Studies on the relationship between parents and adolescents have shown consistently the importance of warm, supportive parenting for the healthy development of adolescents. Although theories...Show moreStudies on the relationship between parents and adolescents have shown consistently the importance of warm, supportive parenting for the healthy development of adolescents. Although theories suggest a bidirectional relationship between parental warmth and adolescent affect, the number of studies examining this bidirectionally is small. Additionally, previous studies have frequently used macro-level designs with retrospective self-report measures, while parent-adolescent processes can fluctuate at a smaller scale (i.e., days). The current study aimed to build on the small body of empirical research on the bidirectional, micro-level relationship between adolescent negative affect and parental warmth. We investigated whether perceived parental warmth on one day predicted changes in negative affect the following day, and vice versa. Our sample consisted of 80 adolescents (Mage = 15.90, 63.75% female). They completed four questionnaires a day for 14 consecutive days, including questions on perceived warmth from mothers and fathers and their affective states. Using EMA, results of multilevel analyses with a lagged effect showed that adolescents who experienced less parental warmth from both fathers and mothers experienced more negative affect the following day, while controlling for affect the previous day. Additionally, increased negative affect predicted more maternal warmth the following day. These findings suggest that the idea of bidirectionality is also applicable to day-to-day parenting processes, though support erosion appears to not take place at micro-level. These findings highlight the importance of supportive and warm parenting in family-focused prevention or reduction of negative affect in adolescents.Show less
