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Positive affect regulation in youth: Taking stock and moving forward
Author(s) -
Gentzler Amy L.,
Root Amy E.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/sode.12362
Subject(s) - affect (linguistics) , psychology , socialization , developmental psychology , temperament , affect regulation , conceptualization , positive youth development , social psychology , personality , communication , artificial intelligence , computer science , attachment theory
Abstract This article summarizes the four articles in the Social Development quartet focused on positive affect regulation in youth. Each article in the quartet shows that parents’ socialization of youth positive affect (e.g., encouraging, enhancing, savoring, or dampening responses) is associated with youth positive affect regulation and depressive symptoms. Further, three of the studies provide novel evidence for an indirect relationship whereby parental socialization predicts youth depressive symptoms through youth positive affect regulation. The studies include samples of youth across mid‐childhood and adolescence (7–18‐year‐olds) from three countries (the United States, Belgium, and India), and utilize several methods of assessing youth positive affect regulation or parental socialization (parent‐reported surveys, youth‐reported surveys, coded parent–child discussions). This integrative article also identifies several ways in which the study of youth positive affect regulation can be advanced. We address the conceptualization of positive affect regulation and the socialization of children's positive affect, constraints on the adaptiveness of upregulating positive emotions, methodological directions, potential moderated effects based on child characteristics such as sex or temperament, and the importance of studying outcomes beyond depression.