(PS12-45) Relations Between Affective Responses to Parenting Stress and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression

Parent-adolescent interactions are bidirectional (O’Connor, 2002), and family structure and contextual factors may exacerbate overall family-related distress (Laursen & Collins, 2009). Adolescent behaviors impact parents, and difficult youth behaviors likely increase parental distress. Research has shown that higher levels of adolescent aggression and depressive symptoms predict higher levels of subsequent mother–adolescent conflict (Steeger & Gondoli, 2013), highlighting a need to examine the impact of adolescent’s behavior on parental well-being. Stress responses affect individuals in a host of ways (e.g., affectively, physically, cognitively; Connor-Smith et al., 2000; Jamieson et al., 2012). Therefore, it is important to understand the impact of parenting stress among parents of adolescents (Maliken & Katz, 2013).

The current study examined the hypothesis that parental anxiety and depressive symptoms would be positively associated with parental affective reactions (i.e., anxiety, anger, negative feelings) to audio vignettes depicting stressful interactions with adolescents. In each vignette, an adolescent is confronted with a parental demand and exhibits a distress response. Parents were asked to imagine that the adolescent in the vignette was their own child and to react as they normally would. Parents then rated their emotional responses after each vignette.

366 parents (183 females) were recruited from the United States using Qualtrics (Provo, UT). The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) was used to assess parent anxiety/depressive symptoms. After each vignette, parents rated their emotions (e.g., angry, anxious, negative) on a Likert scale from 0 (none) to 5 (very much so).

Three regressions were conducted to examine associations between parental anxiety/depressive symptoms and affective reactions to the vignettes. Consistent with our hypothesis, results indicated that anxiety (B = .077, SE = 0.024, p = .002, sr² = 0.03) was significantly related to anxious responses to the vignettes with a small effect size. However, in terms of depression, and inconsistent with our hypothesis, the results show that depression (B = .014, SE = 0.023, p = .545, sr² = 0.00), was not significantly related to anxious responses to the vignettes. Also, consistent with our hypothesis, anxiety (B = .078, SE = 0.025, p = .002, sr² = 0.03) was significantly related to anger responses to the vignettes with a small effect size. However, in terms of depression, and inconsistent with our hypothesis, the results show that depression (B = -.019, SE = 0.024, p = .425, sr² = 0.00) was not significantly related to anger responses to the vignettes. Lastly, in terms of both anxiety and depression, and inconsistent with our hypothesis, the results show that anxiety (B = .042, SE = 0.024, p = .084, sr² = 0.01) and depression (B = .022, SE = 0.024, p = .352, sr² = 0.00) were not significantly related to negative responses to the vignettes. This suggests that among parents, anxiety symptoms are related to increased anxiety and anger following stressful interactions with offspring. Future directions include helping parents with increased anxiety symptoms manage affective reactions to difficult interactions with offspring.