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Background: Parental invalidation is central to etiological models of borderline personality disorder (BPD). Previous studies relied on retrospective accounts or laboratory observations to examine these associations. There is a dearth of research assessing these constructs in daily life, and limited studies have tested the effect of parental invalidation on BPD symptoms during early adolescence, when BPD onsets. The current study took a dynamic approach to assess parents' validating and invalidating behavior and its effect on youths' BPD symptom expression in daily life, while accounting for parent‐perceived helpfulness of these behaviors and youth‐perceived support. Methods: A psychiatric sample of 162 early adolescents (age range = 10–14 years; 47% female) and their parent completed a four‐day ecological momentary assessment study. Parents reported on the use of validating and invalidating (e.g. punishing and ignoring) behaviors during parent–child conflict, as well as perceived helpfulness of these behaviors. Youth reported on their BPD symptoms and perceived parental support. Multilevel models were used to test the between‐ and within‐person effects of parents' validating and invalidating behaviors, parent‐perceived helpfulness and youth‐perceived support, and their interaction on youth's momentary expression of BPD symptoms. Results: At the between‐person level, invalidating behaviors, specifically punishing behaviors, were related to greater BPD symptoms in daily life, while ignoring behaviors were associated with fewer BPD symptoms. Youth‐perceived support predicted fewer BPD symptoms. Conclusions: Results underscore the importance of parental invalidation for the expression of BPD symptoms in daily life and also highlight the importance of youth's subjective experience of parental support. Findings are discussed in terms of etiological and intervention models that emphasize a dyadic framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Youths at high risk for depression have been shown to have problems in repairing their own sad mood. Given that sympathetic arousal has been implicated both in the experience and regulation of affect, an atypical pattern of arousal may be one of the factors that contribute to mood repair problems. In the current study, we measured sympathetic arousal of never‐depressed youths at high (n = 56) and low (n = 67) familial risk for depression during sad mood induction and instructed mood repair. Sympathetic arousal was indexed by skin conductance level (SCL) and cardiac pre‐ejection period (PEP); mood repair outcome was indexed by self‐rated affect. High‐risk youths demonstrated increased SCL during sadness induction, which persisted during mood repair; low‐risk youths evidenced increased SCL only during mood repair. Shortened PEP was evident only among high‐risk youths and only during mood repair. Furthermore, shortened PEP during mood induction predicted less successful mood repair in the low‐risk but not in the high‐risk group. The findings suggest that: (a) depression‐prone youths differ from control peers in patterns of sympathetic responses to emotional stimuli, which may impair their ability to relieve sadness, and (b) activation patterns differ across subsystems (SCL vs. PEP) of sympathetic activity, in conjunction with depression risk status. Difficulties in attenuating sadness (i.e., mood repair deficits) appear to be risk factors for depression. It is, therefore, important to understand better how physiological processes facilitate or hinder successful mood repair. In the present study, never‐depressed youths at high familial risk for depression and low‐risk control youths differed in sympathetic activation during sadness processing; sympathetic activation may, therefore, play a role in mood repair deficits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The current study seeks to investigate the mechanisms through which mindfulness is related to mental health in a clinical sample of adults by examining (1) whether specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies (rumination, reappraisal, worry, and nonacceptance) mediate associations between mindfulness and depression and anxiety, respectively, and (2) whether these emotion regulation strategies operate uniquely or transdiagnostically in relation to depression and anxiety. Methods Participants were 187 adults seeking treatment at a mood and anxiety disorders clinic in Connecticut. Participants completed a battery of self-report measures that included assessments of depression and anxiety (Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire), and emotion regulation (Ruminative Response Scale, Penn State Worry Questionnaire, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale). Results Simple mediation analyses indicated that rumination and worry significantly mediated associations between mindfulness and anxiety symptoms, whereas rumination and reappraisal significantly mediated associations between mindfulness and depressive symptoms. Multiple mediation analyses showed that worry significantly mediated associations between mindfulness and anxiety symptoms and rumination and reappraisal significantly mediated associations between mindfulness and depressive symptoms. Conclusions Findings suggest that mindfulness operates through distinct and common mechanisms depending on clinical context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cortisol stress response has been related to perceived social support, but previous studies rely on self‐reported social support variables. The cortisol recovery phase in particular has been theorized to serve a social coping function, but individual differences in recovery slope have not yet been examined in relation to social coping‐relevant indices. This study addressed these gaps by examining the relationship of cortisol trajectories after a socioevaluative task to individual differences in covertly assessed cognitions related to close social relationships. We examined trajectories of cortisol change related to socially oriented thinking, the semi‐implicit activation of cognitive representations of friends or family. Young adults (N = 64) gave salivary cortisol samples before and for 45 min after a speech task. Participants' thoughts were sampled repeatedly; the frequency of words related to friends or family was assessed to index socially oriented thinking. A free curve slope intercept latent growth curve model showed excellent fit with the cortisol data. Socially oriented thinking was unrelated to overall magnitude of cortisol response to the task (latent intercept) but predicted the latent cortisol trajectory, independently of cortisol intercept and baseline cortisol levels. Socially oriented thinkers showed more gradual cortisol declines, whereas nonsocially oriented thinkers showed a steeper downslope driven primarily by cortisol changes 45 min after the task. Individual differences in socially oriented thinking may manifest in different rates of biological changes following a performance task. This is the first study to demonstrate that trajectories of decline following a socio‐evaluative task vary as a function of semi‐implicit, unobtrusively measured cognitions related to friends and family. This effect was small in size but robust against covariates, with excellent model fit. The study demonstrates the utility of translating an advanced statistical approach from developmental psychology literature for clarifying sources of variance in changes in cortisol over time and relating these variances to psychosocial constructs. Findings complement existing speculations on the social coping function of cortisol recovery and may shed light on biological embedding of perceived social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]