Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment最新文献

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by a lack of prosocial emotions, which has been demonstrated with prosocial behavior paradigms. While shaping our understanding of prosocial behavior in youth with CU traits, most of this work relies on outcomes that don't reliably capture cognitive processes during prosocial behavior. Examining prosocial cognitive processes can cue researchers into cognitive mechanisms underlying core impairments of CU traits. Drift diffusion modeling is a valuable tool for elucidating more precise outcomes of latent cognitive processes during forced choice tasks such as drift rate (information accumulation toward a decision boundary) and threshold separation (amount of information considered) as well as metrics outside of the decision-making processing including bias (starting point in decision process) and non-decision time (cognitive processes outside of choice). In a sample of 87 adolescents (12-14, 49% female) we applied diffusion modeling to a prosocial behavior task in which participants either accepted or rejected trials where a real monetary value was given to them and taken away from a charity (self-serving trial) or money was given to a charity and taken from them (donation trial). Results revealed that CU traits associated with information accumulation toward accepting self-serving trials. Exploratory sex differences suggested males trended toward rejecting donation trials and females considered more information during self-serving trials. CU trait associations were independent of conduct problems. Results suggest a unique cognitive profile that are differentiated by sex at higher CU traits when making prosocial decisions involving knowledge accumulation toward self-serving decisions.

This study performed a cross-cultural validation of the Chinese version of the 10-item Social Provisions Scale (C-SPS-10) in Chinese populations. Study 1 examined the factor structure, internal reliability, discrimination, criterion validity, and network structure of C-SPS-10 by utilizing a sample of disaster victims in the 2021 Henan floods. Study 2 substantiated the findings of Study 1 in a general population sample. Measurement invariances between populations and between sexes in terms of the C-SPS-10 were also tested using the network approach. Study 3 used three samples to examine the test-retest reliability of the C-SPS-10 over three different time periods. The general results showed that the C-SPS-10 has excellent factor structure, internal reliability, discrimination, and criterion validity. The C-SPS-10 was confirmed to have good psychometric properties. Although the full scale functions well, problems may exist at a domain level. Moreover, the full scale of the C-SPS-10 was varied as a useful tool to capture trait-like characteristics of individuals' perceptions of social support for the general population.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10862-023-10047-7.

Alexithymia has been linked to risky or problematic alcohol use, with a common interpretation invoking deficient emotion regulation and use of alcohol to cope with distress. An alternative explanation positing a general deficit of interoception in alexithymia suggested that poor awareness of internal cues of overconsumption may promote excessive drinking. The present study assessed predictions based on these hypotheses in 337 young adult alcohol users recruited online. Participants completed validated questionnaire indices of alcohol use, alexithymia, emotion regulation, interoceptive sensibility, and sensitivity to reward and punishment. Alcohol use was positively correlated with alexithymia and reward sensitivity, and negatively correlated with emotion regulation as expected, but was uncorrelated with interoceptive sensibility. Alexithymia was not significantly correlated with most dimensions of interoceptive sensibility but was highly negatively correlated with emotion regulation. Hierarchical regression controlling for demographic variables indicated that alexithymia, emotion regulation, sex, and sensitivity to reward and punishment were significant predictors of alcohol use levels. Bootstrapped mediation test controlling for all other variables indicated mediation of the association between alexithymia and alcohol use by deficient emotion regulation but not interoceptive sensibility. Results supported the emotion regulation deficit interpretation of the association of alexithymia with alcohol use. Limitations concerning interoception measurement, online samples, self-report measures, cross-sectional designs, and collection of data during the COVID-19 pandemic are discussed. Future research could follow up on these findings by testing interoceptive accuracy in addition to interoceptive sensibility in relation to alexithymia and alcohol use.

We conducted secondary analyses of existing data to examine the association between parent scores on the Knowledge of Effective Parenting Test (KEPT) and child symptoms of Conduct Disorder (CD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Parent knowledge of behavior management skills and child behavior symptoms were assessed in a nationally representative sample of parents/guardians (N = 1,570) of children aged 5-12 from all 50 states. Results showed consistent and robust correlations between parent knowledge of behavior management skills and CD symptoms but not ODD symptoms. These findings suggest that parent knowledge of behavior management may be a greater risk factor for CD than ODD, with implications for taxonomy and understanding the etiology of these two disorders. We also discuss the implications of these findings for the prevention and treatment of these two disorders which are often grouped together in treatment trials.

Research in youth psychopathy has focused heavily on the affective features (i.e., callous-unemotional [CU] traits) given robust links to severe and chronic forms of externalizing behaviors. Recently, there have been calls to expand the scope of work in this area to examine the importance of other interpersonal (i.e., antagonism) and behavioral (i.e., disinhibition) features of psychopathy. In the present study, we apply an under-utilized statistical approach (i.e., dominance analysis) to assess the relative importance of CU traits, antagonism, and disinhibition in the prediction of externalizing behaviors in youth, cross-sectionally and at 9-month follow-up. Using a multi-informant (youth- and parent-report), multi-method (questionnaire, ecological momentary assessment [EMA]) preregistered approach in a diverse sample of clinically referred youth (M_age = 12.60 years, SD = .95 years, 47% female; 61% racial/ethnic minority), we found youth- and parent-reported psychopathy features accounted for a significant proportion of variance in externalizing behavior cross-sectionally and longitudinally. However, results provided limited support for our preregistered hypotheses. While antagonism and disinhibition had larger general dominance weights relative to CU traits for both youth- and parent-report, most differences were non-significant. Thus, the interpersonal, affective, and behavioral psychopathy features could not be distinguished from one another in terms of their importance in the prediction of externalizing behavior, assessed cross-sectionally or longitudinally. Taken together, the results highlight promising avenues for future research on the relative importance of youth psychopathy features.

Stressful events may lead to the consumption of alcohol as a self-medicating and coping strategy. The self-medication hypothesis and addiction loop model served as the theoretical frameworks to understand how various COVID-19 pandemic stressors serve as risks for alcohol usage and state alcohol cravings. The study hypothesized that higher COVID-19 stressors (past month) would predict higher alcohol use (past month), and both were hypothesized to uniquely explain stronger alcohol cravings (state). Adult alcohol users (N = 366) participated in this cross-sectional study. Respondents completed measures of the COVID Stress Scales (socioeconomic, xenophobia, traumatic symptoms, compulsive checking, and danger & contamination), drink frequency and drink quantity, and state alcohol cravings (Alcohol Urge Questionnaire and Desires for Alcohol Questionnaire). Results from a structural equation model involving latent factors determined that higher pandemic stress explained greater alcohol use, and both factors uniquely contributed to stronger state alcohol cravings. A structural equation model premised on specific measures revealed that higher xenophobia stress, higher traumatic symptoms stress, higher compulsive checking stress, and lower danger & contamination stress uniquely predicted drink quantity, but not drink frequency. Furthermore, greater drink quantity and drink frequency independently predicted stronger state alcohol cravings. The findings recognize that pandemic stressors operate as cue-induced triggers for alcohol use and cravings. The COVID-19 stressors identified in this study could be targeted in interventions based on the addiction loop model designed to mitigate the effects of stress cues on alcohol use and present cravings for alcohol.

Rising rates of mental health challenges among youths have become a significant concern following the COVID 19 pandemic. Although strong evidence supports the implementation of universal screening as a preventative approach to address unmet mental health concerns, the research is less clear surrounding the use of such data in decision-making processes when significant discrepancies between informants (e.g., students and teachers) exist. The purpose of the study was twofold. First, the study aimed to determine the degree of rater concordance between teachers and students on students' internalizing concerns. The second objective was to determine whether concordance on internalizing behaviors differs across ages/grades and if this differentially impacts distal (i.e., academic) outcomes. Results indicated that teachers and students demonstrated limited agreement on ratings of internalizing behaviors. However, when students and teachers agreed, higher and more positive emotional behaviors were linked to higher reading/math performance. Furthermore, patterns of informant dis/agreement and relationships between internalizing concerns and academic outcomes were similar across grade levels. Implications and areas for future research are discussed.

Child routines have been recognized as positive contributors to children's development. However, in Portugal there is still a lack of instruments available to assess school-age child routines. The purpose of this study was to present the translation, adaptation, and validation studies of the Portuguese version of the Child Routines Questionnaire (CRQ), a parent self-report measure developed to assess school-age child routines. A total of 460 parents of children aged between 6 and 12 years-old participated in the study. Two studies were conducted to define the CRQ-PT factor structure. In Study 1 (n = 204 children from 6 to 12 years-old), findings from the exploratory factor analysis provided evidence for a four-factor structure (for 32 items), which explained 43.53% of the total variance. In Study 2 (n = 256 children from 6 to 9 years-old), results from confirmatory factor analysis showed good model fit indices (CFI = 0.84, RMSEA = 0.06). The total scale of the CRQ-PT (α = 0.89) and its subscales showed good internal consistency. Further evidence of construct validity was shown by weak to moderate correlations with measures of parental sense of competence and family mealtime routines. Relevant contributions of the study are underscored, namely the availability and usefulness of a reliable and valid assessment tool to evaluate the routines of Portuguese school-age children for clinical practice and research purposes.

Groups with mental health and/or substance use problems generate less detailed descriptions of their future goals. As substance use to cope with negative affect is common to both groups, this characteristic might be uniquely associated with less specific goal descriptions. To test this prediction, 229 past year hazardous drinking undergraduates aged 18-25 years wrote about three positive future life goals in an open-ended survey, before reporting their internalizing (anxiety and depression) symptoms, alcohol dependence severity and motivations for drinking: coping, conformity, enhancement and social. Future goal descriptions were experimenter-rated for detail specificity, and participant-self-rated for positivity, vividness, achievability, and importance. Effort in goal writing was indexed by time spent writing and total word count. Multiple regression analyses revealed that drinking to cope was uniquely associated with the production of less detailed goals, and lower self-rated positivity and vividness of goals (achievability and importance were also marginally lower), over and above internalizing symptoms, alcohol dependence severity, drinking for conformity, enhancement and social motives, age, and gender. However, drinking to cope was not uniquely associated with reduced effort in writing goals: time spent and word count. In sum, drinking to cope with negative affect is a unique characteristic predicting the generation of less detailed and bleaker (less positive and vivid) future goals, and this is not due to lower effort in reporting. Future goal generation may play a role in the aetiology of comorbidity of mental health and substance use problems, and therapeutic targeting of goal generation might benefit both conditions.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10862-023-10032-0.

Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) is the process by which individuals change their emotional experiences by socially interacting with others. While the literature on IER for in-person settings is growing, there is a dearth of research exploring IER in digital social interactions (i.e., via technology) - especially when considering the presence of psychopathology. The aim of this study was to compare perceived IER efficacy and use in digital versus in-person contexts and explore the impact that anxiety, depression, and stress have on IER. A sample of 93 university undergraduate students showed that participants perceived in-person IER as more efficacious than digital IER, and participants high in anxiety, depression, and stress tended to use both modalities of IER more than those low anxiety, depression, and stress. This study addresses a critical gap in our understanding of emotion regulation in digital environments and sheds light on how this is related to psychopathology and the psychotherapy experience.