Introduction

Depression is a mood disorder that includes disruptions in the experience and the regulation of negative as well a positive emotions. Research has often focused on negative affect regulation in relation to depression, but recent evidence suggests that disruptions in positive affect regulation are also important for depressive symptoms. To elaborate, the responses that parents give to their children when these children share positive affect with their parents, are linked with depressive symptoms and with negative affect regulation. However, it is not known whether parental responses are related to positive affect regulation strategies. Especially maternal active-constructive responses seem important when children are sharing positive affect, because these responses show the significance of the positive life event and these responses model strategies for prolonging the positive affect.

This study examines whether maternal active-constructive responses to adolescents’ positive life events are related to the adolescents’ positive affect regulation strategies and depressive symptoms.

Parental Emotion Socialization and Youth Outcomes

It is already known that parental modeling of emotions, the emotional climate in the family and parents’ responses to their children’s emotions, influence the development of the children’s emotion regulation skills and adjustment. Specific responses to emotional displays, such as direct reinforcement (a reward) or punishment, are especially of importance, because they are immediate and pair emotion to consequence (conditioning). For example, when parents respond to their child’s expression of negative affect in a supporting way, as in validating or encouraging expression, this is linked to greater emotional competence in these children. And, when they respond in a non-supportive way, such as in when they punish emotional expression, this is related to difficulties in self-regulation and to internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Positive Affect Socialization and Youth Depressive Symptoms

In the literature about youth positive affect socialization, responses that parents give that are acknowledging, encouraging and celebrating are named ‘enhancing’, while punishing and interfering with expressions of positive affect is named ‘dampening’. Evidence shows that parental dampening responses to positive affect expressions are related to adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Also, parents of clinically depressed adolescents are more likely to give dampening responses than parents of non-depressed adolescents.

Parental Active-Constructive Responding to Adolescents’ Positive Affect

There are many different enhancing responses that parents can give that lead to prolonged feelings of positive affect. One of these responses is called capitalization. Capitalization is defined as the act of marking, expressing, celebrating and sharing positive life events with others. This helps to maintain and to elevate positive affect. In adult dyadic, romantic relationships, sharing positive experiences is also related to gains in positive affect. However, this effect depends on how active-constructive the partner responds. So, in romantic relationships, it is not about only sharing positive events with others, but about receiving specific responses that connote interest and excitement (which are called active-constructive responses). This is because these kind of responses lead to maximization of the significant positive life event, show that the other person is interested and leads to that these individuals continue to express positive affect with others. There are not many studies that studied active-constructive responses in parent-child relationships.

The current study

So, parental socialization of their children’s positive affect expressions are related to their children’s  negative affect regulation and depressive symptoms. However, this is the first study that looks at whether parental socialization of positive affect, which is measured through maternal responses to adolescents’ expressions of positive life events, is also related to adolescents’ regulation of positive affect and depressive symptoms. Second, this study also used a new manner for observing a specific form of enhancement: maternal active construct responses and also looked at whether these responses are related to the adolescents’ positive affect regulation and depressive symptoms. The hypothesis in this study is that maternal active-constructive responses are significantly related to adolescents’ positive affect regulation strategies which in turn is related to adolescents’ depressive symptoms.

Depressive symptoms often increase during adolescence and that is why it is an important developmental period to evaluate these relations. Even though adolescents become increasingly autonomous, family socialization processes still influence adolescent depression. Since it is known that the nature and outcome of parental emotion socialization responses change as children develop, adolescent age and gender were included as covariates. Also, maternal depression may influence the mothers’ active-constructive responses, because maternal depression has been associated with lower maternal acceptance and fewer expressed positive emotions. Mothers with depressive symptoms may respond in a different way to their children’s’ expressions of positive affect. So, maternal depressive symptoms were also included as a covariate.

It is also important to look at whether parental active-constructive responses are any different compared to ‘normal’ components of the family emotional context. For example, depression in children has been related to lower parental warmth, lower family positive emotional expressiveness and less expressed parental positive affect. Parental active-constructive responses are part of the family emotional context, but the authors state that it is a distinct construct which is a specific form of socialization. They elaborate by stating that warmth and general positive expressions are broad, nonspecific emotion behaviors. However, parental active constructive-responses are specific responses to expressions of positive affect. This is in line with Morris and colleagues’ theoretical model which describes parents’ responses to emotions as part of emotion-related parenting practices. They see maternal warmth and family expressiveness as reflecting the overall emotional climate of the family. Parental active-constructive responses to positive affect helps the children to see these events in a constructive manner, lead them to express these feelings more often and model specific strategies for generating and sustaining experiences of positive affect. And, in turn, these positive affect regulation strategies may be protective against depressive symptoms.

Discussion

This study was the first to test if positive affect socialization is related to adolescents’ positive affect regulatory processes and in turn, depressive symptoms. The findings of this study showed that maternal active-constructive responses to adolescents’ positive affect, which is a specific form of enhancement, was related to adolescents’ effective positive affect regulation. There was controlled for other influences on positive affect regulation, such as demographic factors, maternal depression and other indicators for emotional climate. The maternal active-constructive responses were also related to adolescents’ depressive symptoms through adolescents’ effective positive affect regulation.

Observed Maternal Active-Constructive Responses Are Uniquely Associated with Adolescent Effective Positive Affect Regulation

So, parental socialization is related to adolescents’ positive affect regulation. These findings suggest that adolescents may imitate their parents’ own strategies for expressing, amplifying and sustaining positive affect responses to emotional stimuli. For example, research has shown that mothers’ own savoring positive affect strategies are directly related to their children’s savoring strategies. It may also be the case that maternal active-constructive responses to positive affect when sharing positive life events may directly reinforce adolescents’ expressions of positive affect. Because of this reinforcement, adolescents learn that positive affect experiences are good and that disclosure (sharing) of these experiences is something good. They also learn that by expressing positive affect, they can amplify and sustain positive affect. Also, active-constructive responses teach children to maximize rather than minimize experiences that lead to positive affect. It also seems that maternal warmth, family, and maternal expressions of positive emotions heighten the adolescents’ experience of the positive affect! But, these studies did not look at whether these family processes impact adolescents’ strategies for managing positive affect. This study showed that active-constructive responses to positive affect helps adolescents to regulate their experiences of positive affect. The authors of this article speculate that general positive mother-child interactions influence what the adolescent feels, but that active-constructive responses help the adolescent to learn what to do with their feelings.

In the present study, mothers with depressive symptoms were less likely to provide active-constructive responses to adolescents’ positive affect. It is clear that the children of depressed mothers often employ ineffective emotion regulation strategies.

Observed Maternal Active-Constructive Responses are Indirectly Associated With Adolescent Depressive Symptoms

This study also examined whether observed maternal active-constructive responses were indirectly related to less adolescent depressive symptoms through increased positive affect regulation. It is clear that maternal active-constructive responses are not directly related to adolescents’ depressive symptoms. However, this study is the first to show that maternal active-constructive responses are related to adolescents’ effective positive affect regulation and therefore lower depressive symptoms. Because of these responses, adolescents see the importance of generating and sustaining positive affect. Adolescents may also monitor positive affect states and capitalize on opportunities to increase the duration of positive life experiences. This probably protects against depressive symptoms. Also, active-constructive maternal responses may be especially beneficial during adolescence, because they match the advancing cognitive and emotional abilities during this time.