Schweizer, S;
Parker, J;
Leung, JT;
Griffin, C;
Blakemore, S-J;
(2019)
Age-related differences in affective control and its association with mental health difficulties.
Development and Psychopathology
10.1017/S0954579419000099.
(In press).
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Abstract
Difficulties in regulating affect are core characteristics of a wide range of mental health conditions and are associated with deficits in cognitive control, particularly in affective contexts, affective control. The current study explored how affective control relates to mental health over the course of adolescence. We developed an Affective Control Task, which was administered to young adolescents (11–14 years; n = 29); mid-adolescents (15–18 years; n = 31), and adults (22–30 years; n = 31). The task required individuals to sort cards according to continuously changing rules: color, number, or item type. There was a neutral condition in which items were shapes, and an affective condition, in which items were emotional facial expressions. Better affective control was associated with fewer mental health difficulties (p < .001, R^{2} = .15). Affective control partially accounted for the association between age group and mental health problems, z = 2.61, p = .009, Akaike information criterion = 484, with the association being strongest in young adolescents, r (27) = −.44, p = .018. Affective control further accounted for variance in the association between self-reported (but not experimental) emotion regulation and mental health (z = −3.44, p < .001, Akaike information criterion = 440). Poor affective control, especially in young adolescents, is associated with more mental health problems and higher levels of emotion regulation difficulties. Improving affective control therefore may constitute a promising target for prevention.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Age-related differences in affective control and its association with mental health difficulties |
| Location: | United States |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1017/S0954579419000099 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579419000099 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © Cambridge University Press 2019. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Adolescence, affective control, emotion regulation, executive function, mental health |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10071677 |
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