Three decades of research have examined children's challenge and threat appraisals, yet unresolved issues remain. This study provides new insight about three central, open questions in this field: How do challenge and threat appraisals relate to events eliciting discrete negative emotions? How do challenge appraisals develop across childhood, and…

Background: Exposure to advertisements for tobacco products and tobacco warning labels evokes emotions. This study evaluated the association of discrete positive and negative emotions with interest in alternative tobacco products. Method: In 2013, 1,226 U.S. adult nonsmokers and current smokers viewed advertisements for moist snuff, snus, and…

Overexcitability (OE) and optimal flow are variables shared by talented individuals. This study demonstrated that the dancer (n = 86) and opera singer (n = 61) groups shared higher OE profiles compared to the athlete group (n = 50). Two self-report instruments assessed flow (global and subscales) and the five OE dimensions. All groups endorsed…

Our UC Santa Barbara research team engages in ongoing efforts to enhance and validate the Social Emotional Health Surveys (Primary, Secondary, and Higher Education). The initiative to enhance the secondary version is supported by an Institute of Education Sciences grant (#R305A160157, 2016-2020), which provides funding to refine, standardize, and…

The purpose of this study was to help parents, educators, and policymakers understand how to help transnational children adjust to their psychological challenges at school in the United States. A total of 109 Korean transnational adolescents aged 11 to 19 participated in this study. They had been staying in the country alone or with one of their…

This manual reports on the development and validation of the original Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary (carried out between 2012 and 2017). We shared the first version of the SEHS-S because it had sufficient validation evidence based on research completed by 2015; hence, the form reported on in this manual is called the SEHS-S (2015)…

Adopting a risk and resilience perspective, the current study examined whether family cohesion and peer support functioned as protective factors against the negative effects of racial/ethnic discrimination by peers. The sample included 142 ethnically diverse college students. The results showed that while greater perceived discrimination was…

This study examined the usefulness of a survey on underage drinking in a rural American Indian community health clinic. One hundred ninety-seven youth (90 male, 107 female; age range 8-20 years) were recruited from clinic waiting rooms and through community outreach. The study revealed that the usefulness of the survey was twofold: Survey results…

Investigated were why some low income, predominantly immigrant seniors (n = 91) choose to enroll in free training and start to use computers and the Internet while others choose not to enroll. The study was conducted in collaboration with a senior center in downtown Los Angeles that provides free Internet access and training to its seniors. The…

Background: The purpose of this study is to compare the mental health risk profile and health utilization behaviors of adolescent school-based health center (SBHC) users and nonusers and discuss the role that SBHCs can play in addressing adolescent health needs. Methods: The sample included 4640 students in grades 9 and 11 who completed the…

Utilizing suicide data collected 1925-1979, analyzed suicides among persons aged 10-24 to determine sociodemographic and presuicide behaviors which discriminate between male and female suicides, suicides of different ages, or explain the increase in suicide rates. Compared adolescent suicide rates in Sacramento County with national findings.…

The "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" ("MMWR") Series is prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Data in the weekly "MMWR" are provisional, based on weekly reports to CDC by state health departments. This issue of "MMWR" contains the following studies: (1) Youth Risk Behavior…