Family Socioeconomic Status Amplifies Unique Environmental Influences on Dynamics of Adolescent Daily Positive Affective Process

Background and Objective: Affective processes as complex dynamical systems happen inpeople’s daily lives. Affective dynamics characterizing unique features of individual affectivesystems are linked with long-term developmental outcomes. This study investigated genetic andenvironmental contributions, and the moderation by family socioeconomic status (SES), to twoaffective dynamics characterizing affective system sensitivity to the relative levels and change ofaffect respectively. Methods: Using a sample of 490 17-year-old twins (41.1% males, 93.9%White) in a 40-day-long daily diary design, dynamical systems modeling estimated individualaffective dynamics of positive and negative affect. Twin modeling examined genetic andenvironmental contributions to affective dynamics as well as the moderation of SES. Results:For both positive and negative affect, system sensitivity to the relative levels of affect waspredominantly under unique environmental influences with negligible genetic influences; systemsensitivity to the change of affect was affected by both genetic and unique environmentalinfluences. SES amplifies unique environmental influences on sensitivity to the change ofpositive affect. Conclusions: These findings highlight different genetic and environmentalorigins of different adolescent affective dynamics in their daily lives, and suggest that macrocontexts could influence micro timescale affective dynamics.