a b s t r a c tMajor depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by the presence of disturbances in emotional processing. However, the neural correlates of these alterations, and how they may be affected by therapeutic interventions, remain unclear. The present study addressed these issues in a preliminary investigation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine neural responses to positive, negative, and neutral pictures in unmedicated MDD patients (N ¼ 22) versus controls (N ¼ 14). After this initial scan, MDD patients were treated with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and scanned again after treatment. Within regions that showed pre-treatment differences between patients and controls, we tested the association between pre-treatment activity and subsequent treatment response as well as activity changes from pre-to post-treatment. This study yielded three main findings. First, prior to treatment and relative to controls, patients exhibited overall reduced activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (PFC), diminished discrimination between emotional and neutral items in the amygdala, caudate, and hippocampus, and enhanced responses to negative versus positive stimuli in the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) and right dorsolateral PFC. Second, CBT-related symptom improvement in MDD patients was predicted by increased activity at baseline in ventromedial PFC as well as the valence effects in the ATL and dorsolateral PFC. Third, from pre-to post-treatment, MDD patients exhibited overall increases in ventromedial PFC activation, enhanced arousal responses in the amygdala, caudate, and hippocampus, and a reversal of valence effects in the ATL. The study was limited by the relatively small sample that was able to complete both scan sessions, as well as an inability to determine the influence of comorbid disorders within the current sample. Nevertheless, components of the neural networks corresponding to emotion processing disturbances in MDD appear to resolve following treatment and are predictive of treatment response, possibly reflecting improvements in emotion regulation processes in response to CBT.

Richards proposed that everyday creativity-creative actions that are common among ordinary people in daily life, such as drawing, making recipes, writing, and any activity done with the purpose of being creative-both fosters and reflects psychological health. To explore when people are more likely to do something creative during the day, and to see who tends to act more creatively, we conducted a week-long experience-sampling study with a sample of young adults. Throughout the day, people's actions and feelings were randomly sampled, with an emphasis on whether people were doing something creative. Consistent with the notion of everyday creativity as a psychological strength, within-person models showed that people who reported feeling happy and active were more likely to be doing something creative at the time. Between-person models found that openness to experience and conscientiousness had large effects on whether people spent their time on creative pursuits. Neither negative states (e.g., momentary feelings of anger, stress, and self-consciousness) nor traits (e.g., neuroticism) significantly predicted creative activity. The findings support Richards's theorizing about everyday creative behavior as a cause and effect of positive psychological processes, and they illustrate the value of experience sampling for uncovering what creativity looks like in people's idiosyncratic environments.Creativity researeh knows a lot about genius and eminenee, about the "Big C" ereative greats (e.g., Simonton, 1999), but mueh less about everyday "little e" ereativity, the eommon hobbies and passions of ordinary people who want to do something ereative. Whether it's making greeting eards, roeking out in a basement, deploying an arsenal of sealloped serapbooking seissors, whiling away a psyehology leeture by knitting, weaving a neektie out of duet tape, or writing maudlin poetry best kept to oneself, people spend a lot of time doing ereative things simply beeause of personal enjoyment and fulfillment. The resulting produets might not be partieularly innovative, desirable, or effeetive, but as Riehards (2007) points out, the sheer mass of ordinary ereative aetivity says something important about human nature.In her writings, Riehards (2007Riehards ( , 2010 has ealled attention to everyday ereativity and its role in psyehologieal development. Although her theorizing isn't easily eondensed, one theme is that everyday ereativity is both a eause and a eonsequenee of positive

It is essential that outcome research permit clear conclusions to be drawn about the efficacy of interventions. The common practice of nesting therapists within conditions can pose important methodological challenges that affect interpretation, particularly if the study is not powered to account for the nested design. An obstacle to the optimal design of these studies is lack of data about the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), which measures the statistical dependencies introduced by nesting. To begin the development of a public database of ICC estimates, the authors report ICCs for a variety outcomes reported in 20 psychotherapy outcome studies. The magnitude of the N = 495 ICC estimates varied widely across measures and studies. The authors provide recommendations regarding how to select and aggregate ICC estimates for power calculations and show how researchers can use ICC estimates to choose the number of patients and therapists that will optimize power. Attention to these recommendations will strengthen the validity of inferences drawn from psychotherapy studies that nest therapists within conditions.

Grit, a recently proposed personality trait associated with persistence for long-range goals, predicts achievement in a wide range of important life outcomes. Using motivational intensity theory, the present research examined the physiological underpinnings of grit during an active coping task. Forty young adults completed the Short Grit Scale and worked on a self-paced mental effort task. Effort-related autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity was assessed using impedance cardiography, which yielded measures of sympathetic activity (pre-ejection period; PEP) and parasympathetic activity (respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA). Multilevel models revealed that people high on the Perseverance of Effort subscale showed autonomic coactivation: both PEP and RSA became stronger during the task, reflecting higher activity of both ANS divisions. The Consistency of Interest subscale, in contrast, predicted only weaker sympathetic activity (slower PEP). Taken together, the findings illuminate autonomic processes associated with how “gritty” people pursue goals, and they suggest that more attention should be paid to the facets’ distinct effects.

Experience sampling research measures people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions in their everyday lives by repeatedly administering brief questionnaires throughout the day. Nonresponse—failing to respond to these daily life questionnaires—has been a vexing source of missing data. The present research examined person-level, day-level, and signal-level predictors of nonresponse. We analyzed data from a sample of 450 young adults who were signaled 8 times a day for 7 days. At the person level, nonresponse was higher for men and for people high in positive schizotypy, depressive symptoms, and hypomania. At the day level, nonresponse increased over the first few days of the study and then declined toward the end. At the signal level, time of day strongly predicted nonresponse. Lagged signal-level analyses examined how emotions and experiences at a prior signal prospectively predicted the likelihood of ignoring the next signal. Only one variable—feelings of enthusiasm—had a significant lagged effect, which suggests that within-day experiences are not major sources of nonresponse. For the most part, the day of the study and the time of day had the most salient effects. Understanding the predictors of missing data allows researchers to implement methods to increase compliance and to handle missing data more effectively by including predictors of nonresponse.