Tracking disadvantaged adolescents' daily emotion dynamics: An experience sampling study of adolescents' emotional responding, reactivity, and inertia in everyday life

The daily ebb-and-flow of emotions serve as “building blocks” for psychological health (Wichers, 2013). Thus, understanding day-to-day emotional dynamics of youth embedded in the context of socioeconomic disadvantage can provide valuable insight for mental health conditions. This thesis utilized Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM) to map a range of emotional experiences among disadvantaged youth, including emotional responses across differing contexts, emotional reactivity to stressors, and emotional inertia. Data were derived from the “How do you feel?” project, in which two hundred and six socioeconomically disadvantage youth reported their emotional states, social contexts and recent experiences of stressors, five times per day for seven days, using smartphones (i.e. the ESM phase). Adolescents’ psychopathology symptoms were assessed at pre-and post ESM. Hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) was used for main analyses. Study 1 investigated adolescents' emotional responses to a recent stressor, and the conditioning effect of social context on these emotional responses. Findings suggested that adolescents' emotional responses to stressors were dampened when in the presence of peers, versus being alone or with family. Study 2 narrowed the lens to focus on individual differences in adolescents' reactivity to daily stressors based on youths’ externalizing symptomatology. Findings suggested a linear association between externalizing and emotion reactivity, such that adolescents with higher externalizing symptoms experienced greater increases in sadness, anger and loneliness, and greater decreases in excitement post-stressor, compared to their less-symptomatic peers. The third and final study further investigated the conditioning effect of adolescents’ externalizing symptoms by examining the relation between externalizing and the carry-over effects of emotions from one-time point to the next (i.e. emotional inertia). Adolescents higher in externalizing symptoms demonstrated stronger inertia for worry, but weaker inertia for happiness and excitement, compared to adolescents lower in externalizing symptoms. In sum, this thesis provides convincing evidence of the role of contexts and individual differences in the daily emotional dynamics of disadvantaged adolescents. Continued parsing of individuals’ daily emotional experiences will be critical to scholars’ broader understanding of adolescent mental health

Distress in couples coping with cancer: A meta-analysis and critical review of role and gender effects

Research concerning distress in couples coping with cancer was integrated using meta-analysis and narrative critical appraisal. Individual levels of distress were determined more by gender than by the role of being the person with cancer versus that person's partner. That is, women reported consistently more distress than men regardless of their role (standardized mean difference = 0.31). The association between patient and partner distress within couples was only moderate (r = .29) but is sufficient to warrant further consideration of the notion that these couples react as an emotional system rather than as individuals. It is noteworthy that this association is not moderated by gender. With a general lack of comparison groups, the question of how much distress can be ascribed to the cancer experience cannot be answered decisively; elevations in distress are probably modest. We critically discuss these results, identify important unanswered questions, and indicate directions for future research. Attention needs to be directed toward factors other than cancer as direct influences of distress in these couples and to mediators and moderators of the cancer experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved)

Correlates and Predictors of Emotion Language and Well-Being in Stressful and Traumatic Contexts.

In three studies, I examined associations between emotional expression (through language) and well-being as people reflected on stressful and life-changing situations. Previous research suggests that emotional expression is only helpful for some people, and the primary goal of the current research was to contribute to literature that examines when and under what circumstances expression of emotion is related to positive outcomes for individuals. The Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Program (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, Boyd, & Francis, 2015) was used in each study to text analyze participants’ narratives about experiences of childhood sexual abuse (Study 1), bereavement (Study 2), and the transition to parenthood (Study 3). I focused on the two broad LIWC word categories associated with emotionality: positive emotion (e.g., happy, laugh) and negative emotion (e.g., sad, angry). Study 1 examined associations between indicators of mental health and positive and negative emotion words in the trauma narratives of 55 survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Participants who used more positive and negative emotion language had better psychological outcomes, especially when the abuse was more severe. Study 2 investigated expressions of positive emotion words in discussions between 39 parentally bereaved children and their surviving caregivers. Children’s use of positive emotion words in the discussion were unrelated to their own psychological outcomes; however, children were less likely to experience symptoms of anxiety, avoidant coping, and depression when their caregivers used more positive emotion words, especially after more time had passed since parental loss. Study 3 tested dyadic and longitudinal associations between emotional expression and psychological and relational well-being in a sample of 29 expectant couples across the transition to parenthood. Changes (increases) in emotional expression over time were more consistently associated with husbands’ and wives’ postpartum outcomes compared with average levels of emotional expression. Results from Study 3 also demonstrated that emotional expression and health are tied in meaningful ways between romantic partners. Overall, results from the current research point to individual and contextual factors that moderate the association between emotional expression and well-being. These findings have implications for tailored interventions that promote optimal outcomes when people discuss and reflect on emotional content.PhDPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133286/1/bwardeck_1.pd

The Use of Reappraisal during Expressive Writing and its Impact on Affect and Insight

This thesis looked into the role of reappraisal in expressive writing and its impact on affect and insight. The study looked into (1) differences in reappraisal between writing in the first person versus third person, (2) differences in one’s perceived inclusion of the stressor in the self between the two groups, (3) changes produced in positive and negative affect, (4) outcomes on insight, and (5) the role of reappraisal as a mediator between expressive writing and its outcomes. 64 undergraduate students were asked to answer questionnaires and engage in a writing task. Results of the study are as follows: (1) writing in the third person does not lead to greater reappraisal; (2) through time, there was a decrease in the way people perceived the stressor to be included in the self; (3) through time, people decreased in positive affect and increased in negative affect; (4) writing in the third person did not lead to greater insight; and (5) reappraisal was not a mediator between expressive writing and its outcomes in affect and insight. Limitations, future directions, and implications of the study are explained in the paper

Exploring the role of self-compassion in self-harm and suicidal ideation

Background: To date suicide research has mostly focussed on the presence of risk factors for suicide, and as a result, we have a good understanding of how these factors interact and contribute to risk. However, despite major advances in understanding the psychology of suicide and self-harm there are many gaps in our knowledge. In particular, the evidence for factors that may protect against suicide risk is limited. Self‐compassion has been implicated in the aetiology and course of mental health with evidence suggesting an association between greater self‐compassion and lower emotional distress. Adopting a compassionate stance to the self may help individuals tolerate difficult emotions, and as self-compassion can be developed through meditation type exercises, it may present a potentially modifiable protective factor for psychological distress and perhaps protect against suicide risk. However, research into self-compassion, suicide and self-harm is a relatively new field and our understanding of how self-compassion relates to risk-factors and self-harm as a whole is limited. This thesis presents five studies designed to address the following research questions: 1. What is the nature of self-compassion?; 2. What is the relationship between self-compassion and suicidal ideation or self-harm?; 3. Is a brief self-compassion exercise acceptable to individuals with a history of self-harm? Methods: A range of self-report and experimental measures were utilised to address the above research questions. To investigate the first research question, the factor structure of the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003 a,b) was assessed in study 2. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analytical techniques were used (Time 1, n=526; Time 2, n= 332). Construct divergence of the SCS and a measure of self-criticism was assessed in studies 3 and 5. To address the second research question, a systematic review of the literature (study 1) was conducted to establish the extent of the extant knowledge on this relationship. In studies 3 and 5 self-compassion was investigated within the context of risk factors selected from the Integrated Motivational-Volitional model of suicidal behaviour (IMV; O’Connor & Kirtley, 2018; O’Connor, 2011). Study 3: a longitudinal (Time 1, n=514; Time 2, n= 269) online self-report survey was conducted to explore self-compassion’s role within the motivational phase of the IMV model. The SCS was included along with the core constructs (defeat and entrapment) of the motivational phase of the IMV model and suicidal ideation history. Studies 4 and 5 were laboratory studies which used experimental and qualitative components to develop and pilot a self-compassion exercise (SCM). Study 4 (n= 8) assessed the acceptability of the SCM to individuals with a history of self-harm (Question 3). Specifically study 4 contained a qualitative component to elicit feedback on the SCM and explore participant’s experiences of compassion. Study 5 (n= 61) was a randomised controlled comparison of the SCM versus relaxation exercise on autobiographical memory; an established risk factor for suicidality from the IMV model (Question 2). Results: Addressing the first research question, the factor analysis confirmed a bifactorial model of the SCS indicating that both total score or and subscale scores are valid. Additionally, the SCS demonstrated significant divergence from self-criticism indicating that these measures assess different constructs. In respect of research question 2, consistent with the systematic review, all the studies herein found that higher self-compassion was associated with no history of suicidal ideation or self-harm and lower levels of psychological distress. In studies 3 and 5, components of the SCS were found to mediate the different pathways between selected risk factors and suicidal ideation and self-harm. Individual mediation models indicated that defeat and entrapment were mediated by SCS total score and isolation; the entrapment-suicidal ideation relationship was mediated by isolation, self-kindness and self-judgement. In study 5 the relationship between overgeneral autobiographical memory and suicidal ideation was mediated by all the negative SCS subscales, mindfulness and the SCS total score. Also in study 5, non-significant opposing trends were evident for the SCM and relaxation exercises. Specifically, following the exercises, a main effect was observed in recall latency to negative cues; latency decreased following the SCM whereas latency increased following the relaxation exercise (both non-significant). Non-significant increases in specific memories were observed following the SCM while no change was observed following the relaxation exercise. This may suggest that SCM and relaxation exercises operate differentially within autobiographical memory. There was clear evidence that a brief self-compassion exercise acceptable in individuals with a history of self-harm with only some minor changes in administration highlighted. Following the SCM increases in self-compassion were reported by participants. Conclusions: The range of methods used in these studies allowed an in-depth evaluation of self-compassion’s role in suicidal ideation and self-harm. In line with previous research, the findings suggest that high levels of self-compassion are associated with lower suicidal ideation and self-harm. The results also indicate that components of self-compassion may play a role throughout the motivational phase of the IMV model. Findings from the laboratory studies indicated that individuals with a history of self-harm found the brief self-compassion exercise acceptable. Our findings demonstrate that a brief self-compassion meditation is acceptable and produces changes in levels of compassion. Signals in the data from study 5 suggest that brief self-compassion exercises may be useful to investigate the relationship between self-compassion and autobiographical memory. Overall, these findings suggest that self-compassion may be an important clinical target as, given the interconnected nature of its components, targeting self-compassion may have diffuse effects on various risk factors for suicidal ideation and self-harm. Further research should investigate feasibility and outcome signals of compassion-focussed interventions for suicidal behaviour. Ultimately further research is needed to better understand the role of self-compassion in suicidal ideation and self-harm

Monitoring depressive symptoms using social media data

Social media data contains rich information about one's emotions and daily life experiences. In the recent decade, researchers have found links between people's behavior on social media platforms and their mental health status. However, little effort has been spent on mapping social media behaviors to the psychological processes underlying the psychopathological symptoms. Identifying these links may allow researchers to observe the trajectory of the illness through social media behaviors. The psychological processes examined in this thesis include affective patterns, distorted cognitive thinking and topics relevant to mental health status. In the first part of the thesis, we conducted two studies to explore methods to extract affective patterns from social media text. We demonstrated that mood fluctuations and mood transitions extracted from social media text reflect an individual’s depressive symptom level. In another study, we demonstrated that the affect from content not written by social media users themselves, such as quotes and lyrics, also reflects depressive symptoms, but the implications from these are different from content written by the users themselves. In the second part of the thesis, we identified distorted thinking from social media text. We found that these thinking patterns have a higher association with users' self-reported depressive symptom levels than affect extracted from users' text. In the last part of the thesis, we manually compiled topic dictionaries related to suicidal ideations according to the psychopathology literature. We found that users' suicidal risk levels can be estimated by using these topics. The estimation can be improved by combining these topics with results from a language model. The data-driven empirical studies in this thesis demonstrated that we can characterize the social media signals in a way that impacts our understanding of mental disorder symptoms. We blended data-driven methods such as machine learning, natural language processing and data science with theoretical insights from psychology

The development of a counselling intervention for people living HIV and AIDS experiencing stress-related psychological conditions in the Eastern Cape province

People living with HIV and AIDS (PLHIV) suffer from a number of stress-related psychological disorders. The aim of this study was to develop an integrative intervention, which combined Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Body-Mind Therapy and Multicultural perspectives to assist health care workers in identifying and treating stressrelated psychological disorders among people living with HIV and AIDS. The study employed an intervention research design using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The quantitative data was collected from PLHIV attending HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) and Anti-retroviral therapy clinics in the Buffalo City Municipality (BCM) of the Eastern Cape Province. The qualitative data was collected from the health care workers of the selected study sites. Purposive sampling was used to select the study sample. Instruments used included a biographical questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), Medical Outcome Study- HIV (MOS-HIV) and focus group interviews to gather data for the development of an intervention model that would address reported stress-related psychological disorders. Findings showed that people living with HIV and AIDS endure stress in their lives on daily basis rather than episodes of severe or clinical depression. Many of the PLHIV are dealing with a number of psychosocial problems that compromise their quality of life and health status. In conclusion, the study illustratively interpreted and discussed the results in relation to the objectives of the study. The study recommends that PLHIV should be exposed to stress management programmes, and health care workers (HCWs) should be offered training in basic counselling skills, stress management and/or debriefing

A mixed-method exploration of the impact of PTSD in UK military veterans and their families

It is well recognised that military-related trauma can have significant effects on military personnel and veterans. There has been considerable research interest in the burden of mental health, specifically posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in military personnel. However, whilst living in close proximity to individuals with PTSD can contribute to a phenomenon known as ‘secondary traumatisation’ in the offspring, the effects of military fathers’ mental health on their children and family has largely been overlooked. In this conceptual introduction, we aim to better understand the effects of PTSD on the wellbeing of military offspring and review previous literature relevant to understanding the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of trauma. The impact of PTSD on veterans’ offspring are varied, manifesting in behavioural, social, psychological and emotional difficulties. Research regarding the intergenerational transmission of war-related PTSD is mixed and remains in its infancy. Outside of military populations, various mechanisms and theories have been proposed to explain the direct and indirect pathway of transmission. Given that research suggests that PTSD does not solely affect the individual, but has implications for the family unit and offspring, further research is necessary to understanding this complex interplay between the psychopathology of the veteran father, the child and their characteristics and mechanisms underlying secondary traumatisation. This has important implications if the mechanisms are amenable to early intervention and remediation

A Comparison Between a Modified and a Traditional Expressive Writing Intervention and Their Effect on Alexithymia and Emotional Expressivity

The current study examined the effect of a modified expressive writing intervention compared to a traditional intervention and their effect on alexithymia and emotional expressivity while controlling for attachment style and social desirability among 150 undergraduate and graduate college students. The survey was administered online using a Qualtrics online survey tool. Participants were randomly divided into six groups: (a) low alexithymia/traditional intervention, (b) moderate alexithymia/traditional invention, (c) high alexithymia/traditional intervention, (d) low alexithymia/modified intervention, (e) moderate alexithymia/ modified intervention, and (f) high alexithymia/ modified intervention. The three groupings of levels of alexithymia—low (61) alexithymia—were based on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20, Bagby, Parker, & Taylor, 1994) pretest score. The intervention involved undergoing a writing task in two sessions: writing a short essay using the two-treatment assignment (modified versus traditional) in a span of a week. After the participants completed the two sessions of writing, they were administered follow-up surveys of the Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire (BEQ, Gross & John, 1997) and TAS-20 to obtain posttest scores for emotional expressivity and levels of alexithymia. Two different survey questionnaires were used to control for social desirability and attachment style: the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale short form (Beretvas, Meyers, & Leite, 2002) and the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007). Statistical analysis for this study was a repeated measures multivariate analysis of covariance. The present study did not detect any effect of either expressive writing condition on alexithymia or emotional expressivity in college students with low, moderate, and high levels of alexithymia, whereas the two covariates, social desirability and emotional attachment style, did indeed affect participants’ levels of alexithymia and emotional expressivity. The current research added to a growing body of literature on the efficacy of expressive writing prompts as treatments for alexithymia and provided a foundation for future research

The Protagonist: Using Artificial Intelligence & Storytelling to Make Value-Based Career Decisions

Choosing what career to pursue is an important life decision for many. For students in higher education, career indecision can be a major source of anxiety. Values play an essential role in helping one clarify their identity and find a meaningful career that is aligned with one’s authentic self. After a review of the limitations of existing quantitative value clarification tools and explicating the benefits of its qualitative and narrative-based alternatives, this paper proposes a technology-empowered value discovery intervention in the form of a smartphone application (and companion site) that aims to promote and semi-automate the value discovery and mobilization process and bolster the career decision-making and well-being of college students. A proposal for the app is presented in the context of the theories and practices that support its design. A brief review of the technological capabilities that enable text analysis automation would also be discussed