(PS8-C53) Non-supportive Emotion Socialization Moderates the Relation Between Internalizing Symptoms and Emotional Support Seeking for Students Entering College During the COVID-19 Pandemic

College students with clinical-level internalizing symptoms display relatively low utilization of professional mental health support (Stallman et al., 2022), including empirically based treatments such as CBT. Internalizing symptoms may emerge or worsen during the transition to college (Cleary et al., 2011, Pedrelli et al., 2015), particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kinzie & Cole, 2022), indicating the need to identify factors influencing student support seeking. Many students prefer to access emotional support informally from parents, but psychological distress (Digal & Gagnon, 2020) and past parent-child interactions (Fang et al., 2022) may impede support seeking. The current study sought to replicate and extend previous findings that psychological distress is inversely related to support seeking by examining emotion socialization as a moderator on the relation between anxiety or depressive symptoms and informal support seeking. We hypothesize that (1) students with higher symptoms seek less support from caregivers, and (2) emotion socialization (ES) moderates this relation, such that higher supportive (e.g., encouraging expression) and lower non-supportive (e.g., dismissing, criticizing) reactions to negative emotions in adolescence are related to more emotional support seeking.

First- and second-year college students (n= 525, 66.3% Women, 86.9% White, 94.7% Non-Hispanic/Latinx) at a public Midwestern university completed an online survey during the 2021-2022 academic year. Students reported on caregiver ES in adolescence [Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES); Fabes et al., 2002], current emotional support seeking from caregivers (COPE Inventory; Carver et al., 1989), and current anxiety [Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ); Meyer et al., 1990] and depressive [Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21); Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995] symptoms. 

CCNES scales were averaged to calculate separate Supportive and Non-Supportive scores (e.g., Shadur & Hussong, 2021). Anxiety symptoms were positively correlated with support seeking (r= .107, p= .014). Depressive symptoms were negatively correlated with support seeking (r= -.203, p= .000). At lower levels of Non-supportive ES, anxiety symptoms were negatively related to support seeking (b= -0.005, t= -2.232, p=.026). At higher levels of Non-supportive ES, depressive symptoms were negatively related to support seeking (b= -0.011, t= -1.847, p=.065). Supportive ES did not moderate the relation between anxiety or depressive symptoms and support seeking.

Findings suggest that internalizing symptoms are differentially related to support seeking (Hyp1), a distinction not previously assessed in the relation between general psychological distress and support seeking. Non-Supportive ES impacted the relation between internalizing symptoms and support seeking, but Supportive ES did not (Hyp2).  Students with anxiety may be more sensitive to lower levels of Non-supportive ES, while students with depression may only experience an impact on support seeking at higher levels of Non-supportive ES. Implications and future directions will be discussed.