Age-related differences in emotional reactivity, regulation, and rejection sensitivity in adolescence

It's a balancing act: The ratio of maladaptive (vs. All) emotion regulation strategies is associated with depression

Research on emotion regulation (ER) has increasingly recognized that people use multiple strategies simultaneously, often referred to as ER repertoire. Prior research found that ER repertoire is associated with psychopathology, but results have been mixed. Indeed, research from recent years suggests that it is the quality of ERs, more than their quantity, that needs to be considered. Based on the combination of the literatures on ER repertoire, polyregulation, and ER flexibility, we propose a novel metric: the ratio of using putatively maladaptive (vs. all) ER strategies. Using this metric, we examine (1) maladaptive ER ratio changes during the transition to adolescence, a developmental period in which the prevalence of depression sharply increases, and (2) whether changes in maladaptive ER ratio are associated with depressive symptoms. One-hundred and thirty-nine youths (baseline age: 8-15) reported ER strategies and depression daily for 21 days. One year later, 115 completed another 28-day daily-diary (Nassessments = 5631). Our results show that almost all youth use at least some maladaptive ERs. Importantly, maladaptive ER ratio decreases over a year of adolescence for most youths. Conversely, an increased maladaptive ER ratio predicted depression increases on the daily and on the yearly level. These results shed light on typical and atypical development of ER flexibility and emphasize the need to consider the balance between ERs in relation to psychopathology.

The relationship between school bullying victimization and social mindfulness in middle school students: a chain mediating model of self-concept clarity and cognition reappraisal

Objective

To determine the relationship between school bullying victimization and social mindfulness and its mechanism in light of the interdependence and schema theories.

Method

The Chinese version of the Delaware Bullying Victimization Scale-student, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Self-Concept Clarity Scale and The Social Mindfulness Self-report Scale (SMSRS) were distributed to 553 middle school students.

Results

(1) The correlations of school bullying victimization with social mindfulness, self-concept clarity, and cognition reappraisal were statistically significant. (2) School bullying victimization had a significant effect on social mindfulness. (3) The simple mediating role of self-concept clarity and cognition reappraisal between school bullying victimization and social mindfulness were significant. (4) Self-concept clarity and cognition reappraisal played a chain mediating role between school bullying victimization and social mindfulness.

Daily-life reactivity and emotion regulation in children with social anxiety disorder

Prominent models of adult social anxiety disorder emphasize the role of hyperreactivity and emotion regulation (ER) difficulties. However, it is unclear whether these factors are relevant in childhood, a critical period for the development of this disorder. We used ecological momentary assessment with mobile phones to assess daily-life emotional reactivity and use and effectiveness of ER strategies in children aged 10-13 years. We compared three groups: Social anxiety disorder (n = 29), clinical controls with mixed anxiety disorders (n = 27) and healthy controls (n = 31). We also investigated long-term effects of ER on trait social anxiety 12 months later. Hierarchical linear modelling revealed higher emotional reactivity and more use of suppression in children with social anxiety disorder compared to clinical and healthy controls. Contrary to our expectations, children with social anxiety disorder reported more use of avoidance and reappraisal compared to clinical, but not healthy, controls. The groups did not differ in subjective effectiveness of ER strategies. Use of suppression, avoidance, and rumination each predicted an increase in social anxiety 12 months later. Taken together, our results extend previous findings from lab and questionnaire studies and illustrate the role of maladaptive ER for child social anxiety disorder.

The Prospective Association between Emotional Reactivity and Adolescent Suicidal Ideation

Despite the importance of emotions in our daily lives, less is known about the role of emotional reactivity in suicidal risk. This brief study investigated whether emotional reactivity is associated with adolescent suicidal ideation six months later. Participants were 139 adolescents (55% female; Mage = 12.79, SDage = 0.73) who completed baseline assessments, a 10-day daily diary protocol, and six-month follow-up assessments. Results showed that higher emotional reactivity indicated by increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions was associated with a greater risk for suicidal ideation. The findings suggest that adolescents with greater emotional reactivity to daily school problems had elevated risks for suicidal ideation. This study supports the importance of emotional reactivity in daily life for preventing adolescent suicidal ideation.

Bad Break-Up Behavior: Break-Up Characteristics, Emotional Dysregulation, and Alcohol Use as Risk Factors for Cyber Dating Abuse Among Sexual Orientation Diverse College Students

Cyber dating abuse (CDA) is a growing public health concern among college students. CDA includes monitoring and abusive behaviors perpetrated toward an ex-partner via technology. Little is known about the predictors of CDA, particularly among sexual minority (SM) college students. Some theorized but relatively untested predictors include break-up characteristics, emotional regulation deficits, and alcohol use. The current study investigates what factors are associated with an increased risk for CDA toward an ex-partner (i.e., break-up characteristics, emotional dysregulation, and alcohol use) and the differences in associations with CDA between heterosexual and SM college students. Participants (N = 661) self-reported their CDA perpetration following their worst romantic break-up. They also answered questions about the break-up, their emotional regulation skills, and their current alcohol use. While SM students (n = 191) reported greater emotion regulation difficulties and alcohol use, they did not significantly differ from heterosexual participants (n = 470) in their reported CDA perpetration post-break-up. Hierarchical regressions were conducted to determine the impact of break-up characteristics and individual factors on CDA perpetration. Break-up characteristics, emotional dysregulation, and alcohol use significantly predicted heterosexual participants' CDA perpetration and accounted for 17% of the variance. Conversely, for SM students, only alcohol use was predictive of CDA, accounting for 5% of the variance. Although SM students report similar break-up experiences and levels of CDA as heterosexual students, additional, unmeasured factors may drive perpetration. However, given the generally high rates of alcohol use and CDA, and their robust association, interventions targeting alcohol reduction and healthy relationship dissolution strategies may be beneficial.

Generalization of savoring to novel positive stimuli

Savoring is a positive emotion up-regulation technique that can increase electrocortical and self-reported valence and arousal to positive and neutral pictures, with effects persisting to increase response to the same stimuli when encountered later. Outside of the lab, emotion regulation techniques that persist to affect not just encounters with the same stimuli but also encounters with similar, but previously unencountered stimuli should save individuals time and effort. Here, we used event-related potentials and picture ratings to test whether savoring would generalize to similar, but previously unseen positive pictures. To this end, 89 participants (56 female; M age = 18.96 years, SD = 1.87) were asked to savor positive pictures from one category (e.g., happy people) and to view positive pictures from another category (e.g., cute animals), as well as to view neutral pictures (e.g., plants). In a subsequent passive picture viewing task, participants viewed novel pictures from all three categories (i.e., happy people, cute animals, plants). In the first task, savoring was effective for pictures of animals throughout picture presentation, but only for pictures of people during the later part of picture presentation. In the second task, savoring generalized to novel pictures of animals, though this was only evident in the early portion of picture processing (and for self-reported ratings). Therefore, savoring holds promise as a useful technique for increasing positive emotion in everyday life, though more work is needed to understand whether effects may vary depending on different types of picture content.

The SocialVidStim: a video database of positive and negative social evaluation stimuli for use in social cognitive neuroscience paradigms

This paper describes the SocialVidStim-a database of video stimuli available to the scientific community depicting positive and negative social evaluative and neutral statements. The SocialVidStim comprises 53 diverse individuals reflecting the demographic makeup of the USA, ranging from 9 to 41 years old, saying 20-60 positive and 20-60 negative social evaluative statements (e.g. 'You are a very trustworthy/annoying person'), and 20-60 neutral statements (e.g. 'The sky is blue'), totaling 5793 videos post-production. The SocialVidStim are designed for use in behavioral and functional magetic resonance imaging paradigms, across developmental stages, in diverse populations. This study describes stimuli development and reports initial validity and reliability data on a subset videos (N = 1890) depicting individuals aged 18-41 years. Raters perceive videos as expected: positive videos elicit positively valenced ratings, negative videos elicit negatively valenced ratings and neutral videos are rated as neutral. Test-retest reliability data demonstrate intraclass correlations in the good-to-excellent range for negative and positive videos and the moderate range for neutral videos. We also report small effects on valence and arousal that should be considered during stimuli selection, including match between rater and actor sex and actor believability. The SocialVidStim is a resource for researchers and we offer suggestions for using the SocialVidStim in future research.

Association of mental health-related patient reported outcomes with blood pressure in adults and children with primary proteinuric glomerulopathies

INTRODUCTION

The prevalence of mental health disorders including anxiety and depression is increasing and is linked to hypertension in healthy individuals. However, the relationship of psychosocial patient-reported outcomes on blood pressure (BP) in primary proteinuric glomerulopathies is not well characterized. This study explored longitudinal relationships between psychosocial patient-reported outcomes and BP status among individuals with proteinuric glomerulopathies.

METHODS

An observational cohort study was performed using data from 745 adults and children enrolled in the Nephrotic Syndrome Study Network (NEPTUNE). General Estimating Equations for linear regression and binary logistic analysis for odds ratios were performed to analyze relationships between the exposures, longitudinal Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System (PROMIS) measures and BP and hypertension status as outcomes.

RESULTS

In adults, more anxiety was longitudinally associated with higher systolic and hypertensive BP. In children, fatigue was longitudinally associated with increased odds of hypertensive BP regardless of the PROMIS report method. More stress, anxiety, and depression were longitudinally associated with higher systolic BP index, higher diastolic BP index, and increased odds of hypertensive BP index in children with parent-proxy patient-reported outcomes.

DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION

Chronically poor psychosocial patient-reported outcomes may be significantly associated with higher BP and hypertension in adults and children with primary proteinuric glomerulopathies. This interaction appears strong in children but should be interpreted with caution, as multiple confounders related to glomerular disease may influence both mental health and BP independently. That said, access to mental health resources may help control BP, and proper disease and BP management may improve overall mental health.

Experience-dependent neurodevelopment of self-regulation in adolescence

Adolescence is a period of rapid biobehavioral change, characterized in part by increased neural maturation and sensitivity to one's environment. In this review, we aim to demonstrate that self-regulation skills are tuned by adolescents' social, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts. We discuss adjacent literatures that demonstrate the importance of experience-dependent learning for adolescent development: environmental contextual influences and training paradigms that aim to improve regulation skills. We first highlight changes in prominent limbic and cortical regions-like the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex-as well as structural and functional connectivity between these areas that are associated with adolescents' regulation skills. Next, we consider how puberty, the hallmark developmental milestone in adolescence, helps instantiate these biobehavioral adaptations. We then survey the existing literature demonstrating the ways in which cultural, socioeconomic, and interpersonal contexts drive behavioral and neural adaptation for self-regulation. Finally, we highlight promising results from regulation training paradigms that suggest training may be especially efficacious for adolescent samples. In our conclusion, we highlight some exciting frontiers in human self-regulation research as well as recommendations for improving the methodological implementation of developmental neuroimaging studies and training paradigms.

A cognitive-computational account of mood swings in adolescence

Teenagers have a reputation for being fickle, in both their choices and their moods. This variability may help adolescents as they begin to independently navigate novel environments. Recently, however, adolescent moodiness has also been linked to psychopathology. Here, we consider adolescents' mood swings from a novel computational perspective, grounded in reinforcement learning (RL). This model proposes that mood is determined by surprises about outcomes in the environment, and how much we learn from these surprises. It additionally suggests that mood biases learning and choice in a bidirectional manner. Integrating independent lines of research, we sketch a cognitive-computational account of how adolescents' mood, learning, and choice dynamics influence each other, with implications for normative and psychopathological development.

Parental attachment security and problematic internet use in children: The mediating role of maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation strategies

Problematic Internet Use (PIU) is a growing problem among children. Insecure attachment has been associated with PIU and emotion dysregulation. Furthermore, there is evidence suggesting that maladaptive Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies (CERS), such as Self-blame, Rumination, Catastrophizing and Other-blame, lead to PIU, nevertheless, the mediating role of CERS between attachment and PIU has not been explored. A sample of 641 children (M = 10.15; SD = .89) participated in the study. The findings showed that there were significant differences between problematic and non-problematic users in terms of secure attachment and emotion dysregulation. Results show a negative association between attachment security and PIU and a negative association between attachment and maladaptive CERS, whilst maladaptive CERS were positively related with PIU. Finally, maladaptive CERS, particularly Rumination, were found to mediate the relationship between attachment security and PIU. However, Catastrophizing and Other Blame partially mediated the relationship between maternal attachment, but not the relationship between Father attachment and PIU. Limitations and implications are discussed, motivating the promotion of prevention and intervention programs.

Real-world flexibility in adolescent girls' emotion regulation strategy selection: An investigation of strategy switching

Adolescence is an important stage for the development of emotion regulation skills, especially for adolescent girls who are at elevated risk for the development of depression and anxiety. Although some emotion regulation strategies are more effective at helping adolescents regulate negative affect on average, research indicates strategy effectiveness varies with the context in which a strategy is deployed. Yet less work has been done examining which contextual factors are associated with adolescents switching emotion regulation strategies in their daily lives. This study examined individual and contextual factors related to negative interpersonal events that are associated with strategy effectiveness, including age, emotional intensity, perceived controllability, and co-regulatory support, and their association with adolescent emotion regulation strategy switching in daily life via ecological momentary assessment. Results indicated that adolescent girls differed in the degree to which they altered their emotion regulation strategies throughout their daily lives, and that switching strategies was associated with age as well as individual and within-person differences in perceived controllability, emotional intensity, and co-regulatory support. This study provides critical proof-of-concept of the utility of emotion regulation strategy switching as a measure of regulatory flexibility and highlights regulatory processes that may hold clues to the mechanisms of developmental psychopathology.

Emotions under control? Better cognitive control is associated with reduced negative emotionality but increased negative emotional reactivity within individuals

Associations between impaired cognitive control and maladaptive emotion regulation have been extensively studied between individuals. However, it remains unclear if this relationship holds within individuals. In this study, we tested the assumption that momentary within-person fluctuation in cognitive control (working memory updating and response inhibition) is associated with emotional reactivity in everyday life. We conducted an experience sampling study (eight two-hourly prompts daily) where participants repeatedly performed short 2-back and Go/no-go tasks in daily life. We assessed negative and positive affective states, and unpleasantness of a recent event to capture emotional reactivity. We analyzed two overlapping samples: a Go/no-go and a 2-back dataset (N = 161/158). Our results showed that better momentary working memory updating was associated with decreased negative affect if the recent event was on average unpleasant for the given individual. However, better-than-average working memory updating in interaction with higher event-unpleasantness predicted higher negative affect levels (i.e., higher negative emotional reactivity). These findings may challenge the account of better cognitive control being universally related to adaptive emotion regulation. Although it is unlikely that emotional reactivity boosts working memory, future studies should establish the direction of causality.

Affect and mental health across the lifespan during a year of the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of emotion regulation strategies and mental flexibility

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a rise in common mental health problems compared to prepandemic levels, especially in young people. Understanding the factors that place young people at risk is critical to guide the response to increased mental health problems. Here we examine whether age-related differences in mental flexibility and frequency of use of emotion regulation strategies partially account for the poorer affect and increased mental health problems reported by younger people during the pandemic. Participants (N = 2,367; 11-100 years) from Australia, the UK, and US were surveyed thrice at 3-month intervals between May 2020 and April 2021. Participants completed measures of emotion regulation, mental flexibility, affect, and mental health. Younger age was associated with less positive (b = 0.008, p < .001) and more negative (b = -0.015, p < .001) affect across the first year of the pandemic. Maladaptive emotion regulation partially accounted for age-related variance in negative affect (β = -0.013, p = .020), whereby younger age was associated with more frequent use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, which, in turn, was associated with more negative affect at our third assessment point. More frequent use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies, and in turn, changes in negative affect from our first to our third assessment, partially accounted for age-related variance in mental health problems (β = 0.007, p = .023). Our findings add to the growing literature demonstrating the vulnerability of younger people during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest that emotion regulation may be a promising target for intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Child Maltreatment as a Risk Factor for Rejection Sensitivity: A Three-Level Meta-Analytic Review

Theoretical and empirical evidence has suggested that child maltreatment victimization is associated with rejection sensitivity. However, empirical evidence on this association is inconsistent. Therefore, this meta-analysis aimed to examine the overall association between child maltreatment and rejection sensitivity, and to investigate variables that may affect the strength of this association. Studies eligible for inclusion were searched in the databases: Web of Science, Science Direct, PubMed, MEDLINE, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure after which relevant studies were coded. Studies were synthesized in advanced three-level meta-analytic models in R. A total of 16 studies (N = 5,335 participants) yielding 41 effect sizes were included. Results showed that child maltreatment is significantly and positively related to rejection sensitivity (mean r = 0.230; p < .001), and to a small extent. Furthermore, this association is stronger for emotional abuse (r = 0.275) than for physical abuse (r = 0.157). It is not affected by the mean age and gender distribution of primary study samples nor by sample type (community sample versus clinical sample). It is concluded that child maltreatment is a risk factor for developing rejection sensitivity later in life. Therefore, interventions for rejection sensitivity should consider potential trauma resulting from prior child maltreatment experiences.

Threat exposure moderates associations between neural and physiological indices of emotion reactivity in adolescent females

Early life adversity (ELA) characterized by threat (e.g., abuse, witnessing violence) impacts neural and physiologic systems involved in emotion reactivity; however, research on how threat exposure impacts the interplay between these systems is limited. This study investigates ELA characterized by threat as a potential moderator of the association between (a) neural activity during a negative image processing fMRI task and (b) cortisol production following a modified Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). The sample is comprised of 117 young adolescent females (Mage = 11.90 years, SD = 1.69) at elevated risk for internalizing problems. Whole-brain analyses revealed a positive association between cortisol production and increased right lateral orbitofrontal cortex activity during the emotion reactivity task. In moderation models, threat exposure interacted with bilateral amygdala activation (b = -3.34, p = 0.021) and bilateral hippocampal activation (b = -4.14, p = 0.047) to predict cortisol response to the TSST. Specifically, participants with low, but not high, levels of threat exposure demonstrated a positive association between cortisol production and neural activity in these regions, while no significant association emerged for participants with high threat exposure. Findings contribute to the growing field of research connecting physiological and neural emotion processing and response systems, suggesting that dimensions of ELA may uniquely disrupt associations between neural activation and cortisol production.

Self-regulation profiles in addictive behaviors among adolescents: A transdiagnostic approach

Dual-pathway models suggest that poor self-regulation (immature regulatory combined with strong reactive processes) is an important factor underlying addictive behaviors among adolescents. This study examined whether there are different self-regulation profiles among community adolescents, and how these profiles are related to the presence, severity and comorbidity of different addictive behaviors. A community sample of 341 adolescents (54.5% female; 13-17 years) was recruited. Participants self-reported on regulatory (inhibitory control) and reactive (reward and punishment sensitivity) processes, as well as on different addictive behaviors (binge eating, tobacco-, cannabis- and alcohol use, gaming, gambling and pathological buying). A model-based clustering analysis found evidence for three meaningful profiles: 'impulsive/under-controlled', 'anxious' and 'protective'. The 'impulsive/under-controlled' profile was characterized by the highest prevalence and severity of cannabis use and the most severe alcohol use. The 'impulsive/under-controlled' and 'protective' profiles demonstrated the highest prevalence and severity of tobacco use, whereas the 'impulsive/under-controlled' and 'anxious' profiles showed the highest binge eating scores. Adolescents who reported more than three types of addictive behaviors generally belonged to the 'impulsive/under-controlled' profile. The profiles did not differ for gaming, gambling and pathological buying. The 'impulsive/under-controlled' profile emerged as the most vulnerable profile in the context of addictive behaviors (especially for binge eating and substance use).

The link between adolescent girls' interpersonal emotion regulation with parents and peers and depressive symptoms: A real-time investigation

Adolescents often experience heightened socioemotional sensitivity warranting their use of regulatory strategies. Yet, little is known about how key socializing agents help regulate teens' negative emotions in daily life and implications for long-term adjustment. We examined adolescent girls' interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) with parents and peers in response to negative social interactions, defined as parent and peer involvement in the teen's enactment of emotion regulation strategies. We also tested associations between rates of daily parental and peer IER and depressive symptoms, concurrently and one year later. Adolescent girls (N = 112; Mage = 12.39) at temperamental risk for depressive disorders completed a 16-day ecological momentary assessment protocol measuring reactivity to negative social interactions, parental and peer IER, and current negative affect. Results indicated that adolescents used more adaptive strategies with peers and more maladaptive strategies with parents in daily life. Both parental and peer IER down-regulated negative affect, reflected by girls' decreased likelihood of experiencing continued negative affect. Higher proportions of parental adaptive IER predicted reduced depressive symptoms one year later. Findings suggest that both parents and peers effectively help adolescent girls down-regulate everyday negative emotions; however, parents may offer more enduring benefits for long-term adjustment.

Social determinants of mental health during a year of the COVID-19 pandemic

Belonging is a basic human need, with social isolation signaling a threat to biological fitness. Sensitivity to ostracism varies across individuals and the lifespan, peaking in adolescence. Government-imposed restrictions upon social interactions during COVID-19 may therefore be particularly detrimental to young people and those most sensitive to ostracism. Participants (N = 2367; 89.95% female, 11-100 years) from three countries with differing levels of government restrictions (Australia, UK, and USA) were surveyed thrice at three-month intervals (May 2020 - April 2021). Young people, and those living under the tightest government restrictions, reported the worst mental health, with these inequalities in mental health remaining constant throughout the study period. Further dissection of these results revealed that young people high on social rejection sensitivity reported the most mental health problems at the final assessment. These findings help account for the greater impact of enforced social isolation on young people's mental health, and open novel avenues for intervention.

How Do Level of Novelty and Camera Angle of Tourism-Themed Short Videos on Douyin Influence Potential Travelers' Behavioral Intentions?

The advent of short video apps like Douyin has greatly popularized the practice of sharing travel experiences in the form of live-streaming or prerecorded videos. With the breakout of COVID-19, the feasibility and appeal of physical travel were substantially undermined such that people now become increasingly dependent on watching short videos as a means of consuming travel-related content. This revolutionary change in the landscape of destination marketing is reshaping the tourism industry, which calls for research efforts of both scholars and practitioners. Our study aimed to investigate how two major characteristics of tourism-themed short videos, namely, level of novelty and camera angle, influence viewers' behavioral intentions toward actually visiting the places, with the incorporation of several relevant psychological mediators, including immersion, positive surprise, spatial presence, and perceptual realism. A 2 (low- vs. high-level novelty) × 2 (first- vs. third-person view) factorial experiment was designed and conducted. Statistical analysis based on a sample of 480 participants suggested that the perception of positive surprise increased with the level of novelty contained in the videos, which was positively associated with viewers' visit intentions in an indirect manner. Moreover, compared to the third-person view, employing the first-person view to film sites and scenes produced a greater sense of immersion, which in turn stimulated interest in taking a tour. This study contributes to the growing body of research in digital travel and telepresence.

Peer facilitation of emotion regulation in adolescence

Emotion regulation is particularly important for adolescents as they undergo normative developmental changes in affective systems and experience heightened risk for psychopathology. Despite a high need for emotion regulation during adolescence, commonly studied emotion regulation strategies like cognitive reappraisal are less beneficial for adolescents than adults because they rely on neural regions that are still developing during this period (i.e., lateral prefrontal cortex). However, adolescence is also marked by increased valuation of peer relationships and sensitivity to social information and cues. In the present review, we synthesize research examining emotion regulation and peer influence across development to suggest that sensitivity to peers during adolescence could be leveraged to improve emotion regulation for this population. We first discuss developmental trends related to emotion regulation at the level of behavior and brain in adolescents, using cognitive reappraisal as an exemplar emotion regulation strategy. Next, we discuss social influences on adolescent brain development, describing caregiver influence and increasing susceptibility to peer influence, to describe how adolescent sensitivity to social inputs represents both a window of vulnerability and opportunity. Finally, we conclude by describing the promise of social (i.e., peer-based) interventions for enhancing emotion regulation in adolescence.

The Role of Empathy in Alcohol Use of Bullying Perpetrators and Victims: Lower Personal Empathic Distress Makes Male Perpetrators of Bullying More Vulnerable to Alcohol Use

Bullying often results in negative coping in victims, including an increased consumption of alcohol. Recently, however, an increase in alcohol use has also been reported among perpetrators of bullying. The factors triggering this pattern are still unclear. We investigated the role of empathy in the interaction between bullying and alcohol use in an adolescent sample (IMAGEN) at age 13.97 (±0.53) years (baseline (BL), N = 2165, 50.9% female) and age 16.51 (±0.61) years (follow-up 1 (FU1), N = 1185, 54.9% female). General empathic distress served as a significant moderator of alcohol use in perpetrators (F9, 493 = 17.978, p < 0.01), which was specific for males and FU1. Male perpetrators, who are generally less sensitive to distress, might thus be more vulnerable to alcohol abuse.

Perspective Taking and Memory for Self- and Town-Related Information in Male Adolescents and Young Adults

Adolescence is a sensitive period for categorical self-concept development, which affects the ability to take others' perspectives, which might differ from one's own, and how self-related information is memorized. Little is known about whether these two processes are related in adolescence. The current study recruited 97 male participants aged 11-35 years. Using a self-referential memory task, we found that younger participants were less prone to recognize previously seen town-related adjectives, compared to self-related adjectives. However, this age-related reduction in recognition bias was unrelated to accurate memory performance. Using the Director task to assess perspective taking, we found an age-related decrease in egocentric biases in perspective taking from adolescence to early adulthood (i.e., perspective taking abilities improved with age). However, there was no evidence that these two processes were related. Overall, our findings suggest that male adolescents display parallel but independent age-related changes in self-referential biases in memory and perspective taking.

The role of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex on voluntary emotion regulation of social pain

The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) is highly engaged in emotion regulation of social pain. However, there is still lack of both inhibition and excitement evidence to prove the causal relationship between this brain region and voluntary emotion regulation. This study used high-frequency (10 Hz) and low-frequency (1 Hz) repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to separately activate or inhibit the rVLPFC in two groups of participants. We recorded participants' emotion ratings as well as their social attitude and prosocial behaviors following emotion regulation. Also, we used eye tracker to record the changes of pupil diameter to measure emotional feelings objectively. A total of 108 healthy participants were randomly assigned to the activated, inhibitory or sham rTMS groups. They were required to accomplish three sequential tasks: the emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal) task, the favorability rating task, and the donation task. Results show that the rVLPFC-inhibitory group reported more negative emotions and showed larger pupil diameter while the rVLPFC-activated group showed less negative emotions and reduced pupil diameter during emotion regulation (both compared with the sham rTMS group). In addition, the activated group gave more positive social evaluation to peers and donated more money to a public welfare activity than the rVLPFC-inhibitory group, among which the change of social attitude was mediated by regulated emotion. Taken together, these findings reveal that the rVLPFC plays a causal role in voluntary emotion regulation of social pain and can be a potential brain target in treating deficits of emotion regulation in psychiatric disorders.

Assessing affect in adolescents with e-diaries: multilevel confirmatory factor analyses of different factor models

In the last two decades, e-diary studies have gained increasing interest, with a dominant focus on mood and affect. Although requested in current guidelines, psychometric properties are rarely reported, and methodological investigations of factor structure, model fit, and the reliability of mood and affect assessment are limited. We used a seven-day e-diary dataset of 189 adolescent participants (12-17  years). The e-diary affect assessments revealed a considerable portion of within-person variance. The six-factor model showed the best model fit compared to the less complex models. Factor loadings also improved with the complexity of the models. Accordingly, we recommend that future e-diary studies of adolescents use the six-factor model of affect as well as reporting psychometric properties and model fit. For future e-diary scale development, we recommend using a minimum of three items per scale to enable the use of confirmatory multilevel factor analyses.

The Flexible Regulation of Emotional Expression Scale for Youth (FREE-Y): Adaptation and Validation Across a Varied Sample of Children and Adolescents

Flexible self-regulation has been shown to be an adaptive ability. This study adapted and validated the adult Flexible Regulation of Emotional Expression (FREE) Scale for use with youth (FREE-Y) in community and maltreatment samples. The FREE-Y measures the ability to flexibly enhance and suppress emotion expression across an array of hypothetical social scenarios. Participants (N = 654, 8-19 years) were included from three studies. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed a theoretically appropriate higher order factor structure. Using multiple-group CFAs, measurement invariance was achieved across maltreatment status, age, and gender. Reliabilities were adequate and construct validity was demonstrated through associations with measures of emotion regulation, psychopathology, IQ, and executive functioning. Group comparisons indicated lower Suppression and Flexibility scores for maltreated versus comparison participants. Findings suggest that the FREE-Y is a valid measure of expressive regulation ability in youth that can be applied across a range of populations.

Distinct developmental trajectories for risky and impulsive decision-making in chimpanzees

Human adolescence is characterized by a suite of changes in decision-making and emotional regulation that promote risky and impulsive behavior. Accumulating evidence suggests that behavioral and physiological shifts seen in human adolescence are shared by some primates, yet it is unclear if the same cognitive mechanisms are recruited. We examined developmental changes in risky choice, intertemporal choice, and emotional responses to decision outcomes in chimpanzees, our closest-living relatives. We found that adolescent chimpanzees were more risk-seeking than adults, as in humans. However, chimpanzees showed no developmental change in intertemporal choice, unlike humans, although younger chimpanzees did exhibit elevated emotional reactivity to waiting compared to adults. Comparisons of cortisol and testosterone indicated robust age-related variation in these biomarkers, and patterns of individual differences in choices, emotional reactivity, and hormones also supported a developmental dissociation between risk and choice impulsivity. These results show that some but not all core features of human adolescent decision-making are shared with chimpanzees. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive Reappraisal and Need to Belong Predict Prosociality in Mexican-Origin Adolescents

This two-year longitudinal study examined Mexican-origin adolescents' need to belong and cognitive reappraisal as predictors of multiple forms of prosocial behavior (i.e., general, emotional, and public prosocial behaviors). Prosocial behaviors, which are actions intended to benefit others, are hallmarks of social proficiency in adolescence and are influenced by intrapersonal abilities and motivations that typically develop during adolescence. Yet, few studies of Mexican-origin or other U.S. Latinx youths have examined whether such individual difference characteristics, specifically social motivation and emotion regulation skills, support prosocial behavior. In a sample of 229 Mexican-origin youth (Mage = 17.18 years, SD = 0.42, 110 girls), need to belong, cognitive reappraisal, and general prosocial behaviors were assessed at ages 17 and 19. Emotional and public forms of prosociality also were assessed at age 19. Cognitive reappraisal was positively associated with concurrent general prosociality at age 17, whereas need to belong was positively associated with concurrent public prosociality at age 19. Moderation analyses revealed that general and emotional types of prosocial behaviors at age 19 were lowest for youth with both lower need to belong and less use of cognitive reappraisal at 19 years. Greater cognitive reappraisal skills and need to belong may reflect distinct motivations for engaging in varying forms of prosocial behavior in late adolescence.

Relationship between borderline personality features, emotion regulation, and non-suicidal self-injury in depressed adolescents: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is common among adolescents and has been linked to mental disorders and suicide in addition to physical injuries. According to the empirical avoidance model, adolescents with NSSI have stronger emotional affect and poorer emotional regulation than those without NSSI, and these constitute core features of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The relationship between borderline personality features, emotional regulation, and NSSI in the population is unclear. This study explored these associations to provide a theoretical basis for the treatment of NSSI in the future.

METHODS

Depressed adolescents (n = 1192) were evaluated using Chinese versions of the Function Assessment of Self-mutilation Scale, Emotional Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents, and Borderline Personality Features Scale for Children.

RESULTS

The majority of depressed adolescents (71.3%, 850/1192) had demonstrated NSSI in the past year, with cutting or scratching being the most common form (57.4%). Pearson correlation analysis with NSSI as a fixed factor (NSSI = 1, no NSSI = 2) revealed a negative correlation between NSSI and borderline personality features (r = -0.314, P < 0.01) but a positive correlation between NSSI and emotional regulation capacity (r = 0.159, P < 0.01), which was positively correlated with the expression suppression dimension (r = 0.079, p < 0.01); however, there was no significant correlation between the cognitive reappraisal dimension and expression suppression (r = 0.022, p > 0.05). The occurrence of NSSI was also positively correlated with borderline personality features in general (r = 0.314, p < 0.01). These results were statistically significant. Emotional regulation played a mediating role between borderline personality traits and NSSI in adolescents with depression (effect value = 0.151).

CONCLUSION

Borderline personality features and emotional regulation ability were significantly correlated with NSSI in depressed adolescents. Borderline personality symptoms not only directly influenced NSSI risk in adolescents with depression, but also indirectly influenced NSSI risk through emotional regulation.

Coping strategies, emotion regulation and quality of life among psoriasis patients

BACKGROUND

This study set out to investigate the connections between coping strategies, and quality of life in psoriasis patients.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

150 psoriasis patients (M = 74, F = 76) participated in this study. The data were compiled using the Dermatology Life Quality Index, the Coping Style Scale, and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire.

MAIN FINDINGS

The results revealed a negative association between problem-focused coping and quality of life. Additionally, there was a significant positive relationship between emotion-focused coping and quality of life. Results revealed that psoriasis patients' ability to regulate their emotions differs significantly by gender.

CONCLUSION

The study's findings suggest that emotion regulation reappraisal moderates the relationship between coping techniques and quality of life among psoriasis patients.

Cognitive Reappraisal Impairs Negative Affect Regulation in the Context of Social Rejection for Youth With Early-Stage Borderline Personality Disorder

Application of emotion regulation strategies might be susceptible to the context of social rejection for individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD). This study compared the ability of 27 outpatient youths (15-25 years old) with early-stage BPD and 37 healthy controls (HC) to apply expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal in standard and socially rejecting laboratory contexts. BPD youths were largely as able as HCs to regulate negative affect across instruction and contexts. However, cognitive reappraisal in the context of social rejection heightened BPD negative facial expression relative to HCs. Thus, while BPD emotion regulation ability was largely normative, cognitive reappraisal might be ineffective in the context of social rejection for this group, with social rejection acting as an accelerant that heightens the expression of negative affect. Given the common experience of perceived and actual social rejection for this group, clinicians should carefully consider treatments that include cognitive reappraisal strategies because they might be contraindicated.

Evidence for cultural differences in affect during mother-infant interactions

Maternal care is considered a universal and even cross-species set of typical behaviors, which are necessary to determine the social development of children. In humans, most research on mother-infant bonding is based on Western cultures and conducted in European and American countries. Thus, it is still unknown which aspects of mother-infant behaviors are universal and which vary with culture. Here we test whether typical mother-infant behaviors of affect-communication and affect-regulation are equally represented during spontaneous interaction in Palestinian-Arab and Jewish cultures. 30 Palestinian-Arab and 43 Jewish mother-infant dyads were recruited and videotaped. Using AffectRegulation Coding System (ARCS), we behaviorally analyzed the second-by-second display of valence and arousal in each participant and calculated the dynamic patterns of affect co-regulation. The results show that Palestinian-Arab infants express more positive valence than Jewish infants and that Palestinian-Arab mothers express higher arousal compared to Jewish mothers. Moreover, we found culturally-distinct strategies to regulate the infant: increased arousal in Palestinian-Arab dyads and increased mutual affective match in Jewish dyads. Such cross-cultural differences in affect indicate that basic features of emotion that are often considered universal are differentially represented in different cultures. Affect communication and regulation patterns can be transmitted across generations in early-life socialization with caregivers.

Association between anticipated affect and behavioral intention: A meta-analysis

It is widely accepted that affect is associated with motivation, decision making and well-being. Studies from various domains suggest that anticipated affect is a key determinant of behavioral intention. In this research, we conducted a meta-analysis to determine the strength of the correlation between anticipated affect and behavioral intention. We searched the electronic databases PsycInfo, Scopus, Pubmed and Cochrane Library for articles published before July 2021. Studies were included based on the criteria 1) Participants are adults, 2) Participants rated their intention to engage in some behavior and the affect that they anticipate to experience if they perform or (not perform) the particular behavior, and 3) Pearson correlation coefficient(s) between behavioral intention and anticipated affect are reported. Studies whose target populations were patients with known psychiatric conditions were excluded. Correlation coefficients gathered from the selected studies were analyzed using a correlation-based meta-analysis. Meta-analytic estimate from 87 selected studies indicates a strong correlation between anticipated affect and behavioral intention (r = .61,95%CI = [.57,.64],p < .0001,k = 67,N = 25652). However, significant heterogeneity is observed across the included studies and moderator analysis shows a significant difference (p = .006) between hedonic vs. non-hedonic behaviors. While the estimated correlation between anticipated affect and behavioral intention is large, there is heterogeneity across studies. This correlation is significantly higher for hedonic behaviors than non-hedonic behaviors. We suggest that differences in the range of affect/emotions covered by each study is another potential moderator. Our results motivate further studies, covering a broader range of affect/emotions for a more accurate estimate of the correlation between anticipated affect and behavioral intention as well as experimental interventions to validate the causal direction of this relationship.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04383-w.

The Making of a Radical: The Role of Peer Harassment in Youth Political Radicalism

Although political radicalism is one of the major societal threats, we have limited understanding of how it is formed. While there are reasons to expect that harassment experienced in adolescence increase the propensity for radicalism, this relationship has not yet been investigated. This five-wave study of Swedish adolescents (N = 892) examined the role of peer harassment in radical political behavior. The results revealed that within-person fluctuations in harassment were positively related to fluctuations in radicalism. Individual-level (but not class-level) harassment also predicted differences between adolescents: youth who experienced more harassment had higher levels of and a more pronounced decrease in radicalism. In addition, adolescents who had more supportive teachers or parents were less affected by harassment than youth with less-supportive adults. The findings suggest that personal experiences of harassment increase the risk of radicalism but supportive relationships can mitigate their negative consequences.

A network analysis of difficulties in emotion regulation, anxiety, and depression for adolescents in clinical settings

BACKGROUND

Difficulties in emotion regulation (DER) are widely considered to underlie anxiety and depression. Given the prevalence of anxiety and depression in adolescents and the fact that adolescence is a key period for the development of emotion regulation ability, it is important to examine how DER is related to anxiety and depression in adolescents in clinical settings.

METHODS

In the present study, we assessed 209 adolescents in clinical settings using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and examined the associations between six components of DER and 14 symptoms of anxiety and depression. We used network analysis, constructed circular and multidimensional scaling (MDS) networks, and calculated network centrality, bridge centrality, and stability of centrality indices.

RESULTS

The results showed that: (1) The global centrality index shows that the Strategy component (i.e., lack of access to strategies) is the center in the whole network, ranking highest in strength, closeness, betweenness, and expected influence. (2) The MDS network showed a closeness of anxiety and depression symptoms, while Awareness component (i.e., lack of emotional awareness) stayed away from other DER components, but Awareness is close to some depression symptoms. (3) The bridge nodes of three groups, Strategy from DERS, Worry and Relax from anxiety symptoms, and Cheerful and Slow from depression symptoms, had the strongest relationships with the other groups.

CONCLUSION

Lack of access to strategies remains in the center not only in DER but also in the DER-anxiety-depression network, while lack of awareness is close to depression but not to anxiety. Worrying thoughts and inability to relax are the bridging symptoms for anxiety, while lack of cheerful emotions and slowing down are the bridging symptoms for depression. These findings suggest that making emotion regulation strategies more accessible to patients and reducing these bridging symptoms may yield the greatest rewards for anxiety and depression therapy.

Managing fear and anxiety in development: A framework for understanding the neurodevelopment of emotion regulation capacity and tendency

How we manage emotional responses to environmental threats is central to mental health, as difficulties regulating threat-related distress can blossom into symptoms of anxiety disorders. Given that anxiety disorders emerge early in the lifespan, it is crucial we understand the multi-level processes that support effective regulation of distress. Scholars have given increased attention to behavioral and neural development of emotion regulation abilities, particularly cognitive reappraisal capacity (i.e., how strongly one can down-regulate negative affect by reinterpreting a situation to change one's emotions). However, this work has not been well integrated with research on regulatory tendency (i.e., how often one spontaneously regulates emotion in daily life). Here, we review research on the development of both emotion regulation capacity and tendency. We then propose a framework for testing hypotheses and eventually constructing a neurodevelopmental model of both dimensions of emotion regulation. Clarifying how the brain supports both effective and frequent regulation of threat-related distress across development is crucial to identifying multi-level signs of dysregulation and developing interventions that support youth mental health.

Social rejection sensitivity and its role in adolescent emotional disorder symptomatology

BACKGROUND

Most emotional disorders first emerge during adolescence, a time characterized by heightened sensitivity to social information, especially social rejection. Social rejection sensitivity (SRS), then, may be a promising intervention target.

METHODS

To explore this, 357 participants (M (SD) age = 19.40 (4.18), 63% female) completed self-report measures of SRS, its proposed antecedent, perceived parenting style, its proposed behavioral correlate, negative interpretation bias, and its proposed  clinical correlate, emotional disorder symptoms. Participants additionally completed a single session of a social interpretation bias modification task, the ambiguous social scenarios task (ASST).

RESULTS

SRS was associated with perceived parental rejection, while controlling for other types of maladaptive parenting. SRS partially accounted for variance in the relationship between perceived parental rejection and emotional disorder symptomatology, as well as the relationship between negative interpretation bias and emotional disorder symptoms. Learning rates (i.e., change in reaction time across the task) on the ASST differed as a function of age and SRS, such that younger participants with higher SRS showed the slowest rate of learning. Moreover, individual differences in SRS accounted for the magnitude of change in negative interpretation bias before and after the ASST. Individuals with greater SRS showed less change in interpretation bias.

CONCLUSIONS

SRS appears strongly associated with emotional disorder symptoms in adolescents. Importantly, SRS was associated with the malleability of negative interpretation bias, which may help account for the mixed findings on the effectiveness of interpretation-bias-modification-paradigms in adolescents.

Chronic Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol impact on plasticity, and differential activation requirement for CB1-dependent long-term depression in ventral tegmental area GABA neurons in adult versus young mice

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) mediates incentive salience and reward prediction error through dopamine (DA) neurons that are regulated by local VTA GABA neurons. In young mice, VTA GABA cells exhibit a form of synaptic plasticity known as long-term depression (LTD) that is dependent on cannabinoid 1 (CB1) receptors preceded by metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5) signaling to induce endocannabinoid production. This LTD was eliminated following chronic (7-10 consecutive days) exposure to the marijuana derived cannabinoid Δ9 -tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). We now examine the mechanism behind THC-induced elimination of LTD in adolescents as well as plasticity induction ability in adult versus young male and female mice using whole-cell electrophysiology experiments of VTA GABA cells. Chronic THC injections in adolescents resulted in a loss of CB1 agonist-mediated depression, illustrating chronic THC likely desensitizes or removes synaptic CB1. We noted that seven days withdrawal from chronic THC restored LTD and CB1 agonist-induced depression, suggesting reversibility of THC-induced changes. Adult mice continue to express functional mGluR5 and CB1, but require a doubling of the synaptic stimulation compared to young mice to induce LTD, suggesting a quantitative difference in CB1-dependent plasticity between young and adult mice. One potential rationale for this difference is changes in AMPA and NMDA glutamate receptors. Indeed, AMPA/NMDA ratios were increased in in adults compared to young mice. Lastly, we performed quantitative reverse-transcription PCR and identified that CB1, DAGLα, and GluA1 levels increased following chronic THC exposure. Collectively, our data demonstrate the first age-dependent GABA neuron plasticity in the VTA, which could have implications for decreased THC dependence capacity in adults, as well as the mechanism behind chronic THC-induced synaptic alterations in young mice.

Construction and validation of Rejection Sensitive Expectation, Perception, and Reaction Questionnaire-Partner (RSEPR-P)

The Rejection Sensitive Expectation, Perception, and Reaction Questionnaire-Partner (RSEPR-P) was developed to assess rejection expectation, perception of rejection, and reactions to perceived rejection among intimate partners. This article details the construction and validation procedures, including item pool generation, factor analysis, and the estimation of reliability and validity. The researchers examined the psychometric properties of RSEPR-P in a community sample of 151 participants. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) with the final 24 items suggested four-factor loading with each subscale loading on a separate factor. The subscales had good to excellent internal consistency. In support of the convergent validity, RSEPR-P exhibited robust correlations with rejection sensitivity-personal, mindfulness, marital adjustment, and self-esteem measures. A 6-month test-retest reliability was established. RSEPR-P is proposed to have potential therapeutic and research utility.

Association between the behavioral response during social exclusion and recalled childhood maltreatment

Social exclusion is a critical event for mental health. Patients with interpersonal dysfunction, e.g., with borderline personality disorder (BPD) or persistent depressive disorder (PDD), are particularly vulnerable, often based on their experiences of early adversity in life. The etiological pathways from childhood maltreatment (CM) to current behavior during social exclusion are still underexplored. This cross-diagnostic study investigated the relationship between self-reported CM and behavioral reaction to social exclusion in an experimental paradigm (Cyberball). Data from 140 subjects including patients with BPD and PDD as well as healthy controls were analyzed. The effect of CM (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, CTQ) on behavior to social exclusion during Cyberball (ball tossing behavior) was analyzed including rejection sensitivity (RS) as a mediator. In the whole sample, the CTQ score (B = -.004, p < .05) as well as the emotional neglect subscore (B = -.016, p < .01) were associated with a reduced ball tossing behavior towards the excluder. There were no significant indirect effects involving RS. These current findings support the relationship between CM and an altered interpersonal response in critical interpersonal situations. Larger cohorts with multidimensional data in social domains are warranted to further investigate the link between CM and current interpersonal dysfunction.

Positive classroom climate buffers against increases in loneliness arising from shyness, rejection sensitivity and emotional reactivity

Loneliness is detrimental to well-being, particularly during the transition into and early years of adolescence when peer relations are ascendant. Shy and emotionally sensitive youth, who often spend considerable time alone, have known vulnerabilities to loneliness. Studies of young children suggest that a supportive classroom context may mitigate adjustment risks, reducing victimization and improving a sense of belonging. Herein we extend this work to older students, testing the hypothesis that a positive classroom climate protects temperamentally vulnerable children (i.e., those who are shy, emotionally reactive, or sensitive to rejection) from escalating levels of loneliness across the course of a school year. A community sample of 540 (277 boys, 263 girls) Lithuanian students in grades 5-7 (10-14 years old) completed identical surveys twice, 4-5 months apart. Self-reports assessed shyness, emotional reactivity, and rejection sensitivity, as well as perceived positive classroom climate and loneliness. Path analyses indicated that longitudinal associations from shyness, emotional reactivity, and rejection sensitivity to increased loneliness were mitigated by positive classroom climate. In each case, temperamental vulnerability anticipated greater loneliness for youth reporting low but not high positive classroom climate. The results held after accounting for several potential confounding variables. The findings have practical implications, suggesting that scholars and practitioners redouble efforts to improve classroom support, particularly for temperamentally vulnerable children who are at elevated risk for solitude, loneliness, and attendant mental health challenges.

Associations between MDMA/ecstasy, classic psychedelics, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in a sample of U.S. adolescents

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death amongst adolescents and decades of research have failed to curb suicide rates within this population. There is thus a need to better understand factors that correlate with adolescent suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). MDMA/ecstasy and classic psychedelics represent two areas for exploration, as use of these substances has been associated with both increased and lowered odds of STBs. Thus, the goal of this study was to test the associations between MDMA/ecstasy and classic psychedelics (psilocybin, peyote, mescaline, LSD) and STBs in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adolescents. We tested these associations in a sample of adolescents aged 12-17 years old from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (2004-2019) (N = 262,617) using survey-weighted multivariable logistic regression models. Lifetime psilocybin use was associated with lowered odds of lifetime suicidal thinking, planning, and attempts (aOR range 0.77-0.85). Conversely, LSD was associated with increased odds of these same outcomes (aOR range 1.20-1.35). MDMA/ecstasy, peyote, and mescaline did not share associations with STBs. Our study demonstrates that individual classic psychedelics share varying relationships to STBs among adolescents. Future cross-sectional and longitudinal studies are needed to further elucidate the link between classic psychedelic use and STBs in youth.

Understanding protective and risk factors affecting adolescents' well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study investigated the factors affecting adolescents' well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of their participation in digital activities, emotional regulation, self-regulated learning, and parental involvement. Using self-reported data from 932 pairs of adolescents and their parents, we performed multiple-group structural equation modeling, which revealed that self-efficacy in online learning during school suspension was a key factor influencing adolescents' perceived worries after schools resumed. During school suspension, boys' cognitive-emotional regulation played a protective role in their well-being, helping them to avoid cyberbullying incidents, while girls' participation in leisure-oriented digital activities compromised their self-efficacy in online learning and led to cyberbullying incidents. Furthermore, improvement in parent-child relationships during school suspension encouraged adolescents to use more positive emotional regulation strategies, enhanced their self-efficacy in online learning, and reduced their leisure-time digital activities. The findings indicate that the effective regulation of adolescents' online behaviors, emotions, and self-efficacy, especially when combined with an emotionally secure family relationship, can ensure adolescents' well-being.

Role of emotion regulation capacities in affective state among Chinese high school students in the post-pandemic era of COVID-19

Objective

Psychological wellbeing and emotion regulation skills of vulnerable adolescents have been severely threatened by the long-term impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this study was to seek out the potentially effective emotion regulation strategies to minimize the mental health risk of adolescents during the COVID-19 post-pandemic era.

Methods

A total of 436 high school students aged 16.07 ± 1.08 years were included in this cross-sectional study to complete questionnaires to self-report socio-demographic information, positive and negative affect state, and emotional regulation abilities. Student's t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used for intergroup comparisons among socio-demographic variables. Pearson's correlation analysis was used for evaluating the association between each emotion regulation strategy and positivity or negativity. Multiple stepwise linear regression analysis was used for the determination of the predictors for adolescents' positivity and negativity.

Results

Adolescents' affect was influenced by multiple emotion regulation strategies, including cognitive reappraisal, acceptance and engagement, difficulty in awareness, acceptance, and modification of emotions after adjusting for a range of socio-demographic variables.

Conclusion

Overall, our findings highlight the importance of emotional regulation strategies in the modulation of the mental health of the vulnerable youth population in China during the COVID-19 crisis. In view of the continuous, multifaceted influence on adolescents' mental health of the ongoing pandemic, more effort should be made to leverage emotion regulation strategies to benefit their coping abilities.

The effect of online social evaluation on mood and cognition in young people

Adolescence is characterised by increased peer interactions and heightened sensitivity to evaluation by peers. Increasingly, social interactions and evaluation happen in online contexts. Yet, little is known about the impact of online social interactions and evaluation on adolescent emotional and cognitive functioning. The present study examined the impact of online social evaluative threat on young people's mood and learning and whether this varied as a function of known offline social risk and protective factors. 255 participants completed a perceptual learning task under online social evaluative threat and a perceptually-matched control condition. Participants were aged 11-30 years, to allow for the exploration of age differences in the impact of online social evaluative threat from adolescence to early adulthood. Participants reported a greater increase in negative mood (self-reported levels of stress, anxiety, and anhedonia), following social evaluative threat compared to the control condition. Heightened social rejection sensitivity (measured using the Online and Offline Social Sensitivity Scale) and lower perceived social support (measured using the Schuster Social Support Scale) were associated with elevated negative mood across the study. Social evaluative threat adversely impacted overall accuracy on the perceptual matching task, but not learning. These findings provide preliminary evidence that online social evaluative threat impacts adolescent mood and cognitive functioning.

Are you looking at me? A longitudinal vignette study of adolescent appearance rejection sensitivity and coping with peer evaluation

Appearance rejection sensitivity (ARS) refers to anxiously over-expecting rejection because of perceived appearance flaws. ARS has been associated with poorer mental health, which suggests coping with stress may be negatively affected by ARS. In this study, we investigated if ARS was related to adolescents' emotions and ways of coping with negative appearance evaluation two years later (T2). Other potential correlates of emotions and ways of coping were also tested, including peer appearance teasing, social anxiety, and gender, as well as reports of victimization, social status, and attractiveness gathered from peers. At Time 1 (T1), 329 adolescents (M = 13.9 years, 54% girls) self-reported their ARS, experience of appearance teasing, and social anxiety. T1 appearance victimization, popularity, and attractiveness were measured using peer nominations, and peer likeability was measured with peer ratings. At T2, participants' emotions and coping were measured using vignettes portraying appearance evaluation by peers. In regression models, T1 ARS, appearance teasing, social anxiety and female gender were associated with more T2 negative emotions, social withdrawal, rumination, and (except for social anxiety) thoughts about appearance change. ARS was not significantly associated with T2 positive thinking or support seeking. No peer-report measure was significantly associated with T2 outcomes.

Emotion dysregulation in ADHD and other neurodevelopmental conditions: a co-twin control study

BACKGROUND

Emotion dysregulation (ED) is common in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and often results in adverse outcomes. However, ED has been suggested as a transdiagnostic construct, why the specific association between ADHD and ED when adjusting for other mental health conditions needs further investigation. It is also important to determine the aetiological basis of the association between ADHD and ED to inform the theoretical conceptualization of ADHD.

METHOD

This study used a co-twin control design, including a sample of dizygotic (DZ) and monozygotic (MZ) twins (N = 389; 45.8% females, age = 8-31 years, MZ twin pairs 57.6%). ED was assessed using the dysregulation profile from the parent-rated Child Behaviour Checklist and its adult version. Regression analyses were used across individuals and within the pairs, while adjusting for diagnoses of autism, intellectual disability, other neurodevelopmental conditions and affective conditions.

RESULTS

ADHD was significantly associated with ED, even when adjusting for age, sex, attention problems and other mental health conditions, and was the diagnosis most strongly associated with ED. Within-pair analyses revealed that twins with ADHD had higher levels of ED compared to their co-twin without ADHD. This association remained within DZ twins and was non-significant in the MZ subsample, with non-overlapping confidence intervals between the DZ and MZ estimates.

CONCLUSION

ADHD is strongly and in part independently linked to ED, stressing the importance of early detection and treatment of emotional difficulties within this group. The findings from the within-pair analyses indicate a genetic influence on the association between ADHD and ED.

Kids' Emotion Recognition Using Various Deep-Learning Models with Explainable AI

Human ideas and sentiments are mirrored in facial expressions. They give the spectator a plethora of social cues, such as the viewer's focus of attention, intention, motivation, and mood, which can help develop better interactive solutions in online platforms. This could be helpful for children while teaching them, which could help in cultivating a better interactive connect between teachers and students, since there is an increasing trend toward the online education platform due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To solve this, the authors proposed kids' emotion recognition based on visual cues in this research with a justified reasoning model of explainable AI. The authors used two datasets to work on this problem; the first is the LIRIS Children Spontaneous Facial Expression Video Database, and the second is an author-created novel dataset of emotions displayed by children aged 7 to 10. The authors identified that the LIRIS dataset has achieved only 75% accuracy, and no study has worked further on this dataset in which the authors have achieved the highest accuracy of 89.31% and, in the authors' dataset, an accuracy of 90.98%. The authors also realized that the face construction of children and adults is different, and the way children show emotions is very different and does not always follow the same way of facial expression for a specific emotion as compared with adults. Hence, the authors used 3D 468 landmark points and created two separate versions of the dataset from the original selected datasets, which are LIRIS-Mesh and Authors-Mesh. In total, all four types of datasets were used, namely LIRIS, the authors' dataset, LIRIS-Mesh, and Authors-Mesh, and a comparative analysis was performed by using seven different CNN models. The authors not only compared all dataset types used on different CNN models but also explained for every type of CNN used on every specific dataset type how test images are perceived by the deep-learning models by using explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), which helps in localizing features contributing to particular emotions. The authors used three methods of XAI, namely Grad-CAM, Grad-CAM++, and SoftGrad, which help users further establish the appropriate reason for emotion detection by knowing the contribution of its features in it.

A Comparison of Emotional Triggers for Eating in Men and Women with Obesity

OBJECTIVE

Emotional eating (EE) is prevalent in people seeking obesity treatment and is a contributor to poor weight loss outcomes. We aimed to delineate the emotions most associated with this type of eating, and whether they differ by sex in people undergoing obesity treatment.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study recruiting 387 adults from a hospital obesity management service. Emotional eating was measured using the Emotional Eating Scale (EES). Separate analyses included all participants, and those undergoing lifestyle interventions alone or in combination with obesity medication and/or bariatric surgery.

RESULTS

A total of 387 people (71% women) participated in the study (n = 187 receiving lifestyle modification alone; n = 200 in combination with additional treatments). Feeling 'bored' was most commonly and most strongly associated with the urge to eat, regardless of sex or treatment. Women had higher scores for total EES, for subscales of depression and anger, and individual feelings of 'blue', 'sad' and 'upset' compared to men.

CONCLUSIONS

Understanding why certain emotions differentially trigger an urge to eat in men and women, and finding strategies to break the link between boredom and eating may enable better personalisation of lifestyle interventions for people with obesity.