Finding the Balance: A longitudinal exploration of the parent-adolescent relationship and variations in emotion regulation due to family conflict

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According to data collected by the NHS in 2020, one in six young people aged 5 to 16 years have been identified as having a probable mental ill health concern. It is therefore important to understand the ways in which mental ill health develops. Adolescent behavioural strengths and difficulties as well as emotion regulation (i.e., how a person stabilises, increases, or decreases their expression of emotion) are important precursors to later mental health and quality of life. The proposed fellowship is designed to examine the relationships among parent and adolescent personality traits and emotion regulation, parenting style, environmental factors (e.g. socioeconomic status [SES]), and adolescent behavioural strengths and difficulties. My completed PhD research, titled Parents and Children Together (PaCT), examined personality in detail in both parents and adolescents, including both Big Five and Dark Triad traits. The Dark Triad is a personality cluster including subclinical narcissism, subclinical psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, and it has been relatively understudied in parents and adolescents. However, general studies on the Dark Triad in adults indicate that these traits are important predictors of life outcomes. I examined the relationships between personality and parenting, and how these were influenced by environmental factors such as SES. Using advanced statistical methods, I developed a model of all the important relationships which has helped us to understand that adolescent Dark Triad personality and their perception of parenting received are especially relevant for behavioural outcomes, over and above parental personality and environmental factors. Moving forward, the proposed fellowship has three main aims to (1) provide measurable benefits to young people and families, (2) contribute novel findings using advanced data analysis and rigorous methods, and (3) develop key skills which will enhance my potential for a career in academia. I will maximise the impact of this work through educational events for other academics, policymakers, professionals, and lay audiences including parents and adolescents. I will also conduct new research, which will follow-up with some of the parents and adolescents from the PaCT project, focusing on emotion regulation. The PaCT project offers a unique opportunity to follow-up with parents and adolescents who have already provided rich data on individual, relationship, and environmental factors relevant to emotion regulation, and so data which can be assessed again. Parents and adolescents will complete a short survey (approximately 3-4 questions) assessing emotion regulation 4 times a day, and specifically after a conflict event between family members (e.g., argument between parent and adolescent). The resulting data from both parents and adolescents will be analysed as a series of longitudinal models (i.e., models that use data collected over multiple timepoints) to see if emotions are similar or not across time, and whether parents and offspring differ in the way they manage their emotions. By including data that has already been collected as part of the PaCT project, I will also be able to assess if emotion regulation varies based on personality types (focusing especially on the Dark Triad), parenting styles, and SES. The proposed research programme will result in new findings concerning what influences adolescent behaviour and emotion regulation, and thereby mental health, which will be important to our understanding of day to day parent and adolescent interactions and aid in the future development of interventions which can mitigate ongoing family conflicts.