Socio-affective influences on adolescent mental health problems
Adolescence is a period of vulnerability for the development of mental health disorders, particularly emotional disorders. In order to reduce this vulnerability, the identification of malleable targets for prevention and early intervention is essential. This thesis therefore explored socio-affective influences on adolescent emotional disorders, with a particular focus on adolescent mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the empirical evidence, this thesis also describes the development of a novel gamified intervention for adolescents. Chapter 1 presents a broad overview of the adolescent cognitive, affective and social development literature, and provides an empirical justification for investigating socio-affective influences on adolescent emotional disorders. In Chapter 2, the role of social rejection sensitivity, a proposed risk factor for emotional disorders, in mental health across the lifespan during the COVID-19 pandemic was examined. Results showed that younger people were susceptible to increased mental health problems during the pandemic. Notably, sensitivity to social rejection moderated the relationship between age and mental health problems, such that younger individuals with higher social rejection sensitivity demonstrated the most mental health problems after 1 year of the pandemic. In Chapter 3, affective influences on adolescent mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic were examined. Supporting the findings of Chapter 2, younger age was associated with higher levels of negative affect and lower positive affect across the first year of the pandemic. More frequent use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies partially accounted for variance in the relationship between age and negative affect after 1 year of the pandemic. Chapter 4 examined the role of cognitive and affective control, argued to be the cognitive building blocks of effective emotion regulation, in adolescent mental health. Heightened depressive symptomatology was associated with reduced cognitive and affective working memory, while self-reported history of mental health diagnoses was associated with reduced affective shifting ability. Drawing on these empirical findings, Chapter 5 describes the development of a gamified affective control training app, designed to concurrently target affective control and social rejection sensitivity. Chapter 6 presents an integrated summary of the findings, theoretical and clinical implications, limitations, and directions for future research.
Minihan, Savannah ; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0972-975X
Adolescence, Mental health, Emotional disorders, Emotion regulation, Social rejection sensitivity, Affective control, COVID-19, anzsrc-for: 52 PSYCHOLOGY
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