The long-term effects of emotional competencies and self-esteem on adolescents’ internalizing symptoms

Highlights

• Adolescent girls are more likely to develop internalizing symptoms than boys.

• Emotional competence fosters psychological adjustment among adolescents.

• Low self-esteem is a potential risk factor for adolescent’s internalizing symptoms.

• Self-esteem restrains the benefits of emotional competence on youth adjustment.

Abstract

Internalizing symptoms such as depressive mood, somatic complaints and anxiety among adolescents are a major and global concern for parents, educators and professionals. Empirical research suggests that high level of self-esteem during adolescents is associated with psychological adjustment and emotional well-being. This study examines self-esteem as a potential mediator in the interplay between emotional competencies and internalizing symptoms during adolescence. Self-report data from 855 Spanish adolescents (Mage = 13.6, SD = 1.09, 52% girls) were collected in two waves, using a longitudinal design. The mediation model was estimated using structural equation modelling (SEM). Results show that girls perceive and understand emotions better than boys, but they also perceive higher amounts of emotional distress, while boys showed higher levels of self-esteem. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that positive self-esteem function as a mediator between emotional competencies and long-term internalizing symptoms. Poor emotional competencies and low self-esteem are strongly associated with internalizing symptoms in adolescents. These findings have implications for future research and positive youth development considering that emotional abilities and self-esteem can protect adolescents from experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Resumen

Los síntomas internalizantes como el estado de ánimo depresivo, las quejas somáticas y la ansiedad de los adolescentes son una preocupación importante y global para los padres, los educadores y los profesionales. Las investigaciones empíricas indican que una elevada autoestima está asociada con la adaptación psicológica y el bienestar emocional en la adolescencia. En el presente estudio se ha examinado la autoestima como posible mediador en la relación entre las competencias emocionales y los síntomas internalizantes durante la adolescencia. Los datos de auto-informes de 855 adolescentes españoles (M edad = 13.6, DT = 1.09, 52% chicas) se han recogido en dos momentos, utilizando un diseño longitudinal. El modelo de mediación se ha estimado utilizando modelos de ecuaciones estructurales (SEM). Los resultados han mostrado que las chicas perciben y entienden las emociones mejor que los chicos, pero también experimentan con mayor frecuencia angustia emocional, mientras que los chicos muestran mayores niveles de autoestima. Los resultados del modelo de ecuaciones estructurales indican que la autoestima positiva funciona como mediadora entre las competencias emocionales y los síntomas internalizantes a largo plazo. Las competencias emocionales deficientes y la baja autoestima están fuertemente asociadas con los síntomas internalizantes en los adolescentes. Estos resultados tienen implicaciones para las investigaciones futuras y el desarrollo positivo de los jóvenes, teniendo en cuenta que las competencias emocionales y la autoestima pueden proteger a los adolescentes de experimentar síntomas de depresión y ansiedad.

Introduction

In the last few decades, determinants of emotional maladjustment have been extensively examined and documented, highlighting the importance of identifying factors promoting positive youth development (Lau and Wu, 2013, Ordóñez-López et al., 2016). It is well-established that adolescence is a challenging period in the context of internalizing problems, due to the multitude of biological, psychological, social, and cognitive changes occurring during this developmental phase (Goldbeck et al., 2007). Theory and research support the importance of promoting emotional competence – an umbrella concept that considers different emotional skills or abilities – for adolescent development and psychological adjustment (Palomera et al., 2012). Emotional competence plays a protective role by empowering youth to gain awareness and control of feelings and emotional reactions, in oneself and others (Aldao et al., 2016, Buckley and Saarni, 2014, Mayer et al., 2016). In addition to emotional competence, global self-esteem can also have an impact on how adolescents face and manage these challenges, with consequences for the outcome of adolescents’ development (Golan et al., 2013, Steiger et al., 2014). The multiplicity of variables that influence youth’s mental health is a sign of their psychological vulnerability during adolescence; thus, it has become essential in research on psychology to identify and address these factors from a young age; one of the most influential being emotional competence (De la Barrera et al., 2019).

Emotional competence derives from Mayer and Salovey’s emotional intelligence model, in which this construct is conceptualized as an ability that involves personal skills or abilities such as: (a) perception and expression, (b) use emotions to facilitate thought, (c) understanding and reasoning with emotions, and (d) management of emotion in oneself and others to solve problems and regulate behaviour (Brackett and Salovey, 2006, Mayer and Salovey, 1997). Some of the emotional competence measures do not include the facilitation dimension, due to its weak factorial structure, resulting in a three-dimensional scale (MacCann et al., 2003). The study of emotional intelligence has focused on two different perspectives on this construct, whether it is considered as a trait – emotional intelligence as an innate and stable part of the individual’s personality (Petrides, 2016) – or as an ability – from which the concept of emotional competence was derived (Mayer et al., 2016). In contrast to trait EI, which depicts an attribute that is present since birth, emotional abilities can be developed and trained during childhood and early adolescence (Zeidner et al., 2002). Thus, the development of emotional competence depends on children`s acquisition of multiple skills for processing and managing emotion information and experiences (Saarni, 2010). Studying emotional competence in a longitudinal setting allows to observe its progression throughout development in adolescence and how its association with other variables changes with time (Costa and Faria, 2016, Qualter et al., 2012). Demographic variables, including sex, in most cases, appear to play a modest role in relation to emotional competence in children and adolescents (Esnaola et al., 2017). However, it has been shown that girls score higher on perceiving and understanding emotions than boys (Chaplin and Aldao, 2013, Panjwani et al., 2016, Schoeps et al., 2017), while expressing and managing emotions are mainly unaffected by sex influence (Donahue et al., 2014, Gomez-Baya et al., 2017). Traditionally, literature on sex differences has focused on self-report measures, which indicate adolescents’ perception of their own emotional competence, rather than objective, performance-based sex differences (Kokkinos & Vlavianou, 2019).

Emotional competence is considered to be a central construct in relation to emotional, social and behavioural maladjustment, promoting a positive development in adolescents (Alonso-Tapia and Nieto, 2019, Brackett et al., 2006, Davis and Humphrey, 2012). Internalizing symptoms may lead to major social and personal problems that may interfere with youth development (Gomez-Baya et al., 2017, Ortuño-Sierra et al., 2015) by presenting emotional problems (e.g., fears and concerns) and somatic complaints (e.g., headache and stomach-ache) (Plenty et al., 2014). The trend of research findings shows that girls tend to present more internalizing symptoms than boys (Nivard et al., 2017). Moreover, adolescents of over 15 show poorer adjustment than younger adolescents (Ansary et al., 2017, Fonseca-Pedrero et al., 2011).

Another personal characteristic that may have an impact on adolescents’ internalizing symptoms is self-esteem. Rosenberg defined self-esteem as an individual’s set of thoughts and feelings about his or her own worth and importance (Rosenberg, 1965). Self-esteem reflects adolescents’ self-belief and is susceptible to internal and external changes during adolescence (Erol & Orth, 2011). Decades of empirical research have highlighted the importance of self-esteem, supporting its positive association with psychological adjustment and well-being during adolescence (Martín-Albo et al., 2007, Rodríguez-Fernández et al., 2016). Conversely, low self-esteem may entail an important risk to adolescents’ psychological and emotional health (Boden et al., 2008, Schönfeld et al., 2016, von Soest et al., 2016). Self-esteem plays a critical role in the way adolescents interact with their environment and adapt to its changes; hence individuals with low self-esteem are expected to show poorer adaptive coping and more internalizing symptoms in relation to stressful life events (Álvarez-García et al., 2015, Babore et al., 2017, Thompson et al., 2016). There is no clear evidence whether this association differs according to sex and age during adolescence (Martín-Albo et al., 2007). The results of a study by Orth et al. (2018) indicated no significant sex differences regarding self-esteem. However, more recent studies showed that boys tend to show higher levels of self-esteem than girls (Gardner and Lambert, 2019, Sprecher et al., 2013), increasing with age (Baldwin and Hoffmann, 2002, Bleidorn et al., 2016). Longitudinal studies show self-esteem development through adolescence, accounting for cohort differences (Scherrer and Preckel, 2018, von Soest et al., 2016).

Adolescents are particularly vulnerable during this stage; thus, the compound effect of these variables at this age might pose a greater risk for youth’s mental health (Garcia & Serra, 2019). From this framework, the “storm and stress” viewpoint emerged to explain the acute prevalence of low self-esteem, internalizing problems and antisocial behaviour in adolescence (Göllner et al., 2017). According to this theoretical position, higher levels of emotional symptoms and adjustment problems might be normative during adolescence —it requires a special focus to better understand the full extent of their coping experience and how risk and protective factors are associated (Perez-Gramaje et al., 2020). A systematic study of this interplay is essential for understanding the psychological mechanisms that underlie the association between emotional competence and emotional distress in order to design effective intervention programs that promote optimal youth development (El-Daw and Hammoud, 2015, Ruiz-Aranda et al., 2012). Additionally, it is necessary to investigate the progression of the association with time, by using a longitudinal setting to observe its changes during adolescence (Gomez-Baya et al., 2017, Scherrer and Preckel, 2018).

As previously described, research supports the link between emotional competence, self-esteem, and internalizing symptoms, but how this relation varies depending on the adolescent’s sex and age is not clear. Thus, research indicates that emotional competence predicts self-esteem (Cheung et al., 2015, Reina Flores and Oliva Delgado, 2015), and both constructs have an important impact on emotional symptoms (Gomez-Baya et al., 2017, Ju and Lee, 2018, Keane and Loades, 2016). Furthermore, self-esteem has shown to be a mediator of the relationship between emotional competence and life satisfaction (Rey et al., 2011), and it also mediates in the association between adolescents’ social abilities and internalizing problems (Thompson et al., 2016). These findings suggest that self-esteem could mediate in the association between emotional competence and internalizing symptoms (Schoeps et al., 2019a). Most of the studies discussed above were cross-sectional and do not provide evidence about causality (Kong et al., 2012). Only longitudinal data may determine the directions of causal relationships, filling the gap that would otherwise remain lacking. Thus, research with such long-term design has a number of advantages over cross-sectional or experimental research design: (1) allow the use of time as a research variable; (2) enable the appraisal of intra-individual variance at different points in time; and (3) provide information about changes in the relationship between variables over time (Sánchez-Álvarez et al., 2016).

This study aims to examine the long-term association between emotional competencies and internalizing symptoms in boys and girls and how self-esteem acts as a mediator in this interplay (Figure 1). Based on the theoretical and empirical research approaches above-mentioned, we hypothesized that (1) girls are more competent at perceiving emotional states and understanding transitions among emotions; they might experience more internalizing symptoms than boys, whereas boys report higher self-esteem than girls; as well as the fact that younger adolescents might be less self-confident, but better adjusted to their environment than the older ones. In addition, we hypothesized that (2) self-esteem mediates in the relationship between emotional competence and internalizing symptoms.