Regulation of negative affect during mother-child problem-solving interactions: Adolescent depressive status and family processes

Despite recent suggestions that depression can be conceptualized as a disor der of affect regulation, relatively little research has focused on affect regulation skills in depressed individuals. This paper investigated whether depressed adolescents (N = 25) differ from nondepressed adolescents (N = 2 5) on two indices of affect regulation (i.e., duration of negative affectiv e states and reciprocity of maternal negative affect) as well as whether th ese indices are related to microsocial family interactional processes. Anal yses revealed that depressed teens differed from their nondepressed peers w ith regard to duration of negative affective states but not in their likeli hood of reciprocating negative affect. Additionally, indices of adolescent affect regulation were related to family interactional processes. Duration of depressive affect was positively associated with maternal display of fac ilitative behavior contingent on adolescent depressive behavior. Duration o f aggressive behavior was inversely related to maternal problem-solving res ponses to aggressive behavior. Finally, adolescent reciprocity of maternal depressive and aggressive behaviors was strongly associated with mothers' r eciprocity of adolescents' negative affective behavior.