Dynamic multimodal parent emotion socialization processes as risk processes for school-aged girls’ internalizing problems

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Project Summary/Abstract Research Project: Compared to their male peers, female adolescents show markedly more internalizing problems (i.e., anxiety and depression), which increase risk for subsequent disorder and severe impairment across the lifespan. Identifying risk processes associated with girls’ internalizing problems, prior to the period of acute risk in adolescence, is necessary to understand the etiology of internalizing disorders and to develop innovative prevention programs. Parent emotion socialization (ES), and specifically parents’ emotional and physiological responses to their children’s emotions, is constrained by youth internalizing problems and portends the onset of internalizing disorders. Previous studies on parent ES have not employed a microlevel, within-dyad approach across multiple levels of analysis. Moment-to-moment ES processes within a dyadic interaction may differ between dyads, such that girls’ internalizing problems may alter the effects of changes in girls’ emotions on subsequent changes in their parents’ emotions and physiological reactivity. Among dyads with girls who exhibit elevated internalizing problems, parents may reciprocate adolescent anger, but suppress their anger in response to youth dysphoria, constituting a maladaptive coercive cycle that reinforces or exacerbates adolescent internalizing problems. In these dyads, adolescent negative emotions may also hinder parent vagal withdrawal, an index of rapid physiological regulation. 100 parents and their daughters (ages 6-11 years) will participate in a dyadic dysphoric mood discussion, wherein each dyad members’ vagal functioning will be continuously monitored. Second-by-second estimates of parent and youth anger and dysphoria will be coded from videorecorded interactions, and time-varying estimates of vagal withdrawal will be obtained. Multiple informants (parents, daughters, and teachers) will complete multiple validated measures of girls’ internalizing problems. The proposed project employs a multimodal and dynamic ES perspective to understanding school-aged girls’ internalizing problems. Knowledge gained will improve traction on dyadic emotion processes that will accelerate innovations in future research and intervention efforts. Training Plan and Environment: The proposed training and research activities build on PI Somers’ extensive background in developmental psychopathology, developmental psychobiology, and quantitative methods and are designed to launch her independent research career. The proposed research project will be buttressed by a rigorous training plan overseen by expert mentors in developmental psychopathology, psychophysiology, and advanced statistics. Via research, coursework, mentorship, and professional development activities, this plan leverages the rich resources available in the Departments of Psychology and Biostatistics at UCLA. By the end of this award, PI Somers will be well positioned to transition to a research career as a developmental psychopathologist who studies dyadic biobehavioral processes that influence child wellbeing among at-risk families.