Associations of specific emotion and symptom mindsets with clinical symptoms, treatment attitudes, and treatment preference.

Abstract

Background: One psychological factor that relates to individuals' level of emotional distress and how they view coping with that distress is the mindsets they hold about the nature of emotions and clinical symptoms.

Method: The current study (N = 978 undergraduate students; M_age= 19.01 years, 71.9% female, 68.9% White/Caucasian) used repeated measures General Linear Models (GLMs) and multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) to examine the relationships between mindsets in specific domains - malleability, function, and individual aspects of emotions - and which mindsets in each domain have the strongest relationships with clinical symptoms, treatment attitudes, and treatment preference. This statistical approach allows us to examine the relative strength in the relationships between specific mindsets within a particular domain (e.g., malleability) and study outcomes.

Results: When all mindsets in a specific domain (e.g., malleability, function, or specific facet of emotion) were included as simultaneous predictors in analyses, certain mindsets held specific relationships with outcomes. For example, more malleable mindsets about anxiety had the stronger relationships with anxiety symptoms.

Conclusion: The current study clarified that certain mindsets held the strongest relationship with specific outcomes, such as the anxiety malleability mindset with anxiety symptoms, while certain mindsets had equally strong relationships with symptoms and treatment attitudes.