The Role of Inflexible Friendship Beliefs, Rumination, and Low Self-worth in Early Adolescents' Friendship Jealousy and Adjustment

Two focal social cognitive processes were evaluated in a structural model for their direct and indirect roles in early adolescents' jealousy surrounding their closest friend in a sample of 325 early adolescents (169 girls and 156 boys) ages 11-14years. Individuals who are rigid and unrealistic about meeting their friendship needs were more vulnerable to feelings of jealousy than individuals who think more flexibly. Inflexible individuals also engage in more jealousy-driven surveillance and other problem behavior towards their friends. Stronger jealous feelings and behavior were related, in turn, to greater conflict with friends and to a vulnerability to emotional maladjustment. In addition, young adolescents who tended to ruminate over friendship problems were also more vulnerable to jealousy. Inflexible attitudes and friendship rumination were positively associated. Results extend recent models of friendship jealousy that focus only on early adolescents' self-wort

The impact of treatment delivery format on response to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for pre-adolescent children with anxiety disorders

Background. Several delivery formats of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) for child anxiety have been proposed, however there is little consensus on the optimal delivery format. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the impact of the child’s primary anxiety diagnosis on changes in clinical severity (of the primary problem) during individual CBT, group CBT, and guided parent-led CBT. The secondary goal was to investigate the impact of the child’s primary anxiety diagnosis on rates of remission for the three treatment formats. Methods. A sample of 1253 children (5 – 12 years; Mage = 9.3, SD = 1.7) was pooled from CBT trials carried out at 10 sites. Children had a primary diagnosis of Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Social Anxiety Disorder (SoAD), Specific Phobia (SP) or Separation Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Children and parents completed a semi-structured clinical interview to assess the presence and severity of DSM-IV psychiatric disorders at pre intervention, post intervention and follow-up. Linear mixture modelling was used to evaluate the primary research question and logistic modelling was used to investigate the secondary research question. Results. Children with a primary diagnosis of GAD, SoAD and SAD demonstrated comparable improvements in clinical severity to all three CBT treatment formats. However, children with primary SP showed significantly larger reductions in clinical severity following individual CBT compared to group CBT and guided parent-led CBT. The results were mirrored in the analysis of remission responses with the exception that individual CBT was no longer superior to group CBT for children with a primary SP. Furthermore, the difference between individual and group was not significant when the follow-up data was examined separately. Conclusions. The data show that there may be greater clinical benefit by allocating children with a primary SP to individual CBT, although future research on cost-effectiveness is needed to determine whether the additional clinical benefits justify the additional resources required

Clinical predictors of response to cognitive-behavioral therapy in pediatric anxiety disorders: the genes for treatment (GxT) study.

OBJECTIVE The Genes for Treatment study is an international, multisite collaboration exploring the role of genetic, demographic, and clinical predictors in response to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) in pediatric anxiety disorders. The current article, the first from the study, examined demographic and clinical predictors of response to CBT. We hypothesized that the child's gender, type of anxiety disorder, initial severity and comorbidity, and parents' psychopathology would significantly predict outcome. METHOD A sample of 1,519 children 5 to 18 years of age with a primary anxiety diagnosis received CBT across 11 sites. Outcome was defined as response (change in diagnostic severity) and remission (absence of the primary diagnosis) at each time point (posttreatment, 3-, 6-, and/or 12-month follow-up) and analyzed using linear and logistic mixed models. Separate analyses were conducted using data from posttreatment and follow-up assessments to explore the relative importance of predictors at these time points. RESULTS Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SoAD) had significantly poorer outcomes (poorer response and lower rates of remission) than those with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Although individuals with specific phobia (SP) also had poorer outcomes than those with GAD at posttreatment, these differences were not maintained at follow-up. Both comorbid mood and externalizing disorders significantly predicted poorer outcomes at posttreatment and follow-up, whereas self-reported parental psychopathology had little effect on posttreatment outcomes but significantly predicted response (although not remission) at follow-up. CONCLUSION SoAD, nonanxiety comorbidity, and parental psychopathology were associated with poorer outcomes after CBT. The results highlight the need for enhanced treatments for children at risk for poorer outcomes

Genome-wide association study of response to cognitive-behavioural therapy in children with anxiety disorders

Background Anxiety disorders are common, and cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is a first-line treatment. Candidate gene studies have suggested a genetic basis to treatment response, but findings have been inconsistent. Aims To perform the first genome-wide association study (GWAS) of psychological treatment response in children with anxiety disorders (n = 980). Method Presence and severity of anxiety was assessed using semi-structured interview at baseline, on completion of treatment (post-treatment), and 3 to 12 months after treatment completion (follow-up). DNA was genotyped using the Illumina Human Core Exome-12v1.0 array. Linear mixed models were used to test associations between genetic variants and response (change in symptom severity) immediately post-treatment and at 6-month follow-up. Results No variants passed a genome-wide significance threshold (P = 5×10−8) in either analysis. Four variants met criteria for suggestive significance (P<5×10−6) in association with response post-treatment, and three variants in the 6-month follow-up analysis. Conclusions This is the first genome-wide therapygenetic study. It suggests no common variants of very high effect underlie response to CBT. Future investigations should maximise power to detect single-variant and polygenic effects by using larger, more homogeneous cohorts

The role of inflexible friendship beliefs, rumination, and low self-worth in preadolescents' friendship jealousy and adjustment

Two focal social cognitive processes were evaluated in a structural model for their direct and indirect roles in early adolescents’ jealousy surrounding their closest friend in a sample of 325 early adolescents (169 girls and 156 boys) ages 11–14 years. Individuals who are rigid and unrealistic about meeting their friendship needs were more vulnerable to feelings of jealousy than individuals who think more flexibly. Inflexible individuals also engage in more jealousy-driven surveillance and other problem behavior towards their friends. Stronger jealous feelings and behavior were related, in turn, to greater conflict with friends and to a vulnerability to emotional maladjustment. In addition, young adolescents who tended to ruminate over friendship problems were also more vulnerable to jealousy. Inflexible attitudes and friendship rumination were positively associated. Results extend recent models of friendship jealousy that focus only on early adolescents’ self-worth. doi: 10.1007/s10802-009-9317-

Domain-specific identity, epistemic regulation, and intellectual ability as predictors of belief-biased reasoning: A dual-process perspective

To explore the hypothesis that domain-specific identity development predicts reasoning biases, adolescents and young adults completed measures of domain-general and domain-specific identity, epistemic regulation, and intellectual ability and evaluated arguments that either supported or threatened their occupational goals. Biases were defined as the use of sophisticated reasoning to reject goal-threatening arguments and the use of cursory reasoning to accept goal-supportive arguments. Across two measures of bias, hierarchical regression analyses showed that domain-specific vocational identity and epistemic regulation best predicted reasoning biases. Neither age nor intellectual ability predicted significant variance in biases after vocational identity and epistemic regulation scores were entered into the regression equations. The results support the thesis that biases in specific domains can be explained both by domain-specific personality attributes and by domain-general metacognitive dispositions to monitor reasoning and decontextualize problem structure from superficial contents. A dual-process framework is proposed to explain the relationships among identity, epistemic regulation, age, intellectual ability, and reasoning biases

Patterns of family identification and self-congruence in childhood separation anxiety disorder

Patterns of identification among family members may differ in families with children with separation anxiety disorder (SAD) as compared with healthy children. However, this has not been explored to date.; The present study examines identification processes in 199 families: 100 families of children with SAD, 43 families of children with other anxiety disorders, and 56 families of nondisordered children, using the Family Identification Test.; Children with SAD and their parents generally identify significantly less with each other and report less desire to be similar to each other than nondisordered children and their parents. Further, children with SAD are less self-congruent than healthy children. There were no significant differences between children with SAD and with other anxiety disorders.; Identification and self-congruence distinguish families of children with SAD from families of healthy children. Future studies should aim to determine the direction of effects over time, as well as to determine the contribution of identification and coherence in explaining SAD after accounting for other factors such as attachment and self-esteem

Lifestyle choices and mental health : a representative population survey

Background: Identifying healthy lifestyle behaviours that promote psychological wellbeing is crucial to preventing mental disorders. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the individual and combined associations between different aspects of everyday life and mental health within a representative community sample in Germany. Method: The study was conducted in 2012/2013 and included 7,937 participants representative of the German population. Lifestyle factors were assessed via self-report and included frequency of physical and mental activity, alcohol consumption, smoking, body mass index as well as circadian and social regularity. Outcome variables were depression, anxiety, stress and satisfaction with life. Results: All lifestyle factors were associated with the mental health outcomes. Better mental health was linked to higher frequency of physical and mental activity, moderate alcohol consumption (i.e. not increased or no alcohol consumption), non-smoking, a body mass index within the range of normal to overweight (i.e. not underweight or obese) and a regular life rhythm. The more healthy lifestyle choices an individual makes, the higher life satisfaction and lower psychological distress he or she tends to have. Conclusions: The current study underlines the importance of healthy lifestyle choices in respect to psychological wellbeing