Background
Theorists have proposed that the way children process social–emotional information may serve as a mechanism of risk for the intergenerational transmission of depression. There is growing ...evidence that infants and children of mothers with a history of major depressive disorder (MDD) during the child's life exhibit attentional avoidance of sad faces, which has been proposed as an early emerging emotion regulation strategy. In contrast, there is clear evidence that at‐risk and depressed adolescents and adults exhibit difficulty disengaging attention from sad faces.
Methods
Seeking to link these two literatures, the current U.S.‐based study used eye tracking within the context of an accelerated longitudinal design to assess attentional biases in 8–14‐year‐old offspring of mothers with a history MDD during the child's life (n = 123) or no history of MDD (n = 119) every six months for two years, allowing us to map trajectories of attention from age 8 to 16.
Results
Mother MDD history moderated age‐based changes in children's gaze duration to sad (t240 = 2.44, p = .02), but not happy (t240 = 0.11, p = .91) or angry (t240 = 0.67, p = .50), faces. Consistent our hypotheses, offspring of mothers with MDD exhibited significantly less attention to sad faces than offspring of never depressed mothers before age 8.5 but significantly more attention to sad faces after age 14.5, which was due to an increase in gaze duration to sad faces from childhood to adolescence among offspring of mothers with MDD (t122 = 5.44, p < .001) but not among offspring of never depressed mothers (t118 = 1.49, p = .14).
Conclusions
It appears that the form, and perhaps function, of attentional bias may shift across development in at‐risk youth. To the extent that this is true, it has significant implications not only for theories of the intergenerational transmission of depression risk but also for prevention and early intervention efforts designed to reduce this risk.
Sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY) are at greater risk than their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI). Unique ...stressors (i.e., minority stressors) specific to SGMY's stigmatized identities such as discrimination or concealment of one's identity are posited to explain these disparities. However, there is limited research examining the associations among minority stressors, affective mediating processes, and STB and NSSI in SGMY's daily lives. We conducted a 28-day daily diary study to test the mediating effects of daily negative and positive affect and emotion dysregulation between minority stressors and STB and NSSI among SGMY who were recruited from clinical and community settings. Participants were 92 SGMY, aged 12-19 years old (M = 16.45; SD = 1.81; 64% cisgender; 69% White). Results indicated that on days SGMY experienced external and internalized minority stressors, they reported greater intensity of suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injurious ideation and affective distress (i.e., greater negative affect, lower positive affect, and more emotion dysregulation). Greater affective reactivity processes were associated with greater suicidal and nonsuicidal self-injurious ideation intensity on the same day. Most of the within-person associations between external and internalized minority stressors and ideation intensity were mediated by heightened negative affect and emotion dysregulation but not lower positive affect. Our results provide the first evidence of these associations among SGMY, advance the minority stress model, and have implications for clinical interventions as we identified modifiable affective mechanisms.
General Scientific SummaryOn days sexual and gender minority youth experience greater than their usual minority stressors, such as discrimination, microaggressions, identity concealment, and internalized stigma, they report greater intensity of their thoughts of suicide and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and more emotional distress and dysregulation (i.e., greater negative affect, lower positive affect, and more emotion dysregulation). Emotional distress and dysregulation are also associated with greater intensity of thoughts of suicide and NSSI on the same day. The within-person associations between daily minority stressors and intensity of thoughts of suicide and NSSI were mostly accounted for by negative affect and emotion dysregulation but not positive affect.
Sexual and gender minority youth (SGMY) are at greater risk than their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts for suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STB) and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Unique ...stressors (i.e., minority stressors) specific to SGMY’s stigmatized identities such as discrimination or concealment of one’s identity are posited to explain these disparities. However, there is limited research examining the associations among minority stressors, affective mediating processes, and STB and NSSI in sexual and gender minority youth’s daily lives. We conducted a 28-day daily diary study to test the mediating effects of daily negative and positive affect and emotion dysregulation between minority stressors and STB and NSSI among SGMY who were recruited from clinical and community settings. Participants were 92 SGMY, ages 12 to 19 years old (
M
= 16.45;
SD
= 1.81; 64% cisgender; 69% White). Results indicated that on days SGMY experienced external and internalized minority stressors, they reported greater intensity of suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious ideation and affective distress (i.e., greater negative affect, lower positive affect, and more emotion dysregulation). Greater affective reactivity processes were associated with greater suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious ideation intensity on the same day. Most of the within-person associations between external and internalized minority stressors and ideation intensity were mediated by heightened negative affect and emotion dysregulation but not lower positive affect. Our results provide the first evidence of these associations among SGMY, advance the minority stress model, and have implications for clinical interventions as we identified modifiable affective mechanisms.
On days sexual and gender minority youth experience greater than their usual minority stressors, such as discrimination, microaggressions, identity concealment and internalized stigma, they report greater intensity of their thoughts of suicide and non-suicidal self-injury and more emotional distress and dysregulation (i.e., greater negative affect, lower positive affect, and more emotion dysregulation). Emotional distress and dysregulation are also associated with greater intensity of thoughts of suicide and non-suicidal self-injury on the same day. The within-person associations minority stressors and intensity of thoughts of suicide and non-suicidal self-injury were mostly accounted for by negative affect and emotion dysregulation but not positive affect.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend a 20–35 percent daily intake of fat. Resisting the temptation to eat high-fat foods, in conjunction with stage of readiness to avoid these foods, has ...been shown to influence healthy behavior change. Data (N = 6516) from three randomized controlled trials were pooled to examine the relationships among direct intervention effects on temptations and stage of change for limiting high-fat foods. Findings demonstrate separate simultaneous growth processes in which baseline level of temptations, but not the rate of change in temptations, was significantly related to the change in readiness to avoid high-fat foods.
Background
Subtle cognitive decline represents a stage of subclinical cognitive deterioration in which pathological biomarkers, particularly for Alzheimer’s disease may be present, including early ...cortical atrophy and amyloid deposition. Using individual items from the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and k‐modes cluster analysis, we previously identified three distinct cognitive clusters of individuals without overt cognitive impairment, which comprised a High Performing cluster (no deficits in performance), a Memory Deficits cluster (lower memory performance), and a Compound Deficits cluster (lower memory and executive function performance). In this study, we sought to understand the different relationships found in our clusters between cortical atrophy on MRI and B‐amyloid burden on PET.
Methods
Data was derived from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and comprised individuals with Clinical Dementia Rating of 0 with available MRI and 18‐Florbetapir B‐amyloid PET data (n = 272). Using multiple group structural equation modeling, we regressed amyloid standardized uptake value ratio (PET) on volumetric regions (MRI). Models were constrained to test significance of associations across groups defined by cognitive clusters.
Results
In our Compound Deficits cluster, greater whole cerebral B‐amyloid burden was significantly related to atrophy of the right entorhinal cortex and left hippocampus, with regression coefficients of ‐0.412 (p = 0.005) and ‐0.304 (p = 0.049), respectively. Within this cluster, right entorhinal cortical atrophy was significantly related to greater amyloid burden within multiple frontal lobe regions.
Conclusions
The Compound Deficits cluster, which represents a group at higher risk of decline with deficits in both memory and executive function, was observed to have significantly more cortical atrophy, particularly within the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus, associated with whole brain and frontal lobe B‐amyloid burden. These findings, which are consistent with the neuropsychological deficits observed on the MoCA in this cluster, point to a pattern of early pathological deterioration that may place these individuals at risk for future decline.
Objective: Dementia is a devastating neurological disease that may be better managed if diagnosed earlier when subclinical neurodegenerative changes are already present, including subtle cognitive ...decline and mild cognitive impairment. In this study, we used item-level performance on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) to identify individuals with subtle cognitive decline. Method: Individual MoCA item data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative was grouped using k-modes cluster analysis. These clusters were validated and examined for association with convergent neuropsychological tests. The clusters were then compared and characterized using multinomial logistic regression. Results: A three-cluster solution had 77.3% precision, with Cluster 1 (high performing) displaying no deficits in performance, Cluster 2 (memory deficits) displaying lower memory performance, and Cluster 3 (compound deficits) displaying lower performance on memory and executive function. Age at MoCA (older in compound deficits), gender (more females in memory deficits), and marital status (fewer married in compound deficits) were significantly different among clusters. Age was not associated with increased odds of membership in the high-performing cluster compared to the others. Conclusions: We identified three clusters of individuals classified as cognitively unimpaired using cluster analysis. Individuals in the compound deficits cluster performed lower on the MoCA and were older and less often married than individuals in other clusters. Demographic analyses suggest that cluster identity was due to a combination of both cognitive and clinical factors. Identifying individuals at risk for future cognitive decline using the MoCA could help them receive earlier evidence-based interventions to slow further cognitive decline.
Key Points
Question: This study investigated a heterogenous group of individuals classified as cognitively unimpaired via cluster analysis of individual-item Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) performance. Findings: Individuals were organized into three clusters with 77.3% precision; the lowest performing cluster was characterized by lower scores on memory and executive function items, older age, and less common married status. Importance: This study sorted individuals categorized as cognitively unimpaired into three distinct clusters according to an easy-to-administer global cognitive test, thus providing a basis for clinicians to quickly and cost-effectively assess their patients' risk for future cognitive decline. Next Steps: Future research should focus on the neurodegenerative correlates of cluster membership, including amyloid-β deposition and cortical atrophy.
•Avoidant problem-solving style predicted depressive symptom severity prospectively.•Depressive symptom severity predicted suicidal ideation severity prospectively.•The indirect path through ...depressive symptoms was significant.•The specificity of depressive symptoms as a mediator was supported.•Results held after accounting for age, sex, and concurrent levels of study variables.
The contemporaneous association between avoidant style, a maladaptive social problem-solving strategy, and adolescent suicidal ideation has been well established. However, the mechanisms underlying this association are not well understood. Using cross-lagged panel modeling, the present study examined whether depressive symptom severity mediates the relation between avoidant style and severity of suicidal ideation. The specificity of depressive symptom severity as a mediator was also evaluated by simultaneously testing whether avoidant style mediates the association between depressive symptom and suicidal ideation severity.
The sample included 110 adolescents enrolled in a randomized controlled clinical effectiveness trial. Avoidant style as well as depressive symptom and suicidal ideation severity were assessed via self-report with the Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised, Children's Depression Scale-2, and Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire-Junior, respectively, at baseline, 3-and 6-months.
After accounting for participant age, sex, and treatment condition, path analyses supported the specificity of 3-month depressive symptom severity as a mediator of the association between baseline levels of avoidant style and 6-month suicidal ideation severity.
Results may not be generalizable to non-clinical samples. Causality cannot be inferred from study results. Data were exclusively collected via self-report.
Findings suggest that avoidant style is indirectly related to suicidal ideation through depressive symptom severity. Thus, treatment targeted at improving social problem-solving skills, particularly avoidant style, may help reduce depressive symptoms and lower suicide risk.
Objective: Although bullying is traditionally considered within the context of primary and secondary school, recent evidence suggests that bullying continues into college and workplace settings. ...Participants/Method: Latent class analysis (LCA) was employed to classify college bullying involvement typologies among 325 college students attending a northeastern university. Results: Four classes concerning bullying involvement were revealed: Non-involved (36%); Instructor victim (30%); Peer bully-victim (22%); and Peer bully-victim/ Instructor victim (12%). Conclusions: Findings from this study, which classified college bullying experiences by incorporating both peer and instructor (teacher and professor) bullying, add substantially to the literature by providing insight into patterns of relatively unexplored bullying behaviors.
Background
Research examining emotion dysregulation and alcohol use has increased exponentially over the past decade. However, these studies have been limited by their use of cross‐sectional designs ...and narrow definitions of emotion dysregulation. To address these significant gaps in the extant literature, this study utilized state‐of‐the‐art methodology (i.e., experience sampling) and statistics (i.e., dynamic structural equation modeling) to examine potential reciprocal associations between negative and positive emotion dysregulation and alcohol use at the momentary level.
Methods
Participants were 145 community women (mean age = 40.56, 40.3% white) experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) and using substances. Surveys assessing negative and positive emotion dysregulation and alcohol use (i.e., number of standard drinks) were administered three times a day for 30 days using phone‐based interactive voice recording.
Results
Significant contemporaneous effects indicated that negative and positive emotion dysregulation both co‐occurred with alcohol use. However, levels of negative and positive emotion dysregulation did not predict later alcohol use, nor did alcohol use predict later levels of negative or positive emotion dysregulation. There was significant variability among participants in cross‐lagged effects.
Conclusions
Findings showed that negative and positive emotion dysregulation co‐occurred with alcohol use and that there was significant interindividual variability in the cross‐lagged associations between negative and positive emotion dysregulation and alcohol use. Research using idiographic approaches may identify women experiencing IPV for whom negative and positive emotion dysregulation drive alcohol use and alcohol use drives negative and positive emotion dysregulation.
This study used experience sampling methods (surveys three times a day for 30 days) to explore reciprocal relations between negative and positive emotion dysregulation and alcohol use among women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV). Negative and positive emotion dysregulation co‐occurred with alcohol use. However, negative and positive emotion dysregulation did not predict later alcohol use, nor did alcohol use predict later negative and positive emotion dysregulation. Alcohol interventions for women IPV may benefit from targeting negative and positive emotion dysregulation.
Abstract Introduction Substance abuse interventions tailored to the individual level have produced effective outcomes for a wide variety of behaviors. One approach to enhancing tailoring involves ...using cluster analysis to identify prevention subtypes that represent different attitudes about substance use. This study applied this approach to better understand tailored interventions for smoking and alcohol prevention. Methods Analyses were performed on a sample of sixth graders from 20 New England middle schools involved in a 36-month tailored intervention study. Most adolescents reported being in the Acquisition Precontemplation (aPC) stage at baseline: not smoking or not drinking and not planning to start in the next six months. For smoking (N = 4059) and alcohol (N = 3973), each sample was randomly split into five subsamples. Cluster analysis was performed within each subsample based on three variables: Pros and Cons (from Decisional Balance Scales), and Situational Temptations. Results Across all subsamples for both smoking and alcohol, the following four clusters were identified: (1) Most Protected (MP; low Pros, high Cons, low Temptations); (2) Ambivalent (AM; high Pros, average Cons and Temptations); (3) Risk Denial (RD; average Pros, low Cons, average Temptations); and (4) High Risk (HR; high Pros, low Cons, and very high Temptations). Conclusions Finding the same four clusters within aPC for both smoking and alcohol, replicating the results across the five subsamples, and demonstrating hypothesized relations among the clusters with additional external validity analyses provide strong evidence of the robustness of these results. These clusters demonstrate evidence of validity and can provide a basis for tailoring interventions.
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