Examining the impact of major life events on the frequency and experience of daily social events.

OBJECTIVE: Life events can impact people's dispositional functioning by changing their state-level patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behavior. One pathway through which this change may be facilitated is changes in the experience of daily social events. METHOD: We examined the dynamic relationship between major life events and the subsequent experience of positive and negative daily social events in a year-long longitudinal study (initial N = 1247). RESULTS: Experiencing positive and negative major life events moderated the effects of positive and negative social events on event-contingent state well-being and ill-being in ways that were mostly (but not always) consistent with both endowment and contrast effects on judgments of well-being. Furthermore, negative life events predicted an increase in the subsequent trajectory of negative social events, while the experience of daily ill-being predicted the subsequent experience of negative social events. CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the possible impact of major life events by explaining how they shape the subsequent experience of daily social events.

Sparking Virtuous Cycles: A Longitudinal Study of Subjective Well-Being and Grit During Early Adolescence.

In cross-sectional research, subjective well-being and grit are found to be positively correlated. Their mutually reinforcing effects are particularly relevant for youth entering early adolescence because, during this developmental period, both well-being and grit have been shown to predict consequential outcomes later in life. However, their mutual relation has not yet been investigated in early adolescence. This study, therefore, examined the possibility of a virtuous cycle linking subjective well-being and grit during early adolescence. Self-report questionnaires of grit and subjective well-being were completed by N = 5291 children in China (47.6% girls; initial Mage = 9.69, SDage = 0.59) on six occasions over 3 academic years. In random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs), within-person changes in grit predicted within-person changes in subjective well-being 6 months later, and vice versa. Notably, analyses revealed an asymmetry in this cycle: paths from subjective well-being to grit were stronger and more reliable than the converse. Likewise, facet-level analyses showed that the predictive power of the perseverance component (of grit) and the affective component (of subjective well-being), respectively, was greater than the passion and cognitive components, respectively. These findings highlight the potential of boosting happiness for catalyzing positive youth development and, in addition, foreground the utility of studying these composite constructs at the facet level.

Daily emotional dynamics and changes in posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic depreciation among people living with HIV.

OBJECTIVE: Posttraumatic growth (PTG), and its negative reflection, posttraumatic depreciation (PTD), are two aspects of response to trauma. This study explores whether daily emotional dynamics (inertia and innovation) can translate into positive versus negative changes among people living with HIV (PLWH) in the form of long-term changes in PTG or PTD. METHODS: The study combined a classical longitudinal approach with two assessments of PTG and PTD within one year and a measurement burst diary design with three weekly electronic diaries. In total, 249 PLWH participated in this study, filling out an expanded version of the Posttraumatic Growth and Depreciation Inventory (PTGDI-X) and a survey of sociodemographic and clinical data. In addition, they assessed their positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) at the end of each day in online diaries using a shortened version of the PANAS-X. RESULTS: Although we observed stable significant inertia and innovation of PA and NA across all bursts, these parameters of daily emotional dynamics were unrelated to the longitudinal changes in PTG and PTD. The same null results were also noted for the average levels of NA and PA. CONCLUSIONS: The results indicated the relative stability of emotion regulation in PLWH over the course of one year and contributed to understanding its dynamic mechanisms in terms of trait-like characteristics. The null result of the relationship between the PTG and PTD change might suggest a weak role of emotion regulation in shaping these trajectories as well as a lack of validity of the PTG/PTD measures.

Parental intrusive homework support and math achievement: Does the child's mindset matter?

Prior research shows that when parents monitor, check, and assist in completing homework without an invitation, their children's motivation and academic achievement often decline. We propose that intrusive support from parents might also send the message that children are incompetent, especially if they believe their intelligence is fixed. We tested whether children's mindsets moderate the negative link between parents' intrusive homework support and achievement among first- and second-grade students followed for one academic year (Study 1, N = 563) and middle and high school students for two academic years (Study 2, N = 1,613). The samples were obtained from large urban areas in the United States. In both studies, intrusive homework support more strongly predicted a decrease in achievement over time for children with a fixed mindset. These findings suggest that the belief that intellectual ability cannot be changed may exacerbate the detrimental effects of uninvited help on academic work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A Randomized Trial of Behavioral Nudges Delivered Through Text Messages to Increase Influenza Vaccination Among Patients With an Upcoming Primary Care Visit.

PURPOSE: To evaluate if nudges delivered by text message prior to an upcoming primary care visit can increase influenza vaccination rates. DESIGN: Randomized, controlled trial. SETTING: Two health systems in the Northeastern US between September 2020 and March 2021. SUBJECTS: 74,811 adults. INTERVENTIONS: Patients in the 19 intervention arms received 1-2 text messages in the 3 days preceding their appointment that varied in their format, interactivity, and content. MEASURES: Influenza vaccination. ANALYSIS: Intention-to-treat. RESULTS: Participants had a mean (SD) age of 50.7 (16.2) years; 55.8% (41,771) were female, 70.6% (52,826) were White, and 19.0% (14,222) were Black. Among the interventions, 5 of 19 (26.3%) had a significantly greater vaccination rate than control. On average, the 19 interventions increased vaccination relative to control by 1.8 percentage points or 6.1% (P = .005). The top performing text message described the vaccine to the patient as "reserved for you" and led to a 3.1 percentage point increase (95% CI, 1.3 to 4.9; P < .001) in vaccination relative to control. Three of the top five performing messages described the vaccine as "reserved for you." None of the interventions performed worse than control. CONCLUSIONS: Text messages encouraging vaccination and delivered prior to an upcoming appointment significantly increased influenza vaccination rates and could be a scalable approach to increase vaccination more broadly.

The development of grit and growth mindset in Chinese children.

In a recent longitudinal study of U.S. adolescents, grit predicted rank-order increases in growth mindset and, to a lesser degree, growth mindset predicted rank-order increases in grit. The current investigation replicated and extended these findings in a younger non-Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (non-WEIRD) population. Two large samples totaling more than 5000 elementary school children in China completed self-report questionnaires assessing grit and growth mindset five times over 2 years. As in Park et al. (2020, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 198, 1048892020), we found reciprocal relations between grit and growth mindset. Grit systematically predicted rank-order increases in growth mindset at each subsequent 6-month interval. Growth mindset also predicted small rank-order increases in grit over the same period. These findings suggest that, over time, behavior may exert as much an influence on beliefs as the reverse-a dynamic possibly observable as early as in elementary school and not just in WEIRD cultures.

Friends know you: Peer nomination of self-control predict changes in academic achievement and friendship among adolescents.

INTRODUCTION: Self-control predicts academic achievement and social outcomes in adolescents. Despite the increased role of peers in the lives of adolescents, little is known about whether peers' views of an individual's self-control have predictive validity for academic and social outcomes. METHOD: In a longitudinal study involving over 1500 adolescents (Mage = 13.74), we examined whether peer nomination of self-control provides incremental predictive validity over and above self-reports for rank-order changes in academic achievement and friendship (i.e., the total number of nominations received as a best friend). To do so, we followed 8th graders through the 9th grade, measuring self-reported self-control (academic vs. social), peer-nominated self-control (academic vs. social), grade point average, and friendship. RESULTS: Peer-nominated academic self-control predicted rank-order changes in grade point average and peer-nominated interpersonal self-control predicted rank-order changes in friendship over and above self-reported academic and interpersonal self-control. CONCLUSION: Our findings demonstrate the predictive utility of peer nominations in research on self-control.

A 680,000-person megastudy of nudges to encourage vaccination in pharmacies.

Encouraging vaccination is a pressing policy problem. To assess whether text-based reminders can encourage pharmacy vaccination and what kinds of messages work best, we conducted a megastudy. We randomly assigned 689,693 Walmart pharmacy patients to receive one of 22 different text reminders using a variety of different behavioral science principles to nudge flu vaccination or to a business-as-usual control condition that received no messages. We found that the reminder texts that we tested increased pharmacy vaccination rates by an average of 2.0 percentage points, or 6.8%, over a 3-mo follow-up period. The most-effective messages reminded patients that a flu shot was waiting for them and delivered reminders on multiple days. The top-performing intervention included two texts delivered 3 d apart and communicated to patients that a vaccine was "waiting for you." Neither experts nor lay people anticipated that this would be the best-performing treatment, underscoring the value of simultaneously testing many different nudges in a highly powered megastudy.

Do We Know Whether We're Happier? Corroborating Perceived Retrospective Assessments of Improvements in Well-Being.

To what extent do our beliefs about how our well-being has improved over time correspond to observed changes? Participants (N = 1,247 from Qualtrics Panels) completed questionnaires measuring dispositional well-being and ill-being (depressive symptoms) at three time points over the course of one year, as well as 44 weekly assessments of state well-being and ill-being over 52 weeks. They additionally completed measures of perceived improvements in well-being and ill-being at Weeks 45 and 52 as well as a measure of broad personality traits. We estimated latent change scores and latent growth curves, which allowed us to obtain more accurate estimates of the convergence between retrospective improvements and veridical change compared to past methods utilized. Stability in both global and state well-being and ill-being were observed. People who agreed more strongly that their well-being had improved (or their ill-being had increased) tended to show greater increases in actual well-being (or ill-being) across the past year. Additionally, we observed meaningful relationships between personality traits and perceived improvements. On average, people have some insight in assessing whether they became happier (or unhappier) over one year.

Revisiting the Factor Structure of Grit: A Commentary on Duckworth and Quinn (2009).

This commentary addresses debate over the factor structure of the Grit Scale in both its original and short forms. Commonly (and in our own work), factor solutions are used to establish dimensionality of the construct being measured. For example, a two-factor hierarchical model was proposed for the Short Grit Scale. It has since been pointed out, correctly, that the specified model cannot be distinguished from a model with two correlated subfactors and no higher-order factor. In this commentary, we acknowledge the mathematical equivalence of these specifications and our error in interpretation. However, we also take the opportunity to admit a more profound correction. It is now clear to us that statistical answers cannot definitively settle certain theoretical riddles, and our argument for grit as a compound of related but distinct dispositions should not have relied so heavily on the optimal factor solution for a questionnaire devised to assess it. Rather, a conceptual question demands a conceptual answer, which we briefly attempt here. We conclude by noting the need for improved operationalizations of the tendency to stay committed to goals for years (passion) while working assiduously toward their achievement (perseverance).

A megastudy of text-based nudges encouraging patients to get vaccinated at an upcoming doctor's appointment.

Many Americans fail to get life-saving vaccines each year, and the availability of a vaccine for COVID-19 makes the challenge of encouraging vaccination more urgent than ever. We present a large field experiment (N = 47,306) testing 19 nudges delivered to patients via text message and designed to boost adoption of the influenza vaccine. Our findings suggest that text messages sent prior to a primary care visit can boost vaccination rates by an average of 5%. Overall, interventions performed better when they were 1) framed as reminders to get flu shots that were already reserved for the patient and 2) congruent with the sort of communications patients expected to receive from their healthcare provider (i.e., not surprising, casual, or interactive). The best-performing intervention in our study reminded patients twice to get their flu shot at their upcoming doctor's appointment and indicated it was reserved for them. This successful script could be used as a template for campaigns to encourage the adoption of life-saving vaccines, including against COVID-19.

Predictors of affect following discharge from partial hospitalization: a two-week ecological momentary assessment study.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the everyday experiences of individuals transitioning from acute to outpatient psychiatric care, an important period of risk for mood symptom relapse. This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to examine whether specific daily experiences were related to momentary affective states following discharge from a partial hospitalization program (PHP). METHODS: A sample of 114 adults (Mage = 36 years old, 52% female, 83% White) completed four brief EMA surveys every day for 2 weeks assessing intensity/type of stressful events and social contact, as well as positive/negative affect (PA/NA). Half of participants reported therapeutic skills use. RESULTS: Stress severity ratings prospectively predicted increased NA. NA predicted spending less time with close relationships. However, interacting with close relationships predicted increased positive affect (PA). Finally, PA predicted spending time with more people. The use of two skills (behavioral activation and interpersonal effectiveness) was concurrently, but not prospectively, associated with improved affect. CONCLUSIONS: Examining daily experiences of individuals discharging from partial hospitalization provides important information about factors that may influence affective states during the transition from acute to outpatient care. Findings from this study can be used to help prepare patients for discharge and develop interventions for the post-acute period.

The development of grit and growth mindset during adolescence.

Individual differences in grit and growth mindset predict effort and achievement in the face of challenges, but little is known about how the two traits influence each other during adolescence. In the current investigation, we analyzed data on grit and growth mindset collected from 1667 adolescents and their teachers on four occasions over 2 academic years. In autoregressive cross-lagged models, grit predicted rank-order increases in growth mindset and growth mindset predicted rank-order increases in grit. These findings suggest that during adolescence, grit and growth mindset are distinct but mutually reinforcing.

Stress mindset predicts job turnover among preschool teachers.

Teaching is one of the most challenging jobs, with a high turnover rate. Unfortunately, we know very little about how to retain teachers. This longitudinal field study (N = 310) examined whether preschool teachers' stress mindset-that is, whether they believe stress is harmful or beneficial-predicted their job stress and turnover within a school year. The results suggested that teachers who believe in the potential benefits of stress experienced less job stress, and were therefore less likely to leave their jobs as quickly. These findings suggest that teachers' stress mindsets predict their psychological well-being and professional development.

The mindful adolescent: Developmental changes in nonreactivity to inner experiences and its association with emotional well-being.

Little is known about the naturalistic development of mindfulness in adolescence and how it relates to changes in emotional well-being. The current longitudinal study examined the development of one dimension of mindfulness, nonreactivity to difficult inner experience (or in more colloquial terms, being able to notice, but "take a step back" from distressing thoughts), in a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample (N = 1,657) during the transition from middle school to high school. Students participated in up to four assessment waves, from fall of 8th grade through spring of 9th grade, in which they completed self-report measures assessing nonreactivity, perceived stress, and positive and negative affect. Latent growth curve models indicated that levels of nonreactivity increased during the 2-year study period. Developmental change in nonreactivity varied minimally by gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and race/ethnicity. Parallel process latent growth curve models showed that changes in nonreactivity were associated with concomitant reductions in perceived stress and negative affect, and increases in positive affect. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models showed that within-person nonreactivity prospectively predicted changes in perceived stress and positive affect, but not negative affect. This study is among the first to track the naturalistic development of mindfulness during adolescence. Results suggest that the nonreactivity dimension of mindfulness is associated with aspects of emotional well-being during the transition from middle school to high school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The Light vs. Dark Triad of Personality: Contrasting Two Very Different Profiles of Human Nature.

While there is a growing literature on "dark traits" (i.e., socially aversive traits), there has been a lack of integration with the burgeoning research literature on positive traits and fulfilling and growth-oriented outcomes in life. To help move the field toward greater integration, we contrasted the nomological network of the Dark Triad (a well-studied cluster of socially aversive traits) with the nomological network of the Light Triad, measured by the 12-item Light Triad Scale (LTS). The LTS is a first draft measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others ("everyday saints") that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans). Across four demographically diverse samples (N = 1,518), the LTS demonstrated excellent reliability and validity, predicting life satisfaction and a wide range of growth-oriented and self-transcendent outcomes above and beyond existing measures of personality. In contrast, the Dark Triad was negatively associated with life satisfaction and growth-oriented outcomes, and showed stronger linkages to selfish, exploitative, aggressive, and socially aversive outcomes. This exploratory study of the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad provides several ways forward for more principled and data driven approaches to explore both the malevolent and beneficent sides of human nature.

Changes in daily manifestations of Openness to Experience during intensive cognitive-behavioral treatment.

OBJECTIVE: Research examining relationships between trait Openness to Experience, psychopathology, and well-being has produced contradictory findings. Examining temporary manifestations of Openness may provide further insight into the interplay between Openness and symptoms in clinical populations. METHOD: The present study validated a brief new measure to assess daily Openness in 271 adults (Mage = 34 years, 52% women, 83% White) taking part in 7 days of intensive treatment for acute psychopathology. Participants also completed a daily measure of depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Participants overall experienced a significant but small increase in daily Openness during treatment. Two latent classes best characterized initial levels and trajectories of Openness in this sample: medium/increase (86% of sample) and low/decrease (14%). Daily Openness negatively related to depressive symptoms over the entire course of treatment and at the daily level. Daily Openness, however, did not predict depressive symptoms from one day to the next (or vice versa). CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study contribute to the scientific understanding of positive personality change during challenging life circumstances. Future research could examine whether targeting Openness as part of treatment holds clinical value. Findings are limited by this study's short time frame and the lack of ethnoracial diversity in this sample.

Randomized controlled trial of SecondStory, an intervention targeting posttraumatic growth, with bereaved adults.

OBJECTIVE: People often report positive psychological changes after adversity, a phenomenon known as posttraumatic growth (PTG). Few PTG-focused interventions have been rigorously tested, and measurement strategies have had significant limitations. This study evaluated the effects of a new group-format psychosocial intervention, SecondStory, aimed at facilitating PTG by helping participants make meaning of the past and plan a purposeful future. METHOD: In a randomized controlled trial, adults (N = 112, 64% women) bereaved within 5 years were randomly assigned to SecondStory or an active control, expressive writing. The primary outcome, PTG, was measured using two contrasting methods: the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, which asks participants retrospectively how much they believe they have changed due to struggling with adversity, and the Current-Standing Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, which tracks quantifiable change in participants' standing in PTG domains over time. Secondary outcomes included depression symptoms, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and life satisfaction. Outcomes were measured at 2-week intervals: pretest, posttest, and three follow-up occasions. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to assess whether SecondStory participants experienced greater gains in primary and/or secondary outcomes over the 8-week trial. RESULTS: Results indicated that SecondStory participants did not show significantly greater improvements than control participants on measures of PTG, posttraumatic stress, or life satisfaction, but they did show greater decreases in depression symptoms by the first follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that SecondStory may not facilitate PTG more effectively than existing interventions but may be promising for addressing depression. Positive interventions may productively be refined to support people experiencing trauma and loss. (PsycINFO Database Record

Beliefs About Stress Attenuate the Relation Among Adverse Life Events, Perceived Distress, and Self-Control.

Prior research has shown that adverse events in the lives of adolescents precipitate psychological distress, which in turn impairs self-control. This study (N = 1,343) examined the protective effects of stress mindsets-beliefs about the extent to which stress might be beneficial or strictly detrimental. The results confirmed that increasing the number of adverse life events across the school year predicted rank order increases in perceived distress, which in turn predicted rank order decreases in self-control. Adolescents who believed in the potential benefits of stress were less prone to feeling stressed in the wake of adverse life events. These findings suggest that changing the way adolescents think about stress may help protect them from acting impulsively when confronted with adversity.

Fostering Grit: Perceived School Goal-Structure Predicts Growth in Grit and Grades.

Grit, the inclination to pursue long-term goals with passion and perseverance, predicts academic achievement and professional success, but how to encourage grit in students remains an open question. The goal of the current study was to understand how perceptions of school culture influence the development of grit in middle school students. We conducted a year-long, prospective, longitudinal study (N= 1,277) examining grit, perceived goal structures (mastery vs. performance), and academic achievement. In cross-sectional analyses, we found that students who perceived their schools as more mastery goal-oriented were grittier and earned higher report card grades. In contrast, students who perceived their schools as more performance goal-oriented were less gritty and earned lower report card grades. In longitudinal analyses, changes in perceived mastery school goal structure predicted changes in grit over the school year, which in turn predicted changes in grades. Changes in perceived performance school goal structure, in contrast, did not reliably predict changes in grit. These findings suggest that school environments that emphasize the value of learning for learning's sake may encourage children to sustain interest in and effort toward long-term goals.