Attentional Avoidance of Historically Relevant, Task-Irrelevant Facial Affect: Past Depression, Interpersonal Characteristics, and Ethnicity.

Experiential background can influence how individuals respond to affective interpersonal information. For formerly depressed individuals, sad facial expressions are presumably salient. If so, when performing affectively neutral daily tasks, these individuals would find peripheral sad faces particularly distracting, and thus, they might shift their attention from them. The present study examined this hypothesis by comparing how euthymic formerly depressed and never depressed adults attended to sad and happy task-irrelevant emotional facial expression stimuli. The study also measured constructs linked to interpersonal functioning and depression and conducted exploratory analyses to examine whether Hispanic ethnicity status would moderate effects of study outcomes. Results of analyses indicated that formerly depressed individuals directed more attention away from sad faces than never depressed individuals. There were no significant between-group effects for happy faces and no moderation by ethnicity on attention to affective faces. However, irrespective of depression history, Hispanic individuals reported lower fear of negative evaluation compared to non-Hispanic Caucasian individuals. Findings are in line with hypothesized attentional avoidance among formerly depressed individuals and consistent with prior research suggesting that some Hispanic individuals experience protective mental health benefits through engagement with aspects of their culture. Directions for future research are discussed.

Surviving the storm: Avoidant coping, helping behavior, resilience and affective symptoms around a major hurricane-flood.

BACKGROUND: As extreme weather events increasingly affect the global population, it is valuable to understand their impacts on mental health. Extending upon previous theory and research, the current study examined a hypothesized framework of direct and indirect pathways. Exposure and psychosocial resource factors at the time of the hurricane/flood were expected to help explain post-disaster behavioral responses, such as avoidant coping, positive coping, and helping behaviors, which, in turn, would help account for post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and depressive symptoms (DS). METHODS: Survey data were collected from adult survivors (n = 801) of Hurricane Harvey 1-3 months post-disaster. PTSS, DS, and needing help were common, and loss/disruption and helping behavior were widespread. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the hypothesized framework. RESULTS: Models accounted for substantial variance in PTSS (70%) and DS (61%), with immediate loss/disruption, low self-reported resilience, and avoidant coping showing the strongest associations with symptoms. As predicted, results provided support for several modeled indirect pathways through avoidant coping to PTSS and DS. Further, helping behavior was consistently associated with increased PTSS, but not DS. LIMITATIONS: Cross-sectional design and online data collection methods precluded testing of causal directionality and confirming clinical diagnoses. CONCLUSIONS: The current study represents a step toward elucidating potential mediators of avoidant coping and how helping behavior might relate to post-disaster psychopathology. Individuals in heavily hurricane/flood-exposed areas who have low psychosocial resources (social support and resilience) might be most vulnerable and most in need of intervention.