Depression in adolescents is a ubiquitous mental health problem presenting ambiguities, uncertainties, and diverse challenges in its conceptualization, presentation, detection, and treatment. Despite the plethora of research on adolescent depression, there exists a paucity of research in regards to obtaining information from the adolescents themselves. In a mixed method, cross-sectional study, adolescents (N= 332) in grades 8 and 11 provided their conceptions of depression. Adolescents' self-recognition of depression was examined in association with depressive symptomatology and reported pathways to talking to someone. Adolescents' social and emotional competence was also examined in association with severity of their depressive symptomatology. Developed categories and subcategories of adolescent depression were guided by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) criteria for Major Depressive Episode (MDE) (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2000). Adolescents' definitions of depression were dominated by subjective, holistic interpretations and add new information and depth to the previous research on adolescent depression. Depressed Mood and Social Impairment were the core categories, both contained intricate subcategories. The frequencies of these constructs provide a map of the themes and subthemes that pervade adolescents' personal philosophies regarding adolescent depression. About half of the adolescents who self-recognized depression within two weeks (45%),qualify into screened depression (Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale -2" version [RADS-2];Reynolds, 2002) criteria based on the DSM-IV-TR for MDE (APA, 2000). However, this study's findings showed that the mean for screened Depression Total Score (RADS-2; Reynolds, 2002)was significantly higher in those adolescents who self-recognized versus those who did not self-recognize depression. The majority of lifetime self-recognizers of depression thought that they needed to talk to someone and reported that they talked to someone when feeling depressed. Poor Emotion Awareness was a strong contributor to increasing vulnerability to depressive symptomatology. This study provides new theoretical insights regarding the concept and detection of adolescent depression, and links between social and emotional competence and depressive symptomatology. These findings extend previous research (APA, 2000), provide new understanding to guide future research, and have direct implications for research, policy, and practice strategies aimed to better communicate with and help young people with and without depression.

Individuals who are high in psychopathic traits are known to cheat, lie, and manipulate others. One of the factors that may influence this behaviour is interpersonal judgment accuracy and tendency. There is some indication that increased psychopathic traits may be related to the ability to accurately judge the personality traits and emotions of others, and subsequently select individuals with characteristics that make them more vulnerable to manipulation and victimization. Alternatively, psychopathic traits may be related to a tendency to view others as possessing more vulnerable traits in general. The current study explored this topic by examining the relationship between psychopathic traits and the ability to accurately judge others’ personality traits and emotional states, as well the tendency to judge others as being more vulnerable. These relationships were examined in the overall sample as well by sex of judge and target. Male and female undergraduate students (N = 131) completed measures of psychopathic traits and narcissism. They were also asked to complete three tasks: 1) judge the personality traits and emotional states of individuals shown in brief video clips, 2) complete a memory task, select individuals who they would like to get to know better, and judge their vulnerability to being taken advantage of based on viewing photographs and brief written descriptions, and 3) judge brief displays of emotion. Results indicated that higher levels of psychopathic traits were related to enhanced judgment accuracy for certain traits and emotional states, but these relationships often varied depending on sex of judge and target. As well, psychopathic traits appeared to have a stronger relationship with judgment tendency than judgment accuracy, suggesting that individuals who are high in psychopathic traits tend to view others in a more negative light that may make them seem more vulnerable to manipulation. Judgment tendency also varied depending on sex of judge and target. Psychopathic traits showed stronger relationships with both judgment accuracy and tendency than narcissism. The results of the current study highlight the importance of continuing to study male and female psychopathy separately to gain an understanding of how psychopathic traits may manifest differently between the sexes.

Pastaruoju metu vis didėja mokytojų ir tėvų susirūpinimas dėl elgesio ir emocijų sutrikimų turinčių vaikų ugdymo. Šie vaikai turi bendravimo ir mokymosi problemų, yra sunkiai auklėjami, aplinkiniams pridaro daug rūpesčių. Darbas su šiais vaikais iš mokytojo pareikalauja daugiau psichologinės įtampos, pastangų, kūrybiškumo, organizacinių sugebėjimų. Tyrimo problema - nėra teoriškai pagrįsto, elgesio ir emocijų sutrikimų turinčių vaikų ugdymo, pradinėje mokykloje, modelio. Pradinės mokyklos mokytojams trūksta kompetencijos identifikuoti šiuos sutrikimus, šiuos sutrikimus turinčių vaikų problemas ir naudoti tinkamus vaikų ugdymo metodus (teisingus šių problemų sprendimo būdus). Tyrimo objektas – Elgesio ir emocijų sutrikimų turinčių vaikų ugdymas. Darbo tikslas – sukurti elgesio ir emocijų sutrikimus turinčių vaikų ugdymo pradinėje mokykloje modelį. Uždaviniai: • Apibrėžti elgesio ir emocijų sutrikimų sampratą, priežastis ir veiksnius, skatinančius jų atsiradimą. • Atskleisti kokie emocijų, elgesio, veiklos sutrikimai dažniausiai pasireiškia vaikams pradinėje mokykloje. • Identifikuoti pagrindines elgesio ir emocijų sutrikimų turinčių vaikų ugdymo problemas ir nustatyti, kokius metodus taiko mokytojai pradinėje mokykloje, jas spręsdami. • Pateikti elgesio ir emocijų sutrikimų turinčių vaikų ugdymo pradinėje mokykloje modelį. Šiai problemai spręsti pasirinktas aprašomasis tyrimo tipas. Tyrimas buvo atliekamas dviem etapais: pirmajame – kiekybinis (anketinė apklausa)... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Teachers‘ and parent‘s concern about the educating of behaviourally and emotionally disordered children is remarkably increasing.These children face with socializing and learning problems,cause difficulties in bringing them up and make trouble for other people.Work with the sort of these children demands more psychological stress,efforts,creativity and organizational skills from the teacher. The problem of the research - there is no theoretically based model of educating behaviourally and emotionally disordered children in primary school.Primary school teachers are not competent enough to identify this kind of disorder, recognize the problems these children face with and consiquently are not able to use appropriate methods (correct ways of solving these problems) of educating this group of children. The objective of the research – educating behaviourally and emotionally disordered children. The aim of the theses – to create the model of educating behaviourally and emotionally disordered children in primary school. The main tasks: - To define the concept of behavioural and emotional disorder,its origin and factors stimulating their beginning. - To find out what sorts of disorder are most frequently observed in primary school children‘s behaviour,emotions and actions. - To identify the main problem in educating behaviourally and emotionally disordered children and to reveal the methods applied by primary teachers in order to solve these... [to full text]

Depression and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are highly comorbid and are both characteristic of affective disturbance. In this study, it is hypothesized that the disorders share a common etiological factor of emotion reactivity. In addition, an investigation of specific emotional experiences that may differentiate the two symptom clusters is undertaken. A mood induction task was used to elicit emotional reactions in a sample of 121 university students. Regression analyses were conducted to examine emotion reactivity as a common factor. Unique associations between specific emotions and features of BPD, depression, and an interaction term (BPDxDep) were investigated. It was found that all models tested were significant, with the exception of joy. Features of BPD were uniquely associated with sadness, guilt, and anger, as were depressive features. BPDxDep symptoms were negatively associated with guilt. A discussion of the findings obtained and their significance in theory and in practice is undertaken.

The current thesis explored the intentional forgetting of different types of facial expression (Angry, Neutral, Happy) within the item-method directed forgetting paradigm (Experiments 1-4). Also, as a manipulation check, Experiment 5 obtained the subjective ratings of valence and arousal for the different types of facial expression used in the previous four Experiments. In summary, a significant directed forgetting effect occurred for Neutral facial expressions; however, a significant directed forgetting effect did not consistently occur for emotional facial expressions (e.g., there was no directed forgetting effect for Angry facial expressions in Experiments 2 and 3, or Happy facial expressions in Experiment 3). These findings are discussed in terms of encoding time as well as valence and arousal, and how these two factors modulate the effect of emotional facial expression on the ability to intentionally forget.

People with substance dependence show maladaptive approach responses toward stimuli related to their drug of addiction. Reducing the motivational salience of these appealing but maladaptive stimuli could decrease these inappropriate approach responses. Tasks that involve response inhibition influence the affective valence of stimuli, such that previously inhibited items are disliked compared to never-inhibited items. It is not clear, however, whether this effect can be harnessed to develop interventions to decrease the maladaptive motivational salience of addiction-related stimuli. To lay the groundwork for such an intervention, I first determined that people in treatment for substance dependence showed affective devaluation of previously-inhibited stimuli (Experiment 1). Because adolescence is associated with high risk of illegal substance use, I then examined the magnitude of the inhibitory devaluation effect in a group of adolescents from an adverse background (Experiment 2). Devaluation of inhibited stimuli increased significantly with age, suggesting that the effect occurs more strongly as the brain matures. Drug-related stimuli are extremely motivationally salient to people with substance dependence. Experiments 3-6 examined the affective consequences of inhibition for different types of motivationally salient stimuli: geometric images associated with monetary gains or losses, or sexually-appealing images. Finally, I determined that inhibition affects not only a stimulus’ affective valence, but also its motivational value. Heterosexual male participants who inhibited images of attractive females were later less likely to press a key in order to see more images of that type than participants who did not inhibit these images (Experiment 7). Taken together, this evidence suggests that computer-based tasks involving inhibition may be useful for decreasing the affective and motivational salience of drug-related stimuli in substance-dependent individuals.

Theory of mind (ToM) refers to the capacity to recognize that individuals have mental states such as beliefs, perspectives, and emotions that guide their behaviour. The measures that are currently used to assess ToM are highly dependent upon linguistic skill, and typically ignore affective ToM. In the present study, two non-verbal affective ToM tasks were created. The Affective Visual Theory of Mind Task (AVToM) assessed the perception of emotions such as happy or sad, while the Emotional Narrative Task (ENT) assessed the ability to recognize the more complicated emotion of embarrassment. Participants also completed two established ToM assessments, thus allowing us to examine the relationships between the various ToM tasks. Positive correlations were found between some of the different ToM measures; importantly, these relationships were not mediated by verbal skill. However, the correlations between the measures were weak, suggesting that each task may be assessing different, but overlapping, components of ToM.

Depression and borderline personality disorder (BPD) are highly comorbid and are both characteristic of affective disturbance. In this study, it is hypothesized that the disorders share a common etiological factor of emotion reactivity. In addition, an investigation of specific emotional experiences that may differentiate the two symptom clusters is undertaken. A mood induction task was used to elicit emotional reactions in a sample of 121 university students. Regression analyses were conducted to examine emotion reactivity as a common factor. Unique associations between specific emotions and features of BPD, depression, and an interaction term (BPDxDep) were investigated. It was found that all models tested were significant, with the exception of joy. Features of BPD were uniquely associated with sadness, guilt, and anger, as were depressive features. BPDxDep symptoms were negatively associated with guilt. A discussion of the findings obtained and their significance in theory and in practice is undertaken.

The present study investigates the intersection of working memory and emotion recognition in young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and neurotypical controls. The executive functioning theory of autism grounds key impairments within the cognitive realm, whereas social-cognitive theories view social functioning impairments as primary. Executive functioning theory of ASD has been criticized because executive functioning is too broad and is composed of separable, component skills. In the current study, the focus is narrowed to one of those components, working memory. It has been suggested that executive functioning may play a role in effective social interactions. Emotion recognition is an important aspect of social reciprocity, which is impaired in ASD. The current study investigates this hypothesis by combining working memory and emotion recognition into a single task, the n-back, as a model of social interaction and comparing performance between adults with ASD and controls. A validates set of facial expression stimuli (NimStim) was modified to remove all extraneous detail, and type of emotion was tightly controlled across 1-, 2-, and 3-back conditions. Results include significantly lower accuracy in each of the working memory load conditions in the ASD group compared to the control group, as well as in a baseline, maintenance memory task. The control group's reaction time increased as working memory load increased, whereas the ASD group's reaction time did not significantly vary by n-back level. The pattern of results suggests that the limit for n-back with emotional expressions is 2-back, due to near chance level performance in both groups for 3-back, as well as definitive problems in short term memory for facial expressions of emotion in high-functioning individuals with ASD, in contrast to previous findings of near perfect short term memory for facial expressions of emotion in controls.

Children with impaired emotion knowledge are likely to also experience difficulties with social skills (Bukato, 2008) and internalising and externalising behaviour problems (Trentacosta & Fine, 2009, Fine et al, 2003). Given that children with developmental disabilities are both at risk of developing behaviour problems (Roberts & Lawton, 2001), and may have impairments in emotion knowledge (Wishart et al, 2007, Kasari et al, 2001, Sinzig et al, 2008; Bal et al, 2010), teaching emotion knowledge skills is likely to be beneficial in helping to ameliorate the risks faced by these children, for developing behaviour problems. The research question investigated in this study was; can using an adapted version of the PATHS programme with children and adolescents aged between 9 and 18, who have developmental disabilities, improve both their emotion knowledge and their behaviour problems? Four participants were recruited, aged between nine and 18 who had developmental disabilities, one of whom served as a pilot participant. The intervention was carried out in the participants’ homes, with two one hour-long sessions a week. The measurements used included the Vineland-II, a behaviour diary and the Emotion Knowledge Test (EKT) - designed specifically for this research by the researcher. All participants included in the main study made improvements on the sentence-labelling task but not on the photograph-labelling task of the EKT. Participants 2 and 4 improved in regards to the number of problem behaviours displayed each week, Participant 3’s problem behaviours did not occur often enough to determine whether improvements had been made. Participant 2 improved on both of the Socialisation and Maladaptive Behaviour domains of the Vineland-II, Participant 3 improved on the Socialisation domain and Participant 4 improved on the Maladaptive Behaviour Domain, however all improvements made were small. The results indicate that there may be promise with using the PATHS programme with children with developmental disabilities, in one-to-one settings. However this research involved several limitations, such as the reliability and sensitivity of the measures used and the short length of the baseline and intervention periods. More research is needed in this area, as there are many possible social, emotional and academic benefits for these children, using the skills taught in the PATHS programme.