Sequences of Moment-to-Moment Emotion Dynamics during Mother-Adolescent Conflicts and Prospective Associations with Internalizing Problems

How emotions unfold during interactions between mothers and adolescents can shape psychosocial adjustment in the long term. We examined moment-to-moment emotion dynamics in mother-adolescent conflicts and their concurrent and longitudinal associations with depressive and anxious symptoms. At Time 1 (2018), dyads were recorded during a 4-minute conflict discussion, and their emotional expressions were coded. At Time 1 and Time 2 (2019), participants reported internalizing problems. Time 1 data included 198 parent-adolescent dyads while Time 2 data included 177 parents and 176 adolescents. We used grid sequence analysis, a data-driven method in which common multi-step sequences of dyadic emotions can be identified, to examine different interaction patterns between mother-adolescent dyads. We used structural equation modeling to test the associations between these patterns and internalizing symptoms. We found two sequence patterns. Mother and adolescent anxious symptoms were not related to interaction sequences; however, the pattern of mutual high positive emotion up-regulation was related to adolescent depressive symptoms concurrently and negatively, and the pattern of mothers’ regulation of adolescents’ externalizing negative emotion was related to maternal depressive symptoms concurrently and negatively. Thus, internalizing problems are associated with the momentary interaction patterns during mother-adolescent conflicts.