Abstract
Dramatic changes occur during adolescence, elevating vulnerability to mental health problems. This study investigated the differential effect of autonomy-supportive parenting on adolescent mental health outcomes and the moderating role of adolescent emotional reactivity. We hypothesized that autonomy-supportive parenting would be beneficial for adolescents’ mental health and that emotional reactivity would moderate this effect, such that low adolescent emotional reactivity plus high autonomy-supportive parenting would produce higher positive affect and flourishing and lower negative affect, depression, and anxiety. This study included 188 adolescents from two-caregiver families who completed surveys on autonomy-supportive parenting and emotional reactivity at baseline survey: positive affect, flourishing, negative affect, anxiety, and depression at baseline and 12-month follow-up assessments. Results indicated that higher levels of autonomy-supportive parenting were associated with increased flourishing and decreased negative affect and anxiety 12 months later. Interaction analysis revealed that for adolescents with low emotional reactivity, higher levels of autonomy-supportive parenting were associated with increases in positive affect and flourishing and decreases in negative affect and depression. For adolescents with high emotional reactivity, higher levels of autonomy-supportive parenting were associated with decreases in positive affect and flourishing. These findings underscore the importance of considering the role of adolescent emotional reactivity in understanding the effects of autonomy-supportive parenting on adolescent well-being, especially when personalizing parenting-focused interventions.
Highlights
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Adolescents’ emotional reactivity moderated the association between autonomy-supportive parenting and adolescent mental health outcomes.
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Autonomy-supportive parenting is beneficial for adolescents who are less emotionally reactive: it was positively associated with positive affect and flourishing and negatively associated with negative affect and depression.
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For adolescents who are high in emotional reactivity, autonomy-supportive parenting was a risk factor: it was associated with greater decreases in positive affect and flourishing.
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Data Availability
Data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.
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Code is available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the participating families and contributing schools that make this work possible. We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Mengya **a, Hio Wa Mak, Keiana Mayfield, Emily LoBraico, Amanda Ramos, and Devin Malloy for their assistance in collecting and preparing the data.
Funding
This study was funded by the Karl R. and Diane Wendle Fink Early Career Professorship for the Study of Families (Fosco). L.C. was supported by the Prevention and Methodology Training Program (T32 DA017629; MPIs: J. Maggs & S. Lanza) with funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or the National Institutes of Health.
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L.C.: developed research questions, conducted literature review, performed data analyses, and wrote and edited the manuscript. G.M.F.: obtained study funding, designed overarching study, supervised data collection, supervised manuscript design, analysis, and writing, edited drafts of the manuscript. S.L.T.: assisted with manuscript editing.
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All procedures performed in this study involving human subjects were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of The Pennsylvania State University (Protocol number: 0472, Title: Family Relationships and Adolescent Well-Being).
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Chen, L., Fosco, G.M. & Tornello, S.L. Who benefits from autonomy-supportive parenting? Considering individual difference in adolescent emotional reactivity. J Child Fam Stud 33, 1184–1197 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02807-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02807-0