The odds of substance use for LGB youth were, on average, 190% higher than for heterosexual youth and substantially higher within some subpopulations of LGB youth (340% higher for bisexual youth, 400% higher for females). Causal mechanisms, protective factors and alternative explanations for this effect, as well as long-term substance use outcomes in LGB youth, remain largely unknown.

This study describes trajectories of substance use and dependence from adolescence to adulthood. Identified consumption groups include heavy drinking/heavy drug use, moderate drinking/experimental drug use, and light drinking/rare drug use. Dependence groups include alcohol only, drug only, and comorbid groups. The heavy drinking/heavy drug use group was at risk for alcohol and drug dependence and persistent dependence and showed more familial alcoholism, negative emotionality, and low constraint. The moderate drinking/experimental drug use group was at risk for alcohol dependence but not comorbid or persistent dependence and showed less negative emotionality and higher constraint. Familial alcoholism raised risk for alcohol and drug use and dependence in part because children from alcoholic families were more impulsive and lower in agreeableness.

Accumulating evidence indicates weak correlations between self-report and behavioral measures of the same construct. We suggest these weak correlations result from poor reliability of many behavioral measures and distinct response processes involved in the two measurement types. We also describe how researchers can benefit from appropriate use of these measures.

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Research on childhood adversity has traditionally focused on single types of adversity, which is limited because of high co-occurrence, or on the total number of adverse experiences, which assumes that diverse experiences influence development similarly. Identifying dimensions of environmental experience that are common to multiple types of adversity may be a more effective strategy. We examined the unique associations of two such dimensions (threat and cognitive deprivation) with automatic emotion regulation and cognitive control using a multivariate approach that simultaneously examined both dimensions of adversity. Data were drawn from a community sample of adolescents (N = 287) with variability in exposure to violence, an indicator of threat, and poverty, which is associated with cognitive deprivation. Adolescents completed tasks measuring automatic emotion regulation and cognitive control in neutral and emotional contexts. Violence was associated with automatic emotion regulation deficits, but not cognitive control; poverty was associated with poor cognitive control, but not automatic emotion regulation. Both violence and poverty predicted poor inhibition in an emotional context. Utilizing an approach focused on either single types of adversity or cumulative risk obscured specificity in the associations of violence and poverty with emotional and cognitive outcomes. These findings suggest that different dimensions of childhood adversity have distinct influences on development and highlight the utility of a differentiated multivariate approach.

Adolescence is a period of heightened vulnerability for the onset of internalizing psychopathology. Characterizing developmental patterns of symptom stability, progression, and co-occurrence is important in order to identify adolescents most at risk for persistent problems. We use latent growth curve modeling to characterize developmental trajectories of depressive symptoms and four classes of anxiety symptoms (separation anxiety, social phobia, GAD, and physical anxiety) across early adolescence, prospective associations of depression and anxiety trajectories with one another, and variation in trajectories by gender. A diverse sample of early adolescents (N=1065) was assessed at three time points across a one-year period. All classes of anxiety symptoms declined across the study period and depressive symptoms remained stable. In between-individual analysis, adolescents with high levels of depressive symptoms experienced less decline over time in symptoms of physical, social, and separation anxiety. Consistent associations were observed between depression and anxiety symptom trajectories within-individuals over time, such that adolescents who experienced a higher level of a specific symptom type than would be expected given their overall symptom trajectory were more likely to experience a later deflection from their average trajectory in other symptoms. Within-individual deflections in physical, social, and GAD symptoms predicted later deflections in depressive symptoms, and deflections in depressive symptoms predicted later deflections in separation anxiety and GAD symptoms. Females had higher levels of symptoms than males, but no evidence was found for variation in symptom trajectories or their associations with one another by gender or by age.

Interaction plots are used frequently in psychology research to make inferences about moderation hypotheses. A common method of analyzing and displaying interactions is to create simple-slopes or marginal-effects plots using standard software programs. However, these plots omit features that are essential to both graphic integrity and statistical inference. For example, they often do not display all quantities of interest, omit information about uncertainty, or do not show the observed data underlying an interaction, and failure to include these features undermines the strength of the inferences that may be drawn from such displays. Here, we review the strengths and limitations of present practices in analyzing and visualizing interaction effects in psychology. We provide simulated examples of the conditions under which visual displays may lead to inappropriate inferences and introduce open-source software that provides optimized utilities for analyzing and visualizing interactions.

Despite psychological scientists’ increasing interest in replicability, open science, research transparency, and the improvement of methods and practices, the clinical psychology community has been slow to engage. This has been shifting more recently, and with this review, we hope to facilitate this emerging dialogue. We begin by examining some potential areas of weakness in clinical psychology in terms of methods, practices, and evidentiary base. We then discuss a select overview of solutions, tools, and current concerns of the reform movement from a clinical psychological science perspective. We examine areas of clinical science expertise (e.g., implementation science) that should be leveraged to inform open science and reform efforts. Finally, we reiterate the call to clinical psychologists to increase their efforts toward reform that can further improve the credibility of clinical psychological science.