Citation

Weissman DG, Nook EC, Dews AA, Miller AB, Lambert HK, Sasse SF, Somerville LH, McLaughlin KA. Clinical Psychological Science 2020; 8(6): 971-988.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/2167702620923649

PMID

33758688

Abstract

The ability to identify and label one's emotions is associated with effective emotion regulation, rendering emotional awareness important for mental health. We evaluated how emotional awareness was related to psychopathology and whether low emotional awareness was a transdiagnostic mechanism explaining the increase in psychopathology during the transition to adolescence and as a function of childhood trauma-specifically violence exposure. In Study 1, children and adolescents (N=120, aged 7-19 years) reported on emotional awareness and psychopathology. Emotional awareness was negatively associated with psychopathology (p-factor) and worsened across age in females but not males. In Study 2 (N=262, aged 8-16 years), we replicated these findings and demonstrated longitudinally that low emotional awareness mediated increases in p-factor as a function of age in females and violence exposure. These findings indicate that low emotional awareness may be a transdiagnostic mechanism linking adolescent development, sex, and trauma with the emergence of psychopathology.

Language: en