Psychological inflexibility and depressive symptoms among Asian English speakers: A study on Indian, Philippine, and Singaporean samples

Emotion regulation flexibility and psychosis: A longitudinal study disentangling components of flexibility in psychosis-proneness

OBJECTIVES

Flexibility in self-regulation has emerged as an important component of mental health. Previous findings found that deficits in two components of regulatory flexibility were linked cross-sectionally to psychosis-proneness. We aimed to replicate and extend these findings longitudinally.

METHODS

We measured psychosis-proneness and components of emotion regulation flexibility (i.e. context sensitivity, repertoire and feedback) at two time points with three months in between.

RESULTS

Two flexibility components predicted psychotic-like experiences. The ability to detect the absence of contextual cues was implicated in both positive and negative dimensions but through opposite pathways. Expressive suppression ability-a subcomponent of repertoire-predicted positive symptoms. None of the flexibility components predicted distress related to the symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study provides further evidence on the implication of emotion regulation flexibility in the longer-term maintenance of psychotic-like experiences. Future studies can advance this work further by evaluating possible bidirectional relationships between psychotic-like experiences and deficits in emotion regulation flexibility.

The Persian version of the psychological flexibility in sport scale: a psychometric study

Background

There is a growing body of research suggesting that psychological flexibility (PF) is an important psychological construct related to psychological health and human performance. The Psychological Flexibility in Sport Scale (PFSS) is the first general scale to assess sport-related PF. So far, the PFSS has not yet been validated in other contexts than Sweden. Therefore, the current study sought to investigate a Persian version of the PFSS (P-PFSS) and extend the investigation of the psychometric properties of the PFSS in Iranian athletes.

Methods

A total of 302 athletes from both team and individual sports (average age of 20.7 years, SD ± 7.5, 62.3% were female) were involved in the current study. Statistical analysis was performed on the data to test validity and reliability. The validity of the P-PFSS was tested through face and content validity, construct validity, criterion validity, and known-groups validity. The reliability of P-PFSS was verified through internal consistency and temporal stability of the scale.

Results

Results revealed that validity of the P-PFSS was satisfactory. The instrument was determined to have strong face and content validity. With modifications, the confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the scale’s unidimensionality. The convergent validity of the P-PFSS was found to be acceptable (average variance extracted = 0.66) and satisfactory results were also found in the correlation matrix for the assessment of construct validity. The P-PFSS showed good criterion validity related to generic psychological flexibility and athletic-related variables. Also, the P-PFSS was able to differentiate PF between known groups. The P-PFSS was found to be reliable, with good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.92; composite reliability = 0.92) and temporal stability on retest (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.95).

Conclusions

Overall, the Persian version of the PFSS showed good psychometric qualities in Iranian athletes. The current study provides additional support for the PFSS and extends the context-specific utility for practitioners and researchers in assessing sport-related PF.

Measurement Invariance in the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) Scale among English-Speaking Whites and Asians

The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale has been widely used to measure depressive symptoms. This study compared the measurement invariances for one-, two-, three-, and four-factor models of the CES-D across English-speaking Whites and Asians: White Americans, White Australians, Indians, Filipinos, and Singaporeans. White Americans and Australians, Indians, Filipinos, and Singaporeans English speakers (782 men and 824 women) whose ages ranged from 20 to 79 years, completed the CES-D. They were recruited from the data pool of the 2013 and 2014 Coping and Health Survey. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the original four-factor model showed the best fit, compared to the other models. Mean and covariance structure analyses showed that the factor means of the CES-D subscales among Whites were significantly lower than were those among Asians; the score gap was particularly high between Whites and Indians. Additionally, Indians scored the highest on all subscales of the CES-D compared to all other countries. Overall, CES-D scores among Whites were lower than those among Asians.

Relationship between coping flexibility and the risk of depression in Indian adults

According to the dual-process theory of coping flexibility, coping flexibility is the ability to discontinue an ineffective coping strategy and produce and implement an alternative coping strategy. In order to test the coping flexibility hypothesis, which posits that flexible coping produces adaptive outcomes, the relationship between coping flexibility and the risk of depression was examined in the context of Indian adults. Participants (150 men and 150 women) answered questionnaires measuring coping flexibility and depressive symptoms. The risk of depression was assessed using a Patient Health Questionnaire-9 score of 10 and a Center for Epidemiologic Studies' Depression Scale score of 16 as cut-off points. Logistic regression analyses of the score cut-off points revealed that higher levels of coping flexibility were associated with lower risks of depression, after controlling for the effects of gender, age, and marital status. Overall, the coping flexibility hypothesis was supported in this Indian adult sample. These findings might contribute to preventing recurrent depression and to attenuating depressive symptoms.

Impact of psychological inflexibility on depressive symptoms and sleep difficulty in a Japanese sample

Background

Psychological inflexibility is a core concept in the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) model. The current study hypothesized and tested two models in which psychological inflexibility was linked with higher levels of depressive symptoms and sleep difficulty.

Results

To attain data, Japanese university students (N = 633) completed questionnaires related to psychological inflexibility, depressive symptoms, and sleep difficulty. Psychological inflexibility was significantly correlated with higher levels of both depressive symptoms (r = 0.61) and sleep difficulty (r = 0.39). Structural equation modeling showed that psychological inflexibility was associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms after controlling for the effect of sleep difficulty. Additionally, psychological inflexibility was correlated with higher levels of sleep difficulty after controlling for the effect of depressive symptoms. These findings might assist with motivating clinicians to use ACT for insomnia.

Conclusions

The current study found that greater psychological inflexibility was linked with high levels of depressive symptoms and sleep difficulties. These findings might assist with motivating clinicians to use ACT for insomnia.