Effects of a single-session implicit theories of personality intervention on recovery from social stress and long-term psychological functioning in early adolescents.

 描述（由申请人提供）：近年来，预防青少年心理健康问题的努力取得了很大进展。然而，这些进步并没有大规模降低青年精神疾病的发病率。因此，非常需要新的，可扩展的，低成本的方法来预防青年心理健康问题。理想情况下，这些方法将是针对机制的：也就是说，它们将作用于心理障碍背后的特定发展过程。拟议的研究旨在解决这一需要，通过测试是否一个单一的会话干预教学人格的增量理论，或相信一个人的个性是可塑性的，而不是人格的实体理论，或相信一个人的个性是固定的和不可改变的，可以加强从社会压力中恢复，并防止青少年早期焦虑和抑郁的发展。与增量理论相比，个人特质的实体理论已经证明了青年人更大的焦虑和抑郁的横截面和前瞻性关系。此外，一个单一的会话增量人格理论干预减少了抑郁症状的发展，在社区样本的青少年，支持这些理论作为强大的预防目标，即使在简短的格式教。具体来说，根据NIMH的实验治疗方法来测试新的干预措施，该项目有两个目标。目的1是评估内隐理论干预对先前研究确定的两种候选作用机制或目标的影响：唤醒（通过社会压力后的生理反应以及自我报告的焦虑进行测量）和损失（在这里，感知行为控制的损失）在12-15岁的青少年中。在基于实验室的社会压力诱导后，本研究将测试接受干预的参与者（N=45）是否会更快地从压力中恢复，如唤醒（心率变异性;呼吸性窦性心律不齐; 皮肤电反应）和自我报告的损失（在干预后或3个月、6个月和9个月随访时增加的感知控制）。目的二是评估单次增量理论干预对9个月以上焦虑和抑郁的影响。这项研究将测试与对照方案相比，干预是否可以防止焦虑和抑郁的发展;它还将评估这种变化是否是上述两个目标（唤醒;损失）变化的直接结果。随着时间的推移，相对于对照组，接受干预的青少年预计会出现更积极的焦虑和抑郁轨迹。该研究还将测试这些轨迹是否是由目标1中所述目标的变化介导的。最后，无论目标1和目标2的结果如何，基线、干预后和9个月的测量将用于绘制内隐理论、针对这些理论的干预、社会压力恢复以及青少年焦虑和抑郁之间的纵向联系。研究结果可能表明，一种具有成本效益的，可扩展的干预措施，可以提高青年的弹性和心理健康。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Efforts to prevent mental health problems in youths have advanced greatly in recent years. However, these advances have not reduced rates of youth mental illness on a large scale. Thus, a great need exists for novel, scalable, and low-cost approaches to preventing mental health problems in youth. Ideally, such approaches would be mechanism-targeted: that is, they would act on specific developmental processes that underlie psychological disorders. The proposed research aims to address this need by testing whether a single-session intervention teaching incremental theories of personality, or the belief that one's personality is malleable-as opposed to entity theories of personality, or the belief that one's personality is fixed and unchangeable-can strengthen recovery from social stress and prevent the development of anxiety and depression during early adolescence. Compared to incremental theories, entity theories of personal traits have demonstrated cross- sectional and prospective relations with greater anxiety and depression in youths. Further, a single-session incremental personality theories intervention reduced the development of depressive symptoms in a community sample of adolescents, supporting these theories as powerful prevention targets, even when taught in a brief format. Specifically, in line with the NIMH's experimental therapeutics approach to testing novel interventions, this project has two aims. Aim 1 is to evaluate the effect of the implicit theories intervention on two candidate mechanisms of action, or targets, identified by prior research: arousal (measure via physiological reactivity following social stress, as well as self-reported anxiety) and loss (here, perceived loss of behavioral control) in youths 12-15 years of age. Following a lab-based social stress induction, this study will test whether participants receiving the intervention (N=45) will recover from stress more rapidly, as indicated by measures of arousal (heart rate variability; respiratory sinus arrhythmia; galvanic skin response) and self- reported loss (increased perceived control at post-intervention or 3-, 6-, and 9-month follow-ups) compared to participants who do not receive the intervention (n =45). Aim 2 is to evaluate the effects of the single-session incremental theories intervention on anxiety and depression over nine months. This study will test whether the intervention, compared to a control protocol, prevents the development of anxiety and depression; it will also assess whether this change is a direct result of shifts in the two aforementioned targets (arousal; loss). More positive trajectories in anxiety and depression are predicted for youth receiving the intervention, relative to those in the control condition, over time. The study will aso test whether these trajectories are mediated by changes in the targets described in Aim 1. Finally, regardless of outcomes for Aims 1 and 2, baseline, postintervention, and 9-month measures will be used to map longitudinal links among implicit theories, interventions targeting those theories, social stress recovery, and youth anxiety and depression. Findings may suggest a cost-effective, scalable intervention that improves youth resiliency and mental health.