Emotion regulation as a mechanism underlying stress sensitization in youth exposed to trauma
Year: 2024
Type: preprint
Abstract: Childhood trauma is a potent predictor of psychopathology (Greger et al., 2015; Kessler et al., 2010; McLaughlin & Lambert, 2017; McLaughlin et al., 2016; Mills et al., 2013). Experiencing childhood trauma (e.g., physical and sexual abuse and witnessing domestic violence) has been associated with elevated risk for both the first onset and recurrence of internalizing disorders, including depression and anxiety (Green et al., 2010; Jaffee, 2017; McLaughlin et al., 2010, 2012). Stress sensitization, or heightened sensitivity to stress, is a pathway by which childhood trauma may increase the risk for internalizing disorders. Childhood trauma can sensitize individuals to the impact of subsequent stressful life events, thereby heightening the risk of mental health symptoms in adolescence and adulthood (Hammen et al., 2000; Harkness et al., 2006; McLaughlin et al., 2010). Despite this established link, the underlying mechanisms of stress sensitization are not well-understood and have been infrequently investigated. Clarifying the mechanisms could inform the development of targeted interventions for internalizing disorders, particularly for those exposed to childhood trauma. Difficulty with emotion regulation is a potential psychological process underlying stress sensitization (McLaughlin et al., 2017). Emotion regulation is defined as efforts to influence the emotions one has and the timing, experience, and expression of these emotions (Gross, 1998). Emotion regulation can be explicit—strategies consciously initiated to change one’s emotions—or automatic—strategies invoked spontaneously and not consciously initiated (Gyurak et al., 2011; Braunstein, Gross, and Ochsner, 2017). Emotion regulation can also be distinguished at the level of how often one spontaneously deploys emotion regulation strategies in daily life (i.e., tendency; Silvers et al., 2019) and how successfully one can change one’s emotions when instructed to do so (i.e., capacity; Buhle et al., 2014). Emotion regulation tendency is most often operationalized as a trait assessed via self-report questionnaires while capacity is assessed via instructed down-regulation of emotional reactions when presented with negative stimuli (Caballero et al., 2023). Few studies have investigated emotion regulation as a process underlying stress sensitization. For example, childhood sexual abuse predicted greater use of self-reported maladaptive emotion regulation strategies that, in turn, strengthened the effects of perceived stress on depression symptoms (Yaroslavsky et al., 2022). However, this question has not yet been explored through longitudinal designs, objective stress measures (e.g., SLEs), or multimodal assessments of emotion regulation (e.g., self-reported questionnaires assessing explicit emotion regulation tendency, behavioral tasks assessing automatic emotion regulation capacity, and fMRI tasks assessing neural engagement, indexing emotion regulation capacity). Given that emotion regulation is inherently a multidimensional process, converging evidence from multiple levels of analyses, from behavior to neural engagement, is critical to capturing the key facets of the construct. Moreover, the distinction between explicit and automatic forms of emotion regulation, an individual’s tendency and capacity to employ these strategies, and their potential role as mechanisms in stress sensitization remain unexplored. Therefore, the goal of the present study is to examine potential mechanisms of stress sensitization following exposure to traumatic events in childhood. We aim to assess emotion regulation at multiple levels: explicit tendency (through self-report questionnaires), automatic capacity (assessed using a behavioral task), and explicit capacity (indexed through amygdala engagement during an emotion regulation fMRI task).
Language: English
Topic: Child Abuse and Trauma
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7140208689