title: Modifying adolescent interpretation biases through cognitive training: effects on negative affect and stress appraisals.
abstract: Adolescent anxiety is common, impairing and costly. Given the scale of adolescent anxiety and its impact, fresh innovations for therapy are in demand. Cognitive Bias Modification of Interpretations (CBM-I) studies of adults show that by training individuals to endorse benign interpretations of ambiguous situations can improve anxious mood-states particularly in response towards stress. While, these investigations have been partially extended to adolescents with success, inconsistent training effects on anxious mood-states have been found. The present study investigated whether positive versus negative CBM-I training influenced appraisals of stress, in forty-nine adolescents, aged 15-18. Data supported the plasticity of interpretational styles, with positively-trained adolescents selecting more benign resolutions of new ambiguous situations, than negatively-trained adolescents. Positively-trained adolescents also rated recent stressors as having less impact on their lives than negatively-trained adolescents. Thus, while negative styles may increase negative responses towards stress, positive styles may boost resilience.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 4AU, UK. m.d.telman@vu.nl
authors.forename: Machteld D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Telman
authors.forename: Emily A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Holmes
authors.forename: Jennifer Y F
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Lau
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect; D001007:Anxiety / Q000628:therapy*; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012938:Social Perception; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000628:therapy*