Adversity, Emotional Arousal, and Problem Behaviour in Adolescence: The Role of Non-Verbal Cognitive Ability as a Resilience Promoting Factor.

Background:   To test whether emotional arousal mediates the moderator effect of non-verbal cognitive ability on the association between cumulative contextual risk (number of proximal and distal adverse life events) and adolescent problem behaviour.

Method:   Data from a UK community sample of secondary school aged children were used. The study sample comprised 207 children with a mean age of 13.44 years (SD = 1.45). Problem behaviour was assessed with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, non-verbal cognitive ability was assessed with Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices Plus, and emotional arousal was measured with the Acting Out Emotions Scale of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire. Adjustment was made for gender, age, family structure, and socio-economic disadvantage.

Results:   Non-verbal cognitive ability moderated the effect of cumulative contextual risk on overall problem behaviour, and emotional arousal mediated this moderator effect. That is, risk predicted emotional arousal, which predicted overall problem behaviour, but emotional arousal was more strongly related to overall problem behaviour among children of low non-verbal cognitive ability than among children of high non-verbal cognitive ability.

Conclusions:   These findings are important for both theory development and intervention design. They advance theory because they suggest that non-verbal cognitive ability buffers the effect of risk on overall problem behaviour by strengthening control over emotions. They have implications for intervention design because they suggest that interventions carried out to enhance children's emotion regulation skills in the presence of multiple adversity might be more effective if they target children who score low on non-verbal cognitive ability.