Undergraduate students are a high-stress population with a high prevalence of psychopathology. Further, students from historically marginalized racial groups face additional stressors and challenges. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of identifying with a historically marginalized racial group on the relationship between stress and mental health outcomes. We used archival data, in which 528 college students were originally recruited to complete surveys on college-related stress and symptoms of psychopathology. Analyses of variance were employed to study differences in rates between a historically marginalized racial group and a historically advantaged racial group. Regression analyses were employed to study the moderating effect of identity group on the relationship between stress and mental health outcomes. The historically marginalized racial group was more likely to report performance stress (p = .008) and the historically advantaged racial group was more likely to report internalized symptoms of psychopathology including anxiety (p = .007) and depression (p = .02). Furthermore, group marginalization moderated the relationship between total stress (p < .001), financial stress (p < .001), and performance stress (p < .001) with symptoms of internalized psychopathology. Our findings may be explained by a difference in resilience, interpretation of stress, or limitations to survey methods. Recommendations for researchers and clinicians are offered.

Objective: To evaluate the effects of three different gratitude interventions on college student well-being. Participants: Participants were 132 college students at a university in the northwest sampled between September 2019 and February 2020. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to one of three gratitude interventions (journaling, reflection, app prompted reflection) or an activity-matched control group for 8 weeks and completed baseline and post-intervention assessments of well-being (e.g., satisfaction with life, happiness, resilience, depression, anxiety, and stress). Results: Participants in all three gratitude intervention groups showed improvements in well-being over time, whereas the control group did not report any such improvements. Gratitude journaling appeared to have the most significant positive impact on well-being and affective functioning. Conclusions: Gratitude interventions are simple, easy to implement, low-cost tools that can increase overall well-being and decrease negative affect, stress, and anxiety in college students.

Social media is fully integrated into society today, and the use of social media is currently the main activity of Internet-users (JassoMedrano & López-Rosales, 2018). With the advent of smartphones and the wide variety of platforms available, individuals can now seamlessly switch from site to site when browsing online. Indeed, Hardy and Castonguay (2018) found that millennials switch between media sites an average of 27 times per hour. Currently, the most popular social media platforms are Facebook and Instagram. As of 2017, Facebook had approximately 2 billion monthly users, which corresponds to over 25% of the world’s population (Østergaard, 2017). Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, a highly visual social media platform, gave way to a broadened user base to include younger generations, in addition to the older population already found on Facebook. Instagram grew rapidly, beginning in 2010 and already had over 500 million users by 2016 (Sherlock & Wagstaff, 2018). Facebook’s stated mission is “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” Consistent with that mission, Facebook was originally created to connect college students but has since expanded to connect people from around the world. With billions of users spending roughly 50 minutes per day on social media sites (Brailovskaia & Margraf, 2016), it seems as though these platforms may allow individuals the opportunity to express their innate need to belong (Hardy & Castonguay, 2018). Social connection is conceptualized by psychologists as a vital human need, and researchers have long known that social relationships decrease the risk for a host of problems such as depression, alcoholism, and lowered immune response (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2014; House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988). As such, social media companies could potentially be viewed as providing a valuable service that contributes to the well-being of a significant proportion of the world’s population. ABSTRACT. College students spend a significant amount of time using social media, and there is evidence that at least some of the rapid growth in social media use may be driven by social media companies’ efforts to implement behavioral engineering strategies designed to maximize the amount of time individuals spend on their platforms. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether such behavioral engineering strategies are leading individuals to become addicted to social media and to examine whether those who report problematic social media use (PSMU) may be at risk for mental health problems. Two-hundred ninety-four college students completed an online survey asking about indicators of PSMU, mental health symptoms, and well-being. Depending on the cut score used, between 8.2% and 51.3% of college students may be at risk for PSMU. No matter which cut score was used, participants identified as being at risk for PSMU reported higher levels of mental health symptoms across several domains, as well as lower well-being. These results suggest that individuals who spend time using social media platforms may be at risk for PSMU and highlight the need for clinicians and researchers to establish empirically based diagnostic criteria, as well as effective treatments, for PSMU.

We investigated the role of sociocultural (between-groups) and individual (within-group) factors on the development of preschoolers' resource-allocation preferences. We tested claims of the joint impact hypothesis of social values development that social-emotional understanding skills would predict the transition from simpler (individualistic allocations) to more complex (cooperative, competitive allocations) social values and that cultural background would determine which values emerged. American children ages 37-67 months from Spanish-speaking Latino (n = 134), English-speaking Latino (n = 50), and English-speaking Caucasian (n = 98) backgrounds twice completed a resource-allocation task and a social-emotional understanding assessment, separated by 6 months. Contrary to predictions, results revealed that for no group were complex choice allocations more common at Time 2 than at Time 1. Moreover, for the Caucasian group, social-emotional understanding did not predict time-dependent choice allocation behavior. For Latinos, however, results revealed differential social values development according to language background. For Spanish-speaking Latinos, higher social-emotional understanding scores predicted emergent cooperative choices, and for English-speaking Latinos, higher scores predicted emergent competitive choices. Findings are consistent with differential socialization wherein social-emotional understanding skills facilitate the development of culturally mainstream values for more acculturated Latinos and ethnic cultural values for less acculturated Latinos. (PsycINFO Database Record

ABOUT PSI CHIPsi Chi is the International Honor So ci ety in Psychology, found ed in 1929.Its mission: "recognizing and promoting excellence in the science and application of psy chol ogy."Mem ber ship is open to undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and alumni mak ing the study of psy chol ogy one of their major interests and who meet Psi Chi's min i mum qual i fi ca tions.Psi Chi is a member of the As so cia tion of Col lege Honor So ci et ies (ACHS), and is an affiliate of the Ameri can Psy cho logi cal As so cia tion (APA) and the Association for Psy cho log i cal Science (APS).Psi Chi's sister honor society is Psi Beta, the na tion al honor society in psychology for com mu nity and junior colleges.Psi Chi functions as a federation of chap ters located at over 1,150 senior col leg es and universities around the world.The Psi Chi Central Office is lo cat ed in Chatta nooga, Ten nessee.A Board of Directors, com posed of psy chol o gy faculty who are Psi Chi members and who are elect ed by the chapters, guides the affairs of the Or ga ni za tion and sets pol i cy with the ap prov al of the chap ters.Psi Chi membership provides two major opportunities.The first of these is ac a dem ic rec og ni tion to all in duc tees by the mere fact of mem ber ship.The sec ond is the opportunity of each of the Society's local chapters to nourish and stim u late the pro fes sion al growth of all members through fellowship and activities de signed to augment and en hance the reg u lar cur ric u lum.In addition, the Or ga ni za tion provides programs to help achieve these goals including con ven tions, research awards and grants competitions, and publication opportunities.

Cross-sectional analysis of data from the Recharge@Work study was used to assess individual, interpersonal and organizational correlates of objectively- measured sedentary time, in desk-dependent office workers at 2 U.S. hospitals. Analysis included 65 participants (62 females and ~49.2 years old). Sedentary time was assessed by accelerometry across five consecutive days and expressed as prolonged sedentary bouts (60 min ≤ 150 cpm). Correlates measured a baseline included: age, BMI, active break enjoyment, active break outcome expectancy, active break self-efficacy, active break social support, direct supervisor support of active breaks and senior manager support of active breaks. As expected, we found that the more individuals perceived their supervisor as supportive of active breaks and the more they enjoyed active breaks, the more likely they were to actually take active breaks (i.e., to experience less sedentary time, OR = 2.8, CI = 1.1–7.1; OR = 5.2, CI = 1.4–19.2 respectively). However, contrary to our expectations, the more employees perceived their senior managers as supportive of active breaks, the less likely they were to take these breaks (OR = 0.29, CI = 0.09–0.93). No significant associations were found between age, gender, BMI, outcome expectancy, or self-efficacy and active breaks from sedentary behavior.

Using the WHO–5 Well-Being Index to Identify College Students at Risk for Mental Health Problems Andrew Downs (bio), Laura A. Boucher (bio), Duncan G. Campbell (bio), and Anita Polyakov (bio) College students are at significant risk for mental health problems. Symptoms of anxiety and depression appear to be the most common concerns, with studies generating prevalence estimates as high as 53.8% for moderate to severe depression (Garlow et al., 2008) and 52.8% for moderate to severe anxiety (Rosenthal & Schreiner, 2000). This is concerning because studies have documented how problems with anxiety and depression negatively affect students’ academic performance, class attendance, retention, career selection, relationship development, physical health, and general well-being (Baez, 2005; Miller & Chung, 2009). Compounding those problems is the fact that the vast majority of college students experiencing mental health problems do not receive treatment. This is true even though most colleges have medical and psychological treatment providers on campus, and there are many effective treatments for both anxiety and depression (Hunt & Eisenberg, 2010). There is a clear need for colleges to do a better job of identifying students who may benefit from treatment and encouraging those students to actually seek help (Hunt & Eisenberg, 2010). Indeed, research suggests that population-based screening can encourage college students who are at risk for mental health problems to seek treatment (Kim, Coumar, Lober, & Kim, 2011). Unfortunately, there is currently tremendous variability regarding the extent to which colleges effectively screen students for mental health problems (Hunt & Eisenberg, 2010) and a shortage of measures designed for this purpose. Currently, we are aware of only one population-based screening measure that was developed specifically for use with college students. The Symptoms and Assets Screening Scale (SASS; Downs, Boucher, Campbell, & Dasse, 2013) is a 34-item measure designed to identify students at risk for depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and eating disorders. Although there is a relative dearth of screening measures available for professionals who work with college students, several instruments have been developed for use by physicians to identify patients with medical concerns who are also experiencing mental health problems. One such measure is the World Health Organization Five Well-Being Index (WHO–5; Johansen, 1998). Although the WHO–5 measure was originally developed to assess the quality of life in patients suffering from diabetes, Topp, Østergaard, Søndergaard, and Bech (2015) found the measure to perform well as a screening tool for individuals at risk for depression. The WHO–5 is appealing as a screening measure because it contains only five items, is freely available in at least 31 languages, and is extremely easy to complete, score, and interpret. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the WHO–5 can be used to effectively identify individuals in the general college student population who are experiencing [End Page 113] clinically significant symptoms of depression or anxiety. To that end we evaluated the criterion validity of the WHO–5 by comparing respondent scores with reliable and valid measures of depression, anxiety, general psychological distress, and well-being. In addition, we examined the instrument’s factor structure, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability. Finally, we evaluated the accuracy with which scores on the WHO–5 identified students experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression in the severe range. We hypothesized that the WHO–5 would prove to be a reliable and valid screening tool that could possibly be implemented in the college setting to identify students experiencing significant symptoms of depression and anxiety. METHODS Data were collected between October 2009 and January 2013 at the authors’ institutions. A total of 903 undergraduate students—428 at a 4-year public university in the Rocky Mountain West and 475 at a 4-year private university in the Pacific Northwest—were recruited from Introductory Psychology courses in person or via posted advertisements. Interested participants provided informed consent and were invited to complete paper questionnaire packets for partial course credit. The average age of the sample was 20 years (SD = 4.5), and 65.2% of participants were female. Of the sample, 80.0% reported their ethnicity as White, 9.9% as Asian American/Pacific Islander, 4.3% as biracial or multiracial, 3.5% as Latino...

Introduction: Pediatricians are more likely than mental health (MH) specialists to manage children's MH concerns, and multiple factors complicate their abilities to do so adequately. Integrated care initiatives mitigate systems-related shortcomings that hamstring MH management in primary care. These initiatives, which improve outcomes for adults, are not widespread for youth. Integrated health care for children with MH concerns requires regular collaborative communication among pediatricians and MH specialists. The nature and quality of this communication in typical practice are not fully clear. Method: We conducted an anonymous pilot survey of 123 pediatric primary care providers from 41 states. We examined respondents' experiences with and attitudes about collaborative communication barriers and strategies. Results: Respondents estimated that 28% of their patients had MH concerns. Nearly 30% reported discomfort treating these concerns, 54% described MH care resources in their communities as inadequate, and 24% of pediatricians reported no communication at all with MH specialists about shared patients. Actual contact among communicators was less frequent than desired. Satisfaction with communication was low. Barriers to satisfactory communication included systems factors, inconsistent/nontimely responses from specialists, and the perception that MH specialists are unwilling to communicate. Discussion: Many pediatricians appear to view communication with MH specialists as less systematic than it ought to be. Efforts to address communication barriers may advance integrated care aims and mitigate pediatricians' perceptions of MH treatment resource inadequacy. As an important step toward integration, MH specialists should consider prioritizing systematic ongoing collaborative communication about shared patients.

Teachers of psychology tend to agree that learning about diversity is an important goal for undergraduate psychology courses. There is significantly less agreement about what aspects of diversity psychology students should understand. The current research proposes and investigates two potentially distinct ways students might understand diversity: more scientific understandings of topical knowledge related to nature and nurture and more humanistic understandings related to multicultural awareness and sensitivity. Drawing on standardized surveys and open-ended responses to diversity questions from the beginning and end of introductory psychology courses, results indicate that students' topical knowledge of diversity is not strongly associated with multicultural sensitivity. These results emphasize the importance of clarifying the meanings of addressing diversity as a course goal and are discussed in relation to the multiple challenges of teaching about diversity in psychology courses.

The authors explored predictions from basic emotion theory (BET) that facial emotion expression recognition skills are insular with respect to their own development, and yet foundational to the development of emotional perspective-taking skills. Participants included 417 preschool children for whom estimates of these 2 emotion understanding variables and receptive language skills were obtained at 2 time points, separated by 24 weeks. Path results for autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models revealed support for the BET predictions for younger preschoolers (ages 36 to 48 months). In contrast, results for older preschoolers (ages 49 to 67 months) revealed bidirectional influences between receptive language and emotion understanding consistent with constructionist theories of emotion. Findings support a hybrid model in which associations between receptive language and emotion understanding skills are initially nonsignificant and become significant over time. The implications of emotion expression recognition as an early toehold for the development of more advanced emotion understanding skills are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Background: A large proportion of adults are insufficiently physically active, and researchers have yet to determine the factors that enable individuals to maintain adequate levels of physical activity throughout adulthood. Purpose: This study sought to identify the key variables linked with consistent physical activity in adulthood as elucidated by a criterion sample of physically active adults. Methods: One hundred fifty-seven participants aged 24 and over who engaged in consistently high levels of physical activity rated the extent to which all of the potential correlates of physical activity identified in the research literature impacted their own activity level. Results: Participants reported that psychological, behavioral, and social/interpersonal factors disproportionately served as facilitators that increased their physical activity, when compared to environmental, policy, and demographic factors. Discussion: An ecological approach is necessary for understanding the physical activity behavior of individuals and the factors that support and inhibit adequate physical activity in adulthood. Translation to Health Education Practice: Efforts to address the widespread problem of physical inactivity should utilize an ecological approach by minimizing potential environmental barriers to physical activity while also targeting key individual and interpersonal factors that facilitate consistent engagement in physical activity throughout adulthood.

The present article explored relationships between social values (cooperative, individualistic, and competitive) and the behavioral adjustment of Latino and European American preschoolers within the preschool setting. Of interest was whether relationships between social values and behavioral adjustment differed as a function of cultural background. Assessments of social values and teacher reports of child behavioral adjustment were obtained for 254 preschoolers from collectivist (Spanish-speaking Latino Americans), individualist (English-speaking European Americans), and mixed cultural backgrounds (English-Speaking Latino Americans). Cooperative values were more prevalent among collectivist background children, but did not predict behavioral adjustment. Individualistic values did not differ across groups, but predicted better behavioral adjustment for individualist children. Competitive values did not differ across groups, but predicted positive behavioral adjustment for collectivist children and negative behavioral adjustment for individualist children. These findings suggest that a competitive social orientation constitutes a resilience factor for children from collectivist cultural backgrounds and a risk factor for children from individualist cultural backgrounds, and that a cooperative social orientation is undervalued within school settings. Discussion focuses on facilitating the behavioral adjustment of children by raising teacher awareness of collectivist social values and, selectively, fostering or encouraging competitive social values. In sum, the results support the notion that the functionality and meaning of social values differ across social and cultural contexts.

The present study investigated time-dependent relationships between emotion understanding and the behavioral adjustment of preschoolers over a single school year using a latent variable structural equation modeling framework. Teacher reports of child behavior (hyperactivity, emotion symptoms, conduct problems, peer problems, and prosocial behavior) and performance assessments of emotion understanding were obtained twice at a 6-month interval for a sample of 281 preschoolers (159 boys and 122 girls, with mean age = 52.40 months) from English- (N = 158) and Spanish-speaking (N = 123) backgrounds. Emotion understanding and behavior were stable over time, and cross-sectional associations between them were in expected directions. Cross-lagged paths revealed that the behavior variables significantly associated with emotion understanding across time were hyperactivity, emotion symptoms, and peer problems, and that behavior variables were generally better predictors of emotion understanding than vice versa. Differences across gender and language groups suggest a stronger and more complex bidirectional relationship between emotion understanding and behavior for girls and for Spanish-speaking children compared wth boys and English-speaking children. Results are discussed with respect to the value of exploring cross-lagged relationships and the potential importance of gender and culture as determinants of those relationships.

OBJECTIVE:To determine the level of moderate-vigorous-intensity physical activity (MVPA) assessed via self-report and accelerometer in the college population, and to examine intrapersonal and contextual variables associated with physical activity (PA).PARTICIPANTS:Participants were 77 college students at a university in the northwest sampled between January 2011 and December 2011.METHODS:Participants completed a validated self-report measure of PA and measures of athletic identity and benefits and barriers to exercise. Participants' PA levels were assessed for 2 weeks via accelerometry.RESULTS:Participants' estimations of their time spent engaged in MVPA were significantly higher when measured via self-report versus accelerometry. Stronger athletic identity, perceived social benefits and barriers, and time-effort barriers were related to PA levels.CONCLUSIONS:Estimation of college students' level of PA may require interpretation of data from different measurement methods, as self-report and accelerometry generate different estimations of PA in college students who may be even less active than previously believed.

The Emotion Understanding Assessment (EUA) is based on a theoretical model of recognizing emotion expressions and reasoning about situation-based, desire-based, and belief-based emotions. While research has noted that emotion understanding predicts current and future social and academic functioning, little is known about the psychometric properties of the EUA. This research sought to test the EUA factor structure and measurement invariance across gender, across language (English and Spanish speakers), and over time (24 weeks) in 281 preschoolers attending Head Start. Results indicated that a two-factor model of emotion expression recognition and emotional perspective taking of the EUA fit the data for the total sample, for each group (gender and language), and at each time point. Furthermore, configural and scalar invariance of the EUA was demonstrated across gender, language, and time. These results offer support that the EUA is assessing emotion expression recognition and emotional perspective taking constructs equivalently in boy, girls, Spanish and English speakers, and over time. Examination of latent means across groups and time indicate no differences in emotion understanding based on gender or language or over the 24-week time frame in this sample of preschoolers attending Head Start.