Research on the link between individual discrete emotions and well-
being/psychopathology has been accumulating. Emotional development theories emphasize the embeddedness of the experience of emotions in socialization processes in the family and according to prescribed rules of expression at the societal/cultural level (Campos et al., 1989; Saarni, 1990). Children learn at a very young age that the expression of negative affect in comparison to positive affect can result in unfavourable responses from others with the consequence of reduced comforting, help, and support (Coyne, 1976; Malatesta & Haviland, 1982). Moreover, in the context of specific emotions, the profiles of different negative and positive emotion differed in the comparison between depressed and nondepressed youth (Carey, Finch, & Carey, 1991). Each discrete emotion, irrespective of negative or positive valence, influences mental health and well-being in different and independent ways even though they may be associated.
Fear plays a large role in the etiology of anxiety and anxiety disorders. Fear and anxiety have separate factor structures but they are highly interlinked (Chorpita et al., 1998). The pathology of fear and anxiety in youth has received much attention in the past decade due to the high prevalence of anxiety disorders. Research on the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders has revealed that fear and anxiety cannot be discriminated as anxiety can shift into a fear response and can intensify into a panic or phobia when exposed to the stimuli or situation. The
relationship between fear and other psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression have been shown to be distinct but correlated as a group of negative emotions (Muris et al., 2001). Moreover, from a developmental psychopathology perspective, a continuum exists between normal fear and anxiety disorders which can be attributed to shifts in cognitive development during the teenage years (Cicchetti & Cohen, 1995).
Sadness in adolescents has mainly been examined as dysphoria and depression (Kovacs & Yaroslavsky, 2014). Persistent sadness acts as a vulnerability factor that may eventually lead to depression (Wakefield, Schmitz, & Baer, 2010). Moreover, prior research has also identified sadness as being present in depression rather than as depression being present in sadness (Leventhal, 2008). Research in child and adolescent depression increasingly shows the
detrimental effects of familial depression on depressed and never-depressed adolescents through displays of dysphoric experiences, the inability to repair mood, and impaired mood repair mechanisms (Kovacs & Yaroslavsky, 2014). Adolescents who experience sadness and view their difficult circumstances as being uncontrollable are also more likely to use alcohol and other drugs regularly and find it more difficult to access sustaining and reliable social supports (MacLean, Kutin, Best, Bruun, & Green, 2014). Sadness prompts certain coping responses that can lead individuals down a pathway where it can intensify and become increasingly difficult to return to a state of normalcy. More research is therefore required to identify risk factors
associated with sadness and the manner in which sadness is regulated.
Early research on hostility was mainly associated with physical health outcomes and in particular, coronary heart disease (CHD) (Miller, Smith, Turner, Guijarro, & Hallet, 1996). Although children are rarely known to suffer from CHD, research evidence suggests that atherosclerosis begins in adolescence and that a pattern of hostile-anger pattern possibly begins in childhood and becomes more pronounced in adolescence (Matthews & Woodall, 1988). The interpersonal component of the psychosocial vulnerability model, in particular perceptions of low social support, has often been used to explain ill health in highly hostile individuals with males exhibiting more overt verbal and behavioural hostility than females (Hart, 1999).
Similarly, there is a growing body of literature linking hostility with stress and depression in adolescence (Felsten, 1996; Weiss et al., 2005). Hostile attributions are also known to predict aggressive behaviour (Burks, Laird, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1999; Godleski & Ostrov, 2010; Orobio de Castro, Veerman, Koops, Bosch, & Monshouwer, 2002). Genetic factors play a role – albeit a small role - in the heritability of hostile/anger profile (Cates, Houston, Vavak, Crawford, & Uttley, 1993; Smith, McGonigle, Turner, Ford, & Slattery, 1991). Etiological correlates of hostility have been clearly established, but little is known about coping strategies used by hostile individuals and whether hostility has more specific markers of risk.
Proneness to shame can become exacerbated when shame is experienced continually and can lead to a wide range of psychological problems. In adults, shame has been associated with a variety of anxiety disorders, depression, anger, substance abuse, somatization disorders, and eating disorders (Andrews, Qian, & Valentine, 2002; Sanftner, Barlow, Marschall, & Tangney, 1995; Tangney, Burggraf, & Wagner, 1995; Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992). Other psychological symptoms have also been associated with shame such as the fear of negative social evaluation, externalizing blame, and feelings of inferiority. In children between 5 and 13 years, shame-proneness has been broadly associated with internalizing and
externalizing disorders, suggesting that shame-proneness underlies a range of psychological disorders (Ferguson, Stegge, Eyre, Vollmer, & Ashbaker, 2000; Ferguson, Stegge, Miller, & Olsen, 1999). Results from longitudinal studies indicate that adolescents who tend to
experience increases in shame and decreases in the experience of guilt are prone to experience depression and to become involved in delinquent behaviour in late adolescence (Stuewig & McCloskey, 2005; Tilghman-Osborne, Cole, Felton, & Ciesla, 2008). In another longitudinal study among early adolescents, differences between guilt and shame were evaluated on prosocial, withdrawn, and aggressive behaviours (Roos, Hodges, & Salmivalli, 2014). The tendency for guilt-proneness contributed to reparative actions accompanied by the likelihood of remaining disengaged in maladaptive behaviours while shame-proneness tended towards less prosocial behaviour.
The role of positive emotions has mainly been examined in relation to its pleasant characteristics and its relationship with well-being. The role of positive affect in
psychopathology has been neglected despite the viewpoint that deficits or excesses in positive emotions can also be maladaptive (Gilbert, 2012). Due to a lack of research in adolescents there is a need to rely on data from adult models of the dysregulation of positive emotions. Support for the dysregulation of positive emotions can be applied to some specific disorders such as major depression, social anxiety, bipolar disorder, externalizing disorders, and eating disorders (Gilbert, 2012). The dysregulation of positive emotions is marked by deficits in or low levels of the experience of positive emotions, imbalances between the experience of positive and
negative emotions, the inability to differentiate between high-approach motivation and low- approach motivation emotions, or elevated reward-seeking and sensation-seeking tendencies (Gilbert, 2012). Adolescents typically report experiencing more negative affect in comparison to positive affect as is evidenced by a linear increase in negative affect and a substantial decline in positive affect as adolescence progresses (Henker et al., 2002; Silk et al., 2009). The risk of psychopathology increases in adolescence when the ratio of negative to positive emotions experienced become greatly unbalanced (Fussner, Luebbe, & Bell, 2015). In addition,
adolescents experience greater intensity and variability in emotions on a daily basis and extreme feelings of both negative and positive emotions. Adolescents also react quicker to emotional stimuli than children and adults and this explains the accelerated responding in emotional situations, especially when in conflict with parents and in risk-taking activities during this age period (Tottenham, Hare, & Casey, 2011). Research is increasingly showing that apart from the contribution of high levels of negative affect on internalizing disorders (e.g. anxiety,
depression), low levels of positive affect also contribute to increases in psychopathology (Gilbert, 2012; Neumann, van Lier, Frijns, Meeus, & Koot, 2011).