Flow Processing: Narratives of Menarche in Early Adolescence

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Computational Linguistics
• Adolescent Health

Background:

• Early research highlighted the psychological significance of adolescents' menarche narratives.
• This study updates this by using computational text analysis to explore youths' menarche experiences and their link to internalizing symptoms.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze how adolescents describe menarche using computational text analysis.
• To investigate the association between these descriptions and internalizing symptoms.

Main Methods:

• 120 early adolescents completed word association and narrative tasks about menarche.
• Data were collected at two time points, 1 month apart, including measures of internalizing psychopathology.
• Co-occurrence network analysis, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling were used to analyze descriptions.

Main Results:

• Adolescents predominantly used negative words (e.g., "scary," "painful") to describe menarche.
• Narratives with more emotion words correlated with fewer depression and anxiety symptoms.
• Expressions of disgust were associated with increased depression and anxiety symptoms over time.

Conclusions:

• Despite destigmatization efforts, youth narratives reveal largely negative views of menarche.
• Disgust and emotional articulation in narratives may be key indicators for mental health professionals working with adolescents.
• Findings suggest potential areas for intervention and support for peri-menarcheal youth.