LONGITUDINAL PREDICTORS OF SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING AND ADAPTIVE FUNCTIONING IN EARLY ADULTHOOD: INTERNALIZING AND EXTERNALIZING BEHAVIORS, EMOTION REGULATION, PARENTING, AND SUBSTANCE USE

Abstract

In psychological research, positive developmental outcomes in young adulthood are often conceptualized as the absence of psychological symptoms. However, positive outcome may be better understood as high levels of subjective wellbeing and adaptive interpersonal, occupational, and educational functioning. Nevertheless, a comprehensive model that takes into account multiple facets of youth behavior and transactional relations between youth and their environments as predictors of adjustment in young adulthood is lacking. Prior evidence implicates internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the development of subjective wellbeing, and emotion regulation as a reliable predictor and/or correlate of both internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Parenting behaviors in childhood and youth substance use represent other shared risk or resilience factors that likely contribute to internalizing and externalizing behaviors, as well as subjective wellbeing and adaptive functioning outcomes in young adulthood. The current study examined an existing sample of youth who were recruited at ages 10-12 and were assessed again at ages 16 and 25. Analyses aimed to (a) identify subgroups of youth who vary in frequency and quality of internalizing and externalizing symptoms and emotion regulation at ages 10-12 and 16 using latent class analyses, (b) examine stability of and transitions in class membership from classes at ages 10-12 to classes at age 16 using latent transition analysis, (c) investigate parenting behaviors as predictors of stability and transitions among classes, and (d) investigate whether classes differ in cross-sectional and prospective levels of substance use, as well as subjective wellbeing and adaptive functioning in young adulthood. Results demonstrated that a 4-class model best fit the data at both time points. Classes of youth with (a) low symptoms and high emotion regulation; (b) low internalizing, moderate externalizing, and high emotion regulation; and (c) moderate internalizing, high externalizing, and low emotion regulation emerged at both time points. The fourth class at ages 10-12 was characterized by high social withdrawal and moderate hyperactivity and emotion regulation, and the fourth class at age 16 was characterized by moderate internalizing, low externalizing, and low emotion regulation. Latent transition analyses revealed transitions from several symptom classes at ages 10-12 into the age 16 Low Symptoms/High Emotion Regulation class, and also stability and transitions to other symptom classes. Predictor analyses indicated that levels of parenting behaviors (maternal and paternal acceptance, child-centeredness, use of guilt and anxiety to control youth, lax discipline, and nonenforcement of rules) were associated with transitions among and stability within classes, but findings were dependent on levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms among classes. Substance use differed cross-sectionally and prospectively across classes based on the substances considered. Further, subjective wellbeing was higher among age 16 classes characterized by low internalizing symptoms, low or moderate externalizing symptoms, and high emotion regulation. Adaptive functioning in select domains was also differentially associated with classes at both time points, with youth in the Low Symptoms/High Emotion Regulation classes experiencing better outcomes in certain areas. Results indicate that distinct classes of youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms and emotion regulation can be identified in late childhood and middle adolescence and are differentially associated with outcomes related to wellbeing and adaptive functioning in young adulthood. Further, the frequency and quality of co-occurring symptoms evidenced among youth may change over time as reflected in transitions from classes identified in middle childhood to adolescence. Emotion regulation and parenting may be potential targets for enhanced interventions intended to promote subjective wellbeing and adaptive functioning among youth with internalizing and externalizing symptoms.