Emotion Regulation Moderates the Risk Associated with the 5-HTT Gene and Stress in Children.

Publication Date

5-26-2014

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology

Keywords

Depression, Stress, Genetics, 5-HTTLPR, Emotion regulation, Protective role, At risk children

Abstract

Carrying a short allele in the serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) while experiencing stressful environments is linked to elevated risk for depression. What might offset this risky combination of genes and environment? We hypothesized that individual-level factors may play a protective role. Specifically, we examined whether individuals’ ability to decrease their stress responses via effective emotion regulation may be an important moderating factor and addressed this hypothesis in a socioeconomically diverse sample of 205 children aged 9–15 years. At-risk children (short-allele carriers in high-stress contexts) exhibited more depressive symptoms than other groups. Importantly, at-risk children who used effective emotion regulation did not exhibit increased depressive symptoms. These results have important implications for the basic science of understanding risk and resilience: in addition to genes and environment, individuals’ agentic ability to self-regulate may need to be considered as a critical third factor. Given that emotion regulation is learnable, these results also have strong public-health implications.

Copyright Date

5-26-2014

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Rights Holder

American Psychological Association

Provenance

Received from author

Language

English (eng)

Extent

10 pgs

Publication Statement

Copyright held by the American Psychological Association. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Publication Title

Emotion

Volume

14

Issue

5

First Page

930

Last Page

939

ISSN

1528-3542

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