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Background: Single-session interventions (SSIs) show promise in the prevention and treatment of youth psychopathology, carrying potential to improve the scalability and accessibility of youth psychological services. However, existing SSIs have conferred greater benefits for youths with anxiety, compared to depression or comorbid problems, and their effects have generally waned over time - particularly for follow-ups exceeding 3 months., Method: To help address these discrepancies, we tested whether a novel SSI teaching growth mindset of personality (the belief that personality is malleable) could reduce depression and anxiety and strengthen perceived control in high-risk adolescents (N = 96, ages 12-15). At baseline, youths were randomized to receive a 30-min, computer-guided growth mindset intervention or a supportive-therapy control. Youths and parents reported youth anxiety and depressive symptoms, and youths reported their levels of perceived control, at baseline and across a 9-month follow-up period., Results: Compared to the control program, the mindset intervention led to significantly greater improvements in parent-reported youth depression (d = .60) and anxiety (d = .28), youth-reported youth depression (d = .32), and youth-reported perceived behavioral control (d = .29) by 9-month follow-up. Intervention effects were nonsignificant for youth-reported anxiety, although 9-month effect sizes reached the small-to-medium range (d = .33). Intervention group youths also experienced more rapid improvements in parent-reported depression, youth-reported depression, and perceived behavioral control across the follow-up period, compared to control group youths., Conclusions: Findings suggest a promising, scalable SSI for reducing internalizing distress in high-risk adolescents., Clinical Trial Registration Number: NCT03132298., (© 2017 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

The authors examined the specificity of the relation between 3 types of control-related beliefs and internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in a sample of 290 clinic-referred children aged 7 to 17 years. Self-reported beliefs about control (the capacity to cause an intended outcome), contingency (the degree to which a desired outcome can be controlled by a relevant behavior), and competence (an individual's ability to produce the relevant behavior) across 3 domains (academic, behavioral, and social) showed more specific relations with psychopathology than have been previously reported. Among children with externalizing psychopathology, internalizing psychopathology may be specifically associated with increased self-critical awareness about their conduct; externalizing psychopathology may attenuate the specific negative relation between internalizing psychopathology and control-related beliefs in the social domain.

The contingency-competence-control (CCC) model links contingency and competence beliefs to perceived control and, in turn, to depression. However, a developmental perspective suggests that noncontingency may be too abstract a concept to be directly tied to depression before adolescence. We tested the CCC model and this developmental notion, using structural equation modeling, with 360 clinic-referred 8- to 17-year-olds. The CCC model fit the data well for the full sample accounting for 46% of the variance in depression. Separate analyses by age group placed perceived contingency in the best-fit model for adolescents (ages 12-17 years) but not for children (8-11 years). This suggests that abstract cause-effect concepts may have more direct affective impact after the cognitive changes of adolescence (e.g., formal operations) than before. Finally, the CCC model accounted for much more variance in depression than conduct problems, suggesting diagnostic specificity.

Do cultural values and traditions influence the development of coping styles ? To address this question, we compared self-reports of coping by 6-14-year-olds in Thailand and the U.S. One hundred and forty-one children were interviewed about six common stressors: separation from a friend, injection in a doctor's office, adult anger, peer animosity, school failure, and physical injury. Children's self-reported coping methods were coded as overt or covert. Coping goals were coded as reflecting primary control (attempts to influence objective conditions), secondary control (attempts to adjust oneself to objective conditions), or relinquished control. Although findings revealed numerous cross-national similarities, there were also multiple main and interaction effects involving culture, suggesting that sociocultural context may be critical to our understanding of child coping. Consistent with literature on Thai culture, Thai children reported more than twice as much covert coping as American children for stressors involving adult authority figures (i.e. adult anger, injection in doctor's office). Thai children also reported more secondary control goals than Americans when coping with separation, but American children were five times as likely as Thais to adopt secondary control goals for coping with injury. The findings support a model of coping development in which culture and stressor characteristics interact, with societal differences most likely to be found in situations where culture-specific norms become salient.

Research on children's coping with homesickness during relatively uncontrollable separations has suggested that secondary control coping (i.e., adjusting oneself to fit objective conditions) is often preferred over primary control coping (i.e., modifying objective conditions to fit oneself). Related research suggests that negative affect is associated with (a) relinquishing control or using primary control to cope with uncontrollable stressors and (b) perceiving low control over stressors. The convergence of these factors was examined for the stressor of homesickness. Among 1,032 boys and girls spending 2 weeks at residential summer camps, the most frequent and effective way of coping with homesickness was to exert secondary control by engaging in a distracting physical activity. Contrary to speculation, the use of secondary control coping rose in adolescence. Congruent with empirical predictions, the most homesick children perceived low control over homesickness and separation, and coped by relinquishing control.

Literature on neuroendocrine-behavior relations suggests that cortisol reactivity to social challenge may be associated with children's internalizing problem behavior. To explore this possibility, and the role of control-related beliefs, we studied 102 7-17-year-old clinic-referred children. Measures of problem behavior, depression and anxiety, and control-related beliefs were collected, and Ss' saliva was sampled before and after a parent-child conflict task. Neuroendocrine activation (i.e., cortisol increase) in response to the interaction task was associated with Ss' (a) social withdrawal, social anxiety, and social problems; (b) socially inhibited behavior during the task; and (c) low levels of perceived social contingency and high levels of external attributions for personal successes and failures. Our findings are among the first to link children's behavioral response to social challenge, neuroendocrine activation, cognitions, and psychopathology.

The literature suggests that optimal adjustment to relatively uncontrollable stressors may require adjusting oneself to the stressors rather than trying to alter them. This possibility was explored, for low-controllability stressors (e.g., painful medical procedures) associated with leukemia. Children's reports of coping strategies and goals were classified as primary control coping (attempts to alter objective conditions), secondary control coping (attempts to adjust oneself to objective conditions), or relinquished control (no attempt to cope). Secondary control coping was positively associated with (a) general behavioral adjustment assessed by the Child Behavior Checklist and (b) illness-specific adjustment assessed by children's own distress ratings and by behavioral observations during painful procedures. All significant group differences showed better adjustment among secondary control children than among the primary or relinquished groups.

Research thus far links depressive symptoms in children to one type of control-related belief: low levels of perceived personal competence. However, child research, unlike adult research, has not supported a linkage between depressive symptoms and another theoretically important control-related belief: perceived noncontingency of outcomes. Here we reexamined the issue, adjusting for limitations in previous methodology by using (a) psychometrically stronger measures of control beliefs, and (b) a general population sample rather than children being treated in mental health clinics. In contrast to previous results, we found that both perceived incompetence and perceived noncontingency were strongly related to children's depression, together accounting for 40% of the variance in Child Depression Inventory scores. We also found, as in previous research, that depressive symptoms were correlated with uncertainty as to the causes of outcomes, especially successes. The findings suggest that children may be susceptible to both "personal helplessness" and "universal helplessness" forms of depression.

In a study of adult attitudes, urban and rural parents and teachers in Thailand and the U.S. made judgments about two children, one with overcontrolled problems (e.g. shyness, fear), one with undercontrolled problems (e.g. disobedience, fighting). Consistent with previous literature, Thais (vs Americans) rated problems of both types less serious, less worrisome, less likely to reflect personality traits, and more likely to improve with time. Urban-rural differences and parent-teacher differences had negligible impact. The findings suggest that certain cultural differences in adult attitudes toward child problems may be robust across parents and teachers and across urban and rural settings.

In previous studies, children with numerous depressive symptoms have shown two patterns of control-related cognition: (1) low levels of perceived personal competence, and (2) "contingency uncertainty"--confusion regarding the causes of significant events. The generality of these findings was tested for more seriously disturbed children. Three child inpatient samples, from separate psychiatric hospitals, completed the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) plus measures of control-related beliefs. In all three samples, the findings resembled those of previous studies: CDI scores were significantly related to low perceived competence and to contingency uncertainty; by contrast, CDI scores were only weakly related to perceived noncontingency. The findings suggest that depressive symptoms in children may be (1) more closely linked to "personal helplessness" than to "universal helplessness," and (2) more closely linked to uncertainty about the causes of events than to firm beliefs in noncontingency. The findings carry implications for etiology and treatment of child depression.

Factor analyses of child behavior problems have often yielded two broad-band syndromes, Overcontrolled (e.g., worrying, fearfulness, withdrawal) and Undercontrolled (e.g., restlessness, fighting, disobedience). We explored whether these two broad-band syndromes might be identified for youngsters in Jamaica. We obtained teacher reports for 320 clinic-referred Jamaican youngsters on a 24-item problem checklist designed by Jamaican clinicians for the assessment of child behavior problems and subjected these to principal components analyses. Regardless of whether the sample was split according to age or sex, the analyses revealed factors similar to the Over- and Undercontrolled syndromes most often found in other cultures. The analyses also revealed school absence factors in each age and sex group; school avoidance was correlated with crying in children (aged 6-11) but with conduct problems in adolescents (aged 12-17). The findings suggest important similarities and possible differences between the factor structures of child behavior problems in Jamaica and the United States.

Child behavior problems and corresponding clinic referral patterns may be significantly influenced by cultural factors. Prevailing values and childrearing practices within a culture may discourage development of some child problems while fostering others. We explored this possibility, focusing on clinic referral problems of two different societies: (a) Jamaica, where the Afro-British culture discourages child aggression and other undercontrolled behavior and possibly fosters inhibition and other overcontrolled behavior, and (b) the United States, where undercontrolled child behavior is seemingly more generally accepted. We coded clinic-referred problems listed by parents of Jamaican and American youngsters (N = 720). Cross-cultural differences were striking: Overcontrolled problems were noted more often for Jamaican than American youngsters, whereas the converse was true for undercontrolled problems. These and other findings suggest that factors such as culture and sex may be linked to substantial differences in the problems for which youngsters of different countries are treated in clinics.