Amanda C. Collins

Dartmouth College · Geisel School of Medicine

Objectives: Reward devaluation theory (RDT) posits that some depressed individuals avoid positivity due to its previous association with negative outcomes. Behavioral indicators of avoidance of reward support RDT, but self-report indicators have yet to be examined discriminantly. Two candidate self-report measures were examined in relation to depre...

Objectives Components of rumination, including brooding and reflection, as well devaluating prospective positivity, may help maintain depressive symptoms. We examined these components together for the first time using network analysis. Methods We examined the robustness of rumination communities of closely-related items in one network and then exa...

Depressed individuals hold negative schemas and experience less positivity in their lives. Network analyses suggest that this may be due to connectivity among negative concepts within depressed individuals’ schemas. However, the extent to which positivity interacts with negativity in depressed persons’ schemas has not been thoroughly assessed. Thus...

Some individuals devalue positivity previously associated with negativity (Winer & Salem, 2016). Positive emotions (e.g. happiness) may be seen as threatening and result in active avoidance of future situations involving positivity. Although some self-report measures can capture emotions of happiness-averse individuals, they are not always capable...

Reward devaluation theory posits that depressed individuals avoid and devalue positivity, suggesting that they may hold fewer positive self-schemas. Previous meta-analytic reviews have supported this theoretical framework regarding positivity but have not assessed for self-referential stimuli. Self-referential encoding and recall tasks assess for s...

BACKGROUND Existing interventions for co-occurring depression and cannabis use often do not treat both disorders simultaneously and can result in higher rates of symptom relapse. Traditional in-person interventions are often difficult to obtain due to financial and time limitations, which may further prevent individuals with co-occurring depression...

Positive psychology interventions (PPIs) are effective at increasing happiness and decreasing depressive symptoms. PPIs are often administered as self-guided web-based interventions, but not all persons benefit from web-based interventions. Therefore, it is important to identify whether someone is likely to benefit from web-based PPIs, in order to...

Depressive symptoms have been shown to be negatively related to academic achievement, as measured by grade point average (GPA). Grit, or the passion for and the ability to persevere toward a goal despite adversity, has been linked to GPA. Thus, grit may potentially buffer against the negative effects of depressive symptoms in relation to academic a...

ImportanceMajor Depressive Disorder (MDD), is a widespread and often debilitating mental health condition characterized by significant heterogeneity in symptom profiles, which poses a challenge for early detection. Changes in sleep and movement patterns associated with MDD carry valuable diagnostic information. This study explored the utility of wr...

Background and objectives: Reward Devaluation Theory suggests that devaluation of positivity may be integral in understanding depression (Winer & Salem, 2016). Specifically, the anticipatory (e.g., fear of happiness) and responsive (e.g., dampening) behaviors related to the processing of positivity may play a role in the development and maintenanc...

Background: Depressed individuals experience fewer positive and more negative emotions and use fewer positive words to describe themselves. Natural language processing (NLP) techniques have been used to predict depression, with pronoun usage and positive and negative emotions being identified as important features. However, it is unclear whether us...

Reward Devaluation Theory posits that depressed individuals avoid and devalue positivity, suggesting that they may be less likely to hold positive self-schemas. Previous meta-analytic reviews support this theoretical framework with regard to positivity but have not assessed for self-referential stimuli. Self-referential encoding and recall tasks as...

Background and objectives: Positive affect treatments, which hold great promise to connect with those who are otherwise resistant to depression treatments, attempt to upregulate positive emotions. These treatments have potential advantages over standard therapies because they target cross-diagnostic core symptoms (e.g., anhedonia) that may respond...

Background Difficulty tolerating emotional distress has been identified as a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology. However, despite evidence that low distress tolerance is associated with increased symptoms of depression, little is known as to how and why this relationship exists. Previous work suggests that difficulty tolerating distres...

Depressed individuals hold negative schemas and experience less positivity in their lives. Network analyses suggest that this may be due to connectivity among negative concepts within depressed individuals’ schemas. However, the extent to which positivity interacts with negativity in depressed persons’ schemas has not been thoroughly assessed. Thus...

Anhedonia has been implicated as a core symptom of depression and schizophrenia, and studying anhedonia has yielded a wide array of important findings aiding the understanding and identification of psychological disorders. However, anhedonia is a complex and multifaceted construct; indeed, the term anhedonia has been defined in psychological and ps...