Harnessing personal and social resources in managing internalising and externalising symptoms in children living in low‐resource settings

PurposeThere is dearth of studies in the literature which have discussed the relevance of personal and social resources of employees to protect them from adverse impacts of emotional job demands. However, interaction effect of these two resources on wellbeing of the employees in context to emotional work is inadequate. The present study is aimed to address the existing gap and investigate the relevance of personal and social resources as moderators in the presence of each other between emotional work and employee wellbeing.Design/methodology/approachThe research work has focused on employees working on frontline profiles of civil aviation industry of north India. The responses of 720 frontline employees have been collected through pretested questionnaire. To understand the moderation effect of two variables, model number 3 developed by Hayes (2012) has been applied.FindingsThe findings have revealed that moderator role of social support between emotional work and employee wellbeing. However, research has pointed out that at high level of social support personal resources of employees' start to decline which subsequently reduces the wellbeing of employees.Research limitations/implicationsThe present research work has analysed the moderated moderation effect of personal and social resources between emotional work and employee wellbeing. Besides, the relative significance of personal resources vis-a vis social resources empirically in context of employee wellbeing in case of emotional work has also been highlighted in the work.Practical implicationsThe results of the study have suggested the employees to receive less social support from friends, family and other significant relationships to protect their personal resources in emotional work settings. Moreover, research work has implicated for employers to draw out the various interventions through which personal resources of employees can be enhanced in emotional work settings. Also, the research has assisted in designing the key competencies for different job domains of emotional work setups.Social implicationsThe present study is very substantial in offering various parameters over which wellbeing policies for individuals can be framed. Also, the study has outlined the consequences of receiving different levels of social support which is applicable for that set of population who wants to enhance their personal resources for attaining high wellbeing.Originality/valueThe study has empirically investigated interaction effect of social and personal resources of employees between emotional work and employee wellbeing which is scarce in the literature. Besides, a dark side of social support in emotional work context has also been highlighted which was scarcely discussed in emotional work settings previously.

Depression and anxiety are prevalent in the perinatal period and may contribute to adverse maternal and child health outcomes. A focus on multilevel protective factors may be effective in promoting well-being and increasing quality of life (QOL) in the perinatal period while simultaneously reducing or preventing depression and anxiety symptoms. We tested a conceptual model that posits specific personal, social, and community factors affecting depression, anxiety, and QOL among pregnant and postpartum individuals. Four hundred and thirty-eight pregnant or postpartum individuals completed a 121-item cross-sectional survey composed of validated tools that assessed multilevel protective factors, health behaviors, and mental health outcomes. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was constructed to evaluate a 3-part conceptual model against measured indicators of well-being. A structural equation model (SEM) was then fit to test the pattern of associations between our latent structure and three end points: depression, anxiety, and QOL. The CFA fit the data well (comparative fit index [CFI] = 0.907, Tucker-Lewis index [TLI] = 0.876, root-mean-square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.092) supporting the proposed conceptual approach to measuring well-being. The SEM fit well (CFI = 0.964, TLI = 0.941, RMSEA = 0.059), and all three end points were predicted in the hypothesized direction. Social factors predicted reduced anxiety symptomatology, personal and community resources predicted reduced depressive symptomatology, and social resources predicted increased QOL. In addition, we found that collective community resources were associated with social and personal resources, and social resources directly affected personal resources, showing the benefit of multiple levels. Our findings suggest that both the collection of and interplay between certain personal, social, and community-level resources may prevent and protect against depression and anxiety and promote QOL. Our conceptual model provides a framework to inform future interventions and clinical practice to better assess and promote maternal well-being during the perinatal period.

The objectives of the present study were to (1) evaluate whether social and personal resources were independently related to psychological distress and (2) examine the interrelationships of social and personal resources in women at risk for hereditary breast cancer. General and breast cancer specific distress, family communication regarding hereditary breast cancer, perceived social support, self-esteem, self-concept, and demographics were assessed in 222 high-risk women, having opted either for regular surveillance or prophylactic surgery. Structural equation modeling showed that (1) both personal and social resources were independently associated with psychological distress and (2) the associations between social resources and psychological distress were partially mediated by personal resources. Support from family and friends was associated with a higher level of self-esteem, which in turn was associated with less general distress. Furthermore, communication regarding cancer within the nuclear family was associated with decreased feelings of stigmatization, which in turn was associated with less general and breast cancer specific distress. Moreover, open communication within the family was associated with a reduced sense of vulnerability. Health workers involved in the care of high-risk women should carefully monitor women's personal and social resources, and if compromised refer them for appropriate support.

Cognitive-behavioural (CB) theories that explain Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) have largely focused on the role of maladaptive belief biases as drivers of the individual’s experience of anxiety or distress, pathological avoidance behaviours and compulsions. One potential limitation of current CB models is the limited focus on the extent to which deficits in emotion regulation (ER) may account for a reliance on maladaptive regulatory processes (avoidance and neutralising compulsions), which also serve to maintain OCD symptomatology. Recently, researchers have begun to examine the potential role of ER in adult and paediatric OCD. However, of the limited number of studies completed to date most have utilised community rather than clinical samples and there are even fewer studies involving youth with OCD. Moreover, there are no studies to date examining the role of ER strategies in cognitive-behavioural treatment of paediatric OCD. Accordingly, this thesis aimed to elucidate the role of ER in OCD symptom expression and treatment by using a combination of self- and parent-report measures of ER to examine the relationship between ER, symptoms and associations with treatment response in relatively large, well-defined clinical samples of children and youth with a primary diagnosis of OCD. These studies represent the most comprehensive examination of the role of ER in paediatric OCD to date, and aim to inform current theoretical models of OCD, as well as inform treatment advances. The first study of this PhD explored whether youth with OCD who experience deficits in emotional control (as indexed by parental report on the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function, n = 137) differed in their OCD symptom expression, comorbidity and response to evidence-based treatment, relative to youth with OCD who had greater emotional control (n = 68). The findings indicated that those lower on emotional control (n = 69) had significantly greater OCD severity, famil y accommodation, internalising and externalising symptoms, an d were less likely to respond favourably to treatment. The second study involved a clinical sample of 72 youth (aged 7 to 17 years) with a primary diagnosis of OCD and examined self-reported parent perceptions of child ER and associations with family accommodation (FA), as well as explored potential child and parent variables that predicted negative parental perception of child ER ability. The findings of this study revealed that child externalising symptoms and parental depression uniquely predicted negative parental perception of their child’s ER ability. Furthermore, while negative parental perception of child ER was moderately and positively correlated with FA, it was not found to be a unique predictor of FA after controlling for previously established predictors. The third and final study built on the findings of the first study by examining a wide range of specific adaptive and maladaptive ER strategies among youth with a primary diagnosis of OCD (n = 65, aged 7 to 17 years), both before and after treatment, and the degree to which changes in ER strategies following intensive cognitive-behavioural treatment predicted a treatment response at post-treatment and three months following treatment. The findings of this final study indicated significant improvements in four adaptive and five maladaptive ER strategies. Additionally, pre- to post-treatment increases in Acceptance and decreases in Suppression were significant unique predictors of OCD severity at post-treatment, and increases in Acceptance and decreases in Self-Blame were significant unique predictors of OCD severity 3 months following treatment. Taken together, the findings from the three empirical studies reported herein indicate that deficits in ER form a part of the clinical picture of OCD in youth and may be associated with several clinical correlates known to be associated with a poorer treatment response. For instance, deficits in ER are associated with greater externalising symptoms in youth with OCD, and together with parental self-reported depression may be associated with parents having more negative perceptions of their child’s ability to regulate their emotions. Furthermore, given that Acceptance was found to be a particularly strong predictor of favourable treatment response over time, emphasising Acceptance in evidence-based cognitive-behavioural treatment for OCD or augmenting such treatments with an ER training component may potentially enhance the efficacy of evidence-based treatments and ultimately improve treatment response.

Investigations on emotion regulation strategies (ERS) primarily focus on the influence of instructed emotion regulation (ER) on outcomes. However, recent work has shown that selection of ERS is dependent on, e.g., situational demands and personal resources. In this current investigation, we used an online diary to investigate ERS used by free choice and their association with ER-success, stress and rumination. We identified four factors of ERS: cognitive perspective change, cognitive-behavioral problem-solving, suppression-distraction and body-social ERS. Associations of ERS with stress, state-rumination and ER-success were investigated using multilevel-mixed-models, allowing to separate within- and between-subject effects. Our results show that, on a within-subject level, all adaptive ERS were positively associated with ER-success, while maladaptive ERS as well as higher stress and state rumination were negatively associated with ER-success. On the other hand, only within-subject cognitive ERS were associated with higher self-efficacy. Maladaptive ERS-use was consequently positively associated with stress and state rumination. Surprisingly, only cognitive perspective change ERS were negatively associated with state rumination. Cognitive-behavioral problem-solving was positively associated with stress and success of emotion regulation. We interpret these results in the light of situational constraints of ERS-use and the importance of the assessment of these in future studies.

Depression is associated with social dysfunction and maladaptive social environments, but mechanisms through which social relationships affect depressive psychopathology are unclear. We hypothesized that emotion regulation (ER) is such a mechanism, with outcomes of individuals' ER efforts sensitive to the social context, and individuals' ER strategy repertoire and use sensitive to social influence. In Study 1, a longitudinal study of community adults (N = 1,319), associations of individuals' ER strategies with depressive symptoms depended on social connectedness and romantic relationship status (social context hypothesis). Moreover, associations of social connectedness and relationship status with symptoms were accounted for by maladaptive ER concurrently and, for social connectedness, prospectively over 1 year (social influence hypothesis). Study 2a, using a national sample (N = 772), replicated and extended these findings with a broader array of ER strategies, and ruled out alternative explanations regarding social skills and psychological wellbeing. Among participants in romantic relationships (Study 2b; N = 558), intimacy and trust buffered associations of maladaptive ER strategies with symptoms (context), and maladaptive and adaptive ER mediated links between relationship variables and symptoms (influence). Findings suggest that close relationships-and variation in underlying relational processes within relationships-influence the ER strategies people use, and also affect whether individuals' own ER repertoires contribute to depression when deployed. Results elucidate core social mechanisms of ER in terms of both basic processes and depressive psychopathology, suggest ER is a channel through which social factors affect internal functioning and mental health, and inform relationship pathways for clinical intervention.

Using a stress process theoretical framework, this article examines the relationship between financial debts and the subjective well‐being of young adults and the role of social and personal resources in the mechanism. The analyses include 2348 young adults from the 2017 Transition into Adulthood Supplement study of Panel Study of Income Dynamics, using the structural equation modeling method. We found that when faced with student loans as a stress exposure, young adults' social resources (financial support and social participation) and personal psychological resources (self‐esteem) may act in different ways explaining life satisfaction and subjective well‐being. Having student loans increased the likelihood of receiving financial support from family and social activity participation, while also boosting one's self‐esteem. However, financial support as a social resource was negatively associated with young adults' life satisfaction and subjective well‐being, whereas self‐esteem as a personal resource was positively associated with life satisfaction and subjective well‐being. Our study suggests that exploring the underlying mechanism of the association between debts and subjective well‐being is necessary and crucial because the mediating roles of social and personal resources were important in determining young adults' subjective well‐being. Further research should explore this topic, as recent young adults are more exposed to debt burdens than preceding cohorts.

Everyday and task-based cognition shape emotion regulation effectiveness in Parkinson's disease.

Adolescence, characterized by both remarkable brain plasticity and vulnerability to psychiatric disorders; represents a uniquely propitious time window for targeted early interventions. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) have garnered increasing interest as cost-efficient, non-invasive and non-pharmacological approaches to enhancing mental health. While solid evidence supports the mental health benefits of MBI in adults, results in adolescents remain mixed. In particular, there is contradictory evidence regarding the use of MBI for healthy adolescents, underscoring the need for further research on its underlying mechanisms. One emerging mechanism mediating the beneficial effects of MBI is improved emotion regulation. Indeed, impaired emotion regulation is increasingly recognized as an early and transdiagnostic marker for psychiatric disorders. Therefore, we aimed to examine the impact of MBI on emotion regulation (ER) strategy use in healthy young adolescents. This study is a two-arm, wait-list, randomized controlled trial (RCT) of an 8-week MBI involving 70 adolescents from a non-clinical sample, aged 13 to 15. This study reports secondary outcomes on the impact of the MBI on emotion regulation strategy (ERS) use during a naturalistic task of emotion reactivity and regulation. Post-hoc t-tests on a multilevel logistic regression model (GLMM) revealed a significant decrease in the use of acceptance and problem solving, and a highly significant increase in the use of relaxation in adolescents’ emotion regulation strategies after the MBI, compared to the wait-list controls. Despite the limited sample size, these secondary results of the study point to the effectiveness of MBI in improving emotion regulation strategies in adolescents from the general population, paving the way to future wider-scale research into specific mechanisms of action and into the clinical relevance of MBI in adolescents. Shedding light on these points is pivotal for validating MBI as a potential early intervention aimed at improving mental health and reducing the risk of psychiatric disorders in adolescents.

Emotion regulation and depressive symptoms: Examining the mediation effects of school connectedness in Chinese late adolescents

In line with the contemporary shift towards assessing emotion-based constructs across positive and negative emotions, this study presents an investigation on the clinical relevance of assessing two broadly studied emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, across positive and negative emotions. More specifically, the study aimed (1) to examine psychometric properties of a first Polish version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire - Positive/Negative (ERQ-PN), and (2) to investigate whether, where and why the assessment of emotional valence (positive vs negative) is needed for a more nuanced understanding of two emotion regulation processes. The sample comprised 391 Polish adults aged 18-73, who filled out the ERQ-PN, and a series of short self-report questionnaires on anxiety and depression symptoms, well-being, and emotion regulation difficulties. The Polish ERQ-PN has demonstrated strong psychometric properties, including the intended four-factor structure, which was invariant across females and males. Using a series of various analyses, we have found empirical support for the importance of distinguishing emotional valence in the examined emotion regulation strategies. Among the four strategies, cognitive reappraisal of negative emotions has emerged as the most clinically relevant, showing strong associations with better mental health outcomes. Theoretically, these findings support the process model of emotion regulation, demonstrating that various emotion regulation strategies have specific links with mental health outcomes, with these links being more or less pronounced depending on the emotional valence. Given its strong psychometric properties and high clinical relevance, the ERQ-PN is a good measure of emotion regulation strategies across positive and negative emotions.

Receivers' Perspectives on Workplace Anger

Drawing upon the Conservation of Resources Theory, we investigated the hitherto unexplored role of ‘social resources’ (i.e., trust in supervisor and social interaction) in mediating the relationship between ‘self-regulation of emotions’ (i.e., a personal resource) and work engagement. The data were collected from 296 IT professionals at four well-established IT firms in Ukraine. As we hypothesized, self-regulation of emotions positively affected work engagement, yet this effect partially disappeared when controlling for the role of social resources. Together, these findings illustrate the dynamic role of an individual's personal and social resources in fostering work engagement.

Objectives: This study examined how self-compassion and emotional regulation strategies have influenced perinatal anxiety, depression, and social anxiety during COVID-19. Methods: A probabilistic sample, determined by convenience criteria of 265 Australian perinatal women completed an online survey containing measures of depression, anxiety, social anxiety, COVID-19 experiences, self-compassion, and emotional regulation strategies. Results: As hypothesised, correlation analyses showed that self-compassion and adaptive emotional regulation strategies were negatively related to anxiety, depression and social anxiety, and maladaptive strategies were positively related. Contrary to predictions, COVID-19-related experiences showed little relationship with mental health outcomes. Parallel mediation analyses showed that self-compassion negatively predicted depression and anxiety and was partially mediated by specific emotional regulation strategies. For social anxiety, self-compassion was fully mediated by emotional regulation strategies. Different emotional regulation strategies were significant mediators of the relationship between self-compassion and each mental health outcome. Conclusions: The findings suggest that reinforcing self-compassion and addressing certain emotional regulation deficits is important in alleviating mental health symptoms among perinatal women.

Emotionality and Emotion Regulation as Risk Markers for Social Anxiety: Considering Development, Multiple Dimensions, and Social Threat