Individuals with anhedonia are likely less 'flat' or 'blunted' than generally thought. Although replication is warranted, impairments in high-arousal positive emotions may be of particular interest in the clinical treatment of anhedonia.

This study examined whether religious coping (positive and negative) prospectively moderated the relationship between stress and depressive symptoms in young adults. Religious commitment was examined as a potential moderator of the effect of religious coping on the stress-depression relationship. Participants were 320 undergraduates from a small, private Christian university who reported weekly fluctuations in stress and depressive symptoms across an 8-week diary study. Data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Results indicated that negative religious coping moderated the relationship between stress and depression, but only for those who reported high levels of religious commitment. We found no evidence for positive religious coping as a buffer against the effects of stress on depressive symptoms.

Polyvagal theory suggests that parasympathetic regulation of cardiac function, indexed by resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), may be a marker of emotion regulatory capacity and associated with youth psychopathology. Contemporary models of psychopathology suggest that the effects of biological vulnerability may be moderated by developmental context. The aim of the present study was to examine whether parenting, particularly parental responses to youth’s negative emotions, moderated the effects of resting RSA on depressive symptoms among early adolescents. We examined resting RSA, depressive symptoms, and parental responses to youth negative emotions among 120 adolescents aged 11–14 years (M = 12.86, SD = .85; 52.5% female). Resting RSA and lack of supportive parenting interacted to predict youth depressive symptoms, such that low resting RSA predicted more depressive symptoms only in the context of low levels of supportive parental responses to youth’s negative emotions. By contrast, high resting RSA buffered the effects of low supportive parenting on youth depressive symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of understanding joint contributions of biological vulnerability and developmental context on youth depression outcomes.

Trait impulsivity is a risk factor for rule breaking and aggressive (externalizing) behaviors among nonclinical youth. Buffers of trait-based risk are of practical interest to preventing externalizing behaviors. One such buffer may be the capacity and efforts of a child to self-regulate their physiology. Youth who possess baseline physiological self-regulatory capacities are more likely to maintain adaptive engagement with their environment and may be less prone to impulsively rule break or be aggressive. Similarly, youth who are able to use self-regulatory skills to calm their physiology in times of stress may be less likely to externalize distress. This study examined self-regulatory capacity and efforts as a moderator of the relationship between trait impulsivity and externalizing behaviors, cross-sectionally and prospectively. We hypothesized that the effect of trait impulsivity on externalizing behaviors would depend on the presence of baseline self-regulatory capacity and/or self-regulatory efforts during stress. Participants were 134 nonclinical adolescents (M = 12.59, SD = 1.20 51.9% female, 71% Caucasian). Trait impulsivity was measured using a parental report questionnaire. Physiological self-regulatory capacity and efforts were measured through collection of electrocardiogram data during a resting baseline and a stressful, unsolvable anagram task, respectively. Physiological self-regulation was quantified by calculating respiratory sinus arrhythmia scores across baseline and stress tasks. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia is the change in heart rate across the breathing cycle, and is hypothesized to index physiological self-regulation capacity and efforts under specific conditions. The results indicated that physiological self-regulation capacity, but not efforts, moderated the effect of trait impulsivity on externalizing behaviors prospectively. Stronger physiological self-regulatory capacity buffered the effect of greater trait impulsivity. Implications of these findings among typically developing youth are discussed.