Transactional patterns of depressive symptoms between mothers and adolescents: The role of emotion regulation

Background Depression is a highly prevalent, debilitating disorder that runs in families. Yet, empirical support for bidirectional mechanisms linking mother–adolescent depression symptoms remains limited. This study examined longitudinal bidirectional relations among emotion regulation (ER) constructs and depressive symptoms among mother–adolescent dyads over time. Pathways for girls and boys were explored separately, given extant research on sex differences in the intergenerational transmission of depression. Methods Adolescent (n = 232; M = 15.02 years, SD = 0.95; 44% female)-mother dyads, drawn from a longitudinal study on the development of risky behaviors, completed annual assessments of depressive symptoms and facets of ER over 4 years. Panel modeling examined lagged and cross-lagged effects of mother–adolescent depressive symptoms and ER constructs over time, in a multigroup model of boys and girls. Results Among girls, higher baseline maternal depression scores predicted increased adolescent ER difficulties (std. est. = −.42, p < .001) in turn, predicting increased adolescent depressive symptoms (std. est. = −.33, p = .002) and subsequent maternal ER difficulties (std. est. = .39, p = .002). The indirect effect of maternal depressive symptoms→adolescent ER→adolescent depressive symptoms→maternal ER was significant (ind. eff. = .10, 95% confidence interval [>.001, .19]) for girls, but not boys. Conclusion Implications for interrupting intergenerational cycles of depressive symptoms and emotion dysregulation are discussed.