The aim of this study is to identify their cognitive emotional characteristics and to verify how the characteristics of their negative emotion and automatic thought are related to and affect each sub-factor of emotion regulation styles and problem-sol...
The aim of this study is to identify their cognitive emotional characteristics and to verify how the characteristics of their negative emotion and automatic thought are related to and affect each sub-factor of emotion regulation styles and problem-solving ability, in order to prevent recurrence of various antisocial behavioral problems which have occurred in adolescence to the adolescents in care facilities.
With the subjects of 81 adolescents accommodated in care facilities of the S institution in Seoul, Zing Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS; Song Jongyong, 1991), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Kwon Sukman, 1992), Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS; Lee Hyensoo, 2002), Korean Children's Automatic Thoughts Scale (K-CATS; Moon Kyeongjoo et al., 2002), Emotion Regulation Styles (Yim Jeonok; 2003) and Social Problem Solving Inventory-Revised (SPSI-R; Choi Yisoon, 2002) were applied.
The major results of the study are as follows.
First, the negative emotion perceived by the adolescents in care facilities scored low in general. This coincides with the common view that they do not learn from their past experience and are lacking in ability to think through expectation or imagination of the future, and also it agrees with the view of Conger & Peterson (1984) saying that they do not perceive their depressed feeling well, and though they do, they express such feeling not by direct appeals but by twisted ways like aggressive behavior.
Second, There was significant correlation between emotion regulation styles and problem-solving ability according to the characteristics of negative emotion and automatic thought of the adolescents in care facilities. The adolescents in care facilities preferred support-seeking and avoidance coping as the sub-factor of emotion regulation styles in order to regulate negative emotion, and also they sought negative problem orientation, impulsive/careless style and avoidance coping style in problem-solving ability.
Third, it was studied how negative emotion and automatic thought affect emotion regulation styles and problem-solving ability. In negative emotion, the more depressed, the more support-seeking style the sheltered adolescents take among the sub-sectors of emotion regulation styles, and the more impulsive, the more avoidance coping style they take as the emotion regulation style. In addition, analyzing the effects that negative emotion has on problem-solving ability, it is shown that the more impulsive, the less positive and the less rational problem orientation they do in negative emotion. That is, in negative emotion, the more impulsive, the more negative problem orientation, impulsive/careless and avoidance coping they do.
Last, analyzing the effects that automatic thought has on problem-solving ability, it is shown that in automatic thought, in the more depression, social anxiety and physical threat, the more negative problem orientation they do, and in the more physical threat, the more avoidance coping they do as problem-solving. Also it is shown that, in automatic thought, in the more social anxiety and physical threat, they use the overall problem-solving ability.
These findings suggest that, in order to understand problematic behavior of the adolescents in care facilities, it is important to care about the characteristics of their negative emotion and automatic thought, and to comprehend what kinds of emotion regulation and thought they do and what kinds of motives they have and what kinds of solutions they use in coping with problems.