The role of emotion regulation in subclinical symptoms of mental disorders in adolescence is not yet well understood. This meta-analytic review examines the relationship between the habitual use of prominent adaptive emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal, problem solving, and acceptance) and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (avoidance, suppression, and rumination) with depressive and anxiety symptoms in adolescence. Analyzing 68 effect sizes from 35 studies, we calculated overall outcomes across depressive and anxiety symptoms as well as psychopathology-specific outcomes. Age was examined as a continuous moderator via meta-regression models. The results from random effects analyses revealed that the habitual use of all emotion regulation strategies was significantly related to depressive and anxiety symptoms overall, with the adaptive emotion regulation strategies showing negative associations (i.e., less symptoms) with depressive and anxiety symptoms whereas the maladaptive emotion regulation strategies showed positive associations (i.e., more symptoms). A less frequent use of adaptive and a more frequent use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies were associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms comparably in the respective directions. Regarding the psychopathology-specific outcomes, depressive and anxiety symptoms displayed similar patterns across emotion regulation strategies showing the strongest negative associations with acceptance, and strongest positive associations with avoidance and rumination. The findings underscore the relevance of adaptive and also maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in depressive and anxiety symptoms in youth, and highlight the need to further investigate the patterns of emotion regulation as a potential transdiagnostic factor.

Emotion Regulation Strategies in Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms in Youth: A Meta-Analytic Review

Developmental cognitive neuroscience

Adolescents' Motivations to Engage in Social Distancing During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Associations With Mental and Social Health.

https://pure.mpg.de/pubman/item/item_2454866_18/component/file_2459435/id10007318.pdf

Developmental cognitive neuroscience using latent change score models: A tutorial and applications

Emotion regulation skills develop substantially across adolescence, a period characterized by emotional challenges and developing regulatory neural circuitry. Adolescence is also a risk period for the new onset of anxiety and depressive disorders, psychopathologies which have long been associated with disruptions in regulation of positive and negative emotions. This paper reviews the current understanding of the role of disrupted emotion regulation in adolescent anxiety and depression, describing findings from self-report, behavioral, peripheral psychophysiological, and neural measures. Self-report studies robustly identified associations between emotion dysregulation and adolescent anxiety and depression. Findings from behavioral and psychophysiological studies are mixed, with some suggestion of specific impairments in reappraisal in anxiety. Results from neuroimaging studies broadly implicate altered functioning of amygdala-prefrontal cortical circuitries, although again, findings are mixed regarding specific patterns of altered neural functioning. Future work may benefit from focusing on designs that contrast effects of specific regulatory strategies, and isolate changes in emotional regulation from emotional reactivity. Approaches to improve treatments based on empirical evidence of disrupted emotion regulation in adolescents are also discussed. Future intervention studies might consider training and measurement of specific strategies in adolescents to better understand the role of emotion regulation as a treatment mechanism.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/9/4/76/pdf

Positive and Negative Emotion Regulation in Adolescence: Links to Anxiety and Depression

Neurocognitive bases of emotion regulation development in adolescence

Navigating the Social Environment in Adolescence: The Role of Social Brain Development.

Adopting a temporally distant perspective on stressors reduces distress in adults. Here we investigate whether the extent to which individuals project themselves into the future influences distancing efficacy. We also examined modulating effects of age across adolescence and reactive aggression: factors associated with reduced future-thinking and poor emotion regulation. Participants (N = 83, aged 12–22) read scenarios and rated negative affect when adopting a distant-future perspective, near-future perspective, or when reacting naturally. Self-report data revealed significant downregulation of negative affect during the distant-future condition, with a similar though non-significant skin conductance pattern. Importantly, participants who projected further ahead showed the greatest distress reductions. While temporal distancing efficacy did not vary with age, participants reporting greater reactive aggression showed reduced distancing efficacy, and projected themselves less far into the future. Fi...

https://tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02699931.2017.1358698

Saz P. Ahmed

Papers

Neurocognitive bases of emotion regulation development in adolescence

Navigating the Social Environment in Adolescence: The Role of Social Brain Development.

Using temporal distancing to regulate emotion in adolescence: modulation by reactive aggression.

Susceptibility to prosocial and antisocial influence in adolescence.

The Neurobiology of Emotion Regulation