Capacity for social contingency detection continues to develop across adolescence

The capacity for dynamically coordinating behaviour is assumed to have largely matured in infancy. In adolescence—another sensitive period for social development—the primary focus on individual social cognition as the main driver of interaction has prevented the study of actual social interaction as behavioural coordination within dyads. From a dynamic perspective, however, capturing real-time social dynamics is essential for the assessment of social interactive processes. In order to improve the understanding of social development during adolescence, we investigated the potential developmental course of social contingency detection in dynamic interactions. Pairs of 205 Belgian adolescents (83 male, 122 female), aged 11–19, engaged in real-time social interaction via the Perceptual Crossing Experiment (PCE). Comparing early, middle and late adolescents, we found a generally higher performance of late adolescents on behavioural and cognitive measures of social contingency detection, while the reported awareness of the implicitly established social interaction was lower in this group overall. Additionally, late adolescents demonstrated faster improvement of behavioural social coordination throughout the experiment, compared with the other groups. Our results indicate that social interactive processes continue to develop throughout adolescence, which manifests as faster social coordination at the behavioural level. This finding underscores dynamic social interaction within dyads as a new opportunity for identifying altered social development during adolescence

The role of parent-child attachment in the association between loneliness and self-harm thoughts and behaviours in daily life

Adolescence is a critical period for self-harm thoughts and behaviours (SHTBs) and loneliness is an important risk factor. However, no research has investigated how loneliness is associated with adolescent SHTBs in real time and whether this association is influenced by parent-child attachment relationships, which correlate with both loneliness and SHTBs. We used Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) and self-report questionnaires to examine the role of loneliness and parent-child attachment in SHTBs in a general population adolescent sample (N=1602). Multilevel analyses provide evidence for loneliness as a short-term risk factor for self-harm thoughts, and the emotion regulation function of self-harm behaviours (i.e., downregulation of loneliness). The relationship between loneliness and SHTBs was stronger for those with a more insecure paternal and maternal attachment relationships. These results illuminate when (i.e., moments of loneliness) and why (i.e., loneliness downregulation) adolescents think about and engage in self-harm, offering critical guidance to clinicians and researchers

Psychopathology and ruminating, savoring, and sharing in the daily lives of adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic

Emotion regulation in daily life can serve as a risk or resilience factor during times of crisis. Using the experience sampling method, the current study investigated rumination, savoring, and sharing with others in response to positive and negative events during the early COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures among adolescents (N = 110, aged 13-20, 89% female). For six days, adolescents reported the intensity and valence of events throughout the day and how much they ruminated and shared about negative events and savored and shared about positive events. We aimed to conceptually replicate pre-pandemic findings and found that relationships between emotion regulation and event intensity were largely replicated: During the pandemic, higher intensity of negative events was associated with ruminating more and higher intensity of positive events was associated with savoring more and sharing more about them. Symptoms of psychopathology (anxiety, depression, and psychoticism) were not associated with ruminating about negative events, contrary to pre-pandemic observations, or sharing about negative events. However, psychopathology symptoms were positively associated with savoring positive events. The current results highlight the importance of context in daily life emotion regulation and suggest that adaptive emotion regulation may look different for adolescents during a major disruption to daily life

Changes in adolescents’ daily-life solitary experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic:an experience sampling study

Background: Adolescent solitude was drastically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As solitude is crucial for adolescent development through its association with both positive and negative developmental outcomes, it is critical to understand how adolescents’ daily-life solitary experiences changed as a result of the pandemic. Methods: Using three waves of Experience Sampling Method data from a longitudinal study, we compared adolescents’ daily-life solitary experiences in the early (nT1=100; MAge=16.1; SDAge=1.9; 93% girls) and mid-pandemic (nT2=204; MAge=16.5; SDAge=2.0; 79% girls) to their pre-pandemic experiences. Results: We found that adolescents with lower levels of pre-pandemic social support and social skills reported wanting to be alone less and feeling like an outsider more at both time points during the pandemic. In the mid-pandemic wave, adolescents with higher levels of pre-pandemic social support and social skills reported decreases in positive affect compared to the pre-pandemic wave. Conclusion: This study shows that adolescents’ daily-life solitary experiences worsened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. There should be continued concern for the wellbeing of all adolescents, not only those already at risk, as effects of the pandemic on mental health might only manifest later.</p

Differences in Adolescents' Daily-Life Experiences of Social and Non-Social Situations, and Associated Risk and Protective Factors

Identifying adolescents for whom social withdrawal may form a specific risk, is crucial for improving prevention and early intervention efforts. Model-based clustering on daily-life data from n=1312 Flemish general population adolescents (65% female, MAge=13.8, n=296 identifying with non-Belgian nationality or ethnicity) identified four groups with different experiences of social withdrawal and being in company. One cluster reported overall positive experiences, one cluster reported overall negative experiences and two clusters reported mixed experiences: positive in-company experiences and negative social withdrawal experiences, and vice versa. Group membership was significantly associated with differences in psychosocial factors, including depression, anxiety, and psychosis. This suggests that daily-life social and non-social experiences are a useful indicator to differentiate between adolescents and identify those potentially at risk