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The Relationship Between Family Functioning and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: The Role of Emotional Clarity

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Abstract

Emotion regulation has been implicated in the etiology of depression. A first step in adaptive emotion regulation involves emotional clarity, the ability to recognize and differentiate one’s emotional experience. As family members are critical in facilitating emotional understanding and communication, we examined the impact of family functioning on adolescent emotional clarity and depressive symptoms. We followed 364 adolescents (ages 14–17; 52.5% female; 51.4 % Caucasian, 48.6% African American) and their mothers over 2 years (3 time points) and assessed emotional clarity, depressive symptoms, and adolescents’ and mothers’ reports of family functioning. Emotional clarity mediated the relationship between adolescents’ reports of family functioning and depressive symptoms at all time points cross-sectionally, and according to mothers’ reports of family functioning at Time 1 only. There was no evidence of longitudinal mediation for adolescents’ or mothers’ reports of family functioning. Thus, family functioning, emotional clarity, and depressive symptoms are strongly related constructs during various time points in adolescence, which has important implications for intervention, especially within the family unit.

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Notes

  1. As the larger study is ongoing, many participants had not yet been scheduled for their T2 and T3 assessments at the time of the present analyses.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grants MH79369 and MH101168 to Lauren B. Alloy.

Author Contributions

RDF conceived of the study, designed and performed the statistical analysis, and wrote sections of the manuscript; LMR wrote sections of the manuscript; ID wrote sections of the manuscript; TMO assisted with the statistical design and analysis and edited drafts of the manuscript; LBA designed the larger study from which the current sample was drawn and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethical Approval

This study was approved by the institution’s internal review board and has therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.

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All persons gave their informed consent prior to their inclusion in the study.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Temple University, 1701 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA

    Rachel D. Freed, Liza M. Rubenstein, Issar Daryanani, Thomas M. Olino & Lauren B. Alloy

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  1. Rachel D. Freed
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  2. Liza M. Rubenstein
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Freed, R.D., Rubenstein, L.M., Daryanani, I. et al. The Relationship Between Family Functioning and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms: The Role of Emotional Clarity. J Youth Adolescence 45, 505–519 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0429-y

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