Early caregiving adversities and parental context effects on adolescents’ momentary emotion differentiation
Abstract
Emotion differentiation—the ability to identify specific experienced emotions—associates with psychological health. Although theorized to develop through caregiving experiences, contextual effects on emotion differentiation in developmental populations have rarely been investigated, particularly among youth who have experienced disruptions in early caregiving. Here, we examined how adolescents’ momentary emotion differentiation varies across socioemotional contexts and whether these patterns differ following exposure to severe caregiving-related early adversities. Adolescents aged 10–17 with or without caregiving-related early adversities (N=81; mean age=13.49, SD = 1.97; 53% male/47% female, 9%-Asian American, 28%-black, 34%-white, 28%-other) completed 7-day ecological momentary assessment (4–5 surveys/day), reporting emotions and social contexts. At the trait level, there were no significant group differences in emotion differentiation. At the momentary level, negative momentary emotion differentiation decreased following negative parent-related contexts compared to other contexts. However, the momentary emotions’ standard deviation indicated also differentiated phasic intensification of a few negative emotions. Importantly, exposure to caregiving-related early adversities attenuated these contextual effects, L.Ratio(3) = 9.178 - 11.263. These findings provide initial evidence linking severe caregiving-related early adversities to affective dynamic processes and raise the hypothesis that early caregiving disruptions mitigate momentary parental modulation effects on emotion differentiation.
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BibTeX
@misc{abramson2026early,
title = {{Early caregiving adversities and parental context effects on adolescents’ momentary emotion differentiation}},
author = {Lior Abramson and Anna Vannucci and Camila Vicioso and Daniela Juarez and Erin Joyce and Andrea Fields and Erica Niemiec and Lisa Gibson and Niall Bolger and Nim Tottenham},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/mkg7h_v4},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/mkg7h_v4/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Early caregiving adversities and parental context effects on adolescents’ momentary emotion differentiation
AU - Lior Abramson
AU - Anna Vannucci
AU - Camila Vicioso
AU - Daniela Juarez
AU - Erin Joyce
AU - Andrea Fields
AU - Erica Niemiec
AU - Lisa Gibson
AU - Niall Bolger
AU - Nim Tottenham
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/02
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/mkg7h_v4
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/mkg7h_v4/
AB - Emotion differentiation—the ability to identify specific experienced emotions—associates with psychological health. Although theorized to develop through caregiving experiences, contextual effects on emotion differentiation in developmental populations have rarely been investigated, particularly among youth who have experienced disruptions in early caregiving. Here, we examined how adolescents’ momentary emotion differentiation varies across socioemotional contexts and whether these patterns differ following exposure to severe caregiving-related early adversities. Adolescents aged 10–17 with or without caregiving-related early adversities (N=81; mean age=13.49, SD = 1.97; 53% male/47% female, 9%-Asian American, 28%-black, 34%-white, 28%-other) completed 7-day ecological momentary assessment (4–5 surveys/day), reporting emotions and social contexts. At the trait level, there were no significant group differences in emotion differentiation. At the momentary level, negative momentary emotion differentiation decreased following negative parent-related contexts compared to other contexts. However, the momentary emotions’ standard deviation indicated also differentiated phasic intensification of a few negative emotions. Importantly, exposure to caregiving-related early adversities attenuated these contextual effects, L.Ratio(3) = 9.178 - 11.263. These findings provide initial evidence linking severe caregiving-related early adversities to affective dynamic processes and raise the hypothesis that early caregiving disruptions mitigate momentary parental modulation effects on emotion differentiation.
ER -