Ego Development and Adolescent Emotions

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Abstract
In this article, we investigate associations between ego development and emotion communication during adolescence, using a newly constructed coding system for scoring these affect dimensions from clinical research interviews with early adolescent subjects. One overarching question frames our inquiry: How does an adolescent's ego development influence his or her communication of emotional experience? To follow special combinations of emotion communications, diversity of communication and conflict within communication were operationally defined. Findings revealed that both these more complex combinations were present in a higher number of speeches for adolescents at higher levels of ego development. In terms of specific emotions, Pearson correlation analyses indicated that enthusiasm, affection, anxiety, and neutrality were directly associated with higher stages, whereas sadness and anger were inversely correlated with ego development. These associations were similar for both genders. The findings are discussed in terms of the implications of ego development stages for the individual's experience and understanding of different affect states and intersections of ego development trajectories with emotional communication during adolescence.