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As people age, they tend to spend more time indoors, and the colours in their surroundings may significantly impact their mood and overall well‐being. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to provide informed guidance on colour choices, irrespective of age group. To work towards informed choices, we investigated whether the associations between colours and emotions observed in younger individuals also apply to older adults. We recruited 7393 participants, aged between 16 and 88 years and coming from 31 countries. Each participant associated 12 colour terms with 20 emotion concepts and rated the intensity of each associated emotion. Different age groups exhibited highly similar patterns of colour–emotion associations (average similarity coefficient of.97), with subtle yet meaningful age‐related differences. Adolescents associated the greatest number but the least positively biased emotions with colours. Older participants associated a smaller number but more intense and more positive emotions with all colour terms, displaying a positivity effect. Age also predicted arousal and power biases, varying by colour. Findings suggest parallels in colour–emotion associations between younger and older adults, with subtle but significant age‐related variations. Future studies should next assess whether colour–emotion associations reflect what people actually feel when exposed to colour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research in both clinical and early psychosis samples is increasingly indicating that insecure attachment styles impact on psychosis symptom expression. Moreover, empirical support has been found for the assumption that specific types of insecure attachment predispose individuals to develop different symptom profiles. This study aimed to increase our understanding of the relevance of attachment styles in an early psychosis sample. To this end, we first examined the relationship of attachment styles with the severity of positive, negative and general symptom dimensions. Secondly, associations between attachment styles and specific positive psychotic symptoms were explored. Methods: A total of 96 (60 At-Risk Mental State and 36 First Episode Psychosis) patients participated in the study. Patients’ attachment style was assessed by the Psychosis Attachment Measure (PAM) and the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ). The PAM was used to evaluate attachment dimensions (i.e., anxiety and avoidance), whereas RQ was employed to classify participants into an attachment prototypes (i.e., secure, fearful, preoccupied or dismissive). In addition, patients were administered the Positive and Negative Syndromes Scale. Correlation analyses examined the associations of patients’ attachment dimensions and patients’ attachment prototypes with symptom dimensions (positive, negative and general psychopathology) and specific positive psychotic symptoms (delusions, conceptual disorganization, hallucinations, excitement, grandiosity, paranoia and hostility). Results: Patients’ attachment anxiety was associated with positive symptoms and general psychopathology, whereas no associations were found between attachment avoidance and symptom dimensions. Moreover, only attachment anxiety was related with specific positive symptoms, such as hallucinations and paranoia. Regarding the associations between attachment prototypes and symptom dimensions, only secure attachment was significantly related to decreased levels of general symptoms. Besides, secure attachment was associated with decreased levels of paranoia, whereas fearful attachment was related with increased levels of paranoid symptoms. No significant relationships were observed between dismissing and preoccupied attachment with specific positive symptoms. Discussion: These findings highlight the potential role of secure attachment as a protective factor against poor clinical outcomes and are consistent with previous studies indicating that secure attachment confers a form of resilience for psychopathology. In contrast, attachment anxiety and fearful attachment might represent risk factors for general and positive symptoms. The fact that neither attachment dimensions nor attachment prototypes were associated with the negative symptom dimension seems to confirm previous findings and might suggest that the association of attachment with psychotic symptoms is more robust for the positive dimension. These findings highlight the need of tailoring interventions to patients’ attachment needs. This would include assessing patients’ attachment patterns, as the specific subtypes of insecure attachment style should provide guidance in the context of psychological formulation and treatment planning with early psychosis patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The traumagenic neurodevelopment model of psychosis poses that prolonged or severe stress exposure in critical developmental periods (i.e., childhood) disrupts psychobiological stress regulation mechanisms, increasing liability for the onset and persistence of psychotic symptoms after re-exposure to stressful events (Read et al., 2014). This disruption seems to result in a process of behavioral and biological sensitization by which the individual manifests an enhanced stress sensitivity to subsequent minor adversities in adulthood (Belda et al., 2015), which may cause an increased risk for psychosis. The behavioral manifestation of stress sensitization has been examined in samples at clinical risk for psychosis, but it has been scarcely studied in nonclinical populations. The first goal of the present study was to investigate whether the association between childhood trauma (CT) and perceived stress was moderated by the impact of recent life events in a nonclinical sample. The second goal was to test whether the association between CT and suspiciousness was mediated by perceived stress, and whether this mediation was moderated by the impact of life events. Following stress sensitization hypotheses, it was expected that the association between CT and suspiciousness would be mediated by higher levels of perceived stress. In turn, the impact of negative recent life events was expected to moderate the effect of CT on suspiciousness via increased levels of perceived stress. Methods: The sample consisted of 168 Spanish nonclinical youngsters (mean age=28.01), belonging to the ongoing Barcelona Longitudinal Investigation of Schizotypy Study (BLISS). From a large pool of unselected college students, a selected subsample oversampled for schizotypy scores continues regular follow-up assessments. They were assessed for life events, perceived stress and suspiciousness at the concurrent assessment, whereas CT was assessed 7 years earlier at baseline. Linear regression and simple slope analyses were performed to test whether recent life events moderated the association between CT and suspiciousness. Moderated mediation analyses were conducted to examine the indirect effect of CT on suspiciousness via perceived stress moderated by the impact of recent life events. Results: Recent life events significantly moderated the association between CT and perceived stress. Simple slope analyses indicated that this association was significant when subjects experienced negative or neutral life events, but not positive life events. Moderated mediation analyses revealed an indirect effect of CT on suspiciousness through perceived stress, which was moderated by the impact of recent life events. Thus, these mediational effects were significant for those subjects with a greater subjective appraisal of a negative or neutral impact of life events, but not for those experiencing a positive impact. The magnitude of the conditional indirect effect (as indicated by the Index of Moderated Mediation) was significantly different across levels of impact of recent life events (i.e., negative, neutral, positive). Discussion: These findings provide further supporting evidence to the stress sensitization hypothesis for psychosis by showing its manifestation across both the clinical and nonclinical ranges of the hypothesized psychosis continuum. CT and perceived stress were associated when the impact of recent life events was negative or neutral, but not positive, suggesting that positive life events may play a protective role in the perception of stress and the role that stress shows in the mechanistic pathway to suspiciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]