The goals of the present proposal are to examine:
- the association between adolescents' emotion regulation, self-efficacy about emotion regulation, and executive functions;
- the mediation by all aforementioned mechanisms between parenting and adolescent adjustment.
The research goals of the present proposal will go beyond the current state-of-the-art in the following innovative ways:
- assessing the associations of multiple emotion regulation strategies (rumination, inhibition, coping, dysregulated expression), across discrete negative emotions (anger and sadness), self-efficacy beliefs about the regulation of both anger and sadness, and executive functions;
- assessing the association of all aforementioned mechanisms and mental health consequences (aggressive and depressive problems) in adolescence;
- examining relations of mothers' and fathers' parenting style repertoire (i.e., including positive and negative parental styles at the same time) to aforementioned mechanisms.
One hundred adolescents (balanced for gender) and their parents will be recruited in Rome. Interviews will be conducted to assess both parent- and self-reported measures of parenting, emotion regulation, self-efficacy about emotion regulation, and aggressive and depressive symptoms. Adolescents will also complete a computerized protocol of instruments assessing executive functions. This study will be conducted following approval of the IRB from University and School ethics boards.
The proposed study is an innovative and interdisciplinary contribution
(integrating personality perspective with neuropsychological approach) to research and society by demonstrating how psychosocial adjustment in adolescence is influenced by both family and individual risk factors. These findings will have translatable implications for enhancing empirically-based prevention and intervention methods with children and adolescents.
