Hope, Goals, and Pathways: Further Validating the Hope Scale with Observer Ratings

Objective: For the past two decades, hope theory has been an important framework for conceptualizing goal pursuits. Surprisingly there has been little effort to test the underlying suppositions of hope theory or to further validate the Hope Scale. Method: In Study 1, participants (N = 162, Mage = 19, 61% female) completed the Hope Scale and nominated goals they would like to accomplish in the next few months. Goals were coded on several dimensions. In Study 2, participants (N = 118, Mage = 19, 59% female) completed the Hope Scale, measures of optimism and self-efficacy, and generated workable pathways for achieving standardized goals. Results: Hope scores predicted setting objectively important, prosocial, long-term, and challenging goals. Hope (but not optimism or self-efficacy) was associated with generating more pathways for standardized goals. Conclusions: The results of these studies generally support the tenets of hope theory and provide further validation for the Hope Scale. As expected, people with higher hope were more likely than their lower-hope counterparts to engage in what has been considered successful goal-setting behavior. Hope is associated with important goal-relevant behaviors and efforts to increase hopeful thought may be important in helping individuals to move toward important life outcomes

Neurocognitive bases of emotion regulation development in adolescence

Emotion regulation is the ability to recruit processes to influence emotion generation. In recent years there has been mounting interest in how emotions are regulated at behavioural and neural levels, as well as in the relevance of emotional dysregulation to psychopathology. During adolescence, brain regions involved in affect generation and regulation, including the limbic system and prefrontal cortex, undergo protracted structural and functional development. Adolescence is also a time of increasing vulnerability to internalising and externalising psychopathologies associated with poor emotion regulation, including depression, anxiety and antisocial behaviour. It is therefore of particular interest to understand how emotion regulation develops over this time, and how this relates to ongoing brain development. However, to date relatively little research has addressed these questions directly. This review will discuss existing research in these areas in both typical adolescence and in adolescent psychopathology, and will highlight opportunities for future research. In particular, it is important to consider the social context in which adolescent emotion regulation develops. It is possible that while adolescence may be a time of vulnerability to emotional dysregulation, scaffolding the development of emotion regulation during this time may be a fruitful preventative target for psychopathology

A sensorimotor control framework for understanding emotional communication and regulation

JHGW and CFH are supported by the Northwood Trust. TEVR was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Early Career Fellowship (1088785). RP and MW were supported by the the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders (CE110001021)Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A naturalistic examination of the temporal patterns of affect and eating disorder behaviors in anorexia nervosa

OBJECTIVE: Evidence supports the presence of significant variability in the timing of affective experiences and eating disorder (ED) behaviors across ED populations. This study examined the naturalistic timing of affective states and ED behaviors in anorexia nervosa (AN). METHODS: Women (N = 118) with full or subthreshold DSM-IV AN completed two weeks of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) involving self-reports of affect and ED behaviors. Patterns of positive affect, negative affect, and tension/anxiety across hours of the day and days of the week were examined using linear mixed models. Variation in ED behavior occurrence (i.e., binge eating, vomiting, exercise, meal skipping, and self-weighing) across hours of the day and days of the week was examined using general estimating equations. RESULTS: Results revealed significant variation in tension/anxiety across hours of the day; there were no significant associations between time of day and negative or positive affect. All affective variables significantly varied across days of the week, with both negative affect and tension/anxiety highest in the middle of the week and lowest on the weekends. The ED behaviors all significantly varied across hours of the day, with binge eating and vomiting most common in later hours, exercise and self-weighing most common in earlier hours, and meal skipping most common at times corresponding to breakfast and lunch. ED behaviors did not significantly vary across days of the week. CONCLUSION: The significant patterns of variation in the timing of affective experiences and ED behaviors may have utility in informing theories and interventions for AN