Urgency as a Predictor of Change in Emotion Dysregulation in Adolescents

Abstract

Adolescence is a key developmental period characterized by increased maladaptive risky behaviors. Two related, but distinct constructs, urgency (the tendency to act rashly in response to strong negative or positive emotions) and emotion dysregulation are important risk factors for engaging in maladaptive risky behaviors. Thus far, research has largely agreed that these two risk factors are highly correlated; however, the causal direction between these constructs is less understood. The goal of the current study is to determine whether urgency predicts emotion dysregulation among adolescents. This project is a secondary data analysis of a larger study designed to test the effectiveness of a school-based intervention for youth at risk of maladaptive risk taking, as compared to a control group of youth enrolled in a health class. The current study utilized data from the control youth (n=544, 49.8% female, Mage=14.22, SD=0.52) to test whether urgency at baseline predicts change in emotion dysregulation over a nine-week period, and whether that relationship differs across boys and girls. Results found that negative, but not positive, urgency significantly predicted emotion dysregulation change (negative urgency: b=0.11, p=0.03; positive urgency: b=0.03, p=0.54). Gender did not moderate either relationship (p’s>0.30). This work provides initial evidence of a temporal relationship between negative urgency and changes in emotion dysregulation. The next step is to determine whether negative urgency imparts risk for malapative behaviors through its effect on emotion dysregulation. This program of research may lead to better identification of effective interventions to decrease negative urgency-based risk-taking and better identify those at risk of developing maladaptive risk-taking.