College students' use of electronic communication with parents: links to loneliness, attachment, and relationship quality

Despite the ubiquitous use of new communication technologies, gaps in our knowledge remain regarding who is likely to rely on particular technologies and potential ramifications of these forms of communication on individuals' relationships and adjustment. In an online survey, 211 college students reported on their use of electronic communication with a parent who they identified as their closest family member. Results indicated that students who report more frequent phone conversations with parents also report more satisfying, intimate, and supportive parental relationships, but those students who use a social-networking site to communicate with parents report higher levels of loneliness, anxious attachment, as well as conflict within the parental relationship. The findings offer new evidence on how electronic communication technology with parents is related to adjustment in college students. Our study also suggests that further research is needed using longitudinal designs to understand better young adults' use of technology to communicate in today's society.     

Combined behavioural markers of cognitive biases are associated with anhedonia

Biases towards negative information, as well as away from positive information, are associated with psychopathology. Examining biases in multiple processes has been theorised to be more predictive than examining bias in any process alone. Anhedonia is a core symptom of psychopathology and predictive of future psychopathological symptoms. Finding that combined biases are associated with anhedonia would advance knowledge of the nature of emotional processing biases and the value of objective performance-based measures for identifying early risk markers. Participants (N?=?139) completed tasks that assess latency bias (dot probe) and biased recognition (two-alternative forced-choice) of emotional information, as well as an anhedonia measure. An index was computed for each task’s performance reflecting biased processing of positive and negative words. Only combined biases on both tasks were associated with anhedonia. Attentional bias was positively associated with anhedonia, but only when recognition bias for emotional words was high. Thus, assessing biases in multiple domains increased sensitivity to uncover relationships between emotional processing biases and anhedonic symptoms.     

Social Functioning Mediates the Relation Between Symptoms of Depression,Anxiety, and Suicidal Ideation Among Youth

Journal of Child and Family Studies - In order to accurately identify youth at risk for suicide, it remains crucial to explore the interplay of risk factors that predict suicidal behavior. Thus,...     

Self-concealment and suicidal behaviors

Understanding self-concealment, the tendency to actively conceal distressing personal information from others, may be important in developing effective ways to help individuals with suicidal ideation. No published study has yet assessed the relation between self-concealment and suicidal behaviors. Additionally, most self-concealment research has been conducted solely with younger adults. The relation between self-concealment and depressive symptoms among older adults (age 65 and older), and between self-concealment and suicidal behaviors among both younger (college student) and older adults, was investigated in this study. As predicted, self-concealment was significantly related to suicidal behaviors in younger adults. Furthermore, self-concealment was significantly related to depressive symptoms in older adults. Interestingly, the association between self-concealment and suicidal behaviors in this age group was not significant.     

The Association Between Anhedonia,Suicide Ideation,and Suicide Attempts: A Replication in a Persian Student Sample

Research suggests that anhedonia, a common symptom of depression, may be uniquely associated with suicidal behavior. However, little research has examined this association across cultures. To address this limitation, this study attempted to replicate a recent anhedonia and suicide study (conducted in a western culture) in a Persian sample using the Specific Loss of Interest and Pleasure Scale, Persian version. Participants consisted of 404 students who were recruited from a Persian university. Surprisingly, our results indicated that anhedonia levels were more than double those found in similar American student sample. Despite this marked difference in anhedonia symptoms, we found that anhedonia was associated with suicide risk, even when it was statistically accounting for other depressive symptoms. These findings suggest that anhedonia is a robust predictor of suicide risk across these two cultures. Further, anhedonia may be a particularly important treatment target among Persian students.     

Insomnia Symptoms,Nightmares, and Suicide Risk: Duration of Sleep Disturbance Matters

Duration of insomnia symptoms or nightmares was investigated to see if it was related to suicide risk independent of current insomnia symptoms, nightmares, anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and posttraumatic symptoms. The cross‐sectional study involved analyses of survey responses from undergraduate students who endorsed either insomnia symptoms (n = 660) or nightmares (n = 312). Both insomnia symptom and nightmare duration were significantly associated with suicide risk independent of current insomnia symptoms or nightmares, respectively. Relations were also significant after controlling for anxiety symptoms, depressive symptoms, and posttraumatic symptoms. Results suggest that duration of sleep disturbance is relevant when assessing suicide risk.