Affective Reactivity to Positive Daily Events in Adolescence

The experience of positive events is associated with increased positive affect (PA), which can beneficially impact physical and mental health outcomes of adolescents. This study investigated whether different types of positive events elicit different amounts of PA, and whether sex would moderate these effects. Participants were 136 adolescents (Mage = 13.03 years, 51.3% female). Results indicated that interpersonal and independent events predicted greater PA reactivity than non-interpersonal and dependent events, respectively. Sex did not moderate these effects. Furthermore, results indicated that interpersonal, dependent events were associated with the highest adolescent mean PA compared to any other combination of event types

Rumination Mediates the Relationship between Infant Temperament and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms

This study examined prospective associations between negative emotionality, rumination, and depressive symptoms in a community sample of 301 youths (158 females) followed longitudinally from birth to adolescence. Mothers reported on youths' negative emotionality (NE) at age 1, and youths self-reported rumination at age 13 and depressive symptoms at ages 13 and 15. Linear regression analyses indicated that greater NE in infancy was associated with more depressive symptoms at age 15, even after controlling for child gender and depressive symptoms at age 13. Moreover, analyses indicated that rumination significantly mediated the association between infancy NE and age 15 depressive symptoms in the full sample. When analyzed separately by gender, however, rumination mediated the relationship between NE and depressive symptoms for girls but not for boys. The results confirm and extend previous findings on the association between affective and cognitive vulnerability factors in predicting depressive symptoms and the gender difference in depression in adolescence, and suggest that clinical interventions designed to reduce negative emotionality may be useful supplements to traditional cognitive interventions for reducing cognitive vulnerability to depression

The Sleep-Stress Paradox: Five Steps to Better Sleep

2012/10/09. Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology. The role that sleep plays in stress levels and steps to take to improve sleeping habits

Is Rumination a Risk and a Protective Factor?

High trait positive affect (PA) protects against depressive symptoms through cognitive responses such as rumination. However, how rumination in response to positive emotions (positive rumination) protects against depressive symptoms while rumination in response to negative emotions (brooding) predicts depressive symptoms is poorly understood. We hypothesized that (a) positive rumination and brooding represent a shared cognitive process of affect amplification on distinct affective content and (b) less brooding and greater positive rumination would distinctly mediate greater trait PA in predicting fewer depressive symptoms. Our prospective design among 321 adults first compared three confirmatory factor analysis models of the relationship between brooding and positive rumination. We then utilized structural equation modeling to examine whether brooding and positive rumination mediated the relationship between trait PA and depressive symptoms, controlling for baseline depressive symptoms, trait negative affect (NA), and the distinct effects of each mediator. Results supported a conceptualization of brooding and positive rumination as distinct but related constructs, represented as a common process of affect amplification to explain how rumination may amplify resilience or risk in predicting depressive symptoms (χ = 195.07, Δχ = 8.78, p < .001, CFI = .91, RMSEA = .07). Furthermore, positive rumination and brooding were distinctly predicted by trait PA, suggesting that trait PA exerts distinct effects on protective and risk forms of rumination. Less brooding mediated the relationship between greater trait PA and fewer depressive symptoms (β = -.04, p = .012), but positive rumination did not (β = .02, p = .517). Rumination may represent a protective and a risk factor, which may better enable individuals who brood to redirect their rumination on positive content and thereby reduce their risk of depressive symptoms

Emotional reactivity as a vulnerability for nonsuicidal self-injury in young adults: The moderating effect of emotion regulation

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) serves to regulate negative affect. To understand how emotional reactivity and emotion regulation contribute to NSSI, we examined these variables through questionnaires and laboratory manipulations in 25 recent NSSI-engagers and 25 non-engagers (Mage = 19.34, SDage = 1.02, 88% female). We hypothesized that participants with high emotional reactivity and poor emotion regulation would be most likely to have an NSSI history. We found that individuals with low levels of problem-solving were significantly more likely to engage in NSSI at high levels of RSA reactivity than individuals with high levels of problem-solving ( = 2.05, p = .02)

Cognitive Mechanisms Reciprocally Transmit Vulnerability between Depressive and Somatic Symptoms

Despite high comorbidity between depressive and somatic symptoms, cognitive mechanisms that transmit vulnerability between symptom clusters are largely unknown. Dampening, positive rumination, and brooding are three cognitive predictors of depression, with rumination theoretically indicated as a transdiagnostic vulnerability through amplifying and diminishing affect in response to events. Specifically, the excess negative affect and lack of positive affect characteristic of depressive symptoms and underlying somatic symptoms may cause and be caused by cognitive responses to events. Therefore, the current study examined whether comorbidity between depressive and somatic symptoms may be explained by the cognitive mechanisms of dampening and positive rumination in response to positive events and brooding in response to negative events among adults (N=321) across eight weeks of assessment. We hypothesized that greater dampening and brooding would reciprocally predict greater depressive and somatic symptoms, while greater positive rumination would reciprocally predict fewer depressive and somatic symptoms. Mediation analyses in AMOS 22 indicated that dampening and brooding mediated reciprocal pathways between depressive and somatic symptoms, but positive rumination did not. Findings propose dampening and brooding as mechanisms of the reciprocal relationship between depressive and somatic symptoms through diminishing positive affect and amplifying negative affect in response to positive and negative events

Negative and positive activation for stress and reward in depressed and nondepressed adolescents

Depression is characterized by maladaptive activation of cognitions. We compared activation of positive and negative cognitions in a community sample of 117 adolescents (age 10-14 years, 54.7% female). We hypothesized that depressed youth would have more negative cognitions after a stressor and fewer positive cognitions after a reward than nondepressed youth. Significant interactions were found for group by condition (pre-post) for negative self-affect (Wilks\u27 Λ = .966, F(1, 114) = 3.96, p = .049) and positive world cognitions (Wilks\u27 Λ = .961, F(1, 114) = 4.57, p = .035); depressed participants showed greater cognitive reactivity for negative self-affect following stress and for positive world cognitions following reward compared to nondepressed participants

The mediating effect of adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies on executive functioning impairment and depressive symptoms among adolescents

Past research results suggest that executive functioning (EF) impairment represents an important vulnerability factor in depression. Little research, however, has examined mechanisms underlying this association. The current study investigates the associations between EF impairment, emotion regulation (ER) strategies, and depressive symptoms in a sample of 579 adolescents (320 females, mean age =12.06 years). Parents reported on adolescents' EF and general psychopathology, and adolescents self-reported ER strategies and depressive symptoms. The results indicate that greater EF impairment is associated with more depressive symptoms. Youth with greater EF impairment reported more maladaptive ER and less adaptive ER, and maladaptive and adaptive ER strategies jointly mediated the association between EF impairment and depressive symptoms. The results highlight an important role of both maladaptive and adaptive ER in explaining the relationship between EF and depressive symptoms and suggest that clinical interventions targeting ER skills may provide one strategy for the prevention and treatment of depression. Further longitudinal research is needed to replicate these results and evaluate the causality of the relations