In March 2023, Ashley, Katerina and Bronwen presented at the Society for Affective Science (SAS) conference in California.
Ashley Battaglini presented a new research idea with her poster called: “Co-rumination Across Multiple Relationships during Early Adolescence: Does it Perpetuate Future Co-rumination and Depressive Symptoms?” Co-rumination involves rehashing and discussing negative feelings and problems with another person. Ashley’s poster proposed to examine whether co-rumination that occurs in certain relationships (e.g., friends) compared to others (e.g., parents) shows increases in co-rumination and depressive symptoms over time.
Dr. Katerina Rnic presented: “Emotion Regulation Mediates the Prospective Association of Self-Schemas with the Generation of Stress: Results of Two Longitudinal Studies of Depressed and Community Adults.” Her research examined how beliefs about oneself can result in experiencing more stressful life events. Examining both depressed individuals and people from the general community, Katerina found that more negative, and less positive, self-beliefs predict greater engagement in emotion regulation strategies such as avoidance and reassurance seeking. These strategies, in turn, are associated with greater dependent (self-generated), but not independent (fateful), stressors. This is crucial because it helps us to understand why some individuals have more stressful lives and suggests potential targets for interventions to reduce peoples’ stress.
Bronwen Grocott presented her poster titled: “Negative Self-Referential Processing Mediates Longitudinal Pathways from Loneliness to Depression: A Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Model.” Her research measured loneliness, depression, and negative self-cognitions repeatedly in a large sample of adults across the first year of COVID-19. She found that increases in loneliness made participants’ future self-thoughts more negative, leading to increased depressive symptoms over time.
