Positive Emotional Processing Research Articles

The effects of prefrontal tDCS and hf-tRNS on the processing of positive and negative emotions evoked by video clips in first- and third-person

The causal role of the cerebral hemispheres in positive and negative emotion processing remains uncertain. The Right Hemisphere Hypothesis proposes right hemispheric superiority for all emotions, while the Valence Hypothesis suggests the left/right hemisphere's primary involvement in positive/negative emotions, respectively. To address this, emotional video clips were presented during dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) electrical stimulation, incorporating a comparison of tDCS and high frequency tRNS stimulation techniques and manipulating perspective-taking (first-person vs third-person Point of View, POV). Four stimulation conditions were applied while participants were asked to rate emotional video valence: anodal/cathodal tDCS to the left/right DLPFC, reverse configuration (anodal/cathodal on the right/left DLPFC), bilateral hf-tRNS, and sham (control condition). Results revealed significant interactions between stimulation setup, emotional valence, and POV, implicating the DLPFC in emotions and perspective-taking. The right hemisphere played a crucial role in both positive and negative valence, supporting the Right Hemisphere Hypothesis. However, the complex interactions between the brain hemispheres and valence also supported the Valence Hypothesis. Both stimulation techniques (tDCS and tRNS) significantly modulated results. These findings support both hypotheses regarding hemispheric involvement in emotions, underscore the utility of video stimuli, and emphasize the importance of perspective-taking in this field, which is often overlooked.

Networking trait resilience: Unifying fragmented trait resilience systems from an ecological systems theory perspective.

This study reconceptualized trait resilience, defining it as a network of systems; utilizing direct resilience assessments-engineering, ecological, adaptive capacity, social cohesion-and proxy resilience assessments-personality, cognitive, emotional, eudaimonia, and health. The background of the study addresses the fragmented conceptualization of trait resilience by proposing a unifying network model based on ecological systems theory, illustrating the dynamic interplay of resilience factors across varying levels of disturbance. In Study One, four USA or UK samples (total n = 2396) were used to depict the trait resilience network. Study Two (n = 1091) examined the relationship between the network and disturbance at two time-points, using mental health levels as a disturbance metric. Study One found that adaptive capacity, and sometimes positive emotional processes, were central variables to the network. Study Two found that in lower disturbance groups, adaptive capacity remained important, while in higher disturbance groups, a broader set of variables became central to the network. Study One suggests a Broaden-and-Build approach, where adaptive capacity is a foundational resilience capability, reciprocally associated with positive emotional mechanisms. Study Two suggests a new "Dynamic Resilience Spectrum Theory," proposing that increased disturbances necessitate the use of a more diverse set of resilience traits.

Sex differences in alcohol's effects on fronto-amygdalar functional connectivity during processing of emotional stimuli.

Amygdala function underlying emotion processing has been shown to vary with an individuals' biological sex. Expanding upon functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) findings reported previously where a low level of response was the focus, we examined alcohol and sex effects on functional connectivity between the amygdala and other brain regions. The central hypothesis predicted that sex would influence alcohol's effects on frontal-limbic functional circuits underlying the processing of negative and positive facial emotions. Secondary analyses were conducted on data from a double-blind, placebo controlled, within-subjects, cross-over study in 54 sex-matched pairs (N = 108) of 18- to 25-year-old individuals without an alcohol use disorder at baseline. Participants performed an emotional faces fMRI processing task after placebo or approximately 0.7 mL/kg of ethanol. Psychophysiological interaction analyses examined functional connectivity between the amygdala with other brain regions. There were significant alcohol-by-sex interactions when processing negatively valenced faces. Whereas intoxicated men exhibited decreased functional connectivity between the amygdala and ventral and dorsal anterior cingulate, angular gyrus, and middle frontal gyrus connectivity was increased in intoxicated women. There was also a main sex effect where women exhibited less functional connectivity in the middle insula than men regardless of whether they received alcohol or placebo. For happy faces, main effects of both sex and alcohol were observed. Women exhibited less amygdala functional connectivity in the right inferior frontal gyrus than men. Both men and women exhibited greater functional connectivity in the superior frontal gyrus in response to alcohol than placebo. Alcohol's effects on amygdala functional circuits that underlying emotional processing vary by sex. Women had higher functional connectivity than men following exposure to a moderate dose of alcohol which could indicate that women arebetter than men at processing affectively laden stimuli when intoxicated.

Does Organizational Messaging Make a Difference? Investigating Themes and Language Style in Twitter Discourse and Engagement by Mental Health Organizations

The present study investigated the latent topics and language styles present in mental health organizational discourse on Twitter. The researchers sought to analyze identifying the prevalence of and language used in social support messaging in tweets about mental health care, the overarching topics regarding mental health care, and predicted that tweets with higher engagement will have increased frequency of words with positively valenced emotion and cognitive processing. A GSDMM was run to uncover latent themes that emerged in a data set of 326.9k tweets and 7.2 m words about organizational discussions of mental health. A generalized linear model using the Poisson distribution was used to assess the role of engagement, positive emotion, and cognitive processing. The study found support for both positive emotion and cognitive processing as statistically significant predictors of engagement. Directions for research include the development of health message strategies, policy needs, and online interventions.

How do bipolar disease states affect positive and negative emotion processing? Insights from a meta-analysis on the neural fingerprints of emotional processing.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies on emotion processing in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) show hyperactivity of limbic-striatal brain areas and hypoactivity in inferior frontal areas compared to healthy participants. However, heterogeneous results in patients with different disease states and different valences of emotional stimuli have been identified. To integrate previous results and elucidate the impact of disease state and stimulus valence, we conducted a systematic literature search for journal articles in the Web of Science Core Collection including MEDLINE databases and employed a coordinate-based-meta-analysis of functional-MRI studies comparing emotion processing in BD-patients with healthy participantsusing seed-based d mapping (SDM) to test for between-subjects-effects. We included 31 studies published before 11/2022 with a total of N = 766 BD-patients and N = 836 controls. Patients with BD showed hyperactivated regions involved in salience processing of emotional stimuli (e.g., the bilateral insula) and hypoactivation of regions associated with emotion regulation (e.g., inferior frontal gyrus) during emotion processing, compared to healthy participants. A more detailed descriptive analysis revealed a hypoactive (anterior) insula in manic BD-patients specifically for negative in comparison to positive emotion processing. This meta-analysis corroborates the overall tenor of existing literature that patients with BD show an increased emotional reactivity (hyperactivity of salience-processing regions) together with a lower (cognitive) control (hypoactivity of brain areas associated with emotion regulation) over emotional states. Our analysis suggests reduced interoceptive processing of negative stimuli in mania, pointing out the need for longitudinal within-subject analyses of emotion processing.

Neural Predictors of Improvement With Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adolescents With Depression: An Examination of Reward Responsiveness and Emotion Regulation.

Earlier depression onsets are associated with more debilitating courses and poorer life quality, highlighting the importance of effective early intervention. Many youths fail to improve with evidence-based treatments for depression, likely due in part to heterogeneity within the disorder. Multi-method assessment of individual differences in positive and negative emotion processing could improve predictions of treatment outcomes. The current study examined self-report and neurophysiological measures of reward responsiveness and emotion regulation as predictors of response to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Adolescents (14-18years) with depression (N = 70) completed monetary reward and emotion regulation tasks while electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded, and self-report measures of reward responsiveness, emotion regulation, and depressive symptoms at intake. Adolescents then completed a 16-session group CBT program, with depressive symptoms and clinician-rated improvement assessed across treatment. Lower reward positivity amplitudes, reflecting reduced neural reward responsiveness, predicted lower depressive symptoms with treatment. Larger late positive potential residuals during reappraisal, potentially reflecting difficulty with emotion regulation, predicted greater clinician-rated improvement. Self-report measures were not significant predictors. Results support the clinical utility of EEG measures, with impairments in positive and negative emotion processing predicting greater change with interventions that target these processes.

The positive and negative emotion functions related to loneliness: a systematic review of behavioural and neuroimaging studies.

Loneliness is associated with high prevalences of major psychiatric illnesses such as major depression. However, the underlying emotional mechanisms of loneliness remained unclear. We hypothesized that loneliness originates from both decreases in positive emotional processing and increases in negative emotion processing. To test this, we conducted a systematic review of 29 previous studies (total participants n=19 560, mean age=37.16 years, female proportion=59.7%), including 18 studies that included questionnaire measures of emotions only, and 11 studies that examined the brain correlates of emotions. The main findings were that loneliness was negatively correlated with general positive emotions and positively correlated with general negative emotions. Furthermore, limited evidence indicates loneliness exhibited negative and positive correlations with the brain positive (e.g. the striatum) and negative (e.g. insula) emotion systems, respectively, but the sign of correlation was not entirely consistent. Additionally, loneliness was associated with the structure and function of the brain emotion regulation systems, particularly the prefrontal cortex, but the direction of this relationship remained ambiguous. We concluded that the existing evidence supported a bivalence model of loneliness, but several critical gaps existed that could be addressed by future studies that include adolescent and middle-aged samples, use both questionnaire and task measures of emotions, distinguish between general emotion and social emotion as well as between positive and negative emotion regulation, and adopt a longitudinal design that allows us to ascertain the causal relationships between loneliness and emotion dysfunction. Our findings provide new insights into the underlying emotion mechanisms of loneliness that can inform interventions for lonely individuals.

The mediating effect of cognitive and emotional processing on PTSD and depression symptoms reduction in women victims of IPV.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious social, physical and mental health issue. Women victims of IPV can develop short- and long-term consequences such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Where trauma has been incurred, standard psychotherapies may usefully be complemented by interventions based on expressive writing (EW). Numerous studies have explored the mechanisms underpinning improvement after writing, focusing on the cognitive and emotional processing of traumatic experiences. The aims of this study were to evaluate changes in PTSD and depression symptoms following EW and to examine the mediating effect of emotional and cognitive processing on symptom reduction in subjects who engaged in EW. Seventy-seven abused women (mean age = 41.43, SD = 10.75) were randomly assigned to a three-session expressive writing condition (n = 43) or a neutral writing condition (n = 34). Psychological distress (PTSD and depression) was assessed both before and after the writing sessions. Linguistic inquiry word count software was used to analyze the women's narratives in relation to emotional processing (positive and negative emotions) and cognitive processing (insight and causal attributions). The mediation model indicated that the reduction in depression was fully mediated by negative emotion processing and partially mediated by cognitive processing, while the reduction in PTSD was partially mediated by negative emotion processing and fully mediated by cognitive processing. No effect of positive emotion processing was found. The clinical implications are discussed.

Arousal-driven interactions between reward motivation and categorization of emotional facial expressions.

Reward motivation and emotion share common dimensions of valence and arousal, but the nature of interactions between the two constructs is relatively unclear. On the one hand, based on the common valence dimension, valence-compatible interactions are expected where reward motivation would facilitate the processing of compatible (i.e., positive) emotion and hamper the processing of incompatible (i.e., negative) emotion. On the other hand, one could hypothesize valence-general interactions driven by the arousal dimension, where the processing of both positive and negative emotions would be facilitated under reward motivation. Currently, the evidence for valence-compatible vs. valence-general type interactions between reward motivation and goal-relevant emotion is relatively mixed. Moreover, as most of the previous work focused primarily on appetitive motivation, the influence of aversive motivation on goal-relevant emotion is largely unexplored. To address these important gaps, in the present study, we investigated the interactions between motivation and categorization of facial emotional expressions by manipulating the valence dimension of motivation (appetitive and aversive motivation levels) together with that of emotion (positive and negative valence stimuli). Specifically, we conducted two behavioral experiments to separately probe the influence of appetitive and aversive motivation (manipulated via an advance cue signaling the prospect of monetary gains in Experiment 1 and losses in Experiment 2, respectively) on the categorization of happy, fearful, and neutral faces. We tested the two competing hypotheses regarding the interactions between appetitive/aversive motivation and emotional face categorization: Valence-compatible vs. Valence-general. We found evidence consistent with valence-general interactions where both appetitive and aversive motivation facilitated the categorization of happy and fearful faces relative to the neutral ones. Our findings demonstrate that interactions between reward motivation and categorization of emotional faces are driven by the arousal dimension, not by valence.

The relationship between self, value-based reward, and emotion prioritisation effects.

People show systematic biases in perception, memory, attention, and decision-making to prioritise information related to self, reward, and positive emotion. A long-standing set of experimental findings points towards putative common properties of these effects. However, the relationship between them remains largely unknown. Here, we addressed this question by assessing and linking these prioritisation effects generated by a common associative matching procedure in three experiments. Self, reward, and positive emotion prioritisation effects were assessed using cluster and shift function analyses to explore and test associations between these effects across individuals. Cluster analysis revealed two distinct patterns of the relationship between the biases. Individuals with faster responses showed a smaller reward and linear positive association between reward and emotion biases. Individuals with slower responses demonstrated a large reward and no association between reward and emotion biases. No evidence of the relationship between self and value-based reward or positive emotion prioritisation effects was found among the clusters. A shift function indicated a partial dominance of high-reward over low-reward distributions at later processing stages in participants with slower but not faster responses. Full stochastic dominance of self-relevance over others and positive over neutral emotion was pertinent to each subgroup of participants. Our findings suggest the independent origin of the self-prioritisation effect. In contrast, commonalities in cognitive mechanisms supporting value-based reward and positive emotion processing are subject to individual differences. These findings add important evidence to a steadily growing research base about the relationship between basic behavioural drivers.

Effect of automatic emotional processing on response inhibition among heroin abstainers.

Previous studies have explored effects of the conscious processing of emotional information on the interaction between emotion and executive control. However, the conscious processing of emotional information introduces "defensive responses," which might limit the emotional effect. To avoid the limitations, this study aimed to explore the effect of automatic emotional processing on response inhibition among heroin abstainers. Individuals experiencing heroin withdrawal symptoms are not entirely exempt from the influence of drugs, and it is challenging to find heroin addicts in practice. Therefore, similar to previous studies, we recruited heroin abstainers in this study. In Experiment 1, for the heroin abstainers group, 30 participants meeting the inclusion criteria were recruited from a compulsory isolated detoxification center, whereas 30 age- and education-matched participants were recruited from the community as the control group. These participants completed the Go/No-Go task by supraliminal emotional priming. In Experiment 2, the heroin abstainers group comprised 33 eligible participants and control group comprised 33 eligible participants. These participants completed the Go/No-Go task by subliminal emotional priming. We compared the participants' rates of commission errors in the Go/No-Go tasks. The rate of commission errors was lowest upon the activation of positive emotion. Moreover, under subliminal emotional priming, the rate of commission errors for the heroin abstainers group was significantly lower than that for the control group. However, regarding supraliminal emotional priming, there was no significant difference between the rates of commission errors for the two groups. These results suggest automatic positive emotional processing can enhance response inhibition among heroin abstainers. Moreover, under subliminal emotional priming, heroin abstainers had more enhanced response inhibition than the control groups. This study plays a significant role in understanding the effect of automatic emotional processing on response inhibition among drug addicts. This study also provides a theoretical basis for ensuring enhanced response inhibition among drug addicts.

Neural Connectivity Underlying Reward and Emotion-Related Processing: Evidence From a Large-Scale Network Analysis.

Neuroimaging techniques have advanced our knowledge about neurobiological mechanisms of reward and emotion processing. It remains unclear whether reward and emotion-related processing share the same neural connection topology and how intrinsic brain functional connectivity organization changes to support emotion- and reward-related prioritized effects in decision-making. The present study addressed these challenges using a large-scale neural network analysis approach. We applied this approach to two independent functional magnetic resonance imaging datasets, where participants performed a reward value or emotion associative matching task with tight control over experimental conditions. The results revealed that interaction between the Default Mode Network, Frontoparietal, Dorsal Attention, and Salience networks engaged distinct topological structures to support the effects of reward, positive and negative emotion processing. Detailed insights into the properties of these connections are important for understanding in detail how the brain responds in the presence of emotion and reward related stimuli. We discuss the linking of reward- and emotion-related processing to emotional regulation, an important aspect of regulation of human behavior in relation to mental health.

Strength-based parenting and stress-related growth in adolescents: Exploring the role of positive reappraisal, school belonging, and emotional processing during the pandemic.

IntroductionCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) has changed the way families live, interact, and connect with others, resulting in higher levels of stress for many teenagers who struggle with the ongoing uncertainty and disrupted school and family life. The current study examined the psychosocial factors that influence the capacity of adolescents to grow through the stress of the COVID‐19 pandemic.MethodsThe sample included 404 secondary school students ranging in age from 11 to 18 (M = 14.75, SD = 1.59; 50.2% female, 46.8% male, and 3% non‐/other gendered or declined to answer) from an independent high school in Australia. Data were collected from a battery of questionnaires that assessed strength‐based parenting (SBP) and the effect of three psychosocial factors (positive reappraisal, emotional processing, and school belonging) on stress‐related growth.ResultsStructural equation modeling showed that (SBP) was significantly associated with stress‐related growth (SRG). Positive reappraisal and emotional processing were also positively and significantly associated with SRG and mediated the effect of SBP on SRG. Moreover, school belonging was positively linked to positive coping, emotional processing, and SRG, as well as mediating the association of SBP with positive reappraisal, emotional processing, and SRG in adolescents during the pandemic.ConclusionsThe results show that teenagers can experience SRG during the COVID‐19 pandemic, and adolescents adapting by engaging in constructive coping responses such as positive reappraisal and emotional processing is positively related to SRG.

Cross-cultural differences in the processing of social and non-social positive emotions: An ERP study

Cross-cultural differences in the processing of social and non-social positive emotions: An ERP study

Beier Sentence Completion Test Profiles of Adolescents and Emerging Adults With Internalizing and Externalizing Disorders

Background: Understanding adolescents' and emerging adults' psychiatric complaints and their relations with psychiatric disorders can be challenging. Beier Sentence Completion Test (BSCT), as a projective test, can be promising in this respect. However, relations between BSCT profiles and adolescent psychopathology are not well known. Aim: This study aimed to examine and compare BSCT profiles of adolescents and emerging adults with internalizing and externalizing disorders. As well as that, the relation of BSCT profiles with depression and anxiety scores was investigated. Objective: To achieve this aim, we retrospectively collected the hospital records of 300 adolescents and emerging adults (aged. 14-21) admitted to an Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Unit. Method: The psychiatric diagnosis of the patients was classified as Internalizing (n = 100) and Externalizing (n = 100) disorder groups; the control group (n = 100) consisted of adolescents and young adults without any psychiatric diagnosis. BSCT, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) were administered on the first admission to all cases before psychiatric evaluation and treatment. BSCT total subfactor (positive, negative, neutral, and non-response) statement scores were compared between groups, and their correlations with BDI and BAI were investigated. Besides, multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted for estimating any diagnostic group differences, as well as bivariate logistic regression analyses for estimating BDI and BAI cutoff scores with models that included BSCT total subfactor statement scores. Results: It was revealed that lower positive and non-response statements were crucial for distinguishing externalizing and internalizing disorders and that positive and negative statements were correlated with depression and anxiety scores.In the multivariate regression model, these correlations were predictive only for the relationship between internalizing disorders group and low positive statement scores, not higher negative statement scores that can be associated with lack of positive emotional processing in this group. Also, nonresponse statement scores were found to be predictive for externalizing disorder groups. Similarly, BDI cut-off scores were predicted with low positive statement scores. Conclusion: BSCT profiles can be promising for understanding adolescents and emerging adults with internalizing and externalizing disorders. Lack of positive attributions to the self and other domains of life can be important for differentiating adolescent psychopathology.

Pilot Randomized Trial of an Expressive Writing Intervention to Reduce Sexual HIV-Transmission Risk and Substance Use Among Emerging Adult Gay and Bisexual Men.

This pilot randomized controlled trial evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of expressive writing to reduce HIV-related sexual risk taking and symptoms of drug dependence among emerging adult gay and bisexual men (EAGBM) through linguistic mechanisms involving use of words associated with cognitive processing (e.g., think, cause), positive emotion (e.g., love, nice), and negative emotion (e.g., hurt, shame). Between 2014 and 2015, EAGBM (n = 78; aged 18-29) completed a baseline survey and were randomized to complete three 15-min expressive writing or equivalent control-group writing sessions and follow-up assessments 2 months post-baseline. EAGBM in the expressive writing condition utilized significantly more positive emotion, negative emotion, and cognitive processing words. Path model results indicated the intervention condition resulted in significant reductions in symptoms of drug dependence and frequency of condomless anal sex (CAS) through paths mediated by positive emotion words, and significant increases in CAS through a path mediated by negative emotion words.

Associations between mental wellbeing and fMRI neural bases underlying responses to positive emotion in a twin sample.

Although mental wellbeing has been linked with positive health outcomes, including longevity and improved emotional and cognitive functioning, studies examining the underlying neural mechanisms of both subjective and psychological wellbeing have been sparse. We assessed whether both forms of wellbeing are associated with neural activity engaged during positive and negative emotion processing and the extent to which this association is driven by genetics or environment. We assessed mental wellbeing in 230 healthy adult monozygotic and dizygotic twins using a previously validated questionnaire (COMPAS-W) and undertook functional magnetic resonance imaging during a facial emotion viewing task. We used linear mixed models to analyse the association between COMPAS-W scores and emotion-elicited neural activation. Univariate twin modelling was used to evaluate heritability of each brain region. Multivariate twin modelling was used to compare twin pairs to assess the contributions of genetic and environmental factors to this association. Higher levels of wellbeing were associated with greater neural activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, localised in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), in response to positive emotional expressions of happiness. Univariate twin modelling showed activity in the IFG to have 20% heritability. Multivariate twin modelling suggested that the association between wellbeing and positive emotion-elicited neural activity was driven by common variance from unique environment (r = 0.208) rather than shared genetics. Higher mental wellbeing may have a basis in greater engagement of prefrontal neural regions in response to positive emotion, and this association may be modifiable by unique life experiences.

Dynamic negativity effects in emotional responding: Onsets, peaks, and influences from repetition.

Emotional responses to aversive stimuli may be more mandatory than emotional responses to appetitive stimuli, and extant theorizing suggests that negative reactions may be more peaked at maximum intensity. Parameters of this type were investigated within two experiments (total N = 198) in which emotional images were presented and re-presented as participants indicated their moment-to-moment feeling changes in response to both appetitive and aversive images. Negative emotional reactions were more detectable, with more definitive onsets and peaks, and peak amplitudes were systematically higher in the context of aversive stimuli. Furthermore, stimulus repetition enhanced negative emotional responding in terms of both faster onset times and more pronounced peak amplitudes. Although behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition motivation modulated the emotional onset and peak reactivity metrics, such individual differences did not interact with the repetition effects that were observed. These results highlight several dynamic negativity effects that distinguish positive versus negative emotional reactivity processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Weighted RSA: An Improved Framework on the Perception of Audio-visual Affective Speech in Left Insula and Superior Temporal Gyrus

Being able to accurately perceive the emotion expressed by the facial or verbal expression from others is critical to successful social interaction. However, only few studies examined the multimodal interactions on speech emotion, and there is no consistence in studies on the speech emotion perception. It remains unclear, how the speech emotion of different valence is perceived on the multimodal stimuli by our human brain. In this paper, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study with an event-related design, using dynamic facial expressions and emotional speech stimuli to express different emotions, in order to explore the perception mechanism of speech emotion in audio-visual modality. The representational similarity analysis (RSA), whole-brain searchlight analysis, and conjunction analysis of emotion were used to interpret the representation of speech emotion in different aspects. Significantly, a weighted RSA approach was creatively proposed to evaluate the contribution of each candidate model to the best fitted model and provided a supplement to RSA. The results of weighted RSA indicated that the fitted models were superior to all candidate models and the weights could be used to explain the representation of ROIs. The bilateral amygdala has been shown to be associated with the processing of both positive and negative emotions except neutral emotion. It is indicated that the left posterior insula and the left anterior superior temporal gyrus (STG) play important roles in the perception of multimodal speech emotion.

Stress-Related Growth in Adolescents Returning to School After COVID-19 School Closure.

The move to remote learning during COVID-19 has impacted billions of students. While research shows that school closure, and the pandemic more generally, has led to student distress, the possibility that these disruptions can also prompt growth in is a worthwhile question to investigate. The current study examined stress-related growth (SRG) in a sample of students returning to campus after a period of COVID-19 remote learning (n = 404, age = 13–18). The degree to which well-being skills were taught at school (i.e., positive education) before the COVID-19 outbreak and student levels of SRG upon returning to campus was tested via structural equation modeling. Positive reappraisal, emotional processing, and strengths use in students were examined as mediators. The model provided a good fit [χ2 = 5.37, df = 3, p = 0.146, RMSEA = 0.044 (90% CI = 0.00–0.10), SRMR = 0.012, CFI = 99, TLI = 0.99] with 56% of the variance in SRG explained. Positive education explained 15% of the variance in cognitive reappraisal, 7% in emotional processing, and 16% in student strengths use during remote learning. The results are discussed using a positive education paradigm with implications for teaching well-being skills at school to foster growth through adversity and assist in times of crisis.