Childhood poverty can have insidious impacts on mental health outcomes across the lifespan; however, the mechanisms that may confer or mitigate risk remain unclear. One pathway may involve heightened exposure to daily stress, which may contribute to challenges with emotion regulation (ER), a potent transdiagnostic risk factor for reduced mental health outcomes. At the same time, attachment relationships with supportive parents and peers may serve as protective factors against the detrimental impacts of daily stress and promote more regulatory success. The present study addressed these gaps by examining the direct association between poverty and ER success, as well as the mediating role of daily stress in this relationship. Additionally, the moderating roles of parental and peer attachment on the association between daily stress and ER success were assessed, and their relative influences were compared. Participants were 249 adolescents (Mage = 15.39; 65.5% female, 30.1% male, 2.6% gender- expansive) recruited from across British Columbia who completed a 14-day experience-sampling study assessing naturally occurring ER and daily stress. Poverty was indexed using an income-to-needs ratio (INR) that accounted for household income, family size, and geographic location. Linear regression analyses indicated that poverty was not significantly associated with ER success (b = -0.74, p = .30). A mediation analysis indicated that daily stress did not mediate the association between poverty and ER success (b = 0.40, 95% CI -0.20, 1.12). Moderation analyses revealed a significant interaction between daily stress and parental attachment (b = -4.94, p = .03), such that higher parental attachment was associated with increased ER success at low levels of stress, although this advantage deteriorated at high levels of stress. In contrast, the interaction between daily stress and peer attachment was not significant (b = 0.28, p = .92). Sensitivity analyses suggested variability in these effects across different demographic considerations. This study underscores the importance of conceptualizing poverty as a complex, context-dependent experience shaped by multiple processes and offers implications for researchers, clinicians, and policymakers.
Jacqueline Olivia Tams (Fri,) studied this question.