An Initial examination of fear of negative and positive evaluation in youth.

Fear of negative evaluation (FNE) and fear of positive evaluation (FPE) are both core features of social anxiety. The majority of research with these constructs has been done with older adolescents and adults, with only one previous study examining FNE and FPE in childhood. However, this previous work relied exclusively on parent-report of youth FNE and FPE. Here, we examined the factor structure of FNE and FPE using youth self-reports. Moreover, we examined the associations with dimensions of internalizing and externalizing problems. We found that two-factor structure of FNE and FPE was a marginal fit to the data. Exploratory models identified three items that showed significant cross-loadings on non-target factors. Overall, we found that FNE was associated with dimensions of internalizing problems reported by youth and their mothers. FPE was associated with internalizing problems reported by youth, but not parents. Associations between FNE and clinical outcomes were stronger than those for FPE. This study demonstrates promise of FNE and FPE in youth and highlights important directions for future research.

Health Literacy and Systemic Racism-Using Clear Communication to Reduce Health Care Inequities.

This Viewpoint describes why people need health information that is easy to understand to make informed decisions about health care and why this is necessary to avoid systemic racism.

Positive and Negative Life Events in Association with Psychopathology: An Examination of Sex Differences in Early Adolescence.

Negative life events (NLEs) are associated with psychopathology in older adolescents and adults, particularly for women. However, less is known about the association between positive life events (PLEs) and psychopathology. This study examined associations between NLEs, PLEs, and their interaction, and sex differences in associations between PLEs and NLEs on internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Youth completed interviews about NLEs and PLEs. Parents and youth reported on youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms. NLEs were positively associated with youth-reported depression and anxiety and parent-reported youth depression. Female youth had stronger positive associations between NLEs and youth-reported anxiety than male youth. Interactions between PLEs and NLEs were non-significant. Findings for NLEs and psychopathology are extended to earlier in development.

Unpacking parental accommodation: Relationship to parent distress tolerance and cognitive styles.

Accommodation, or changes to parent behaviors or routines to avoid or alleviate child distress related to psychopathology, is one maladaptive parent response that is common in anxiety disorders and associated with poor youth outcomes. Little is known about the processes in parents that contribute to accommodation. Thus, the current study examined how accommodation relates to parent distress tolerance and cognitive styles. The present study utilized data from 295 parents (289 female) of children ages 4-10 who were recruited for a randomized trial of an internet-based single-session intervention targeting parent accommodation (NCT04453865). Results indicate a positive relationship between parent rumination and worry and accommodation, highlighting the influence of parent cognitive processes on their tendency to accommodate. In addition, results suggest a positive relationship between reduced parent distress tolerance and greater accommodation, and this relationship may be influenced by other factors. Future research that uses multiple methods of assessment will add to effective interventions for parent accommodation that can be used to improve youth outcomes.

Parent-Child Synchrony After Early Childhood: A Systematic Review.

Parent-child synchrony, or the coordination of biological and behavioral processes between parent and child, is thought to promote healthy relationships and support youth adjustment. Although extensive work has been conducted on parent-child synchrony during infancy and early childhood, less is known about synchrony in middle childhood and adolescence and the contextual factors that impact synchrony, particularly physiological synchrony. This is a systematic and qualitative review of 37 studies of behavioral and physiological synchrony in parent-child interactions after early childhood (parents with youth ages 5-18). Behavioral and physiological synchrony were typically identified in youth and their parents beyond early childhood and related to positive outcomes; however, research on father-child synchrony is rarer with mixed findings. Multiple factors are associated with synchrony, including parent and youth psychological symptoms and disorders, parenting factors, such as over-controlling parenting, and parent characteristics, such as interparental aggression and conflict. Few studies have examined behavioral and physiological synchrony simultaneously and longitudinally, limiting our ability to understand the relationship between types of synchrony and later adjustment. Available studies suggest that the context, such as presence of psychopathology or exposure to trauma, influences whether synchrony is associated with positive or negative outcomes. This review highlights the need for additional research to understand the relationship between types of synchrony and the long-term effects and contextual factors that impact youth outcomes.

Intergenerational Transmission of Rumination via Parenting Behaviors and Family Characteristics: The Impact on Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms.

The relationship between rumination and internalizing psychopathology across the lifespan is robustly documented, yet the development of rumination is not well understood. In a prospective study of adolescents (N = 629, M age = 13.05 years, 51.5% female, 48.3% African American/Black) and their primary female caregivers (90.6% biological mothers), self-report measures of rumination, parental behaviors, family characteristics, and internalizing symptoms were completed. Maternal rumination was not predictive of adolescent rumination, but was associated with less effective parenting and maladaptive family characteristics. Neither parenting behaviors nor family characteristics predicted adolescent rumination. The indirect effects of maternal rumination on adolescent rumination through parenting behaviors and family characteristics were non-significant. The well-established relationship between adolescent rumination and internalizing symptoms was replicated, but there was no evidence of the intergenerational process impacting these symptoms. The findings do not support intergenerational transmission of rumination via parenting behaviors and family characteristics.

The Main and Interactive Associations between Demographic Factors and Psychopathology and Treatment Utilization in Youth: A Test of Intersectionality in the ABCD Study.

Demographic factors may be associated with youth psychopathology due to social-contextual factors that may also pose barriers to intervention. Further, in line with intersectionality theory, youth with multiple non-dominant identities may be most likely to experience psychopathology and face barriers to care. This study examined rates of parent-reported psychopathology and mental health treatment utilization as a function of several demographic characteristics (in isolation and in concert) in a population-based, demographically diverse sample of 11,875 9- to 10-year-old youth. Results indicated most consistently that lower SES was associated with greater rates of psychopathology and greater likelihood of treatment utilization; that Asian American youth (relative to all other racial groups) and Hispanic/Latinx (relative to non-Hispanic/Latinx) youth were less likely to have a history of psychopathology or to have utilized treatment; and that male youth had greater rates of lifetime Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and were more likely to have utilized treatment. There was more modest support for interactive effects between demographic factors on psychopathology, which are discussed. The present study provides some support for differential rates of parent-reported psychopathology and treatment utilization as a function of demographic identities in youth. Potential explanations for these differences (e.g., cultural differences in symptom presentation; underreporting of symptoms) are discussed.

Validity of retrospectively-reported depressive episodes.

BACKGROUND: Depression and other psychopathology are often assessed retrospectively. Few studies have evaluated the validity of these reports by comparing prospectively-assessed symptoms to retrospective reports during the same time period. METHODS: This study utilized a subset of participants (n = 68) from the Oregon Adolescent Depression Project who completed at least one mailer assessment of depressive symptoms during a retrospectively-reported depressive episode. Participants completed up to seven mailer assessments of depression and suicidal ideation and diagnostic assessments that included retrospectively-reported depressive episodes that coincided with the mailer assessments. RESULTS: Multilevel linear models examined differences in depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation during and between retrospectively-reported depressive episodes. Results showed that individuals reported significantly higher levels of depression and suicidal ideation for retrospectively-reported depressive episodes compared to when they were not in depressive episodes. In addition, the average level of depressive symptoms endorsed during retrospectively-reported depressive episodes reached established clinical cut-offs. LIMITATIONS: Although we were able to determine whether symptoms during retrospectively-reported depressive episodes approached clinical cut-offs, we were unable to examine whether symptoms met criteria for depressive episodes. Additionally, we could not examine whether episode severity related to recall ability, and other forms of psychopathology were not assessed. CONCLUSION: These findings provide critical evidence for the validity of retrospectively-reported depressive episodes. Future research should examine whether these findings generalize across varying recall periods and retrospective assessments for other psychopathology.

Responses to affect subtypes differentially associate with anxious and depressive symptom severity.

Responses to affect include cognitive processes (i.e., perseverative vs. non-perseverative) and valence (i.e., modulation of positive vs. negative affect). However, little research has examined how the factor structure of responses to affect is defined along one or both of these dimensions. The present study conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of items from assessments of repetitive negative thinking, rumination on positive affect (PA), and dampening. We also examined the associations between emergent factors and measures of depressive symptoms, social anxiety symptoms, and non-social state anxiety. EFA results suggested a three-factor model of repetitive negative thinking, dampening, and rumination on PA. There was a significant association between repetitive negative thinking and dampening factors, but not between other factors. Repetitive negative thinking and dampening were associated with greater internalizing symptoms, whereas rumination on PA was associated with fewer internalizing symptoms. These findings clarify the structure of these responses to affect and their differential associations with symptoms, which may be used to tailor cognitive interventions for anxiety and/or depression.

Neural signatures of child cognitive emotion regulation are bolstered by parental social regulation in two cultures.

Caregiver impact on the efficacy of cognitive emotion regulation (ER; i.e. reappraisal) during childhood is poorly understood, particularly across cultures. We tested the hypothesis that in children from Japan and the USA, a neurocognitive signature of effective reappraisal, the late positive potential (LPP), will be bolstered by cognitive scaffolding by parents, and explored whether the two cultures differed in whether mere physical proximity of parents provides similar benefit. Five-to-seven-year-olds (N = 116; nJapan = 58; nUSA = 58) completed a directed reappraisal task (EEG-recorded) in one of three contexts: (i) parent-scaffolding, (ii) parent-present and (iii) parent-absent. Across cultures, those in the parent-scaffolding group and parent-present group showed effective reappraisal via the LPP relative to those in the parent-absent group. Results suggest that scaffolding is an effective method through which parents in these two cultures buttress child ER, and even parental passive proximity appears to have a meaningful effect on child ER across cultures.

Neural responses to social evaluation: The role of fear of positive and negative evaluation.

One of the core features of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is the persistent fear of being evaluated. Fear of evaluation includes fear of negative evaluation (FNE) and fear of positive evaluation (FPE). Few studies have examined the relationship between self-reported FNE and FPE and neural responses to simulated negative and positive social evaluation. In the current study, 56 participants, 35 with SAD and 21 healthy controls, completed questionnaires to assess dimensions of social anxiety including FNE and FPE, as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression. Participants also completed a social evaluation task, which involved viewing people delivering criticism and praise, and a control task, which involved counting asterisks, during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Although whole-brain analyses did not reveal significant associations between self-reported constructs and neural responses to social evaluation, region of interest analyses for the sample as a whole revealed that both FNE and social anxiety symptoms were associated with greater neural responses to both criticism and praise in emotion-processing brain regions, including the amygdala and anterior insula. There were no significant associations between FPE or depressive symptoms and neural responses to criticism or praise for the sample as a whole. Future research should examine the relationship between FNE, FPE, and neural responses to self-referent social evaluation in an unselected sample to assess a full range of fear of evaluation.

Digital disruption? Maternal mobile device use is related to infant social-emotional functioning.

Mobile device use has become increasingly prevalent, yet its impact on infant development remains largely unknown. When parents use mobile devices in front of infants, the parent is physically present but most likely distracted and unresponsive. Research using the classic Still Face Paradigm (SFP) suggests that parental withdrawal and unresponsiveness may have negative consequences for children's social-emotional development. In the present study, 50 infants aged 7.20 to 23.60 months (M = 15.40, SD = 4.74) and their mothers completed a modified SFP. The SFP consisted of three phases: free play (FP; parent and infant play and interact), still face (SF; parent withdraws attention and becomes unresponsive), and reunion (RU; parent resumes normal interaction). The modified SFP incorporated mobile device use in the SF phase. Parents reported on their typical mobile device use and infant temperament. Consistent with the standard SFP, infants showed more negative affect and less positive affect during SF versus FP. Infants also showed more toy engagement and more engagement with mother during FP versus SF and RU. Infants showed the most social bids during SF and more room exploration in SF than RU. More frequent reported mobile device use was associated with less room exploration and positive affect during SF, and less recovery (i.e., engagement with mother, room exploration positive affect) during RU, even when controlling for individual differences in temperament. Findings suggest that the SFP represents a promising theoretical framework for understanding the impact of parent's mobile device use on infant social-emotional functioning and parent-infant interactions.

Brooding rumination and cardiovascular reactivity to a laboratory-based interpersonal stressor.

There is a well-known link between stress and depression, but diathesis-stress models suggest that not all individuals are equally susceptible to stress. The current study examined if brooding rumination, a known risk factor for depression, influences cardiovascular reactivity to a laboratory-based interpersonal stressor. Sixty-five women watched a baseline video and were exposed to an interpersonal stressor while high frequency heart rate variability (HRV) was collected. We found that women who endorsed higher levels of brooding rumination exhibited greater HRV withdrawal from baseline to stressor, an effect that was maintained when we controlled for levels of depression. This physiological vulnerability, when combined with high levels of stress, may be one mechanism underlying how brooding rumination increases depression risk.