OBJECTIVES:The aims of these studies were to (a) document the creation of the Wellbeing Hononga Index (WeHI), (b) demonstrate how psychometric practices can be Indigenized, and (c) provide a novel protocol for psychometrically validating survey measures. METHOD:We developed a new ordinal response scale based on the "Pūhā" plant and created 41 survey items based on the Ngaruroro model of Māori well-being (MW; Study 1). Interviews with eight Māori community members guided the refinement of this response scale and the survey items. Responses from 943 self-identifying Māori adults were analyzed using a new 11-step R-based validation protocol that incorporated item response theory analyses, factor analyses, and convergent validity tests (Study 2). Our scale development processes were evaluated by applying an adapted version of Graham Smith's five tests of veracity. RESULTS:The final 21-item measure formed an acceptable Mokken scale and provided robust coverage across the latent spectrum of Māori well-being. Evidence of within-item multidimensionality suggested that the WeHI captures two latent constructs, well-being and Māori cultural connections (hononga). The scale demonstrated strong model fit and scalar invariance across seven different demographic groupings. As expected, the WeHI moderately and positively correlated with Western measures of life satisfaction and subjective well-being. The WeHI was deemed to pass all five tests of veracity. CONCLUSIONS:We conclude that the WeHI is a psychometrically and culturally robust scale for measuring Māori well-being outcomes. The measure can also serve as a helpful tool for developing critical consciousness and facilitating self-reflection in relation to Māori well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Recalling either a specific (unique, 24 h or less) turning point memory narrative or a turning point with greater episodic detail (who, when, where and what happened) has been shown to predict higher youth depressive symptoms. The current research with emerging adults (N = 195, M = 20.5 years), therefore examined first the relationships of specific and detailed turning points with depressive symptoms, and second, whether recollective memory qualities moderated the association. We hypothesised that both a specific turning point and greater episodic detail would each predict depressive symptoms when rated as more vivid, emotionally intense, intrusive, negative valence for self, and recalled with greater negative emotions. Moderation results partially supported our predictions. The positive association between specific turning points and depressive symptoms was significant only under high ratings of intrusiveness, negative valence for self, and a greater proportion of negative emotions during recall. In addition, the positive association between episodic detail and depressive symptoms was significant only under greater negative emotions during recall, whereas other self-ratings were not significant moderators. These findings shed light on the critical role of negative affect in the relationship between specific and detailed turning point narratives and higher concurrent depressive symptoms in emerging adults.

The present research utilised the new Process of Emotion Regulation Measure (PERM) to assess emotion regulation motives, selected strategies, and perceived efficacies in a longitudinal community sample of 951 adolescents. We conducted Latent Profile Analyses (LPA) to identify distinct emotion regulation styles and random intercept-latent transition analysis (RI-LTA) to reveal rates of stability and change of profile membership over time. Both LPA and RI-LTA suggested the optimal profile solution was constituted by five emotion regulation profiles: hypo-regulating, hyper-regulating, adaptive, maladaptive, and normative. Each profile evidenced a unique relationship to mental health outcomes, both concurrently and longitudinally. Valenced emotion regulation patterns (evident in the adaptive and maladaptive groups) appeared to manifest the strongest relationships with adolescent mental health. As expected, maladaptive emotion regulation styles were related to poorer wellbeing outcomes, and adaptive emotion regulation styles were related to better wellbeing outcomes. Using a hypo- or hyper-regulating style appeared to influence deviations from the norm for negative outcomes such as anxiety and depression, but they had a minimal influence on positive outcomes such as optimism and resilience. RI-LTA exhibited a general trend toward adaptiveness and showed that unhelpful emotion regulation styles were considerably more transient than helpful emotion regulation styles over a five-month period. Our findings underscore the importance of utilising process-based measures and person-centered analyses when studying adolescent emotion regulation.

We sought to determine if voters’ personological characteristics influence perceptions of psychopathic traits in political candidates and predict vote choice. Our first dataset was collected soon after the 2016 U.S. presidential election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The sample, 159 Trump voters and 154 Clinton voters, rated their own authoritarian beliefs and their perceptions of psychopathic tendencies in both candidates, and reported their vote. As predicted, Clinton voters perceived low levels of psychopathic tendencies in Clinton and high levels of psychopathic tendencies in Trump, and Trump voters displayed the opposite pattern. A concurrent mediation analysis found that highly authoritarian voters perceived Trump to be low on psychopathic tendencies, and they tended to vote for Trump. These results were replicated from a different sample of 300 voters about three years later, soon after Trump’s first impeachment. The results suggest that authoritarian beliefs profoundly color perceptions of psychopathy in political candidates.

We consider the state of research on autobiographical memory disruptions and mental health difficulties in light of the development of memory-based clinical interventions. We identify five issues that lead us to suggest that caution should be exercised before these interventions are disseminated: 1) overreliance on a single measure (Autobiographical Memory Test, AMT); 2) limited attention to inconsistent findings; 3) questions about the ecological validity of the AMT; 4) lack of clarity about the role of memory valence; and 5) premature recommendations of specific treatment approaches. In future research, we encourage researchers to: 1) engage in greater interdisciplinary integration and collaboration; 2) adopt an increased focus on memory narratives; 3) develop a finer-grained understanding of memory retrieval in daily life; and 4) engage in further basic research to establish efficacy and causal relationships. Our aim is to stimulate discussion to broaden the scope of theory and research on the role of autobiographical memory in understanding and treating mental health difficulties.

Background:Significant intimate partner aggression (IPA) has been found to negatively impact outcomes of children, such as increased conduct problems (CP). However, it is unclear if forms of IPA that are less severe (e.g., shoving, pushing or yelling) have no, little, or substantial impact on child CP, which would indicate that the intensity (i.e., dosage) of IPA matters. In addition, it is unknown if the impact of IPA on child CP depends on the reporter (mother vs. partner) and on variables such as maternal depression and parenting. Methods:We investigated the impact of IPA (both mother- and partner-reported), assessed during pregnancy and 9 months postpartum, on child CP at ages 2, 4.5, and 8 years. We also tested both the potential mediating role of maternal depression and moderating role of maternal warmth, reflecting risk and protective factors, respectively. Using longitudinal data from the Growing Up in New Zealand study, we tested path models with 5298 children. Results:IPA predicted greater child CP for both mother- and partner-reported IPA, but at different age. Maternal depression partly mediated this effect, which was not moderated by maternal warmth. Conclusion:These findings underscore the importance of exposure to IPA on child development and provides evidence for that impact on behaviour independent of the effects of maternal depression. Positive parenting like maternal warmth seems not to buffer those negative effects.

This research explored how approach, acceptance, and avoidance coping styles predicted re-entry stress. Second, it examined how home country sociocultural factors (individualism/collectivism, flexibility/monumentalism, cultural heterogeneity, and Human Development Index) predicted re-entry stress. Third, interaction effects between coping styles and country-level variables on re-entry stress were explored. We analyzed data from an 18-month longitudinal study which followed 1485 high school students before going abroad, while staying abroad, and after returning home. Students came from 45 home countries and studied abroad for 8-10 months. When controlling for baseline levels of stress, multilevel modeling analyses showed that acceptance coping predicted lower re-entry stress while avoidance coping predicted greater re-entry stress. Participants returning home to countries with higher collectivism and cultural homogeneity experienced greater re-entry stress. Collectivism moderated the effect of approach coping on re-entry stress, so that coping by not approaching the stressor was associated with greater stress in collectivist cultures.

Reduced autobiographical memory (AM) specificity, characterized by difficulty recalling specific past events, is a feature of multiple psychiatric disorders. While meta-analyses indicate that reduced AM specificity can predict future symptom severity, its role as a premorbid risk factor for mental illness onset in young people remains unclear. Our preregistered individual participant data meta-analysis (PROSPERO; CRD42022287786) synthesized longitudinal data from 14 community-based studies of children and adolescents (N = 9,165). Most studies reported symptom severity (92.9%), with one third also reporting diagnostic status (35.7%). Assessment timing ranged from 2 months to 8.3 years following the autobiographical memory task. Multivariate mixed-effect models found no support for AM specificity predicting future symptom severity in depression or posttraumatic stress disorder. Contrary to expectations, higher memory specificity significantly predicted higher anxiety symptoms, but the quality of evidence was low. Intriguingly, reduced AM specificity significantly predicted an increased risk of receiving a psychiatric diagnosis and an earlier onset of disorder (hazard ratio = 0.55, p = .018). This risk was most robust for depressive disorders (hazard ratio = 0.21, p < .001). Findings suggest reduced AM specificity could be a risk factor for the onset of functionally impairing psychiatric disorders, but it does not consistently predict elevated symptoms in community-based samples. Further theoretical development is needed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Although recent research suggests that, for community youth, greater specific (episodic) detail in self-relevant turning point memory narratives predicts depressive symptoms over time, no research has investigated whether the narratives’ specificity similarly predicts depression. Therefore, we investigated whether recalling a specific (unique, 24-hour or less) turning point narrative predicted youth depressive symptoms concurrently and across 6 months (Study 1), and, for a subset of participants, three years (Study 2). We also examined whether the valence of the implication of the experience for self (the resolution) explained additional variance and interacted with memory specificity. For Study 1 (N = 320, M = 16.9 years, 81% female), a specific (rather than a non-specific) turning point predicted greater depressive symptoms concurrently but not longitudinally, whereas a negative resolution predicted both concurrent and longitudinal depressive symptoms. The moderation result showed that a specific turning point predicted escalating depressive symptoms across six months when the resolution was negative. Study 2 (N = 68) additionally showed that a specific turning point predicted increased depressive symptoms three years later. These findings contrast with research suggesting that specific memories are related to better mental health and highlight the complexity of the role of memory in emerging youth depression.

Although cross-sectional and daily diary studies have noted associations among trait mindfulness and positive and negative affect, lacking are studies that longitudinally examine these relationships over a period of months. We tested whether trait mindfulness (assessed with the Five Facet Mindfulness Measure) predicted an increase in positive affect and a decrease in negative affect across 3 months. A sample of 319 community adults completed self-report measures of mindfulness, positive affect, and negative affect at three times of measurement separated by three months each. As hypothesised, overall mindfulness, tested with a random intercepts cross-lag path model, predicted over three months a decrease in negative affect, but, contrary to predictions, did not predict an increase in positive affect. In the reverse direction, within-subject negative affect predicted decreases of overall within-subject mindfulness, which suggests that this relationship may be reciprocal over time. When examined at the facet level of mindfulness, all five within-subject facets of the FFMQ predicted reductions in within-subject negative affect over time. In return, within-subject negative affect predicted reductions in three within-subject mindfulness facets: non-reacting, acting with awareness, and describing. On balance, the results of this study suggest that trait mindfulness, as assessed with the FFMQ, was much more successful in predicting diminished negative affect than in predicting a boost in positive affect. Further, the presence of negative affect seems to exert an inhibiting influence over time on the implementation of several mindfulness facets.

This paper reports results from a systematic review that organizes existing knowledge about re-entry stress and adaptation to one’s heritage culture after returning from abroad. In this review, we sought to describe the prevalence of re-entry stress, how stress levels change over time and identify factors associated with reacculturation. We searched seven subject-specific and multidisciplinary databases for English language, peer-reviewed papers, and theses/dissertations with original qualitative or quantitative data, published from 2009. Fifty-five studies met the selection criteria. The prevalence of re-entry stress ranged between 40 % and 92 %. Studies used various scales with distinct characteristics to measure re-entry stress. Longitudinal information about patterns of changes in re-entry stress levels was insufficient. The analysis provided information about the variety of situational, demographic, intrapersonal, interpersonal/intergroup, and contextual factors associated with re-entry stress and adaptation. The literature to date has mostly focused on situational and intrapersonal factors while explorations of the broader cultural context have been scarce. Current knowledge is largely limited to more privileged groups of returnees, such as students and employees from the Global North. This paper highlights important gaps in the literature and provides scope for future research. We argue that inconsistencies in reacculturation research are mainly due to a lack of clear conceptual and theoretical frameworks.

Indigenous peoples around the world are revitalising their ancestral beliefs, practices, and languages, including traditional understandings of health and wellbeing. In the Aotearoa (New Zealand) context, a number of ground-breaking Māori health- and wellbeing-related models have emerged, each with their own scope and applications. We sought in our qualitative studies to explore and identify several key sources of wellbeing for Māori individuals. Nine interviews were conducted with members of Māori communities to identify key themes of Māori wellbeing. We performed a Reflexive Thematic Analysis on these data and then conducted a further fifteen interviews to revise, refine, and reposition the previously generated themes. The Ngaruroro model describes wellbeing as the embodied and active process of being well in relation with one’s (1) here tāngata (social and familial ties), (2) te taiao (the environment), and (3) taonga tuku iho (cultural treasures) while doing what one can to make lifestyle choices that are conducive to the health of one’s (4) tinana (body) and (5) wairua (spirit) while cultivating a balanced (6) ngākau (inner-system), fulfilling (7) matea (core needs) and exercising your (8) mana (authority). These themes illustrate that Māori wellbeing is dynamic, interconnected, and holistic.

Although emotion motives have been proposed to predict momentary valenced affect experienced in everyday life, little research has been conducted on this issue. The present study examined whether trait-level hedonic and contra-hedonic emotion motives would significantly predict daily hedonic and contra-hedonic emotion goals and subsequent daily affective states. A sample of 268 university students self-reported levels of trait emotion motives in a single-occasion survey, followed by a 14-day daily diary study which assessed momentary emotion goals and affective mood states. Linear mixed model analyses showed that trait hedonic emotion motives (trying to experience positive emotions) significantly predicted corresponding daily hedonic emotion goals and subsequent higher levels of daily positive affect, while trait contra-hedonic motives (trying to experience negative emotions) evidenced an analogous pattern resulting in higher levels of daily negative affect. These findings support a bivariate rather than a bipolar relationship between hedonic and contra-hedonic motives.

The Meaning in Life Questionnaire assesses presence of and search for meaning in life. Although the questionnaire has shown promising psychometric properties in samples from different countries, the scale’s measurement invariance across a large number of nations has yet to be assessed. This study is aimed at addressing this gap, providing insight into how meaning in life is constructed and experienced across countries and into the extent to which cross-country comparisons can be made. A total of 3867 adult participants from 17 countries, aged 30–60, balanced by gender, and with at least secondary education, completed the questionnaire as part of the Eudaimonic and Hedonic Happiness Investigation. Single sample confirmatory factor analysis, multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, and alignment optimization were applied to investigate the scale’s performance across the samples. Good psychometric properties and high levels of approximate measurement invariance emerged for the Presence subscale after removal of item 9, the only reverse-phrased item. Performance of the Search subscale varied more across samples, suggesting caution in interpreting related results supporting approximate measurement invariance. The conceptualization of presence of meaning operationalized in the corresponding subscale (without item 9) appears consistent across countries, whereas search for meaning seems to be less universally homogenous and requires further exploration. Moreover, the Meaning in Life Questionnaire does not reflect the conceptual distinction between “purpose” and “meaning” currently acknowledged by researchers. This issue should be further explored in studies addressing the scale’s performance across cultures.

Authoritarianism is best conceptualised by three attitudinal clusters: Aggression, Submission, and Conventionalism. Once considered a fixed characteristic, recent observational research has demonstrated how the dimension of submission can fluctuate in response to COVID-19 threat as a means of maintaining collective security. However, this effect has not been investigated with other forms of threat, nor has it been supported experimentally. In the present study, we sought to test observational findings by priming 300 participants with either a COVID-19 threat, a domestic terrorism threat, or a non-threatening control. Levels of authoritarianism were tested before and after presentation of a prime and then the difference between the two measures could be compared between prime conditions. Results from a Bayesian multivariate regression analysis informed by observational findings suggested that participants who experienced the COVID-19 or terrorism primes reported higher levels of authoritarian submission after the prime compared to before the prime, relative to those who experienced the neutral control prime. In contrast, the aggression subfactor did not seem to elicit any change in response to threat, and the conventionalism subfactor showed a response only to the terrorism prime. We concluded that two different forms of societal threat could elicit changes in specific dimensions of authoritarianism over a very short time span. We caution against the common practice of treating authoritarianism as a unidimensional construct without careful consideration.

The current study examined the interaction between venting (as a form of emotional coping) and perceived emotional social support in predicting internalising psychological symptoms (anxiety, depression and somatic symptoms) over time in international students. A short-term longitudinal survey design was employed with three months between two measurement points. Participants were 130 international students from a university in New Zealand. The questionnair e included questions on venting, perceived emotional social support and internalising symptoms. The lon-gitudinal impacts of venting and its interaction with emotional support on internalising symptoms were evaluated using structural equation modelling. Perceived emotional social support signifi-cantly moderated the effect of venting on internalising symptoms over time. Specifically, venting was associated with decreased internalising symptoms when students reported low levels of perceived emotional social support. However, venting was associated with increased symptoms when they reported very high levels of perceived support. In the presence of moderate to high emotional support, venting was not associated with changes in internalising symptoms over time, indicating that venting has no significant psychological consequences for international students with moderate to high perceived support. Venting can be an adaptive coping response for those with low perceived support, but it can be harmf u l in the presence of ver y high perceived support.

The current study investigated whether combat and non-combat stressors, as main effects and as an interaction, would predict posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and subsequent diminished psychological well-being of New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel. The sample was 1,434 NZDF military personnel who completed questionnaires at two different times: 1) immediately post-deployment, and 2) six months post-deployment. First, a longitudinal mediation showed that PTSD significantly mediated the influence of combat stressors on subsequent psychological distress. And second, non-combat stressors exacerbated the influence of combat stressors on subsequent PTSD. These findings suggest that contemporaneous non-combat stressors play a role in worsening adverse psychological outcomes.Keywords: PTSDdepressionanxietypsychological distressmilitary deploymentcombat stressorslongitudinalcurvilinear relationshipsmediationmoderation Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Although research findings show that the personal memories of people who are depressed are characterized by sparse episodic detail, under some circumstances, the opposite pattern emerges. Specifically, a recent study (Salmon et al., 2021 ) has shown that for community youth, greater episodic detail in a highly self-relevant narrative (a life turning point) predicted increased depressive symptoms concurrently and one year later. In a new longitudinal study of young people ( N = 320 at Time 1, M = 16.9 years; 81% female) followed up over six months, we aimed to replicate and extend this finding. In Study A, we compared the turning point with a narrative about a conflict event, to establish whether the detail in a turning point memory uniquely predicted depressive symptoms. Supporting the first hypothesis, at both time-points, greater episodic detail was concurrently positively associated with depressive symptoms for turning point narratives only. Contrary to our second hypothesis, greater detail did not predict increased depressive symptoms longitudinally. The reverse pattern was significant, however, in that greater initial depressive symptoms predicted greater detail uniquely in the turning point narrative six months later. In Study B, we determined that the concurrent association between episodic detail and depressive symptoms in turning points (but not conflict events) was exacerbated by linguistic markers of self-focus (greater I-talk and lower distancing language). These findings suggest that greater detail in a turning point narrative may uniquely signify risk of psychological distress when youth narrate the experience with heightened self-focus.

The aim of this study was to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the relationships between family connectedness, coping strategies, and stress-triggering problems in adolescents. To this end, it longitudinally examined the relationships between these three phenomena in a sample of New Zealand adolescents. Data were the three waves of the Youth Connectedness Project, in which 1,774 adolescents aged 10–17 completed a self-report survey three times at one-year intervals. Using random intercept longitudinal mediation path models, we tested whether and to what extent different coping strategies at T2 functioned as mediators between family connectedness at T1 and stress-triggering problems at T3. As predicted, statistical analyses indicated that family connectedness negatively predicted stress-triggering problems over time, and we found that maladaptive coping, but not adaptive coping, significantly mediated this relationship. This result suggests that family connectedness predicted a reduction in maladaptive coping one year later, and this lower level of maladaptation predicted a reduction in stress-triggering problems a subsequent year later. These and other related findings are important as they highlight several mechanisms shaping unfolding problematic situations experienced by adolescents. Contributions of the results to the existing body of knowledge about adolescents’ stress and coping strategies are discussed, as well as their clinical implications for the prevention or reduction of stress experienced by adolescents.