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

根据NHS在2020年收集的数据，六分之一的5至16岁的年轻人被确定为可能患有精神疾病。因此，了解精神疾病发展的方式是很重要的。青少年的行为优势和困难以及情绪调节（即一个人如何稳定、增加或减少其情绪表达）是日后心理健康和生活质量的重要先兆。该奖学金旨在研究父母和青少年的人格特征和情绪调节、父母教养方式、环境因素（如社会经济地位[SES]）以及青少年行为优势和困难之间的关系。我完成的博士研究题为《父母和孩子在一起》（PaCT），详细研究了父母和青少年的性格特征，包括大五人格和黑暗三人格特征。黑暗三合一是一种包括亚临床自恋、亚临床精神病和马基雅维利主义在内的人格集群，对父母和青少年的研究相对不足。然而，对成人黑暗三合一的一般研究表明，这些特征是生活结果的重要预测因素。我研究了性格和养育子女之间的关系，以及这些关系是如何受到社会地位等环境因素的影响的。使用先进的统计方法，我开发了一个所有重要关系的模型，帮助我们理解青少年的黑暗三合一人格和他们对父母所接受的养育的看法与行为结果特别相关，超过父母的人格和环境因素。展望未来，拟议中的奖学金有三个主要目标：(1)为年轻人和家庭提供可衡量的利益，(2)使用先进的数据分析和严格的方法贡献新颖的发现，(3)发展关键技能，这将提高我在学术界的职业潜力。我将通过为其他学者、政策制定者、专业人士和非专业观众（包括父母和青少年）举办的教育活动，最大限度地发挥这项工作的影响。我还将进行新的研究，这将与PaCT项目中的一些父母和青少年进行后续研究，重点是情绪调节。PaCT项目为跟踪父母和青少年提供了一个独特的机会，他们已经提供了与情绪调节相关的个人、关系和环境因素的丰富数据，因此可以再次评估这些数据。父母和青少年将完成一个简短的调查（大约3-4个问题），评估情绪调节，每天4次，特别是在家庭成员之间的冲突事件之后（例如，父母和青少年之间的争吵）。来自父母和青少年的结果数据将作为一系列纵向模型（即使用多个时间点收集的数据的模型）进行分析，以查看情绪在不同时间点是否相似，以及父母和子女在管理情绪的方式上是否不同。通过包括作为PaCT项目一部分已经收集的数据，我还将能够评估情绪调节是否因性格类型（尤其是黑暗三合会）、父母教养方式和社会经济地位而有所不同。拟议的研究方案将对影响青少年行为和情绪调节的因素产生新的发现，从而对心理健康产生影响，这将对我们了解父母和青少年的日常互动非常重要，并有助于未来开发可以减轻持续家庭冲突的干预措施。

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.