Emotional awareness is consistently conceptualized as the first step in the process of emotion regulation and has been associated with a range of child and adolescent disorders. However, because most of this research has been cross-sectional, it has remained unclear whether low emotional awareness is a risk factor or corollary of youth psychopathology. Furthermore, most studies of emotional-awareness have been disorder-specific, and it remains unclear whether low emotional awareness represents a transdiagnostic factor for a range of poor mental health outcomes. The current study used longitudinal data to examine the predictive role of emotional awareness in the development of depressive and anxiety symptoms over the course of one year. Participants were 204 youth, ages 7 to 16, who completed assessments every 3 months for a year. Results from hierarchical mixed effects modeling indicated that poor emotional awareness predicted both depressive and anxiety symptoms for up to one year follow-up, after controlling for child age, gender, baseline symptomatology and stress. These findings suggest that emotional awareness may constitute a transdiagnostic factor in the development and/or maintenance of symptoms of depression and anxiety, which has important implications for youth treatment and prevention programs.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Psychology
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.