Chrystyna D. Kouros’s research while affiliated with Southern Methodist University and other places

The present study sought to leverage machine learning approaches to determine whether social determinants of health improve prediction of incident cardiovascular disease (CVD). Participants in the Jackson Heart study with no history of CVD at baseline were followed over a 10-year period to determine first CVD events (i.e., coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure). Three modeling algorithms (i.e., Deep Neural Network, Random Survival Forest, Penalized Cox Proportional Hazards) were used to evaluate three feature sets (i.e., demographics and standard/biobehavioral CVD risk factors [FS1], FS1 combined with psychosocial and socioeconomic CVD risk factors [FS2], and FS2 combined with environmental features [FS3]) as predictors of 10-year CVD risk. Contrary to hypothesis, overall predictive accuracy did not improve when adding social determinants of health. However, social determinants of health comprised eight of the top 15 predictors of first CVD events. The social determinates of health indicators included four socioeconomic factors (insurance status and types), one psychosocial factor (discrimination burden), and three environmental factors (density of outdoor physical activity resources, including instructional and water activities; modified retail food environment index excluding alcohol; and favorable food stores). Findings suggest that whereas understanding biological determinants may identify who is currently at risk for developing CVD and in need of secondary prevention, understanding upstream social determinants of CVD risk could guide primary prevention efforts by identifying where and how policy and community-level interventions could be targeted to facilitate changes in individual health behaviors.

The culture and norms of research laboratories can greatly influence the quality of scientific outputs produced by the lab and the well-being of its members. In most labs, the culture that governs how individual researchers behave in their work is often implicit and situational. In contrast, some labs develop their own lab manual, a written document that outlines their standard functioning. Such a lab manual can ensure that lab members have a shared and mutual understanding of who they are and how they do things. We argue that every lab could benefit from a lab manual because it facilitates efficient collaboration, reduces potential research mistakes, and aids the integration of new good research practices.Developing a lab manual without a doubt requires extra effort. To decrease researchers’ burden of creating their own lab manual, we provide a lab manual template that outlines the different topics that could be included in a manual. Moreover, we introduce an easy-to-use web app, blueprint, that further simplifies the process of creating a lab manual using our template. The present paper aims to serve as a guide for those who would like to partake in this endeavor.

Background Insufficient physical activity is associated with various health risks; however, most current physical activity interventions have critical barriers to scalability. Delivering interventions via technology and identifying active and inert components in early-phase development are ways to build more efficient and scalable interventions. We developed a novel intervention to promote physical activity that targets 3 brief guided thinking tasks, separately and in combination, using brief audio recordings: (1) episodic future thinking (EFT), (2) positive affective imagery (PAI), and (3) planning. Objective The aim of this GeT (Guided Thinking) Active study is to optimize a scalable guided thinking intervention to promote physical activity using principles of the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST). Mechanism-focused analyses will inform which components are optimal candidates for inclusion in an intervention package and which need refinement. Methods We will enroll 192 participants randomized to receive intervention components delivered via an audio recording that they will listen to prior to weekly in-lab physical activity sessions. Participants in the high dose conditions will also be instructed to listen to the audio recording 4 additional days each week. We will evaluate effects of the components on physical activity over 6 weeks in a 2 (EFT vs recent thinking) × 2 (PAI vs neutral imagery) × 2 (planning vs no planning) × 2 (dose: 5×/week vs 1×/week) full factorial randomized trial. Results The National Cancer Institute funded this study (R21CA260360) on May 13, 2021. Participant recruitment began in February 2022. Data analysis will begin after the completion of data collection. Conclusions The GeT Active study will result in a scalable, audio-recorded intervention that will accelerate progress toward the full development of guided thinking interventions to promote physical activity. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05235360; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05235360 International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) DERR1-10.2196/40908

BACKGROUND Insufficient physical activity is associated with various health risks; however, most current physical activity interventions have critical barriers to scalability. Delivering interventions via technology and identifying active and inert components in early-phase development are ways to build more efficient and scalable interventions. We developed a novel intervention to promote physical activity that targets three brief guided thinking tasks (i.e., episodic future thinking [EFT], positive affective imagery [PAI], planning), separately and in combination, using brief audio-recordings. OBJECTIVE The aim of the GeT (Guided Thinking) Active study is to optimize a scalable guided thinking intervention to promote physical activity, using principles of the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST). Mechanism-focused analyses will inform which components are optimal candidates for inclusion in an intervention package and which need refinement. METHODS We will enroll 192 participants randomized to receive intervention components delivered via an audio-recording that they will listen to prior to weekly in-lab physical activity sessions. Participants in the high dose conditions will also be instructed to listen to the audio-recording on four additional days during each week. We will evaluate effects of the components on physical activity over 6 weeks in a 2 (EFT vs. recent thinking) x 2 (PAI vs. neutral imagery) x 2 (Planning vs. no planning) x 2 (dose: 5x/week vs. 1x/week) full factorial randomized trial. RESULTS The National Cancer Institute funded this study (R21CA260360) on May 13, 2021. Participant recruitment began in February 2022. Data analysis will begin after the completion of data collection. CONCLUSIONS The GeT Active study will result in a scalable, audio-recorded intervention that will accelerate progress toward the full development of guided thinking interventions to promote physical activity. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT05235360

In this article, we provide a toolbox of recommendations and resources for those aspiring to promote the uptake of open scientific practices. Open Science encompasses a range of behaviours that aim to improve the transparency of scientific research. This paper is divided into seven sections, each devoted to different groups or institutions in the research ecosystem: colleagues, students, departments and faculties, universities, academic libraries, journals, and funders. We describe the behavioural influences and incentives for each of these stakeholders as well as changes they can make to foster Open Science. Our primary goal, however, is to suggest actions that researchers can take to promote these behaviours, inspired by simple principles of behaviour change: make it easy, social, and attractive. In isolation, a small shift in one person’s behaviour may appear to make little difference, but when combined, many shifts can radically alter shared norms and culture. We offer this toolbox to assist individuals and institutions in cultivating a more open research culture.

The link between depressive symptoms and relationship functioning has been well-documented. Evidence for affective concordance in depressive symptoms between partners suggests that couples are aware of each other’s mood and symptoms; however, there have been no direct tests of the extent to which couples accurately perceive their partner’s mental health. The present study assessed spouses’ empathic accuracy and assumed similarity bias in rating each other’s depressive symptoms using the truth and bias actor-partner interdependence model for indistinguishable dyads. We hypothesized that husbands and wives would show significant assumed similarity but not significant empathic accuracy when rating their partner’s depressive symptoms. Participants were 55 racially and ethnically diverse heterosexual couples ( N = 110 individuals) with a child between the ages of 10–16 recruited from the community. Results did not provide evidence for empathic accuracy in rating a spouse’s depressive symptoms. Instead, we found significant assumed similarity, such that ratings of a spouse’s depressive symptoms were associated with one’s own level of depressive symptoms. We also found evidence of directional bias, such that, on average, spouses overestimated each other’s level of depressive symptoms. These preliminary findings suggest that couples may not be particularly attuned to their partner’s subjective ratings of depression-related thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Future research should explore the processes accounting for partners’ perceptions of each other’s mental health, and the impact of these perceptions on relationship functioning.

New migrants from Mainland China to Hong Kong have faced increased discrimination from local Hong Kongers, which may have negative impacts on their adjustment and mental health. Guided by the family systems theory, we tested the dyadic effects of perceived discrimination levels among migrant children and mothers on their psychological distress in a sample of 200 child-mother pairs who migrated from Mainland China to Hong Kong. Using polynomial regression and response surface analyses, we found that when children's and mothers' reports of perceived discrimination showed congruence, higher levels of perceived discrimination were positively associated with both children's and mothers' psychological distress. In addition, when children's and mothers' reports of perceived discrimination were discrepant, higher levels of perceived discrimination among children compared with mothers were associated with increased psychological distress for children, and higher levels of perceived discrimination among mothers compared with children were associated with increased psychological distress for mothers. By using a dyadic approach, our study advances the understanding of the degree to which child-mother congruence and the direction of discrepancies in perceived discrimination contributes to children's and mothers' psychological distress. These findings have implications for the design of psychological distress-reduction intervention programs in the context of discrimination among migrant pairs.

Immigration research has recently investigated positive adaptation outcomes such as psychological growth. This study tested actor and partner effects between fluid mindset and psychological growth, mediated by resilience, in 200 migrant mother-child dyads from Mainland China to Hong Kong. Mothers' fluid mindset had significant actor and partner effects on their own and their children's psychological growth, whereas children's fluid mindset showed an actor effect. For mothers and children, fluid mindset had significant actor indirect effects on psychological growth via resilience. Mothers' fluid mindset had a significant partner indirect effect on children's psychological growth via children's resilience. The findings have implications for enhancing immigrants' psychological growth by strengthening fluid mindset and considering mothers and children as the intervention unit in resilience programs.

Social anxiety interferes with accurate perceptions of others' thoughts and intentions, yet studies examining the association between social anxiety and social cognition have resulted in mixed findings. We examined the association between dimensional levels of social anxiety and assessments of lower- and higher-level social cognition. In Study 1 (n = 1485), we found that social anxiety was negatively related to accuracy in an assessment of higher-level social cognition (i.e., theory of mind) across all stimuli. However, no consistent association was found between social anxiety and accuracy in an assessment of lower-level social cognition (i.e., emotion recognition). In Study 2 (n = 363), we found that social anxiety was negatively associated with another higher-level form of social cognition, empathic accuracy, for positive but not negative stimuli. These findings demonstrate that social anxiety is negatively associated with higher-level social cognition but not lower-level social cognition, and this association appears to be more consistent for positive stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).