Effects of a Single-session Implicit Theories of Personality Intervention on Early Adolescent Psychopathology

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.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Ages 12 to 15 (inclusive) at time of study enrollment

- One or more of the following (3) criteria, all assessed through an initial parent
phone screen: (1) t-score of >60 (84th percentile) on any disorder subscale of the
Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale-Parent (RCADS-P, Ebesutani et al., 2010);
(2) school-based accommodations for anxiety- or depression-related symptoms, such as
through an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or a 504 plan; (3) anxiety and/or
depression treatment sought for the youth within the previous 3 years.

Exclusion Criteria:

- Psychosis, intellectual disability, pervasive developmental/autism spectrum disorder,
and suicidal ideation leading to hospitalization or attempts within the past year.