The thrill of victory: Savoring positive affect, psychophysiological reward processing, and symptoms of depression.

Depression is characterized by a pattern of maladaptive emotion regulation. Recently, researchers have begun to focus on associations between depression and two positive affect regulation strategies: savoring and dampening. Savoring, or upregulation of positive affect, is positively associated with well-being and negatively associated with depression, whereas dampening, or downregulation of positive affect, is positively associated with depression, anhedonia, and negative affect. To date, no research has examined whether savoring or dampening can affect neurophysiological reactivity to reward, which previous research has shown is associated with symptoms of depression. Here, we examined associations between psychophysiological reward processing-primarily captured by the Reward Positivity (RewP), an event-related potential (ERP) deflection elicited by feedback indicating reward (vs. nonreward)-positive affect regulation strategies, and symptoms of depression. One hundred undergraduates completed questionnaires assessing affect, emotion regulation, and depressive symptoms and completed a computerized guessing task, once before and again after being randomly assigned to emotion-regulation strategy conditions. Results indicate that (a) the relationship between RewP amplitude and depressive symptoms may, in part, depend upon positive affect regulation strategies and (b) the RewP elicited by reward appears sensitive to a savoring intervention. These findings suggest that mitigating depressive symptoms in emerging adults may depend on both top-down (i.e., savoring) and bottom-up (i.e., RewP) forms of positive affect regulation and have important implications for clinical prevention and intervention efforts for depressive symptoms and disorder. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Mental health concerns and barriers to care among future clinical psychologists.

Few studies have examined the mental health of clinical psychology doctoral students, a unique group given their education and training in psychopathology, assessment, and intervention. Students (N = 912) completed an online survey assessing demographics, mental health, mental healthcare utilization, and barriers to care during graduate school. Nearly 25% of participants reported moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety, 20% reported moderate to severe symptoms of depression or suicidal intent (SI), and more than 10% reported a high risk of alcohol abuse or moderate to severe drug use during graduate school. In comparison to peers, ethnic minority and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) participants reported more symptoms of depression and SI. LGBTQ+ participants reported more nonsuicidal self-injury and drug use. Participants also experienced significant barriers to receiving mental healthcare (e.g., financial difficulties, limited availability, insufficient time). Leadership is encouraged to prioritize the mental health of clinical psychology doctoral students, which may have implications on their service provision.

Implementing Skills for Psychological Recovery at a Psychology Training Clinic During COVID-19.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has disrupted the routine provision of community mental health services, which is especially concerning given that emerging data suggest a rise in mental health concerns related to the COVID-19 crisis (Xiong et al., 2020). Thus, it seems imperative to provide trauma-informed services that are tailored to clients' coping with the pandemic and can be effectively delivered via telehealth. The goals of these important services would be to mitigate current distress, help prevent the onset of long-term mental health problems, and facilitate client safety during a public health crisis. The present article provides an overview of adoption and telehealth implementation of the Skills for Psychological Recovery (SPR) secondary prevention program within a psychology training clinic. Initial clinical outcome data supported the program's success in reducing mental health symptoms among individuals in psychological distress due to the COVID-19 crisis; however, the results were more striking for adults than for youths. The article concludes with recommendations for broader implementation and future directions for clinicians, supervisors, organizations, and researchers.

Children's evaluation of Everyday Social Encounters Questionnaire: Short form validation.

This study validated a short form of the Children's Evaluation of Everyday Social Encounters Questionnaire (ChEESE-Q). Fifth- to eighth-grade children (N = 241) completed a two-vignette version of the ChEESE-Q (i.e., ChEESE-Q SF), along with measures of adjustment and affect. The ChEESE-Q SF fit the same three-factor structure as the original ChEESE-Q, with each factor-based subscale being invariant across grade and gender. Results also indicated that the ChEESE-Q could not only be shortened at the vignette level, but at the item level as well, maintaining excellent model fit with the same three factor structure. ChEESE-Q SF subscale scores demonstrated acceptable internal consistency and correlated with related constructs in expected directions. Negative information processing was associated with higher anxious and depressive symptomology and negative affect. Positive information processing was associated with lower depressive symptomology, and higher positive affect. Analysis of a secondary sample of third- to sixth-grade youth (N = 252) also demonstrated adequate test-retest reliability. This study provided validation for a shortened version of the ChEESE-Q, and more support for specific styles of information processing. Validation of a short form enables researchers to assess social information processing in a multifaceted and comprehensive, yet resource-efficient way. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Health service psychology education and training in the time of COVID-19: Challenges and opportunities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to health service psychology (HSP) education and training but also presents tremendous opportunities for growth that will persist well past the resolution of this public health crisis. The present article addresses three aims in understanding the challenges and opportunities faced by the HSP education and training community. First, it describes challenges to HSP education and training created by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the need to maintain the integrity of training; facilitate trainee progress; continue clinical service delivery; manage the safety and wellbeing of trainees, faculty, staff, and clients/patients; and adhere to national and local emergency orders. Second, the article summarizes guidance from training organization leadership regarding training program and clinical site responses to these challenges. Several principle-based recommendations called upon training programs to prioritize trainees and their training needs, while urging balance and flexibility in meeting the multiple demands of training programs, institutions, and the public. Third, the article discusses key opportunities for improvement in HSP education and training, including more effective use of competency evaluations; distance technologies in therapy, supervision, and admissions; and reconsideration of internship and degree timing and HSP's identity as a health care profession; and the potential for comprehensive review and redesign of HSP education and training. Embracing these opportunities may help ensure that HSP education and training is preparing its graduates to meet the psychological health care needs of the future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The enhanced examination for professional practice in psychology: A viable approach?

Health disciplines have increasingly required competency-based evaluations as a licensure prerequisite. In keeping with this trend, the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards (ASPPB) has begun to develop a second part to the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP). The resulting 2-part examination is collectively referred to as the Enhanced EPPP. Part 1 of the Enhanced EPPP, which consists of the current exam, is designed to be an assessment of knowledge. Part 2 of the Enhanced EPPP is newly developed and intended to address the need for a competency-based evaluation. To date, ASPPB has addressed some standard facets of validity for the EPPP Part 2, but not others. In addition, the EPPP Part 2 has yet to be subjected to a broader validation process, in which the suitability of the test for its intended purpose is evaluated. Implementation of the EPPP Part 2 before validation could have negative consequences for those seeking to enter the profession and for the general public (e.g., potential restriction of diversity in the psychology workforce). For jurisdictions implementing the EPPP Part 2, failure to gather and report the evidence required for use of a test in a forensic context may also open the door for legal challenges. We end with suggestions for feasible research that could significantly enhance the validation process for the EPPP Part 2 and offer jurisdictions concrete suggestions of features to look for in determining whether and when to implement the Enhanced EPPP. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Valence-specific emotion transmission: Potential influences on parent-adolescent emotion coregulation.

The current study tested if proximal transmission of positive and negative affect occurs bidirectionally between mothers and their adolescent children in valence-specific patterns (e.g., maternal positive affect to adolescent positive, but not negative, affect) across a period of 7 minutes and between minutes. Whether adolescent gender moderated transmission effects was also explored. One hundred thirty-5 mothers (29-60 years old) and their children (12-16 years old, 49% female) independently completed questionnaires and then jointly engaged in a naturalistic 7-min problem-solving discussion. Transmission was examined by testing how 1 person's expressed affect (assessed observationally) changed the other person's self-reported state affect across the task. In path analyses, support for bidirectional transmission of negative affect emerged. Transmission was valence-specific, however, evidence for transmission of positive affect was not found. Results also supported cross-valence transmission of negative affect specifically from adolescents to their mothers, such that adolescent expressed negative affect predicted reduced maternal self-reported positive affect. Utilizing cross-lagged path analyses to further examine these findings between minutes revealed that transmission did not occur between specific minutes. Results largely support previous theoretical work on the orthogonal structure of affect and the bidirectionality of parent-adolescent affective interactions. Given this evidence for reciprocal transmission of affect across (not between) minutes in a microsocial context, implications for successful emotion coregulation in parent-adolescent interactions and how these mechanisms may predict long-term outcomes are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Dynamics of positive emotion regulation: associations with youth depressive symptoms.

Depression is frequently considered a disorder of impaired affect regulation with deficits across both positive and negative affective systems. However, where deficits in emotion regulation occur in youth, specifically regarding regulation of positive emotions, is relatively unknown. The current study tested whether deficits in broad (felt and expressed) and specific (up-regulation and maintenance) positive emotion processes are associated with youth depressive symptoms. Adolescents (n = 134; 65 girls) in grades 7 to 9 completed a self-report measure of depressive symptoms prior to participating in two parent-child interactions tasks, a rewarding trivia task and a problem-solving conflict task. During the interaction tasks, adolescent's overall self-reported experience and observed expression of positive affect (PA) was examined. Following the reward task, youth's ability to up-regulate PA (PA response) and maintain PA while buffering against NA (PA persistence) was explored observationally. Results suggested that reduced experience and expression of PA was associated with depression symptoms, but only in a context that elicited negative emotions. No association was found between PA response and depression symptoms; however, shorter PA persistence was associated with elevated depressive symptoms. Youth higher in depressive symptoms appear able to respond similarly to rewarding events, but fail to maintain PA and ward off NA when transitioning from a positive to negative task.

Positive and negative family emotional climate differentially predict youth anxiety and depression via distinct affective pathways.

A socioaffective specificity model was tested in which positive and negative affect differentially mediated relations of family emotional climate to youth internalizing symptoms. Participants were 134 7(th)-9(th) grade adolescents (65 girls; 86 % Caucasian) and mothers who completed measures of emotion-related family processes, experienced affect, anxiety, and depression. Results suggested that a family environment characterized by maternal psychological control and family negative emotion expressiveness predicted greater anxiety and depression, and was mediated by experienced negative affect. Conversely, a family emotional environment characterized by low maternal warmth and low positive emotion expressiveness predicted only depression, and was mediated through lowered experienced positive affect. This study synthesizes a theoretical model of typical family emotion socialization with an extant affect-based model of shared and unique aspects of anxiety and depression symptom expression.

Role of adolescent and maternal depressive symptoms on transactional emotion recognition: context and state affect matter.

Depressive symptomatology is associated with impaired recognition of emotion. Previous investigations have predominantly focused on emotion recognition of static facial expressions neglecting the influence of social interaction and critical contextual factors. In the current study, we investigated how youth and maternal symptoms of depression may be associated with emotion recognition biases during familial interactions across distinct contextual settings. Further, we explored if an individual's current emotional state may account for youth and maternal emotion recognition biases. Mother-adolescent dyads (N = 128) completed measures of depressive symptomatology and participated in three family interactions, each designed to elicit distinct emotions. Mothers and youth completed state affect ratings pertaining to self and other at the conclusion of each interaction task. Using multiple regression, depressive symptoms in both mothers and adolescents were associated with biased recognition of both positive affect (i.e., happy, excited) and negative affect (i.e., sadness, anger, frustration); however, this bias emerged primarily in contexts with a less strong emotional signal. Using actor-partner interdependence models, results suggested that youth's own state affect accounted for depression-related biases in their recognition of maternal affect. State affect did not function similarly in explaining depression-related biases for maternal recognition of adolescent emotion. Together these findings suggest a similar negative bias in emotion recognition associated with depressive symptoms in both adolescents and mothers in real-life situations, albeit potentially driven by different mechanisms.

Posttrauma numbing of fear, detachment, and arousal predict delinquent behaviors in early adolescence.

This study elaborated on associations between youth's trauma-related emotional numbing across multiple affective domains (e.g., fear, sadness, happiness, anger) and delinquent behaviors. The study also examined whether the effects of posttrauma emotional numbing varied by the occurrence of posttrauma arousal symptoms. Participants were 123 middle school boys and girls from working-class, urban communities. Emotional numbing, particularly diminished fear, was related to both home and community violence exposure. Numbing of fearful emotions was associated with all types of delinquent behaviors examined. In addition, numbing of sadness was associated with aggression. Interactions between numbing of fear and hyperarousal suggested a complex pattern of emotional processing following exposure to traumatic events in which numbing related to delinquent behavior only in the context of high posttrauma arousal. These patterns may coalesce to place youth at risk for early involvement in delinquent behaviors.

Social information processing in children: specific relations to anxiety, depression, and affect.

Two studies examined shared and unique relations of social information processing (SIP) to youth's anxious and depressive symptoms. Whether SIP added unique variance over and above trait affect in predicting internalizing symptoms was also examined. In Study 1, 215 youth (ages 8-13) completed symptom measures of anxiety and depression and a vignette-based interview measure of SIP. Anxiety and depression were each related to a more negative information-processing style. Only depression was uniquely related to a less positive information processing style. In Study 2, 127 youth (ages 10-13) completed measures of anxiety, depression, SIP, and trait affect. SIP's relations to internalizing symptoms were replicated. Over and above negative affect, negative SIP predicted both anxiety and depression. Low positive SIP added variance over and above positive affect in predicting only depression. Finally, SIP functioning partially mediated the relations of affect to internalizing symptoms.

Mountain Dew or mountain don't?: a pilot investigation of caffeine use parameters and relations to depression and anxiety symptoms in 5th- and 10th-grade students.

BACKGROUND: Caffeine, the only licit psychoactive drug available to minors, may have a harmful impact on students' health and adjustment, yet little is known about its use or effects on students, especially from a developmental perspective. Caffeine use in 5th- and 10th-grade students was examined in a cross-sectional design, and relations and potential mediators of caffeine use to depression and anxiety symptoms were investigated. METHODS: Children (n = 135) and adolescents (n = 79) completed a measure of naturalistic use of caffeinated and noncaffeinated beverages. Furthermore, daily availability, perceived benefits, and stimulating, psychological, and withdrawal effects of caffeinated and noncaffeinated beverages were assessed. Measures of depression and anxiety were also administered. RESULTS: Fifth and 10th graders used caffeine frequently. Depression was positively related to caffeine use for both cohorts, though mediated by caffeine withdrawal effects. Surprisingly, anxiety was unrelated to use. Fifth graders reported less daily access to caffeine, but more psychological and stimulating effects of caffeine than 10th graders. CONCLUSIONS: Although both children and adolescents experience negative caffeine-related outcomes, intake is seemingly not greatly limited in either cohort. In particular, youth appear vulnerable to increased depressive symptoms with increasing caffeine consumption. Implications for school policy regarding students' caffeine use are discussed.

Peer difficulties in children with epilepsy: association with seizure, neuropsychological, academic, and behavioral variables.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE: A developmental psychopathology framework was used to examine variables associated with peer problems in children with epilepsy (CWE). Variables commonly associated with peer difficulties in typically developing children, such as inattentive behavior, anxious behavior, and academic achievement were investigated. Neuropsychological functioning, age at epilepsy onset, and seizure status were also examined. RESEARCH METHOD/DESIGN: Participants were 173 CWE, ages 8-15. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to determine which variables predicted peer problems in CWE and to test hypothesized interrelations among variables. RESULTS: The SEM revealed that anxious behavior mediated relations between neuropsychological functioning and peer difficulties and seizure status and peer difficulties. Inattentive behavior mediated the association between neuropsychological functioning and peer difficulties. Neuropsychological functioning mediated the relation between age at epilepsy onset and inattentive behavior, anxious behavior, and academic achievement. CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS: As seen with typically developing children, inattentive and anxious behaviors are related to peer difficulties in CWE. Neuropsychological functioning, age at epilepsy onset, and seizure status are indirectly associated with peer difficulties; therefore, these variables are important to examine in CWE who are experiencing peer problems.

The Children's Evaluation of Everyday Social Encounters Questionnaire: comprehensive assessment of children's social information processing and its relation to internalizing problems.

Two studies describe the development of a comprehensive, vignette-based measure of social information processing (SIP) particularly relevant for children with internalizing problems. Study 1 (N = 219 3rd-6th graders) describes the creation of the Children's Evaluation of Everyday Social Encounters Questionnaire (ChEESE-Q) and evidence for its reliability and validity, including internal structure and relation of SIP variables to depressive and anxious symptoms. Study 2 (N = 127 5th-6th graders) replicated the factor structure and validity evidence found in Study 1 and provided support for the reliability of alternate forms of the ChEESE-Q. Overall, results supported ChEESE-Q scores' moderate temporal stability and internal consistency in assessing SIP. Results also supported the presence of positive- and negative-valenced SIP patterns. Child internalizing symptoms were strongly related to a negative SIP style across both depression and anxiety, whereas only depressive symptoms were negatively associated with positive aspects of SIP.

Anxiety- and depression-related thoughts in children: development and evaluation of a cognition measure.

This study examined anxiety- and depression-related cognitive content in children. We developed the Children's Thought Questionnaire (CTQ) to include anxious thoughts characterized by threat and uncertainty; depressive thoughts by loss, self-deprecation, and certainty/hopelessness; and positive thoughts by interest, pleasure, and positive self-reference. The CTQ and measures of anxious and depressive symptoms were completed by 193 5th- and 6th-grade children. Exploratory factor analysis of the CTQ revealed that items loaded on 2 factors according to negative and positive valence. However, use of conceptually derived subscales demonstrated specificity, with higher levels of anxious thoughts uniquely predicting greater anxious symptoms and higher depressive thoughts uniquely predicting greater depressive symptoms. Furthermore, positive thoughts were negatively related to depressive symptoms but either unrelated or positively related to anxious symptoms, thus providing support for cognitive specificity.