Empathic accuracy of romantic partner negative affect is influenced by borderline personality symptoms.

The present study sought to examine the relation between borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms and empathic accuracy while improving on prior methodologies by using daily affect assessment in romantic partners. BPD symptoms were assessed in both members of 81 community couples who also reported on their own and their partner's negative and positive affect daily for 3 weeks. Data were analyzed using the Truth and Bias Model of Judgment, which allows the source of empathic accuracy to be parsed into partner affect (truth) and own affect (bias).

Category-Specific Stress Mindsets: Beliefs about the Debilitating versus Enhancing Effects of Specific Types of Stressors among Young Adults.

Unlabelled: Recently, research has shown that stress mindsets, or the degree to which people believe that stress is enhancing versus debilitating, impact the ways they process and react to stress. However, young adults encounter various forms of stress, which might elicit different stress mindsets. This study investigated (1) how much young adults think about specific types of stressors as they complete stress mindset measures and (2) how stress mindsets vary across stressor types.

Behavioral Patterns of Sugary Drink Consumption among African American Adolescents: A Pilot and Feasibility Study Using Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Background: Sugary drinks (SDs) are the predominant contributors to added sugar intake among adolescents, with the highest intakes reported among African American adolescents. The objective of this pilot study was to examine the feasibility of using mobile phone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to investigate, in real time, behavioral patterns of SD consumption among African American adolescents from low-income households.

Methods: Adolescents ( = 39, ages 12-17) attended a virtual meeting with a trained research assistant, which involved completion of surveys and training on responding to EMA prompts using a mobile phone application.

Risk perception in pregnancy: Patient-physician discrepancies, information consumption, and mental health outcomes.

Background: Little is known about the scope, causes, or consequences of risk overestimation. Our aim was to assess whether risk perceptions in pregnancy are heightened for a range of behaviors, related to consumption of health information, and associated with mental health indices.

Methods: One hundred and fifty members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists were invited to participate in a patient-physician study, and 37% returned surveys.

Brief report: the moderating effect of stress mindsets on associations between stress during pregnancy and symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Background And Objectives: Research suggests that the extent to which stress is perceived as enhancing or debilitating can impact how stress is experienced, stress reactions, and stress-related outcomes. Given that there is a salient perception of stress as harmful during pregnancy, our aim was to investigate stress mindsets as a moderator of established associations between prenatal stress and elevations in anxiety and depression.

Design: A survey design was used, yielding cross-sectional and longitudinal data.

Depression as a moderator of the prospective relationship between mood and smoking.

Objective: Affective features of depression are uniquely involved in the depression-smoking relationship, and it follows that smokers with depression are likely to use cigarettes to alleviate negative affect. However, most ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies demonstrate no relationship between mood and smoking, in general. Conversely, a small number of experimental studies suggest there is an association between mood and smoking and that the relationship is dependent on levels of depression.

Affective Forecasting Bias: Liability or Protective Factor?

We examined whether affective forecasting biases prospectively predict depression and anxiety symptoms in the context of life stress. Participants ( = 72) completed- baseline measures of depression, anxiety, and mood predictions, followed by one week of ecological momentary assessments of mood. Three months later, they completed measures of depression, anxiety, and life stress.

The role of sleep in adolescents' daily stress recovery: Negative affect spillover and positive affect bounce-back effects.

The present study examined the role of sleep in daily affective stress recovery processes in adolescents. Eighty-nine American adolescents recorded their emotions and stress through daily surveys and sleep with Fitbit devices for two weeks. Results show that objectively measured sleep (sleep onset latency and sleep debt) moderated negative affective responses to previous-day stress, such that stress-related negative affect spillover effects became more pronounced as amount of sleep decreased.

How does social anger expression predict later depression symptoms? It depends on how often one is angry.

Research has suggested that there are benefits to socially sharing anger as an emotion regulation strategy. We hypothesized that these benefits may depend on the frequency with which one is experiencing anger. We used an experience sampling methodology to explore the interaction between frequency of anger and reliance on social expression of anger as a predictor of changes in depression symptoms 4 months later.

Biases in Short-Term Mood Prediction in Individuals with Depression and Anxiety Symptoms.

We used ecological momentary assessment to explore depressive and anxious biases in within-day negative and positive mood predictions. Participants ( = 120) who were higher in depression symptoms demonstrated stronger biases (i.e.

Effects of expectations on loudness and loudness difference.

To determine how expectations affect loudness and loudness difference, in two experiments we induced some subjects to expect loud sounds (condition L), some to expect soft sounds (condition S), and others to have no particular expectations (control). In Experiment 1, all subjects estimated the loudnesses of the same set of three moderately loud 1-kHz tones. Estimates were greatest for subjects in condition S and smallest for subjects in condition L.

Biases in affective forecasting and recall in individuals with depression and anxiety symptoms.

The authors used experience sampling to investigate biases in affective forecasting and recall in individuals with varying levels of depression and anxiety symptoms. Participants who were higher in depression symptoms demonstrated stronger (more pessimistic) negative mood prediction biases, marginally stronger negative mood recall biases, and weaker (less optimistic) positive mood prediction and recall biases. Participants who were higher in anxiety symptoms demonstrated stronger negative mood prediction biases, but positive mood prediction biases that were on par with those who were lower in anxiety.

Sudden gains versus gradual gains in a psychotherapy training clinic.

Sudden gains are abrupt and substantial improvements in symptoms. This study used the Outcome Questionnaire-45 (OQ-45; Lambert et al., 1996) to characterize sudden gains occurring in a cognitive-behavioral therapy training clinic.

The influence of dysphoria on reactivity to naturalistic fluctuations in anger.

We used an experience sampling methodology to explore the relationship between current symptoms of dysphoria and momentary mood fluctuations following everyday experiences of anger. Using PDA devices, participants rated their mood, ruminative cognitions, feelings of dependency, and stressful events 4 times per day for 1 week. We hypothesized and found that those higher in dysphoria would demonstrate a stronger link between anger and depressed mood than those who were lower in dysphoria.

Effects of cognitive therapy for depression on daily stress-related variables.

This study used a daily diary design to evaluate depressed patients' changes on daily stress-related variables during cognitive therapy (CT). Patients completed daily diaries on two week-long occasions: after the intake interview and again after the sixth session of CT. Patients also completed a measure of depressive symptoms before every treatment session.

Negative affective spillover from daily events predicts early response to cognitive therapy for depression.

This study evaluated the predictive role of depressed outpatients' (N = 62) affective reactivity to daily stressors in their rates of improvement in cognitive therapy (CT). For 1 week before treatment, patients completed nightly electronic diaries that assessed daily stressors and negative affect (NA). The authors used multilevel modeling to compute each patient's within-day relationship between daily stressors and daily NA (within-day reactivity), as well as the relationship between daily stressors and next-day NA (next-day reactivity; affective spillover).

Serotonin transporter gene polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) and anxiety reactivity in daily life: a daily process approach to gene-environment interaction.

Objective: To test whether individuals with at least one copy of the short (S) or long (L)(G) allele of the serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) exhibit greater increases in anxiety, compared with L(A)L(A) individuals, under periods of high daily stress. Although this common polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene has been identified as a vulnerability factor for anxiety, findings in the literature are mixed. Discrepant findings could be explained by recent research showing that 5-HTTLPR is functionally triallelic (L(A) versus L(G) or S), rather than biallelic (L versus S).

Influence of dysphoria on positive and negative cognitive reactivity to daily mood fluctuations.

We used an experience sampling design to investigate the influence of dysphoria on positive and negative cognitive reactivity. Participants recorded their thoughts and mood four times per day on PDA devices for one week. We hypothesized that those higher in dysphoria would demonstrate a greater increase in negative thinking in response to negative mood, and a weaker increase in positive cognitions in response to positive mood.

Daily affective reactivity as a prospective predictor of depressive symptoms.

Daily affective reactivity refers to the within-subject relationship between daily stress and daily mood. Most stress researchers have conceptualized daily affective reactivity as a dependent variable to be predicted by individual difference variables such as personality and psychopathology. In contrast, in our recent research, we have conceptualized daily affective reactivity as an independent variable that can predict depressive symptoms.

Borderline personality features and instability of daily negative affect and self-esteem.

We used a daily process design and multilevel modeling to examine the role of borderline personality features in the day-to-day stability of college students' negative affect and self-esteem and their reactivity to interpersonal stressors. At the end of each day for two weeks, students completed a checklist of daily stressors and measures of state affect and self-esteem. We predicted that high scores on a measure of borderline features would be related to more daily interpersonal stressors, greater negative affective and self-esteem reactivity to these stressors, and less day-to-day carryover of negative mood and self-esteem.