Moria J. Smoski’s research while affiliated with Duke University and other places

Effective emotion regulation is critical for maintaining emotional health in the face of adverse events that accumulate over the lifespan. These abilities are thought to be generally maintained in older adults, accompanied by the emergence of attentional biases to positive information. Such age-related positivity biases, however, are not always reported and may be moderated by individual differences in affective vulnerabilities and competencies, such as those related to dispositional negative affect and emotion regulation styles. To examine these relationships, we analyzed eye-tracking data from 72 participants (35–74 years; 50 female), 44 without and 28 with a diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder during a free-viewing task comprising neutral-neutral, negative-neutral, and positive-neutral image pairs. Emotional bias scores were calculated based on the ratio of time spent dwelling on the emotional image vs. the neutral image in each emotional-neutral pair. Results indicate that healthy participants exhibited a stronger positivity bias than a negativity bias, whereas individuals with higher depressive symptom scores showed no difference. Next, we examined how age and emotion regulation strategy use (reappraisal vs. suppression, measured with the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire) impacted these effects. Individuals with Major Depressive Disorder did not exhibit a significant relationship between age and positivity bias. However, for healthy participants who self-reported a preference for using reappraisal in daily life, increased age was associated with an increased positivity bias. These findings indicate that the emergence of the positivity effect in older adults is related to reappraisal regulatory preferences in the absence of depressive symptoms.

Mind-wandering is an essential cognitive process in which people engage for 30–50% of their waking day and is highly associated with neuroticism. The current study identified the factor structure of retrospective self-report items related to mind-wandering and perseverative cognition content and explored these associations with neuroticism. In an adult community sample (N = 309), items from the NYC Cognition Questionnaire, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire Short Form, and the Rumination Responses Brooding Subscale were entered into factor analyses to test the optimal factor structure of these items. We employed a structural model to investigate associations of mind-wandering facets with neuroticism. A correlated three factor solution best fit the data (CFI = .94, TLI = .93, SRMR = .07, RMSEA = .07). Bifactor models failed to provide evidence for a general mind-wandering construct above and beyond variance explained by mind-wandering and perseverative cognition facets. The structural model revealed differential associations of each facet with neuroticism. A wandering mind is not always an unhappy mind. Whereas worry and rumination are associated with higher levels of neuroticism, mind-wandering has other components that relate to positively valenced cognition and lower neuroticism. Adaptive and maladaptive mind-wandering should be tested together in future studies of personality and psychopathology.

This study assessed the relationship between modifiable psychological variables and depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic growth in women experiencing infertility. U.S. women (N = 457) who identified as experiencing infertility completed standardized self-report measures of mindfulness, self-compassion, positive affect, intolerance of uncertainty, relationship satisfaction, experiential avoidance, depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic growth. Clinical and demographic characteristics (age, duration trying to conceive, miscarriage, and childlessness) did not predict depression or anxiety. Lower positive affect and higher experiential avoidance were associated with depression and anxiety. Lower self-compassion was associated with depression; higher intolerance of uncertainty was associated with anxiety. There were indirect effects of mindfulness on anxiety and depression via these variables. Future research should explore whether intervening on these factors reduces depressive and anxiety symptoms. Promoting mindfulness may have beneficial effects on symptoms via its downstream effects on multiple coping variables. Counterintuitively, posttraumatic growth was associated with higher intolerance of uncertainty and experiential avoidance.

Background: Growing evidence indicates that anhedonia is a multifaceted construct. This study examined the possibility of identifying subgroups of people with anhedonia using multiple reward-related measures to provide greater understanding the Research Domain Criteria's Positive Valence Systems Domain and pathways for developing treatments. Methods: Latent profile analysis of baseline data from a study that examined the effects of a novel kappa opioid receptor (KOR) antagonist drug on measures and biomarkers associated with anhedonia was used to identify subgroups. Measures included ventral striatal activation during the Monetary Incentive Delay task, response bias in the Probabilistic Reward Task, reward valuation scores from the Effort-Expenditure for Rewards Task, and scores from reward-related self-report measures. Results: Two subgroups were identified, which differed on self-report measures of reward. Participants in the subgroup reporting more anhedonia also reported more depression and had greater illness severity and functional impairments. Graphs of change with treatment showed a trend for the less severe subgroup to demonstrate higher response to KOR antagonist treatment on the neuroimaging measure, probabilistic reward task, and ratings of functioning; the subgroup with greater severity showed a trend for higher treatment response on reward-related self-report measures. Limitations: The main limitations include the small sample size and exploratory nature of analyses. Conclusions: Evidence of possible dissociation between self-reported measures of anhedonia and other measures with respect to treatment response emerged. These results highlight the importance for future research to consider severity of self-reported reward-related deficits and how the relationship across measurement methods may vary with severity.