Many depressed adolescents experience difficulty regulating their emotions. These emotion regulation difficulties appear to emerge in part from socialization processes within families and then generalize to other contexts. However, emotion dysregulation is typically assessed within the individual, rather than in the social relationships that shape and maintain dysregulation. In this study, we evaluated concordance of physiological and observational measures of emotion dysregulation during interpersonal conflict, using a multilevel actor-partner interdependence model (APIM). Participants were 75 mother-daughter dyads, including 50 depressed adolescents with or without a history of self-injury, and 25 typically developing controls. Behavior dysregulation was operationalized as observed aversiveness during a conflict discussion, and physiological dysregulation was indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Results revealed different patterns of concordance for control versus depressed participants. Controls evidenced a concordant partner (between-person) effect, and showed increased physiological regulation during minutes when their partner was more aversive. In contrast, clinical dyad members displayed a concordant actor (within-person) effect, becoming simultaneously physiologically and behaviorally dysregulated. Results inform current understanding of emotion dysregulation across multiple levels of analysis.

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Childhood trauma is associated with poor health outcomes in adulthood. Mechanisms for these associations are not well understood because past studies have focused predominantly on populations that have already developed physical and mental health problems. The present study examined the association between childhood trauma and stress-related vulnerability factors in a healthy adult sample (n = 79; 68% female, mean age = 27.5, SD = 6.5). Emotion regulation difficulties were examined as a potential mediator. Participants completed baseline laboratory assessments of reported childhood trauma, emotion regulation difficulties, prior month sleep quality, baseline impedance cardiography and behavioural tests of executive functioning (EF) and a three-day experience sampling assessment protocol that included sleep diary, reported and objective pre-sleep arousal, daily hassles and reported EF difficulties. Reported history of childhood abuse was significantly associated with difficulties in emotion regulation, self-report and objective pre-sleep arousal, diary-assessed sleep quality, daily hassles and reported EF difficulties. Reported history of childhood neglect was associated with greater pre-sleep arousal and poorer EF-behavioural control. Emotion regulation difficulties mediated the relationship between childhood abuse and reported pre-sleep arousal, daily hassles and reported EF difficulties. In conclusion, history of childhood trauma is associated with a variety of stress-related vulnerability factors in healthy adults that may be viable early intervention targets.

Research in psychology and affective neuroscience often relies on film as a standardized and reliable method for evoking emotion. However, clip validation is not undertaken regularly. This presents a challenge for research with adolescent and young adult samples who are exposed routinely to high-definition (HD) three-dimensional (3D) stimuli and may not respond to older, validated film clips. Studies with young people inform understanding of emotional development, dysregulated affect, and psychopathology, making it critical to assess whether technological advances improve the study of emotion. In the present study, we examine whether 3D film is more evocative than 2D using a tightly controlled within-subjects design. Participants (n  =  408) viewed clips during a concurrent psychophysiological assessment. Results indicate that both 2D and 3D technology are highly effective tools for emotion elicitation. However, 3D does not add incremental benefit over 2D, even when individual differences in anxiety, emotion dysregulation, and novelty seeking are considered.

There is growing evidence that appreciation for and engagement with art, nature, and beauty are associated with positive mental and physical health outcomes, yet the emotional and physiological correlates of these individual differences have not been fully characterized. The associations among individual differences in aesthetic engagement, proneness to aesthetic chill, and the experience of awe were examined in two studies (total N = 1,340). In Study 1, psychometric properties and convergent/discriminant validity of a brief measure of proneness to aesthetic chill experiences across an expanded set of stimulus domains were examined in two samples. The association between reported proneness to aesthetic chill and the Openness to Aesthetics facet was confirmed in both studies. Factor analysis and item-total correlations provide preliminary evidence that proneness to aesthetic chill is not domain specific (i.e., individuals prone to aesthetic chill in one domain [e.g., music] are also prone in other domains [e.g., nature]). In a laboratory study, individual differences in awe response to an aesthetic film clip (vs. other emotion-inducing film clips) were examined. Results indicated that the Aesthetics facet and ratings of proneness to aesthetic chill were related to higher awe ratings and reported chill/goosebumps to the film clip, as well as dispositional awe. Agreeableness was also associated with experimentally induced awe, and extraversion had a modest association with dispositional awe ratings. Across both dispositional and experimental induction, however, individual differences in aesthetic engagement and reported proneness to aesthetic chill demonstrated the strongest, most consistent, and most specific associations with awe.

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