Experiential avoidance (EA), or the evasion of unpleasant internal experiences, is key to changes in emotional responsivity in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). EA has been linked to altered negative emotional reactivity in PTSD, but it remains unclear whether EA is linked to altered positive reactivity in PTSD, i.e. anhedonia. Therefore the study examined how manipulating EA influences emotional responsiveness in a non-clinical adult population (N=74). Positive emotion reactivity (self-report and psychophysiology) was measured before and after viewing a laboratory analogue trauma induction, with half of participants instructed to adopt the detached protector (DP) mode as an example of EA during trauma viewing and half of participants in an uninstructed control condition. Following the DP mode instructions reduced negative emotion experience during the trauma induction, relative to the control condition. However counter to prediction, there was no carry over onto blunted positive emotion experience or psychophysiological response in the experimental condition (relative to the control condition) when recalling positive memories and imagining positive future events. No significant relationships were identified between trait EA levels and anhedonia symptoms or pre-manipulation positive emotional responsiveness in the laboratory. Overall, the current findings offer no support for the hypothesis that EA contributes to anhedonia.

The purpose of this study was to examine how implicit family process rules are related to observed child emotional responsiveness with child self regulation as a possible mediating variable. Data from Wave 1 of the Flourishing Families project was used and included 337 two parent families and a target child between the ages of 10 and 13. Mother and father perception of family implicit rules were used to measure family implicit rules; child and mother report of the child's self regulation were used to measure self regulation, and child's emotional responsiveness to mother and father were taken from coding data. The Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales (Melby, et. al., 1998) were used to code the behavior of the child with mother and with father. Multiple Group Comparison using AMOS 16 was used to compare differences based on child gender. Results showed that family implicit rules were positively related to emotional responsiveness to mother for both sons and daughters and to emotional responsiveness to father for sons but not for daughters. Family implicit rules were positively related to child self regulation for both sons and daughters, and self regulation was related to both emotional responsiveness to mother and to father. Results indicated child self regulation significantly mediated the relationship between family implicit rules and emotional responsiveness to mother as well as the relationship between implicit rules and emotional responsiveness to father. Implications for family therapy are discussed.

This study investigated the relationship of parents' achievement-oriented and self- development goals (for their children) on youth reported anxiety, while taking parents' psychological control and responsiveness into account as possible mediating factors. More specifically, the purpose of this study was to further investigate the direct/indirect effects of (a) parents' reported achievement-oriented goals on youth anxiety via parental psychological control in two types of schools (key school for more academically advanced students and typical school for students with lower academic achievement); and (b) parents' reported self-development goals on youth anxiety via parental psychological control in key and typical schools. The current study also introduced parents' responsiveness as a new mediator and single-child family/ multiple- child family (family type/size) as a new moderator to investigate their effect on the overall model as related to youth anxiety. is study included 1,044 participants, reflecting 522 dyads (student and primary caregiver) from an urban city in Eastern Mainland China. Participating students were enrolled in the 11th grade in senior high school. Due to the high correlations of parents' achievement- oriented goals and parents' self-development goals (r = 0.975, p < 0.001), we combined and created one new variable--parents' achievement/self-development goals. Therefore, in the final multigroup SEM analyses we used this new variable in place of the previously hypothesized two goal-related variables. Additionally, rather than the initially proposed two types of schools, due to constricting limitations in the data, we were limited to making comparisons between single- child and multiple-child families. In our data analyses, no indirect effects were found among the identified variables. However, data analyses indicated a direct effect from parents' psychological control on youth anxiety in the key school regardless of family composition (single-child or multiple-child families), and in youth attending the typical school and from a single-child family. In general, the data analyses identified two major findings: (a) We found a positive relationship between parents' psychological control and youth anxiety for youth attending a typical school and living in a single-child family and for youth attending a key school, regardless of family type/size (single-child or multiple-child family); and (b) A marginally significant relationship (p = 0.053) was identified between parents' reported achievement/self-development goals and youth reported parent responsiveness. Some concerns were voiced among research team members about cultural sensitivity to one of the parents' survey questions. For example, one question referred to students being interested in and joining extracurricular activities. Students in China may or may not have had opportunities to participate in these types of activities. Data were reanalyzed after seven items were removed. In post hoc exploratory analyses, a new variable was defined and created, parents' reported achievement goals. Parents' reported achievement goals were found to be youth reported parents' psychological control only in (a) the typical school and single child family model and (b) the key school and multiple-child family model. Youth reported parents' psychological control is positively related to youth anxiety in all the models. Indirect paths were found from parents' achievement goals on youth anxiety via youth reported parents' psychological control were only found in (a) the multiple child model, (b) the multiple child and key school model, and (c) the single child and typical school model. We acknowledge that our data were collected in China during the COVID-19 global pandemic. During this pandemic, professionals note that youth, including youth in China, reported significantly higher levels of anxiety, making our current data more difficult to compare with pre-COVID-19 data collected in China. Future research should further explore the development of youth anxiety across time (longitudinal studies). To inform prevention and intervention efforts targeting youth anxiety, researchers must consider numerous variables that may directly or indirectly mitigate or exacerbate youth anxiety. Future research may consider and investigate the following variables: family composition; parenting styles and cultural factors that are embedded in parenting styles; parents' goals for and expectations of their children's academic achievement; family composition, including sibling relationships; and the type of school youth attend.