Understanding the factors that influence how individuals in their late adolescence react to acute stress has been a prime focus of recent psychological research. Emotion socialization, strategies parental figures use to respond to outbursts of emotion in early adolescents, has not been effectively linked to late adolescents’ ability to react maturely when placed in environments of acute stress. This study, spearheaded by lab head Jinhong Guo, aims at addressing this gap in research by establishing a relationship between emotion socialization and a late adolescents’ ability to respond to acute stress. In this study, researchers gave participants a preemptive survey gauging their parents' emotion socialization strategies, whether supportive or unsupportive. In the final wave of research, researchers conducted the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) on participants, measuring both psychological and physiological responses. The researchers concluded that parental response to emotion could not predict cortisol levels, heart rate, or blood pressure, but could indicate emotional reactivity. Demographic differences between gender and race were also accounted for and represented in the research. Researchers further proposed that future research be conducted focusing on alternate parental emotion socialization strategies and different stressors.
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