Connections during Crisis: Adolescents’ social dynamics and mental health during COVID-19

Adolescence is a critical period for social development, which COVID-19 has dramatically altered. Quarantined youths had limited in-person interactions with peers. The present study used an intensive longitudinal design to investigate changes in interpersonal dynamics and mental health during COVID-19. Specifically, we investigated whether the associations between different social contexts – i.e., “spillover” – changed during COVID-19, and whether changes in social interactions during COVID-19 was associated with changes in depressive symptoms. Approximately one year prior to the onset of COVID-19, 139 youths reported depressive symptoms and daily interactions with parents, siblings, and friends, every day for 21 days via online questionnaires. Shortly after schools closed due to COVID-19, 115 of these youths completed a similar 28-day diary. Analyses included 112 youths (62 girls, 73% Caucasian; Mage=11.77, range 8-15 in Wave 1) who completed at least 13 diary days in each data wave. Our results show that younger adolescents experienced significant decreases in negative and positive interactions with friends, whereas older adolescents showed significant decreases in negative interactions with friends and significant increases in positive interactions with siblings. As predicted, within-day spillover of positive interactions and person-level association of negative interactions increased within the family during COVID-19, whereas within-day spillover of positive interactions between family and friends decreased. We also found a dramatic increase in depressive symptoms. More negative interactions and fewer positive interactions with family members were associated with changes in depressive symptoms. Our study sheds light on how youths’ social development may be impacted by COVID-19.

You have to follow through: Attaining behavioral change goals predicts volitional personality change

Prior research has found that people’s desires to change their personality traits predict corresponding subsequent trait growth over time. However, few studies have examined the processes via which people can volitionally change their personality traits. Thus, it remains unclear whether merely desiring change predicts trait growth or whether actively pursuing change is necessary. The present study was a 15-week intensive longitudinal design that tested whether engaging in trait-typical behaviors predicted trait change. Participants provided self-report ratings of their personality traits and were able to freely accept and complete weekly “challenges”—prewritten behavioral goals that would pull their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in line with their desired traits. Results indicated that merely accepting behavioral challenges did not predict trait changes. Rather, only actually completing challenges (i.e., performing trait-typical behaviors) predicted trait change over time. Thus, merely wanting to change does not appear to be sufficient to evoke trait growth; successfully changing one’s personality traits may require actively and successfully implementing behaviors to change oneself.