Girls with Suicidal Ideation Experienced Less Parental Reciprocity of Eye-Contact and Positive Facial Affect during Conflictual Interactions: A Pilot Study

Background. Increasing rates of suicidal thoughts and behaviors among youth underscore the need to identify early predictors of risk. Theorists propose that the desire to die is driven by intense distress following social disconnection or rejection. Although ample empirical evidence supports the link between social factors and suicidality, there remains a gap in understanding how distinct processes within social communication relate to suicidality. We empirically demonstrate how two indicators of social communication (reciprocity of eye-gaze and facial expressions of happiness) differ during parent-adolescent conflict between dyads with adolescents who experience future suicidal ideation (SI) and those who do not. Methods. Facial affect analyses were based on a sample of 103 girls (ages 11-13; M=12.28; 75% White) and their parents (88.3% mothers). Eye-gaze analyses were conducted in subset of these dyads (N = 65; 90% mothers). Participants completed a conflict discussion as a part of a laboratory-based interaction paradigm during which participants’ gaze to their partners’ eyes was assessed using mobile eye-tracking glasses and facial affect was coded from videos of the discussion using FaceReader Observer XT. Adolescents’ SI was assessed 12-months later using the four-item suicide composite on the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire. Results. We used actor-partner interdependence models within a multi-level structural equation modeling framework to test whether participants’ gaze and affect predicted their own and their partners’ gaze and affect one second later and if these intra and interpersonal dynamics would differ in dyads with and without future adolescent SI. Girls from dyads with less parental reciprocity of eye-gaze and happiness reported SI 12-months later. Conclusions. During early adolescence, girls whose parents reciprocate their eye-contact or positive affect less during conflict may be at heightened risk for SI. If replicated, patterns of eye-gaze and facial affect could provide promising targets of intervention to reduce suicidality prospectively.