Change in mental health symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of appraisals and daily life experiences.

OBJECTIVE: When confronted with major threats, people often experience decline in well-being. The central purpose of this study was to identify mechanisms underlying change of well-being in times of threat, using the example of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on appraisals of the pandemic and affective states, stress, as well as mindfulness in daily life. METHOD: We conducted a study across 3.5 weeks, including pretest, posttest, and a diary phase in-between. We worked with a sample of 460 adults, pre- and post-test information, as well as 7,189 observations from the diary phase. RESULTS: Results showed that deterioration in mental health symptoms across the duration of the study was associated with (a) change towards less fortunate appraisals of the pandemic and (b), more negative affect and less mindfulness in daily life. Furthermore, appraisals of the pandemic at pretest predicted experiences in daily life, with more negative appraisals of the pandemic predicting more negative affect and stressor occurrence as well as less mindfulness. CONCLUSIONS: These findings speak to the dynamic nature of well-being and appraisals in times of threat, and highlight the role of experiences in daily life in changes in well-being.

Emotion differentiation dissected: between-category, within-category, and integral emotion differentiation, and their relation to well-being.

Emotion differentiation, the ability to describe and label our own emotions in a differentiated and specific manner, has been repeatedly associated with well-being. However, it is unclear exactly what type of differentiation is most strongly related to well-being: the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between emotions that are relatively closely related (e.g. anger and irritation), the ability to make larger distinctions between very distinct emotions (e.g. anger and sadness), or the combination of both. To determine which type of differentiation is most predictive of well-being, we performed a comprehensive meta-analysis across six datasets. We examined the correlations between these three types of differentiation and several indicators of well-being (depression, emotional clarity, and self-esteem). Results showed that individuals differentiated most between very distinct emotions and least between more related emotions, and that an index computed across emotions from both the same and different emotion categories was most strongly associated with well-being indicators.

Stress buffering after physical activity engagement: An experience sampling study.

OBJECTIVES: While encountering daily hassles is a normative experience, it poses a threat to individuals' daily affective well-being. However, physical activity engagement may help to reduce the current stress-related impact on affective well-being (i.e. stress buffering), which we investigate in this study. Furthermore, we examined the possible moderating role of people's global stress context (i.e. exposure to major life events and chronic stress) on this within-person stress-buffering effect. DESIGN: We approached these ideas using six-times-a-day experience sampling assessments over a period of 22 days. METHODS: Drawing on a broad national sample of 156 middle-aged adults from the EE-SOEP-IS study, we aimed to elucidate the naturally occurring within-person dynamics of current stress, physical activity engagement, and momentary affect within individuals' everyday lives. Major life events and chronic stress were measured as between-person variables. RESULTS: Multilevel analyses revealed significant within-person associations of current stress and physical activity engagement with momentary affect. Stress-related negative affect was lower when individuals engaged in physical activity, in accordance with the idea of a within-person stress-buffering effect of physical activity engagement. For individuals exposed to more severe major life events, the stress-buffering effect of physical activity engagement for negative affect was lower. Chronic stress did not moderate the within-person stress-buffering effect. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, results add to the existing literature that links physical activity to increased stress resilience and emphasizes the need for taking the global between-person stress context into account.

The Costs and Benefits of Mindfulness and Reappraisal in Daily Life.

Reappraisal and mindfulness represent two fundamentally different but interconnected ways of dealing with one's emotions: whereas reappraisal is aimed at changing one's thoughts and emotions, mindfulness is aimed at not immediately changing, but appreciating them. Despite this difference, prior research has shown that both are beneficial for one's affective well-being. However, research on the spontaneous use of reappraisal and mindfulness in daily life found that they might be differentially associated with positive and negative affect, with reappraisal and mindful attention being more strongly associated with increased positive affect and mindful acceptance with decreased negative affect. Moreover, the spontaneous use of reappraisal may be less effective than mindfulness in daily life given that it is more cognitively taxing. To compare these possibly different benefits (i.e., change in positive and negative affect) and costs (i.e., feeling depleted), we re-analyzed two experience sampling studies (N = 125 and N = 179). Regarding benefits, endorsing reappraisal and mindful attention was significantly associated with increases in positive affect, whereas endorsing mindful acceptance was significantly associated with decreases in negative affect. Regarding costs, we found that endorsing reappraisal led to more depletion and that reappraisal was selected less often than mindfulness in daily life. Our results demonstrate the importance of assessing not only the different benefits but also the costs of emotion regulation in daily life. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00178-7.

Perspectives on resilience: Trait resilience, correlates of resilience in daily life, and longer-term change in affective distress.

Resilience describes successful adaptation in the face of adversity, commonly inferred from trajectories of well-being following major life events. Alternatively, resilience was conceptualised as a psychological trait, facilitating adaptation through stable individual characteristics. Both perspectives may relate to individual differences in how stress is regulated in daily life. In the present study, we combined these perspectives on resilience. Our sample consisted of N = 132 middle-aged adults, who experienced major life events in between two waves of a longitudinal study. We implemented latent change regression models to predict change in affective distress. As predictors, we investigated trait resilience and correlates of resilience in daily life (stressor occurrence, stress reactivity, positive reappraisal, mindful attention, and acceptance), measured using experience sampling (T = 70 occasions). Unexpectedly, trait resilience was not associated with change in distress. In contrast, resilience correlates in daily life, most notably lower stress reactivity, were associated with more favourable change. Higher trait resilience related to higher average mindfulness, higher reappraisal, and lower negative affect. Overall, while trait resilience translated into everyday correlates of resilience, it was not predictive of changes in affective distress. Instead, precursors of changes in well-being may be found in correlates of resilience in daily life.

Emotion regulation dynamics in daily life: Adaptive strategy use may be variable without being unstable and predictable without being autoregressive.

Recent research has demonstrated the adaptiveness of variability in emotion regulation (ER) by showing that variability between and, when controlled for depression, within ER strategies as assessed via the standard deviation was associated with less negative affect. We first replicated associations with negative affect by using the relative standard deviation, which is less confounded with the mean. Second, following research on affect dynamics, we extended this line of research by examining five additional ER dynamic measures covering ER instability, inertia, predictability, differentiation, and diversity. Reanalyzing data from five ambulatory assessment data sets (N = 717), we found that (a) the eight ER dynamic measures loaded on five factors that explained unique variance, (b) most ER dynamic measures had good reliabilities, and (c) between-strategy mean endorsement was positively, whereas between-strategy variability and ER predictability were negatively associated with negative affect. These results suggest that the variable but predictable use of emotion regulation strategies in daily life is beneficial for individuals' affective well-being in daily life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

A blind spot in mental healthcare? Psychotherapists lack education and expertise for the support of adults on the autism spectrum.

LAY ABSTRACT: Most autistic adults experience mental health problems. There is a great demand for psychotherapeutic support that addresses the specific needs of autistic individuals. However, people with autism encounter difficulties trying to access diagnostic and therapeutic services. This study was conducted by a participatory autism research group: a group in which autistic individuals and scientists collaborate. The group developed a questionnaire for psychotherapists in Germany to assess their knowledge about autism. Psychotherapists also rated their ability to diagnose and treat autistic patients without intellectual disability, and patients with other psychological diagnoses. Many of the 498 psychotherapists that responded reported little knowledge and outdated beliefs about autism, as well as little training on treating patients with autism. Their expertise about other psychological conditions was more comprehensive. However, many psychotherapists were interested in professional training on autism. Those with more knowledge were also more open to treating autistic patients. In conclusion, psychotherapists' lack of knowledge and expertise seem to be a major barrier for adults with autism to receiving helpful psychotherapeutic support. The results demonstrate the need for an advancement in autism education during psychotherapists' training and in continuous education.

When and How to Regulate: Everyday Emotion-Regulation Strategy Use and Stressor Intensity.

Contextual factors shape emotion regulation (ER). The intensity of emotional stimuli may be such a contextual factor that influences the selection and moderates the effectiveness of ER strategies in reducing negative affect (NA). Prior research has shown that, on average, when emotional stimuli were more intense, distraction was selected over reappraisal (and vice versa). This pattern was previously shown to be adaptive as the preferred strategies were more efficient in the respective contexts. Here, we investigated whether stressor intensity predicted strategy use and effectiveness in similar ways in daily life. We examined five ER strategies (reappraisal, reflection, acceptance, distraction, and rumination) in relation to the intensity of everyday stressors, using two waves of experience-sampling data (N = 156). In accordance with our hypotheses, reappraisal, reflection, and acceptance were used less, and rumination was used more, when stressors were more intense. Moreover, results suggested that distraction was more effective, and rumination more detrimental the higher the stressor intensity. Against our hypotheses, distraction did not covary with stressor intensity, and there was no evidence that reappraisal, reflection, and acceptance were more effective at lower levels of stressor intensity. Instead, when examined individually, reflection and reappraisal (like distraction) were more effective at higher levels of stressor intensity. In sum, stressor intensity predicted ER selection and moderated strategy effectiveness, but the results also point to a more complex ER strategy use in daily life than in the laboratory. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00087-1.

Why do my thoughts feel so bad? Getting at the reciprocal effects of rumination and negative affect using dynamic structural equation modeling.

Rumination means to perseveratively think about one's negative feelings and problems. It is a response to affective distress that is often referred to as maladaptive emotion regulation. According to the response styles theory and control theory, rumination may further prolong and exacerbate affective distress. This means that rumination can be viewed as both an antecedent and an outcome of negative affect (NA), and vice versa. However, at the level of short-term dynamics, state rumination and NA have previously mainly been examined as two separate outcomes. To model the reciprocal within-person effects and hence, to match theoretical assumptions, we combined the two interrelated time series in one model using dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM). Both effects (NA on subsequent rumination and rumination on subsequent NA) were modeled simultaneously while acknowledging the autoregressive nature of both states (inert properties). We used data from two experience sampling studies (NStudy 1 = 200 Belgian university students; NStudy 2 = 70 German university students). Participants were paged on smartphones several times a day (Study 1: 10; Study 2: 6) for several days (Study 1: 7; Study 2: 9-12). In both studies, we found evidence for reciprocal effects of NA and rumination, and both processes showed autoregressive relationships. Aside from central findings, higher levels of rumination were also associated with higher rumination inertia, pointing toward more habitual rumination also being associated with prolonged rumination. Together, using DSEM, we found reciprocal associations between rumination and NA, while providing new insights into the dynamics between the two processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Thinking mindfully: How mindfulness relates to rumination and reflection in daily life.

Mindfulness is a state of awareness comprising an attentional focus on the present moment and a nonjudgmental stance. It is associated with affective well-being and assumed to facilitate adaptive emotion regulation. To support this claim at the within-person level, we investigated associations between 2 mindfulness facets (present-moment attention and nonjudgmental acceptance), 2 emotion-regulation strategies varying in adaptiveness (rumination and reflection), and positive and negative affect in everyday life using data from 2 experience-sampling (ESM) studies. Study 1 consisted of N = 70 students who completed 54 prompts on average. Study 2 consisted of N = 179 middle-aged adults who completed 69 prompts on average. Results from both studies were highly consistent: The mindfulness facet nonjudgmental acceptance was more strongly related to less concurrent rumination, whereas the mindfulness facet present-moment attention was related to more concurrent reflection. As predicted, both mindfulness facets interacted with rumination in the prediction of changes in affect. When individuals were in a more mindful state, rumination was less strongly associated with increases in negative affect, and was less strongly associated with decreases in positive affect. However, mindfulness interacted with reflection in the prediction of changes in affect in an unexpected way: At higher levels of nonjudgmental acceptance, reflection was no longer associated with changes in affect. Together, these results suggest that emotion regulation strategies can be more or less adaptive depending on the level of mindfulness. They also accord with the proposal that mindfulness inhibits maladaptive emotion regulation and its impact on affective well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Mix it to fix it: Emotion regulation variability in daily life.

Emotion regulation (ER) strategies are often categorized as universally adaptive or maladaptive. However, it has recently been proposed that this view is overly simplistic: instead, adaptive ER involves applying strategies variably to meet contextual demands. Using data from four experience-sampling studies (Ns = 70, 95, 200, and 179), we tested the relationship between ER variability and negative affect (NA) in everyday life. The constantly changing demands of daily life provide a more ecologically valid context in which to test the role of variability. We calculated 2 global indicators of variability: within-strategy variability (of particular strategies across time) and between-strategy variability (across strategies at one time-point). Associations between within-strategy variability and NA were inconsistent. In contrast, when controlling for mean strategy endorsement, between-strategy variability was associated with reduced NA across both individuals and measurement occasions. This is the first evidence that variably choosing between different strategies within a situation may be adaptive in daily life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Higher well-being is related to reduced affective reactivity to positive events in daily life.

Within the study of emotions, researchers have increasingly stressed the importance of studying individual differences in emotion dynamics and emotional responding and the way these relate to more stable differences in well-being. However, there is no clear picture regarding affective reactivity to positive events and how different emotional reactions relate to differences in well-being, particularly higher levels of well-being. Theoretical work and empirical findings from different lines of research (e.g., clinical studies, aging literature, positive and personality psychology) support either of 2 predictions: Higher well-being is related to an enhanced or reduced affective reactivity to positive events in daily life. Testing these opposing predictions, we examined global well-being and affective reactivity to daily positive events in 6 studies using the experience-sampling or daily diary method (Ns = 70, 66, 95, 200, 76, and 101). Global well-being was measured with various indicators and a well-being composite score. Across the majority of studies, we found that higher global well-being was associated with reduced affective reactivity to positive events in daily life, as shown by smaller decreases in momentary negative affect. In 3 of the 6 studies, higher well-being composite scores were also associated with smaller increases in momentary positive affect. These findings seem to suggest that people with higher global well-being profit less from the joy of a positive event they experience in daily life. Instead, for people with lower well-being, positive events might be a meaningful way to brighten one's momentary mood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The relationship between cannabis use and cognition in people diagnosed with first-episode psychosis.

Cannabis use is highly prevalent among young people diagnosed with first-episode psychosis (FEP), however, its impact on cognition is still unclear. The aim of the present study was to examine the association of cannabis use with cognition in people diagnosed with FEP. We extended previous research findings by operationalising the comorbid cannabis use, considering recency of cannabis use and use of other illicit substances and including people with a broad spectrum of psychotic diagnoses. A total of 89 people diagnosed with FEP were interviewed about their history of substance use and completed a cognitive test battery assessing verbal memory, verbal fluency and attention. Sixty-one participants were lifetime cannabis users (CU; ≥three times per week for ≥four weeks; 68.5%) and 28 were cannabis non-users (CNU; 31.5%). CU were significantly more likely to be male and exhibited significantly more positive symptoms than CNU. In contrast, CNU displayed significantly more negative symptoms than CU. There were no differences between CU and CNU on neurocognitive tasks of verbal memory, verbal fluency and attention. In conclusion, there was no indication that cannabis use was associated with cognitive impairments in people diagnosed with FEP.

Reading thoughts and feelings in other people: Empathic accuracy across adulthood.

Empathy is a multifaceted trait. One facet is cognitive empathy, the ability to accurately infer others' thoughts and feelings (also referred to as empathic accuracy). It is associated with markers of positive adjustment, such as satisfaction with social relationships, in earlier phases of the lifespan. In previous research, empathic accuracy was less pronounced in older than in younger adults. We review evidence for such age differences and argue for the importance of ecological validity in age-comparative research. Furthermore, we discuss factors that may contribute to empathic accuracy, such as cognitive abilities or (assumed) similarity with a social partner, and discuss their potentially differential role in different age groups. We especially highlight the role of motivation (e.g., the age-relevance of a task). Assuming that older adults sometimes are less empathically accurate, there is little evidence that this particularly compromises older adults' social lives and overall adjustment. Moreover, a lack of longitudinal research raises the question whether age differences point to an age-related trajectory or to cohort differences. Thus, promising avenues for future research include the use of cohort-sequential, ecologically valid, and motivating paradigms to understand in which situations empathic failures impair older adults in their daily lives.

Outpatient Psychotherapy for Adults with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Condition: Utilization, Treatment Satisfaction, and Preferred Modifications.

Many adults with autism spectrum condition (ASC) desire outpatient psychotherapy (PT). This study compared reasons for seeking PT, experiences with PT, and modifications preferred with respect to PT of individuals with ASC to non-autistic individuals with depression (MDD). Furthermore, factors predictive for treatment satisfaction were identified in individuals with ASC. A total of 262 adults with ASC without intellectual impairment and 304 non-autistic controls with MDD were surveyed. In this pilot study both groups predominantly sought treatment for depressiveness. A low level of expertise with autism was the main reason for being declined by therapists and a contributing factor to the overall treatment dissatisfaction of patients with ASC. ASC patients desire adjustments such as written communication, and clearly structured sessions.

Pathways to happiness are multidirectional: Associations between state mindfulness and everyday affective experience.

Mindfulness is commonly defined as a multidimensional mode of being attentive to, and aware of, momentary experiences while taking a nonjudgmental and accepting stance. These qualities have been linked to 2 different facets of affective well-being: being attentive is proposed to lead to an appreciation of experiences as they are, and thus to positive affect (PA). Accepting unpleasant experiences in a nonjudgmental fashion has been hypothesized to reduce negative affect (NA). Alternatively, however, attention may increase both positive and negative affectivity, whereas nonjudgmental acceptance may modify how people relate to their experiences. Previous research has considered such differential associations at the trait level, although a mindful mode may be understood as a state of being. Using an experience-sampling methodology (ESM) with smartphones, the present research therefore links different state mindfulness facets to positive and NA in daily life. Seventy students (50% female, 20-30 years old) of different disciplines participated in the study. Based on multidimensional assessments of self-reported state mindfulness and state affect, the findings corroborate the hypotheses on the differential predictive value of 2 mindfulness facets: Participants experienced more PA when they were attentive to the present moment and less NA when they nonjudgmentally accepted momentary experiences. Furthermore, only nonjudgmental acceptance buffered the impact of daily hassles on affective well-being. The study contributes to a more fine-grained understanding of the within-person mechanisms relating mindfulness to affective well-being in daily life. Future interventions may be able to enhance different aspects of affective well-being by addressing specific facets of mindfulness. (PsycINFO Database Record

Does being empathic pay off?-Associations between performance-based measures of empathy and social adjustment in younger and older women.

Cognitive empathy (the ability to infer another person's thoughts and feelings) and emotional empathy (the ability to emotionally resonate with another person's feelings) have been associated with social adjustment. Traditionally, these skills are assessed with self-report measures. However, these may not adequately reflect people's actual empathic abilities. There is only little and inconsistent empirical evidence on associations between performance-based empathy and positive social adjustment. In the study presented here, we gathered further evidence for such an association. Using a realistic interaction task in which unfamiliar women were paired into dyads and talked about positive and negative events in their lives, we assessed empathic accuracy (an indicator of cognitive empathy) and emotional congruence (an indicator of emotional empathy). Additionally, we obtained 2 indicators of social adjustment: participants' self-rated satisfaction regarding the communication with their partner in the interaction task, and their self-rated satisfaction with social relationships in general. We furthermore explored the role of potential moderators, which may help to explain discrepant past findings. To test for contextual and interindividual differences, we distinguished between positive and negative emotional valence in the empathy task and investigated 2 adult age groups (102 younger women: 20-31 years; 106 older: 69-80 years). For almost all analyses, only empathic skills for positive (not for negative) affect were predictive of social adjustment, and the associations were comparable for younger and older women. These results underline the role of valence in associations between empathic skills and social adjustment across the life span. (PsycINFO Database Record

Nice to meet you--adult age differences in empathic accuracy for strangers.

Empathic accuracy is the ability to correctly identify others' thoughts and feelings. Based on evidence from past laboratory experiments, researchers concluded that this ability decreases throughout adulthood. This conclusion, however, was mostly based on evidence regarding isolated components of the ability to read others' thoughts and feelings (e.g., inferring thoughts or feelings from facial expressions presented without context). In contrast, empathic accuracy involves the integration of a multitude of such inferences from diverse sources of information that are available in everyday interactions (e.g., facial and bodily expressions, prosody, communication content, situational context, etc.). To strengthen empirical evidence on age differences in this integrative ability, we assessed empathic accuracy in dyadic interactions between 102 younger (20-31 years) and 106 older (69-80 years) women, paired in same-age or mixed-age dyads. In these interactions, older women were only less empathically accurate than younger women when judging their interaction partner's negative feelings and when judging thoughts that accompanied experiences of negative affect. In contrast, there were no age differences in empathic accuracy for positive feelings and for thoughts accompanying experiences of positive affect. These results were independent of the age of the interaction partner. The current study thus provides further evidence that age differences in empathic accuracy (a) may be qualified by situational properties, such as valence of inferred content, and (b) can be less pronounced when integration of multiple sources of information is possible than research investigating isolated information channels has thus far suggested.