Clinical Psychological Science

COVID-19 propelled anti-Asian racism around the world; empirical research has yet to examine the phenomenology of racial trauma affecting Asian communities. Our mixed methods study of 215 Asian participants of 15 ethnicities examined experiences of racism during COVID and resulting psychological sequelae. Through qualitative content analysis, themes emerged of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral changes resulting from these racialized perpetrations, including: internalizing emotions of fear, sadness, and shame; negative alterations in cognitions such as reduced trust and self worth; and behavioral isolation, avoidance, and hypervigilance, in addition to positive coping actions of commitment to racial equity initiatives...

An experimental paradigm with subjective and objective assessments was used to further explicate the role of positive emotion dysregulation on risky behavior. Participants were 151 community women currently experiencing intimate partner violence and using substances ( M age = 40.81, 43.0% white). Participants were randomly assigned to positive, negative, and neutral idiographic emotion inductions. Subjective (state self-report) and objective (high frequency heart rate variability [hfHRV], skin conductance response, and salivary cortisol) markers of emotion dysregulation were assessed, following which participants completed subjective (state urges for substances) and objective (Balloon Analogue Risk Task) measures of risky behavior...

Relative to empirical studies on risk factors, less research has focused on culturally based protective factors that reduce the impact of discrimination on mental health. The current prospective study evaluated two potential moderators of the effect of discrimination on depressive symptoms among Mexican American women: individually held familism values and neighborhood cultural cohesion. Mexican-origin women in the United States ( N = 322; mean age = 27.8 years; 86% born in Mexico) reported on frequency of discrimination, depressive symptoms, familism, and neighborhood cultural cohesion...

A growing body of research suggests that standard group-based models might provide little insight regarding individuals. In the current study, we sought to compare group-based and individual predictors of bothersome tinnitus, illustrating how researchers can use dynamic structural equation modeling (DSEM) for intensive longitudinal data to examine whether findings from analyses of the group apply to individuals. A total of 43 subjects with bothersome tinnitus responded to up to 200 surveys each. In multi-level DSEM models, survey items loaded on three factors (tinnitus bother, cognitive symptoms, and anxiety) and results indicated a reciprocal relationship between tinnitus bother and anxiety...

This article presents a study exploring structural biases within mental health organizations, in the context of person-centered care-an emerging framework for health systems globally. Findings revealed how surrounding institutional structures conditioned a powerful influence on clinical operations, in which there is a risk for clients to be systemically seen as a non-person, that is, as a racialized or bureaucratic object. Specifically, the article elucidates how racial profiles could become determinants of care within institutions; and how another, covert form of institutional objectification could emerge, in which clients became reduced to unseen bureaucratic objects...

Empathic accuracy, the ability to accurately understand others' emotions, is typically viewed as beneficial for mental health. However, empathic accuracy may be problematic when a close relational partner is depressed because it promotes shared depression. Across two studies, we measured empathic accuracy using laboratory tasks that capture the ability to rate others' emotional valence accurately over time: first, in a sample of 156 neurotypical married couples (Study 1; Total N=312), and then in a sample of 102 informal caregivers of individuals with dementia (Study 2)...

Proper diagnosis of ADHD is costly, requiring in-depth evaluation via interview, multi-informant and observational assessment, and scrutiny of possible other conditions. The increasing availability of data may allow the development of machine-learning algorithms capable of accurate diagnostic predictions using low-cost measures to supplement human decision-making. We report on the performance of multiple classification methods used to predict a clinician-consensus ADHD diagnosis. Methods ranged from fairly simple (e...

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for youths in the United States. More Latino adolescents report suicidal thoughts and/or behaviors (STBs) than youths of most other ethnic communities. Yet few studies have examined multiple psychosocial predictors of STBs in Latino youths using multiyear longitudinal designs. In this study, we evaluated the progression of STBs in 674 Mexican-origin youths (50% female) from fifth grade (10 years old) to 12th grade (17 years old) and identified psychosocial predictors of changes in STBs across this period...

Factor-analytic studies are needed in global samples to advance understanding of psychopathology. We aimed to examine the structure of psychopathology and a general psychopathology ('p') factor using data from a cross-sectional study of 971 adults (63% women) from Maputo City, Mozambique. We used confirmatory factor analyses of symptoms from 15 psychiatric disorders to test common models of the structure of psychopathology. Models including internalizing, substance use, and thought disorder factors as well as a general p-factor fit the data well...

Adolescence is critical period of neurocognitive development as well as increased prevalence of mood pathology. This cross-sectional study replicated developmental patterns of neurocognition and tested whether mood symptoms moderated developmental effects. Participants were 419 adolescents ( n =246 with current mood disorders) who completed reward learning and executive functioning tasks, and reported on age, puberty, and mood symptoms. Structural equation modeling revealed a quadratic relationship between puberty and reward learning performance that was moderated by symptom severity: in early puberty, adolescents reporting higher manic symptoms exhibited heightened reward learning performance (better maximizing of rewards on learning tasks), whereas adolescents reporting elevated anhedonia showed blunted reward learning performance...

Although sleep loss is theorized to increase aggression risk, knowledge regarding the sleep-aggression relationship, or explanatory psychological processes, is limited. This study examined whether recent sleep duration predicted subsequent laboratory aggression, and whether neurocognitive indices of attentional and motor inhibition and negative emotional processing explained the sleep-aggression relationship. Participants ( n =141) wore Fitbit Flex devices and kept a sleep diary for three days. Event-related potentials were measured during an Emotional-Linguistic Go/No-Go task, followed by a laboratory aggression paradigm...

COVID-19 forced social interactions to move online. Yet researchers have little understanding of the mental health consequences of this shift. Given pandemic-related surges in emotional disorders and problematic drinking, it becomes imperative to understand the cognitive and affective processes involved in virtual interactions and the impact of alcohol in virtual social spaces. Participants ( N =246) engaged in an online video call while their gaze behavior was tracked. Prior to the interaction, participants were randomly assigned to receive an alcoholic or control beverage...

Vulnerability models posit that executive functioning (EF) problems centrally impact future common (vs. rare) psychopathology symptoms. Conversely, scar theory postulates that depression/anxiety (vs. other psychopathology) symptoms centrally influence reduced EF. However, most studies so far have been cross-sectional. We used cross-lagged panel network analysis to determine temporal and component-to-component relations on this topic. Community older adults participated across four time-points. Cognitive tests and the caregiver-rated Neuropsychiatric Inventory assessed nine psychopathology and eight cognitive functioning nodes...

Compulsive behaviors (CBs) have been linked to orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) function in animal and human studies. However, brain regions function not in isolation but as components of widely distributed brain networks-such as those indexed via resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC). Sixty-nine individuals with CB disorders were randomized to receive a single session of neuromodulation targeting the left OFC-intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) or continuous TBS (cTBS)-followed immediately by computer-based behavioral "habit override" training...

This experiment tested mechanisms linking alcohol intoxication and analogue determinants of condomless anal intercourse (CAI) in a sample of 257 men who have sex with men (MSM). The two mechanisms tested were implicit approach biases toward CAI stimuli and executive working memory. Participants were randomized to 3 conditions (water control, placebo, or alcohol) and following beverage administration completed a working memory task, an Approach Avoidance Task of sexual vs. condom stimuli, and two video role-play vignettes of high-risk sexual scenarios...

Many college students reduce hazardous drinking (HD) following graduation without treatment. Identifying cognitive mechanisms facilitating this "natural" reduction in HD during this transition is crucial. We evaluated drinking identity as a potential mechanism and tested whether within-person changes in one's social network's drinking were linked to within-person changes in drinking identity and subsequent within-person changes in HD. A sample of 422 undergraduates reporting HD was followed from six months before until two years after graduation...

Humans adapt to a dynamic environment while maintaining psychological equilibrium. Systems theories of personality hold that generalized processes control stability by regulating how strongly a person reacts to various situations. Research shows there are higher-order traits of general personality function (Stability) and dysfunction (general personality pathology; GPP), but whether or not they capture individual differences in reactivity is largely theoretical. We tested this hypothesis by examining how general personality functioning manifests in everyday life in two samples ( N s=205; 342 participants and 24,920; 17,761 observations) that completed an ambulatory assessment protocol...

Parents of young children were a subgroup of the population identified early in the pandemic as experiencing significant mental-health symptoms. Using a longitudinal sample of 3,085 parents from across the United States who had a child or children age 0 to 5, in the present study, we identified parental mental-health trajectories from April to November 2020 predicted by pre-COVID-19 cumulative risk and COVID-19-specific risk factors. Both growth-mixture modeling and latent-growth-curve modeling were used to test the relationship between risk factors and parent mental health...

Depression is highly recurrent, even following successful pharmacological and/or psychological intervention. We aimed to develop clinical prediction models to inform adults with recurrent depression choosing between antidepressant medication (ADM) maintenance or switching to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). Using data from the PREVENT trial ( N =424), we constructed prognostic models using elastic net regression that combined demographic, clinical and psychological factors to predict relapse at 24 months under ADM or MBCT...

Using a diverse sample of military Veterans enrolled in the VA's Million Veteran Program (N=14,378; n=1,361 females [9.5%]; all previously deployed), we examined sex differences on the Comprehensive Traumatic Brain Injury Evaluation (CTBIE), a structured traumatic brain injury (TBI) interview routinely administered within the VA. Confirmed TBI diagnoses were more frequent among males than females (65% vs. 58%). Additionally, when compared to females, a greater proportion of males with CTBIE-confirmed TBI histories experienced blast-related injuries and were employed...