Refining trait resilience: identifying engineering, ecological, and adaptive facets from extant measures of resilience

The current paper presents a new measure of trait resilience derived from three common mechanisms identified in ecological theory: Engineering, Ecological and Adaptive (EEA) resilience. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of five existing resilience scales suggest that the three trait resilience facets emerge, and can be reduced to a 12-item scale. The conceptualization and value of EEA resilience within the wider trait and well-being psychology is illustrated in terms of differing relationships with adaptive expressions of the traits of the five-factor personality model and the contribution to well-being after controlling for personality and coping, or over time. The current findings suggest that EEA resilience is a useful and parsimonious model and measure of trait resilience that can readily be placed within wider trait psychology and that is found to contribute to individual well-bein

Humor and emotion regulation in remitted depression.

This is SPSS file including data from two stages of the study: diagnostic (psychiatric diagnosis, SCID I diagnosis, BDI II, pharmacotherapy) and experimental (laboratory experiment with negative emotion induction). The experiment was based on a computer procedure consisted of Phase 1 and Phase 2, during which participants observed a series of the same 28 negative pictures that were selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang et al., 1997) and covered a variety of aversive stimuli. In Phase 1, participants simply viewed the 28 pictures and after each one rated their responses (positive emotions, negative emotions, and distance from adversity). Each response was assessed on a single visual analogue scale (VAS) ranging from 0 (not at all) to 100 (as strong as possible). In Phase 2, participants viewed each picture a second time, under instructions either to (a) use humor, (b) use positive reappraisal or (c) simply view. Pictures were randomly assigned to each of the 3 conditions with 8 pictures attributed to each instruction (4 pictures used for examples). Phase 2 consisted of three 8-picture blocks randomly presented for each participant. After each picture, patients rated their responses once again, and in addition, they specified the effort associated with generating the comment on the VAS scale The structure of each trial in Phase 2 was as follows. After an instructional slide asking to comment on the situation in a certain way, each picture was presented on the screen (except in the control condition, participants could take as much time as they wanted). After each humor/reappraisal trial, patients were asked whether they were able to produce the target comment (yes/sort of/no). Then, they typed out their humorous comment/reappraisal statement or explained why they did not generate it. Next, patients rated their responses again and additionally reported the effort related to generating a comment, also on the VAS scale. To facilitate the task, each block (except for the control condition) was preceded by two pictures from Phase 1, with written examples for humor or positive reappraisal, taken from the pilot study. At the end of the experiment, participants were shown a series of 9 positive pictures selected from the IAPS database, and reported their positive and negative emotions (debriefing procedure). As such, 3 repeated measurements are visible in the database I – Phase 1 (measurements of dependent variables for each of 28 pictures) II – Phase 2 (measurements of dependent variables for each of 28 pictures within 3 conditions: A (humor), B (positive reappraisal), C (spontaneous emotion regulation). III - Debriefin

Humor types and emotion regulation in remitted depression.

This experiment was aimed to investigate humor - as an emotion regulation strategy - and compared the effects of its two specific forms: humor related to distress and humor unrelated to distress. We predicted that humor related to distress, because of its mechanism involving a dramatic reinterpretation of a distressing issue, is more adaptive than humor unrelated to distress. Remitted depressed outpatients (N = 122) were recruited to the study after psychiatric assessment, structuralised diagnostic interview (SCID I), and BDI II fullfilment. In addition, participants underwent neuropsychological assessments with the use of the d2 Test of Attention. The experiment consisted of a personal distress elicitation and subsequent application of one of three emotion regulation strategies (two humor conditions and one control condition). Each emotion regulation strategy involved the generation of a scenario - a simulation of events corresponding to one of three experimental conditions. Next, there was a manipulation check - participants were asked whether they were able to produce tha target scenario (yes/sort of/no) in terms of its level of subjective funniness and connection to ones's own distress. Finally, 17 participants were excluded from the analyses as outliers or extremes on the basis of boxplot, and 11 participants were excluded due to ineffectiveness of experimental manipulation. Then positive emotions, negative emotions, and experienced distress were measured (based on self-reports: single VAS scales from 0 - no intensity to 6- extremely high intensity) at four time points: before stress induction (T1), after distress induction (T2), immediately after manipulation (T3), and after 20 minutes delay (during which the participants watched a nature film and fulfilled the test of understanding the film content). In addition, in T3 there was a single assessment of invested efforts, while in T4 a subsequent performances and intrusive thoughts were measured. The main analysis was performed with the use of RMANOVA. Conditions were analysed as beetwen-subject fixed factor and intensity of emotions as within-subject factors. The level of depressive symptoms was included as covariate. Unlike rational simulation, both humor types improved emotional experience, and reduced distress in the short and longer terms. Humor unrelated to distress more effectively reduced negative emotions and intrusive thoughts. Moreover, although patients with impaired sustained attention did not recover their initial level of negative emotions, this did not pertain to those from humor unrelated to distress condition. Despite the expected costs of humor, similar efforts were needed when compared to control condition and no performance impairment after using both humor types was found. The results suggest that humor, expecially the one unrelated to distress, could be a beneficial strategy for dealing with distressing events in remitted depression