to more psychopathology (Gruber et al., ; Larson, Raffaelli, Richards, Ham, & Jewell, ; Maciejewski et al., ; Neumann et al., ; Silk et al., , ; Stringaris & Goodman, ). Moreover, data from the present study cannot explain why adolescent mood variability changed.…”

“…Heightened mood variability can disturb well‐being, because it might create instability in one's ability to function (Gruber, Kogan, Quoidbach, & Mauss, ). Indeed, studies have shown that high levels of mood variability are associated with more internalizing and externalizing problems (Gruber et al., ; Maciejewski et al., ; Neumann, van Lier, Frijns, Meeus, & Koot, ; Silk, Steinberg, & Morris, ).…”

The cost of empathy: Parent–adolescent conflict predicts emotion dysregulation for highly empathic youth.

“…We averaged the resulting MSSD scores over the three measurement weeks within each year, resulting in one index of variability per emotion per year (Neumann, Van Lier, Frijns, Meeus, & Koot, 2011). In line with prior literature (Maciejewski et al, 2014), we calculated the mean of day-to-day mood variability across the four emotions. However, we present supplementary analyses, conducted separately for each emotion, in Appendix B.…”