Effects of a Single-session Implicit Theories of Personality Intervention on Early Adolescent Psychopathology
Condition: Anxiety Symptoms; Depressive Symptoms
MeSH terms: Depression
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The goal of the project is to test whether a single-session intervention teaching incremental
      theories of personality, or the belief that one's personality is malleable, can strengthen
      recovery from social stress and reduce the development of anxiety and depression during early
      adolescence. Results may suggest a scalable, cost-effective approach to improving youths'
      coping capacities and preventing adverse mental health outcomes over time.
    

Detailed description: 
      Efforts to prevent and reduce mental health problems in youths have advanced greatly in
      recent years. However, these advances have not reduced rates of youth mental illness on a
      large scale. Thus, a great need exists for novel, scalable, and low-cost approaches to
      reducing mental health problems in youth. Ideally, such approaches would be
      mechanism-targeted: that is, they would act on specific developmental processes that underlie
      psychological disorders. The proposed research aims to address this need by testing whether a
      single-session intervention teaching incremental theories of personality, or the belief that
      one's personality is malleable-as opposed to entity theories of personality, or the belief
      that one's personality is fixed and unchangeable-can strengthen recovery from social stress
      and prevent the development of anxiety and depression during early adolescence. Compared to
      incremental theories, entity theories of personal traits have demonstrated cross-sectional
      and prospective relations with greater anxiety and depression in youths. Further, a
      single-session incremental personality theories intervention reduced the development of
      depressive symptoms in a community sample of adolescents, supporting these theories as
      powerful intervention and/or prevention targets, even when taught in a brief format.
      Specifically, this project has two aims. Aim 1 is to evaluate the effect of the implicit
      theories intervention on two candidate mechanisms of action, or targets, identified by prior
      research: arousal (measured via physiological reactivity following social stress) and loss
      (here, perceived loss of behavioral control) in youths 12-15 years of age. Following a
      lab-based social stress induction, I hypothesize that participants receiving the intervention
      will recover from stress more rapidly, as indicated by measures of arousal (heart rate
      variability; electrodermal activity levels) and self-reported loss (increased self-reported
      perceived control) compared to participants who do not receive the intervention. Aim 2 is to
      evaluate the effects of the single-session incremental theories intervention on anxiety and
      depression over a nine-month follow-up period. I will test whether the intervention, compared
      to a control protocol, reduces symptoms of anxiety an depression the development of anxiety
      and depression; I will also assess whether this change is a direct result of shifts in the
      two aforementioned targets (arousal; loss). I predict more positive trajectories in anxiety
      and depression for youth receiving the intervention, relative to those who do not receive the
      intervention, across nine months. I will also test whether these trajectories are mediated by
      changes in the targets described in Aim 1. Finally, regardless of outcomes for Aims 1 and 2,
      baseline, postintervention, and 9-month measures will be used to map links among implicit
      theories, interventions targeting those theories, social stress recovery, and youth anxiety
      and depression over time. Findings may suggest a cost-effective, scalable intervention that
      improves youth resiliency and mental health.
    

Intervention name(s): Implicit Theories of Personality Program; Control Program
Intervention type(s): Other; Other
Intervention description(s): This 30-minute, self-administered computer program teaches youths that personality is malleable, as opposed to fixed, due to the human brain's constant potential for change and growth (i.e., neuroplasticity).; This 30-minute, self-administered computer program was designed to control for nonspecific aspects of completing a series of computer-based activities in the context of the present study. It was also designed to mimic 'supportive therapy' that youths might receive in usual care settings, stressing the importance of sharing one's feelings with close others.
Other intervention name(s): Growth Mindset of Personality Program; Supportive Therapy (ST) Program
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: Participants (N=96), ages 12-15 will be randomized to receive one of two a 30-minute, computer-based programs: (1) a 'growth mindset' program, teaching that personal traits and characteristics are malleable; or (2) a control program, designed to mimic 'supportive therapy,' teaching the value of sharing one's feelings with close others.
Masking: Triple (Participant, Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Prevention