1. Romantic Partners Promotion of Autonomy and Relatedness in Adolescence as a Predictor of Young Adult Emotion Regulation. Elenda T. Hessel, Emily L. Loeb, Samantha R. Perry, Joseph S. Tan, & David E. Szwedo, & Joseph P. Allen University of Virginia We would like to thank the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development for funding awarded to Joseph P. Allen, Principal Investigator, (9 R01 HD058305-A11) for funding to conduct this study as well as for the write-up of this study. Introduction Emotion regulation, or the ability to influence which emotions are experienced as well as their timing and intensity, has important implications for individuals’ functioning. Two common emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, have been found to result in disparate outcomes. As compared with cognitive reappraisal, use of expressive suppression is associated with less positive and more negative emotions, poorer interpersonal functioning, and reduced well-being. The developmental pathways that lead to differential utilization of these strategies remains unclear. One possibility is that use of these strategies is socialized through interpersonal interactions during development. Romantic relationships in adolescence are very influential, and as such experiences in these relationships may contribute to adolescents’ use of emotion regulation strategies. Romantic partners who encourage adolescents’ autonomy while maintaining relatedness during disagreements—who respond to disagreements by being warm and collaborative—may serve to socialize adolescents utilize cognitive reappraisal. Alternatively, romantic partners who undermine adolescents’ autonomy and relatedness during disagreements—who respond to disagreements by being rude, personal, and pushy—may serve to socialize adolescents to engage in expressive suppression. This study sought to investigate the role adolescents’ romantic partners’ behaviors’ of encouraging or undermining autonomy and relatedness play in predicting adolescents’ use of cognitive reappraisal versus expressive suppression later in development. Hypotheses Adolescents who at age 18 have romantic partners who engage in behaviors that promote the adolescents’ autonomy and relatedness will engage in more cognitive reappraisal and less expressive suppression in emerging adulthood. Adolescents who at age 18 have romantic partners who engage in behaviors that undermine the adolescents’ autonomy and relatedness will engage in less cognitive reappraisal and more expressive suppression in emerging adulthood. Method Conclusions Results Participants Multi-method longitudinal data were obtained from 158 target teenagers along with their romantic partners (N=74). Participants cont. Teenagers - 58% Caucasian, 29% African American, and 13% Mixed or Other ethnicity. Median household income was within the $40,000 to $59,000 range. Target teen mean age was 18.30 years at Time 1, and 23.78 at Time 2. Procedures Time 1 (Age 18) - Target teen and romantic partners engaged in an 8- minute interaction task. During this task, the dyads were asked to discuss a hypothetical dilemma requiring them to come to a consensus on decisions they disagreed on. Time 2 (Age 23) - Target teen came in and filled out questionnaires about the themselves and their relationships. Measures Autonomy & Relatedness Coding System Each teen-partner dyad participated in an 8-minute videotaped task in which they were presented with a hypothetical dilemma that had been brought to a hypothetical dating court. Teens and their romantic partners were asked to first separately make decisions to solve the dilemmas, and were then asked to work together with their partner to try to resolve any differences in their choices and to come up with a consensus. The Autonomy-Relatedness Coding System for Romantic Partner Interactions was used for the Teen-Romantic Partner interactions (Allen et al. 2001). The frequency and intensity of the partner’s behaviors promoting autonomy and relatedness (e.g., warmth, use of reasoning, and ability to behave collaboratively) as well as their behaviors undermining autonomy and relatedness (e.g., over personalizing arguments, being pushy, and being rude) were assessed. High scores on these scales indicate increased frequency and intensity of the behaviors in question, whereas low scores indicate very few and low intensity behaviors. Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression Teens completed a self-report measure of emotional regulation, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003). This 10-item questionnaire has a 6-item Reappraisal subscale and a 4 item Reappraisal Subscale. Responses were given on a 7-point likert scale, with possible responses ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”. Higher scores indicated more engagement in that emotion regulation strategy. This measure has been well validated, and both subscales show good internal consistency in this sample (Cronbach’s α =.87 for reappraisal, α =.77 for suppression). These results indicate that the behaviors of adolescents’ romantic partners may in fact contribute to their socialization for some emotion regulation strategies. In particular, these findings suggest that rather than encouraging the use of adaptive strategies, adolescents with romantic partners who are supportive of their autonomy while maintaining relatedness may discourage the use of maladaptive strategies, and that adolescents who are not similarly encouraged may be more likely to use expressive suppression. Future Directions: Investigate other aspects of adolescent peer and romantic relationships, including communication styles, conflict, closeness, and overall quality, to determine if other aspects of these and other relationships may play similar roles. Identify other socialization processes, such as parenting or educational interactions, that might promote or inhibit the use of cognitive reappraisal as well. Further investigate this developmental pathway, and link it with subsequent outcomes for interpersonal and other functioning. Analyses revealed that adolescents’ romantic partner’s behaviors that promoted autonomy and relatedness predicted less utilization of expressive suppression at age 23, but had no effect on the use of cognitive reappraisal. Specifically, adolescents’ whose romantic partners engaged in more of a host of different behaviors promoting of autonomy and relatedness were significantly less likely to engage in expressive suppression as a form of emotion regulation (β=-.41, p<.01). This was true after accounting for adolescents’ gender and their family-of-origin’s income. Additionally, romantic partner’s behaviors undermining autonomy and relatedness were not found to be associated with future use of cognitive reappraisal versus expressive suppression Thoughts? Questions? Ideas? E-mail: Elie Hessel at eth4bh@virginia.edu