how do adolescents define depression? - cIRcle - University of ...

Chapter V: Discussion
Social Perspective Coordination, Emotion Understanding, and Emotion
Regulation, as Predictors of Severity of Depressive Symptomatology
This study placed adolescents' depressive symptomatology within a theoretical
framework by examining the ways that adolescents' levels of Social Perspective Coordination,
emotion awareness, emotion expression, and emotion regulation were associated with the
dimensions of their depressive symptomatology. Relations of Social Perspective Coordination
and emotion understanding to depressive symptomatology were examined both correlationally
and in a series of hierarchical regression analyses. In this section, I begin with a discussion of the
findings from the correlational analyses and continue with a discussion of the regression
analyses.
Intercorrelations among Social Perspective Coordination, Emotion Understanding and
Depressive Symptomatology
The correlational analyses revealed several significant relationships. A significant
correlation between severity of depressive symptomatology and Poor Emotion Awareness,
including the reluctance to express emotion, provided support for this complex link and the
importance of examining these interconnections further (Davis, 1999). This relationship is also
linked to reports pointing out that the reluctance to express emotion can play an important role in
disrupting social relationships which could lead to psychopathology (Lane & Schwartz, 1987;
Penza-Clyve & Zeman, 2002; Saarni, 1999). A lesser but significant positive correlation between
increasing levels of Anger Regulation with depressive symptomatology revealed support for
previous literature showing that the essential building block to emotional competence is emotion
awareness (Saarni, 1999). Significant negative correlations revealed that the presence of a more
sophisticated Social Perspective Coordination and the ability to cope with sadness decrease as
the severity of depressive symptomatology increases. Though caution should be exercised in
suggesting causal links, these results may indicate that greater awareness and expression of
emotion, mature Social Perspective Coordination, and coping with sadness may serve as a hedge
to the increasing severity of depressive symptomatology.
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