Estimating and Understanding Effects of Teaching Teens That People Can Change

 描述(申请人提供)：过渡到高中包含主要的社会压力来源，与抑郁症和其他内化症状的急剧增加不谋而合。不幸的是，很难确定有效的、普遍的预防性干预措施 高中生的抑郁和其他内在性障碍。这项拟议的研究整合了社会心理学、发展心理学、临床心理学和生物心理学的理论和方法，以解决这一知识差距。这项研究的重点是影响人们对紧张的社会环境反应的潜在信念或隐含理论。人格的实体理论是相信人没有改变的潜力。众所周知，这会导致在社交压力源之后做出不适应的反应，比如得出一个人是“失败者”或“不讨人喜欢”的结论。相比之下，渐进式理论是相信人们有改变的潜力。研究发现，这有助于更有希望地解释社会压力源可以改善的情况。对多个独立样本(N=599)进行的初步研究发现，有效、但适时且极具说服力的自我管理干预措施，向青少年传授渐进式人格理论，可以在干预后九个月内，将高中一年级期间抑郁症状的增加预防40%。然而，重要的是估计这种影响在大样本(N，000)、异质样本(目标1a)中的大小。着眼于改进理论和干预，拟议的研究还将确定从增量理论信息(目标1b)中受益最多(或最少)的学生。最后，日常日记(目标2)和实验室应激(目标3)方法将确定与治疗效果有关的调节社会认知、神经内分泌和心血管反应的原理。所有的假设都得到了初步数据的支持。增量理论干预在一周内减少了皮质醇，并在实验室减少了对社会评估应激源的心血管威胁反应。总而言之，这项研究的目的是使用大样本来提供所需的证据，证明使用增量理论干预来防止伴随着过渡到高中的内化症状，并揭示社会认知和生物学机制。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The transition to high school contains major social stressors and coincides with a sharp increase in depression and other internalizing symptoms. Unfortunately, it has been difficult to identify effective universal preventative interventions for depression and other internalizing disorders among high school students. The proposed research integrates theories and methods across social, developmental, clinical, and biological psychology to address this gap in knowledge. This research focuses on the underlying beliefs or implicit theories that affect reactions to stressful social environments. An entity theory of personality is the belief that people do not have the potential to change. It is known to lead to maladaptive reactions in the wake of social stressors, such as the conclusion that one is a "loser" or "not likable." By contrast, an incremental theory is the belief that people have the potential to change. It has been found to facilitate more hopeful interpretations that social stressors can improve. Preliminary published research with multiple independent samples (N =599) has found that an efficient, but well-timed and highly-persuasive, self-administered intervention to teach adolescents an incremental theory of personality can prevent increases in depressive symptoms over the first year of high school by 40%, nine months post-intervention. However, it is important to estimate the size of this effect in large (N 2,000), heterogeneous samples (Aim 1a). With an eye toward improving theory and the intervention, the proposed research will also identify students who benefit the most (or least) from the incremental theory message (Aim 1b). Finally, daily-diary (Aim 2) and laboratory stress (Aim 3) methods will identify the principle mediating social-cognitive, neuroendocrine, and cardiovascular reactions that are implicated in the treatment effects. All hypotheses have received support in preliminary data. The incremental theory intervention has reduced cortisol over a week and immediate cardiovascular threat responses to social evaluative stressors in the laboratory. In summary, this research aims to use large samples to provide needed evidence about the use of an incremental theory intervention to prevent internalizing symptoms that accompany the transition to high school, and uncover social-cognitive and biological mechanisms.