Prospective associations between emotion regulation and depressive symptoms among Mexican-origin adolescents.

Reappraisal (reconstruing emotional experiences to alter their impact) and suppression (inhibiting emotionally expressive behavior) are emotion-regulation strategies with important implications for depression. While reappraisal generally predicts lower depressive symptoms, suppression generally predicts higher depressive symptoms. Because cultural factors can influence the processes involved in these links and because adolescence-especially for ethnic minority youth-brings particular emotional challenges, it's critical to investigate these links among Mexican-origin adolescents. However, research examining emotion regulation among Mexican-origin individuals is scarce and generally limited to cross-sectional designs. Thus, we examined prospective associations between reappraisal and suppression (assessed at age 17) and 2 facets of depressive symptoms (anhedonia and general distress) over 3 years (assessed at ages 16, 18, and 19) among 228 Mexican-origin adolescents. Latent growth curve models indicated that reappraisal was associated with lower anhedonia at baseline (age 16) and lower anhedonia over time, whereas suppression predicted greater anhedonia at baseline but not change over time. Consistent with the Mexican cultural value of simpatía, which emphasizes expressing positive emotions and inhibiting negative emotions, suppression of positive emotions was associated with greater anhedonia over time whereas suppression of negative emotions was associated with lower anhedonia over time. However, neither associated with anhedonia at baseline. Reappraisal and suppression were not associated with distress symptoms, and no effects were moderated by familism, household income, gender, or child nativity. The anhedonia results suggest that the benefits of reappraisal extend to Mexican-origin adolescents, but the effects of suppression may depend upon emotional valence in this group. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Content and Quality of Science Training Programs Matter: Longitudinal Study of the Biology Scholars Program.

Many science training programs are successful at supporting students in completing their degree programs. However, it is not clear which aspects of these programs meaningfully contribute toward achieving this goal. The current longitudinal study examined a well-established science training program, the Biology Scholars Program (BSP) at the University of California, Berkeley, to see whether social connections formed in BSP and/or enthusiasm about the BSP activities are key components in contributing to students' greater integration into their professional communities at 12 months and intentions to persist at 18 months into the program. Results indicated social connections and program enthusiasm at 6 months were unassociated with science efficacy, identity, and community values. However, social connections and program enthusiasm at 12 months were generally associated with higher levels of all these variables, with science identity and community values uniquely related to greater integration. Together, results show that students' connection to faculty, staff, and peers and enthusiasm for the program activities are both key components of successful, multiyear science training programs. Our results also suggest that, while connections and enthusiasm might develop quickly, their downstream consequences might only be observed after students build stronger social relations and enthusiasm for program activities in ways that foster greater integration.

The Influence of Microaffirmations on Undergraduate Persistence in Science Career Pathways.

The present studies aimed to advance the measurement and understanding of microaffirmation kindness cues and assessed how they related to historically underrepresented (HU) and historically overrepresented (HO) undergraduate student persistence in science-related career pathways. Study 1 developed and tested the dimensionality of a new Microaffirmations Scale. Study 2 confirmed the two-factor structure of the Microaffirmations Scale and demonstrated that the scale possessed measurement invariance across HU and HO students. Further, the scale was administered as part of a longitudinal design spanning 9 months, with results showing that students' reported microaffirmations did not directly predict higher intentions to persist in science-related career pathways 9 months later. However, scientific self-efficacy and identity, measures of student integration into the science community, mediated this relationship. Overall, our results demonstrated that microaffirmations can be measured in an academic context and that these experiences have predictive value when they increase students' integration into their science communities, ultimately resulting in greater intentions to persist 9 months later. Researchers and practitioners can use the Microaffirmations Scale for future investigations to increase understanding of the positive contextual factors that can ultimately help reduce persistence gaps in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degree attainment.