Bidirectional Associations between Sleep Duration and Emotion Dysregulation across Adolescence

Throughout adolescence, both sleep and emotion regulation abilities undergo significant developmental changes. The maturational systems that govern sleep and emotion regulation are closely intertwined leading many researchers to posit a mutually reinforcing relationship. Although there is support for a bidirectional relationship among adults, empirical support for reciprocal relationships among adolescents is lacking. Given the notable developmental changes and instability that occur throughout adolescence, this is a critical period to examine whether sleep and emotion regulation abilities may be reciprocally related. Using a latent curve model with structured residuals, this study examined within-person reciprocal associations between sleep duration and emotion dysregulation among 12,711 Canadian adolescents (M[subscript age] = 14.30 years; 50% female). Participants self-reported their sleep duration and emotion dysregulation each year for 3 years beginning in Grade 9. After accounting for underlying developmental trajectories, the results did not support a bidirectional relationship between sleep duration and emotion dysregulation from one year to the next. However, there was evidence of contemporaneous associations between the residuals at each wave of assessment (r = -0.12) such that less sleep than expected was concurrently associated with higher-than-expected deviations in emotion dysregulation, or, conversely, that reporting greater emotion dysregulation than expected was associated with lower-than-expected sleep duration. In contrast to previous findings, the between-person associations were not supported. Taken together, these results indicate that the relationship between sleep duration and emotion dysregulation is primarily a within-person process rather than reflecting differences between individuals and likely operates on a more proximal timescale.