Daily life mechanisms of stress spillover among early adolescents experiencing academic difficulty

Research has suggested that academic stress may “spillover” into other life domains and have negative psychological or social consequences for children and adolescents outside of school settings, but relatively few investigations have examined mediators and moderators of spillover. The current study explored the mediating role of state affect and the moderating roles of prior academic performance and mood disturbances on spillover in a sample of 131 French adolescents. Participants completed clinical measures of anxiety and depression and participated in a 7-day ambulatory monitoring phase that involved multiple daily assessments of mood, behaviors, and activities. Spillover was observed for family events and subsequent school-related events, as well as between family and leisure events. These associations remained significant when controlling for immediate mood responses, suggesting that state affect does not play a salient mediating role. There was no evidence that spillover was moderated by academic difficulty, anxiety, depression, or gender. Results are discussed in terms of the role that emotional processes may play in spillover phenomena as well as the reciprocal influence that academic and non-academic events may exert each other.

[1]  B. Laursen,et al.  Reconsidering changes in parent-child conflict across adolescence: a meta-analysis. , 1998, Child development.

[2]  W. Andrew Collins,et al.  Parent—Child Relationships During Adolescence , 2009 .

[3]  David M. Almeida,et al.  CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Resilience and Vulnerability to Daily Stressors Assessed via Diary Methods , 2022 .

[4]  D. Vandell,et al.  Peer social status and friendship: independent contributors to children's social and academic adjustment , 1994 .

[5]  Donna E. Stewart,et al.  Path analysis of work conditions and work–family spillover as modifiable workplace factors associated with depressive symptomatology , 2006 .

[6]  Kathryn R. Wentzel,et al.  Friendships in Middle School: Influences on Motivation and School Adjustment. , 2004 .

[7]  G. Ladd,et al.  Peer rejection as an antecedent of young children's school adjustment: an examination of mediating processes. , 2001, Developmental psychology.

[8]  B. Falissard,et al.  Assessment of anxiety disorders in asthmatic children. , 1999, Psychosomatics.

[9]  Alex J. Zautra,et al.  Emotions, stress, and health. , 2003 .

[10]  Susan Harter,et al.  The relationship between perceived competence, affect, and motivational orientation within the classroom: Processes and patterns of change. , 1992 .

[11]  C. Spielberger,et al.  Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory , 1970 .

[12]  J. Weisz,et al.  Control-related beliefs and depression among clinic-referred children and adolescents. , 1987, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[13]  R. Repetti,et al.  Bad Days Don't End When the School Bell Rings: The Lingering Effects of Negative School Events on Children's Mood, Self‐esteem, and Perceptions of Parent–Child Interaction , 2007 .

[14]  S. Bruch,et al.  Estimating the "impact" of out-of-home placement on child well-being: approaching the problem of selection bias. , 2009, Child development.

[15]  Jason L. Horowitz,et al.  Depression in children. , 2002 .

[16]  A. Crouter,et al.  Longitudinal Associations between Maternal Work Stress, Negative Work-Family Spillover, and Depressive Symptoms. , 2009, Family relations.

[17]  B. Hankin,et al.  Rumination and Depression in Adolescence: Investigating Symptom Specificity in a Multiwave Prospective Study , 2008, Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology : the official journal for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53.

[18]  C. Midgley,et al.  Development during adolescence. The impact of stage-environment fit on young adolescents' experiences in schools and in families. , 1993, The American psychologist.

[19]  W. Bursuck,et al.  A Comparison of Students with Learning Disabilities to Low Achieving and Higher Achieving Students on Three Dimensions of Social Competence , 1989, Journal of learning disabilities.

[20]  R. Larsen,et al.  Promises and problems with the circumplex model of emotion. , 1992 .

[21]  J. Eccles.  Expectancies, values and academic behaviors , 1983 .

[22]  Eric M. Anderman,et al.  Differences between Elementary and Middle School Teachers and Students: A Goal Theory Approach , 1995 .

[23]  P. Lang,et al.  The anxiety disorder spectrum: Fear imagery, physiological reactivity, and differential diagnosis , 2009, Anxiety, stress, and coping.

[24]  Jeffrey G. Johnson,et al.  Daily Hassles Mediate the Relationship Between Major Life Events and Psychiatric Symptomatology: Longitudinal Findings from an Adolescent Sample , 1997 .

[25]  Thane S. Pittman,et al.  Achievement and motivation : a social-developmental perspective , 1992 .

[26]  Gary W. Ladd,et al.  Peer exclusion and victimization: Processes that mediate the relation between peer group rejection and children's classroom engagement and achievement? , 2006 .

[27]  A. Beck,et al.  An inventory for measuring depression. , 1961, Archives of general psychiatry.

[28]  K. Kendler,et al.  Stressful life events and previous episodes in the etiology of major depression in women: an evaluation of the "kindling" hypothesis. , 2000, The American journal of psychiatry.

[29]  Louise Nadeau,et al.  Computerized ambulatory monitoring in psychiatry: a multi‐site collaborative study of acceptability, compliance, and reactivity , 2009, International journal of methods in psychiatric research.

[30]  R. Repetti.  The effects of perceived daily social and academic failure experiences on school-age children's subsequent interactions with parents. , 1996, Child development.

[31]  Jodie B. Ullman,et al.  Classroom social experiences as predictors of academic performance. , 2005, Developmental psychology.

[32]  R. Felner,et al.  Effects of Family Environment and Parent-Child Relationships on School Adjustment during the Transition to Early Adolescence. , 1994 .

[33]  L. Wheeler,et al.  Review of personality and social psychology , 1980 .

[34]  Kathryn R. Wentzel,et al.  Social Competence at School: Relation Between Social Responsibility and Academic Achievement , 1991 .

[35]  E. Blechman,et al.  Childhood competence and depression. , 1986, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[36]  Mary P. Welsh,et al.  Linkages between Children's Social and Academic Competence: A Longitudinal Analysis. , 2001 .

[37]  C. Guarnaccia,et al.  Measuring small life events , 1986, American journal of community psychology.

[38]  D. Phillips,et al.  The developmental course of perceived competence and incompetence among competent children. , 1990 .

[39]  K. Merikangas,et al.  Lifetime prevalence of mental disorders in U.S. adolescents: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication--Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A). , 2010, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[40]  M. Strauss,et al.  Diminished response to pleasant stimuli by depressed women. , 2001, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[41]  G. Ladd,et al.  Children's social and scholastic lives in kindergarten: related spheres of influence? , 1999, Child development.

[42]  L. Steinberg,et al.  Handbook of adolescent psychology , 2009 .

[43]  K. Gunthert,et al.  Affective Reactivity to Daily Interpersonal Stressors as a Prospective Predictor of Depressive Symptoms , 2004 .

[44]  Étude des problèmes comportementaux et émotionnels chez l’adolescent : faisabilité et validité de l’approche ESM , 2009 .

[45]  A. Fuligni,et al.  Family and school spillover in adolescents' daily lives. , 2008, Child development.

[46]  C. Mazure.  Life Stressors as Risk Factors in Depression , 1998 .