Weekly links among irritability and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in high-risk youth.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies demonstrate a link between irritability and suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) in youth samples. However, they have mostly assessed irritability in community samples and as a largely dispositional (i.e. trait-like) construct. Thus, it remains unclear to what extent links between irritability and STBs reflect within-person processes of elevated risk in clinically meaningful time periods. METHODS: The present study used clinical data from 689 adolescents aged 12-19 years attending a total of 6,128 visits at a specialty Intensive Outpatient Program for depressed and suicidal youth to examine patterns in weekly assessments of irritability and STBs throughout treatment, including associations among trends and fluctuations departing from these trends via multilevel structural equation modeling. Youth completed self-report measures of irritability, depression, and STBs weekly as part of standard IOP clinical care. RESULTS: Overall, two-thirds of variance in weekly irritable mood was accounted for by between-person differences and the remaining portion by weekly fluctuations. After controlling for depression, during weeks when youth were more irritable they experienced increased STBs. Rates of change in irritability and STBs tended to track together at early stages of treatment, but these effects were generally accounted for by depression severity. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that although changes in STBs are best accounted for by depression, irritability can be understood as a specific, proximal risk factor for youth STBs that exacerbates youth STBs in clinically informative timeframes above and beyond depression.

The personality meta-trait of stability and carotid artery atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND: Several personality traits increase the risk for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Because many of these traits are correlated, their associations with disease risk could reflect shared variance, rather than unique contributions of each trait. We examined a higher-order personality trait of Stability as related to preclinical atherosclerosis and tested whether any such relationship might be explained by correlated variation in cardiometabolic risk factors. METHOD: Among 798 community volunteers, lower-order traits of Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were modeled as latent variables (from self- and informant ratings) and used to estimate the second-order factor, Stability. Cardiometabolic risk was similarly modeled from indicators of glycemic control, blood pressure, adiposity, and lipids. Carotid artery atherosclerosis was measured as intima-media thickness (IMT) by duplex ultrasonography. RESULT: A structural equation model incorporating direct and indirect effects showed lower Stability associated with greater IMT, and this relationship was accounted for by the indirect pathway via cardiometabolic risk. Secondary analyses showed that: (1) Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were unrelated to IMT independent of Stability; and (2) Stability predicted variation in IMT when estimated from informant-, but not self-rated, traits. CONCLUSION: Personality traits may associate with atherosclerotic burden through their shared, rather than unique, variance, as reflected in Stability.

Momentary interpersonal processes of suicidal surges in borderline personality disorder.

BACKGROUND: Suicide rates are high in borderline personality disorder (BPD) where interpersonal problems trigger intense affective dysregulation and impulses to act on suicidal thoughts. To date, however, no study has examined how interpersonal stressors contribute to momentary within-person links among affect and impulsivity with suicidal ideation (SI), and how those links vary over time in people's daily lives. METHODS: A total of 153 individuals diagnosed with BPD and 52 healthy controls completed a 21-day ecological momentary assessment protocol. Of these 153 individuals with BPD, 105 had a history of suicide attempts. Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to examine dynamic links among interpersonal perceptions, affect, state impulsivity, and suicidal intent. RESULTS: Aggregated across interactions, lower perceived warmth in others was associated with SI. This direct relationship, however, did not extend to momentary within-person associations. Instead, interpersonal conflicts were linked to SI indirectly via greater negative affect and lower positive affect. While a robust within-person link between interpersonal perceptions and impulsivity emerged, impulsivity did not account for the relationship between interpersonal perceptions and SI. CONCLUSION: This intensive longitudinal study illustrates momentary interpersonal signatures of an emerging suicidal crisis. Among people with BPD at high risk for suicide, interpersonal triggers initiate a cascade of affective dysregulation, which in turn gives rise to SI.

Displays of negative facial affect during parent-adolescent conflict and the bidirectional transmission of social anxiety.

BACKGROUND: Symptoms of social anxiety rise rapidly during adolescence, particularly for girls. Pervasive displays of parental negative affect may increase adolescents' fear of negative evaluation (FNE), thereby increasing risk for social anxiety symptoms. Adolescent displays of negative affect may also exacerbate parents' social anxiety symptoms (via FNE of their child or their parenting skills), yet little research has tested transactional pathways of transmission in families. By early adolescence, rates of parent-child conflict rise, and offspring become increasingly independent in their own displays of negative affect, increasing opportunities for hypothesized transactional pathways between parent-adolescent displays of negative affect and social anxiety symptoms. METHODS: This study included 129 parents and daughters (11-13; no baseline social anxiety disorder), two-thirds of whom were at high risk for social anxiety due to a shy/fearful temperament. We used actor-partner interdependence models (APIM) to test whether displays of negative facial affect, assessed individually for each parent and daughter during a conflict discussion, would predict their partner's social anxiety symptoms two years later. Automated facial affect coding assessed the frequency of negative affect during the discussion. Clinician ratings of social anxiety symptoms were completed at baseline and two-year follow-up. RESULTS: Both parents and daughters who displayed more frequent negative facial affect at baseline had partners with higher follow-up social anxiety symptoms, an effect that was maintained after accounting for actors' and partners' baseline symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Findings are consistent with intergenerational models positing that parental negative affective behaviors increase risk for adolescent social anxiety symptoms but also suggest that adolescent negative facial affect may exacerbate parental social anxiety symptoms. These bidirectional effects improve understanding of how social anxiety is maintained within a transactional family structure and highlight that displays of negative affect during parent-adolescent interaction may warrant future examination as a potential treatment target for adolescent social anxiety.

Daily stress reactivity: The unique roles of personality and social support.

BACKGROUND: The processes through which social support exerts its influence in daily life are not well understood. Arguably, its salutary effects as an environmental variable might be construed as shared effects of personality. METHOD: To test this possibility, we investigated the unique and shared effects of personality and social support on daily stressor exposure (social conflict, task strain) and on the within-person association of stressor exposure with perceived stress. A community-sample of N = 391 adults completed an ambulatory assessment protocol for two 2-day periods with fixed hourly intervals spread across 16 hr. RESULTS: Consistent with our preregistered hypotheses, multilevel structural equation models returned that both, personality and perceived social support, predicted daily stressor exposure and moderated within-person effects of daily stressors on perceived stress. In contrast to our hypotheses, received social support had no effect on daily stress processes. When Extraversion, Neuroticism, and social support were added as joint predictors, Neuroticism and Extraversion were related to stressor exposure, and further moderated the within-person link between stressor exposure and stress experience, while perceived social support had an incremental beneficial effect on social conflict exposure and stress appraisal. CONCLUSION: Social support does not increment the well-established relationships between Neuroticism or Extraversion and stress reactivity.

Integrating Structure and Function in Conceptualizing and Assessing Pathological Traits.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' (5th Edition) Alternative Model of Personality Disorders includes a dimensional trait model to describe individual differences in the manifestation of personality pathology. Empirically derived quantitative trait models of psychopathology address many of the structural problems of classical diagnostic schemes (e.g., nonbinary distributions, excessive comorbidity, and diagnostic heterogeneity). However, they are largely based on the structure of individual differences in the manifestation of psychopathology. In contrast, clinical theories of personality disorder, which are the foundation of intervention efforts, are based on the function of maladaptive behavior. This distinction is akin to the difference between morphology and physiology in the broader biological sciences. A structure-function divide in the focus of empirical and clinical work contributes to a lack of integration and difficulties with translation. Here we discuss this tension and argue for the need to bridge this divide and adopt research efforts that integrate structure and function of personality traits. Specifically, we suggest that between-person structure identifies the principal domains of functioning, but to understand dysfunction personality must be conceptualized and studied as an ensemble of contextualized dynamic processes.

Associations between informant ratings of personality disorder traits, self-reports of personality, and directly observed behavior.

OBJECTIVE: Diagnoses of personality disorders (PD) must rely on judgments of observers-either clinicians or acquaintances-because personality disorders are primarily defined in terms of maladaptive interpersonal behavior. Little is known, however, about how closely acquaintances' judgments of PD traits relate to self-reports of theoretically relevant Big Five traits or directly observed behavioral outcomes in interpersonal situations. The present study examines associations between judgments of the 10 PD traits provided by close acquaintances, self-reports of PD-relevant Big Five personality traits, and observed interpersonal behaviors across three different three-person laboratory interactions (i.e., unstructured chat, cooperative task, competitive game). METHOD: The sample consisted of 256 undergraduate students (130 females; Mage = 19.83, SD = 1.25). Four unacquainted observers independently rated participants' behaviors from video recordings. RESULTS: In line with previous work, informant reports of PD traits demonstrate strong convergent validity with relevant self-reported Big Five traits (as identified by Lynam & Widiger, 2001). Directly observed behavior is meaningfully associated with acquaintances' judgments and self-reports of PD-relevant traits, and the associations between these judgments and behavior are strongest for traits associated with histrionic and schizoid PD. Vector correlations between behavioral profiles associated with informant and self-reports show that both assessments have similar behavioral correlates. Associations between PD trait ratings and behavior appeared to differ as a function of gender, with males showing more and stronger correlations. CONCLUSIONS: Informants' ratings of PD traits are impressively accurate, converging both with self-reports of relevant traits and directly observed interpersonal behavior. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of PDs and associated traits can be augmented by information from multiple acquaintances who have the opportunity to observe how an individual interacts with others on a daily basis across diverse contexts.

Self-compassion buffers the link between self-criticism and depression in trauma-exposed firefighters.

Firefighters are frequently exposed to highly stressful, potentially traumatic events (PTEs). More than 50%, however, show no significant elevation in trauma-related symptomatology (e.g., depression). In the past, self-compassion has been discussed to promote psychological and behavioral flexibility that is vital to a successful adaptation to PTEs. The goal of this study was to understand whether and how self-compassion may alleviate personal suffering in the face of PTEs. We hypothesized that individuals who encounter their profession-related affective experiences with greater self-compassion, show lower levels of depressive symptoms because self-compassion buffers processes that perpetuate negative affectivity in response to PTEs (i.e., self-critical tendencies). Male firefighters (N = 123) completed self-report questionnaires about the severity of current depressive symptoms; prior traumatic, duty-related events; and the self-compassion scale that assesses two distinct factors: self-criticism and self-compassion. A stepwise regression model was employed to examine differential and interactive contributions of self-criticism and self-compassion to symptoms of depression across the cumulative range of exposure to PTEs. Our results indicate that the positive association between self-criticism and depression is buffered by enhanced levels of self-compassion. This moderation, however, only emerged for firefighters with substantial amounts of PTEs experience in the past. The present work provides insight into protective effects of self-compassion in the face of cumulative PTEs. It suggests that, particularly for severely trauma-exposed firefighters, self-compassion may confer resilience, that is, act as a protective factor from the development of depressive symptoms. Findings are discussed in light of counseling implications. (PsycINFO Database Record

Only complementary voices tell the truth: a reevaluation of validity in multi-informant approaches of child and adolescent clinical assessments.

Multi-informant approaches are thought to be key to clinical assessment. Classical theories of psychological measurements assume that only convergence among different informants' reports allows for an estimate of the true nature and causes of clinical presentations. However, the integration of multiple accounts is fraught with problems because findings in child and adolescent psychiatry do not conform to the fundamental expectation of convergence. Indeed, reports provided by different sources (self, parents, teachers, peers) share little variance. Moreover, in some cases informant divergence may be meaningful and not error variance. In this review, we give an overview of conceptual and theoretical foundations of valid multi-informant assessment and discuss why our common concepts of validity need revaluation.

A Longitudinal Network of Borderline-Related Trait Vulnerabilities from Childhood to Adolescence.

Early maladaptive traits are predictive of later borderline personality pathology (BPP), but little is known about their dynamic interplay over time. This is an important issue to address, however, as significant differences in the 'clinical weight' of various traits constituting the early BPP trait phenotype may inform the field on important target constructs from an early intervention perspective. Therefore, the current study aims to uncover the complex dependencies between BPP traits across the crucial developmental period of childhood and adolescence, by using longitudinal network analysis. Both between- and within-person networks were constructed to identify how early mother-reported borderline-related traits are connected across a timespan of six years (ntime 1 = 718, Mtime1 = 10.73 years, SDtime1 = 1.39, 55.1% girls). Overall, the temporal network suggested various trait interdependencies, with internalizing traits being particularly influential in the development of the BPP trait network structure. At the same time, externalizing traits likely inhibit the negative effects of these core traits. In addition, results also revealed that internalizing and externalizing clusters of early borderline-related traits are linked through emotional lability. Implications of these findings are discussed in view of the change mechanisms at play and potential targets for early intervention.

Personality Pathology and Momentary Stress Processes.

The expression of personality pathology differs between people and within a person in day-to-day life. Personality pathology may reflect, in part, dysregulation in basic behavioral processes. Thus, a useful approach for studying maladaptive trait expression comes from literature on stress and daily hassles, which provide dynamic accounts for the relations between individual differences and maladaptive dysregulation. This study sought to integrate maladaptive traits and dynamic stress processes to further dynamic models of personality pathology. In a combined clinical/community sample (N=297) oversampled for interpersonal problems, we used ecological momentary assessment (observation N=19,968) to investigate how maladaptive traits moderated the processes of stress generation, stress reactivity, and affective spillover/inertia. Tests of our preregistered hypotheses provided a mix of supportive and null findings for stress processes identified in past research, and mixed support for the moderating role of personality. The results provide insights into the relations between everyday stressors and personality pathology.

Exploration-Exploitation and Suicidal Behavior in Borderline Personality Disorder and Depression.

Importance: Clinical theory and behavioral studies suggest that people experiencing suicidal crisis are often unable to find constructive solutions or incorporate useful information into their decisions, resulting in premature convergence on suicide and neglect of better alternatives. However, prior studies of suicidal behavior have not formally examined how individuals resolve the tradeoffs between exploiting familiar options and exploring potentially superior alternatives. Objective: To investigate exploration and exploitation in suicidal behavior from the formal perspective of reinforcement learning. Design, Setting, and Participants: Two case-control behavioral studies of exploration-exploitation of a large 1-dimensional continuous space and a 21-day prospective ambulatory study of suicidal ideation were conducted between April 2016 and March 2022. Participants were recruited from inpatient psychiatric units, outpatient clinics, and the community in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and underwent laboratory and ambulatory assessments. Adults diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and midlife and late-life major depressive disorder (MDD) were included, with each sample including demographically equated groups with a history of high-lethality suicide attempts, low-lethality suicide attempts, individuals with BPD or MDD but no suicide attempts, and control individuals without psychiatric disorders. The MDD sample also included a subgroup with serious suicidal ideation. Main Outcomes and Measures: Behavioral (model-free and model-derived) indices of exploration and exploitation, suicide attempt lethality (Beck Lethality Scale), and prospectively assessed suicidal ideation. Results: The BPD group included 171 adults (mean [SD] age, 30.55 [9.13] years; 135 [79%] female). The MDD group included 143 adults (mean [SD] age, 62.03 [6.82] years; 81 [57%] female). Across the BPD (χ23 = 50.68; P < .001) and MDD (χ24 = 36.34; P < .001) samples, individuals with high-lethality suicide attempts discovered fewer options than other groups as they were unable to shift away from unrewarded options. In contrast, those with low-lethality attempts were prone to excessive behavioral shifts after rewarded and unrewarded actions. No differences were seen in strategic early exploration or in exploitation. Among 84 participants with BPD in the ambulatory study, 56 reported suicidal ideation. Underexploration also predicted incident suicidal ideation (χ21 = 30.16; P < .001), validating the case-control results prospectively. The findings were robust to confounds, including medication exposure, affective state, and behavioral heterogeneity. Conclusions and Relevance: The findings suggest that narrow exploration and inability to abandon inferior options are associated with serious suicidal behavior and chronic suicidal thoughts. By contrast, individuals in this study who engaged in low-lethality suicidal behavior displayed a low threshold for taking potentially disadvantageous actions.

Studying personality pathology with ecological momentary assessment: Harmonizing theory and method.

Over the past 20 years, ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has become a vital part of the methods repertoire used to study personality pathology. This is because EMA facilitates modeling (dys)function consistent with clinical theory as an ensemble of contextualized dynamic within-person processes, such as when and how relevant socio-affective responses may become disrupted in daily life. Despite its popularity, there is little systematic work on the conceptual adequacy and cross-study consistency in the design choices and reporting standards of EMA studies on personality disorders. EMA protocol design choices impact the reliability and validity of conclusions, and variability in choices affect replicability and thus credibility of the conclusions drawn. We provide an overview of the core decisions researchers face in designing an EMA study organized around the "three Ds": density (frequency of surveys), depth (length of surveys), and duration (number of days in a protocol). To identify the typical and range of used study designs, including what personality disorder researchers view as important and where there are gaps in our knowledge, we reviewed relevant studies published over the years 2000 to 2021. Of 66 identified unique EMA protocols, studies scheduled ~6.5 assessments per day with an average of ~21 items, lasted for ~13 days, and obtained a compliance of ~75%. Generally, denser studies had less depth and shorter duration, whereas protocols with longer duration tended to be deeper. We offer recommendations on how valid research on personality disorders can be organized around these considerations with the goal of reliably uncovering temporal dynamics in personality (dys)functioning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Suicidal urges and attempted suicide at multiple time scales in borderline personality disorder.

BACKGROUND: There is strong evidence for an enduring suicidal diathesis among individuals with a history of suicide attempts, particularly among people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). However, the progression of suicidal crises among people predisposed to suicidal behavior remains poorly understood. METHODS: Via multilevel structural equation modeling we tested the hypothesis that a history of attempted suicide predicts a stronger dynamic link between affect and impulsivity with suicidal ideation (i.e., suicidal urges) - both moment-to-moment and day-to-day. 153 patients diagnosed with BPD, 105 of whom had a history of medically serious suicide attempts completed a 21-day ecological momentary assessment protocol (17,926 total assessments). RESULTS: Individuals with higher average levels of negative affect reported more suicidal thoughts. Moments characterized by more negative affect, hostility, impulsivity, and less positive affect were also characterized by elevated suicidal ideation. For hostility and positive affect, these significant links generalized to the daily level. At the same time, for negative affect and hostility the within-person coupling was stronger among attempters in comparison to non-attempters, and these effects did not significantly differ across timescales. LIMITATIONS: Follow-up studies replicating our findings of the dysregulation-suicidality nexus in clinically more diverse samples are needed. CONCLUSIONS: The diathesis for suicidal behavior manifests in tighter dynamic links between negative affect or hostility and suicidal ideation. Because these within-person links were amplified in attempters compared to non-attempters, differential coupling patterns may index potentially lethal processes that generalize beyond BPD reflecting distinct diathesis components.

Daily manifestations of caregiver- and self-reported maladaptive personality traits in adolescent girls.

Establishing maladaptive personality traits at a younger age in a developmentally appropriate and clinically tangible way may alert clinicians to dysfunction earlier, and thus reduce the risk of significant impairment later in life. The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) provides a set of traits useful for organizing behavioral and experiential patterns central to daily personality functioning. The goal of the present study was to evaluate manifestations indicative of AMPD traits via ambulatory assessments in the daily lives of adolescent girls. Caregivers and girls (N = 129; age: M = 12.27, SD = 0.80) provided baseline assessments of girls' trait vulnerabilities (negative affectivity, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, psychoticism) and girls additionally completed a 16-day ecological momentary assessment protocol (N = 5,036 observations), rating social behaviors and experiences in their daily lives. Multilevel structural equation models revealed that trait vulnerabilities were linked to more extreme shifts in interpersonal experiences and behaviors from one moment to the next, suggesting that maladaptive personality traits were linked to greater variability. Furthermore, AMPD traits were positively and strongly related to negative affect in daily interpersonal situations. More specifically, girls' trait ratings were associated with elevated mean-levels of boredom, as well as interpersonal tension. Caregiver-reports complemented this perspective of dissatisfying social interactions, suggesting that especially detachment and antagonism accounted for lower levels of social connectedness and more variability in social activities in girls' daily lives. Results are discussed in terms of the short-term dynamics and related intervention targets of developmental personality pathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The development of personality-From metatraits to facets-Across adolescence and into adulthood in a sample of Mexican-origin youth.

The time between adolescence and adulthood is a transformative period of development. During these years, youth are exploring work, relationships, and worldviews while gaining the capacities needed to take on adult roles. These social and psychological processes are reflected in how personality develops across this period. Most youth personality development research has focused on the Big Five domains, ignoring the hierarchical structure of personality and missing broader, higher order processes and more specific, lower order processes. Toward a more comprehensive account, this study examines how personality develops from adolescence into the early years of adulthood at the metatrait (stability, plasticity), domain (Big Five), and facet levels. Data come from a longitudinal study of Mexican-origin youth (N = 645) with few socioeconomic resources who were assessed 5 times from Ages 14 to 23. We used latent growth curve models to investigate mean-level change, rank-order consistency, and the maintenance of trajectories for self-reported personality metatraits, domains, and facets. We found distinct developmental processes unfolding at each level of the hierarchy, including (a) mean-level changes in the metatraits and domains indicating increases in exploratory tendencies (i.e., plasticity) and maturity (i.e., increases in agreeableness and conscientiousness, decreases in neuroticism), and divergent change patterns between facets within each domain indicating nuanced maturational processes; (b) comparable levels of rank-order consistency for metatraits, domains, and facets; and (c) evidence that deviations from youth's developmental trajectories did not persist over time. Our findings offer insights into personality development that would be impossible to glean from the domain-level alone and adds needed sociocultural diversity to the literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Attachment Manifestations in Daily Interpersonal Interactions.

The predominant focus in attachment research on trait-like individual differences has overshadowed investigation of the ways in which working models of attachment represent dynamic, interpersonally responsive socio-affective systems. Intensive longitudinal designs extend previous work by evaluating to what extent attachment varies over social interactions and the functional processes that underlie its fluctuation. We examined momentary activation of attachment orientations in the stream of peoples' daily lives and how those patterns were linked to interpersonal behavior. Based on an event-contingent, ambulatory 7-day assessment protocol (N=263; 3,971 interactions) operationalized using Contemporary Integrative Interpersonal Theory, we examined whether contextually activated working models accounted for patterns of interpersonal (anti-)complementarity. Our analyses revealed that the situational activation of working models varied as a function of interpersonal perceptions of warmth, which were linked to greater state security and lower levels of anxious or avoidant expectations. These reactivity patterns, in turn, accounted for interpersonal complementarity. Avoidant attachment was linked to diminished and secure attachment to enhanced expressions of warmth. The analyses were robust even when controlling for momentary positive and negative affect and closeness of the relationship. Attachment expectations wax and wane across daily social interactions, and such fluctuations are reflective primarily of a process in which perceptions of others' warmth activate secure attachment expectations and lower insecure ones. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00117-6.

Functional Somatic Symptoms and Emotion Regulation in Children and Adolescents.

Background: Functional Somatic Symptoms (FSS; i.e. symptoms without sufficient organic explanation) often begin in childhood and adolescence and are common to this developmental period. Emotion regulation and parental factors seem to play a relevant role in the development and maintenance of FSS. So far, little systematic research has been conducted in childhood and adolescence on the importance of specific emotion regulation strategies and their links with parental factors. Method: In two studies, children and adolescents (Study 1/Study 2: N = 46/68; 65%/60% female, Age M = 10.0/13.1) and their parents completed questionnaires on children's FSS and adaptive and maladaptive emotional regulation (in Study 2, additionally parental somatization and child/parental alexithymia). Results: In both studies, child-reported FSS were negatively associated with children's adaptive emotion regulation (r = -.34/-.31, p < .03; especially acceptance) and positively with children's maladaptive emotion regulation and alexithymia (r = .53/.46, p < .001). Moreover, children's maladaptive emotion regulation (ß = .34, p = .02) explained incremental variance in child-reported FSS beyond children's age/sex, parental somatization and emotion regulation. In contrast, parental somatization was the only significant predictor (ß = .44, p < .001) of parent-reported FSS in children/adolescents. Conclusion: Our results suggest that particularly rumination and alexithymia and parental somatization are important predictors of FSS in children/adolescents. Overall, the results showed a dependence on the person reporting children's FSS (i.e., method-variance). So, for future studies it is relevant to continue using the multi-informant approach.

Sleep and next-day negative affect and suicidal ideation in borderline personality disorder.

Sleep disturbance is associated with elevated suicidal ideation and negative affect. To date, however, no study has investigated the temporal relationship between sleep and suicidality among those diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This preregistered (https://osf.io/4vugk) study tested whether nightly sleep (self-reported sleep duration, sleep onset latency, and subjective sleep quality) represents a (within-person) short-term risk factor for affective dysregulation and increases in suicide risk from day-to-day, as well as whether between-person differences in sleep, negative affect, and suicidality were associated. We used a 21-day ecological momentary assessment protocol in a sample of 153 people diagnosed with BPD, 105 of which had a history of serious suicide attempts, and 52 healthy controls (N = 4076 days). We found a within-person association between worse subjective sleep quality and greater next-day negative affect. At the between-person level, we found positive relationships between sleep latency and suicidal ideation, and a negative association between subjective sleep quality and negative affect. BPD severity did not significantly moderate the strength of any within-person associations, although BPD was positively associated with average levels of suicidal ideation, sleep latency, and negative affect, and negatively related to subjective sleep quality. These findings suggest that the association of sleep with suicidal ideation and BPD exists largely at the between-persons rather than the within-person level. Disturbed sleep, therefore, seems to largely coincide, rather than specifically contribute to, the exacerbation of suicidal crises in BPD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Protective effects of reasons for living against suicidal ideation in daily life.

How do individuals resist suicidal urges in a crisis? Deterrents for suicide can be conceptualized as reasons for living (RFL), but our understanding of their protective effects is predominantly informed by cross-sectional research. We examined the protective effects of RFL on suicidal ideation (SI) in daily life in a high-risk sample. We also tested whether personality traits moderated the strength of the dynamic RFL-SI link. Adults with a borderline personality disorder diagnosis (N = 153, nsuicide attempters = 105) completed a 21-day ambulatory assessment protocol. Daily endorsements of RFL were negatively linked to SI at the within-person but not the between-person level. Whereas suicide attempters endorsed RFL less frequently than non-attempters, the protective effect of RFL was undiminished in this group. Furthermore, RFL's protective effect was particularly pronounced in those with higher average levels of suicidal ideation. While people high on extraversion endorsed RFL more often, this increase was not protective against SI, indicating that RFL reflect heterogeneous underlying psychological processes, only some of which protect against SI.