Introduction: When faced with a potential stressor, such as having a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), individuals use coping strategies to adjust to the situation. Certain coping strategies are more adaptive, such as positive reframing, which is related to lower levels of depression for parents of children with ASD (Hastings et al., 2005). However, there are differences in coping between mothers and fathers, and possibly between non-Hispanic White and Hispanic parents as a result of cultural differences (Hastings et al., 2005; Willis et al., 2016). Therefore, the goal of the current study was to investigate which adaptive coping strategies moderated the relationship between child symptom severity and parent mental health for both non-Hispanic White and Hispanic fathers of children with ASD.

Method: Participants were 75 fathers of children (M = 6.64 years, SD = 2.29 years) with ASD, and were either Hispanic (n = 43; M = 41.77 years, SD = 6.75) or non-Hispanic White (n = 31; M = 44.35 years, SD = 6.25). All fathers completed the current version of the Social Communication Questionnaire regarding their child’s symptom profile. They also completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, a measure of adult depressive symptoms, and the Brief COPE, a measure of frequency of coping strategy use. Separate moderated regression models were entered in the PROCESS macro for SPSS for fathers of each ethnicity with each of the following coping strategies: positive reframing, active coping, planning, instrumental use of social support, and religious coping.

Results: For non-Hispanic White fathers, there was a significant interaction (i.e., moderation) between the effects of child symptom severity and use of positive reframing on the parent’s depressive symptoms, b = -.43 (SE = .17), p = .02. The interaction accounted for an additional 15.6% percent of variance in depressive symptoms. For fathers who infrequently used positive reframing, there was a significant positive relationship between child symptoms and parent depression, b = 1.01 (SE = .36), p = .01, but the relationship was non-significant for those who used high levels of positive reframing, p > .05. Moderation was also found with instrumental support coping, b = -.38 (SE = .11), p = .003, R2 = .26, and religious coping, b = -.46 (SE = .14), p = .004, R2 = .26. However, neither active coping nor planning coping were significant moderators for non-Hispanic White fathers, ps > .05. For Hispanic fathers, none of the aforementioned coping strategies served as a moderator of the relationship between child symptoms and parent depression, ps > .05.
Discussion: Results suggest that using adaptive coping strategies frequently serves as a protective factor for non-Hispanic White fathers’ mental health. Therefore, teaching those fathers adaptive coping strategies may improve their functioning. Previous interventions increased use of adaptive coping strategies in parents of children with ASD and may be applicable in the case of fathers, as well (Samadi, McConkey, & Kelly, 2013). However, it may be that there is some other factor besides coping strategy use, which serves as the best protective factor for Hispanic fathers. For instance, future research may investigate the importance of family functioning, given the importance of familism in Hispanic culture.

References:
Hastings, R. P., Kovshoff, H., Brown, T., Ward, N. J., Degli Espinosa, F., & Remington, B.
(2005). Coping strategies in mothers and fathers of preschool and school-age children
with autism. Autism, 9, 377-391. doi: 10.1177/1362361305056078

Samadi, S. A., McConkey, R., & Kelly, G. (2013). Enhancing parental well-being and coping
through a family-centred short course for Iranian parents of children with an autism
spectrum disorder. Autism, 17, 27-43. doi: 10.1177/1362361311435156

Willis, K., Timmons, L., Pruitt, M., Schneider, H. L., Alessandri, M., & Ekas, N. V. (2016). The
relationship between optimism, coping, and depressive symptoms in Hispanic mothers and fathers of children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 2427-2440. doi: 10.1007/s10803-016-2776-7

The importance of cannabinoid receptors has risen in recent years due to the increasing number of states that have legalized marijuana; 28 states allow the usage of medical marijuana and 7 states allow recreational use ("28 Legal," 2017). Previous research from our lab has explored coping with multiple instances of reward loss when exposed to large, chronic doses of cannabinoid agonist WIN 55, 212-2 (WIN, 10 mg/kg). When chronically exposed rats received a consummatory successive negative contrast (cSNC) downshift of 32% to 4% sucrose, they were less able to cope with the subsequent autoshaping downshift of 12 pellets to 2 pellets. Additional autoshaping research from our lab has shown multiple downshifts in autoshaping to be successful in obtaining contrast effects. The present research combined this procedure with occasional acute doses of WIN (1 mg/kg) to determine if only one kind of downshift experience, autoshaping, was sufficient to produce less coping efficacy if repeated. Rats were randomly assigned to either WIN or vehicle control groups, and then trained in acquisition with discrete lever presentations where one lever was always followed by the delivery of 12 pellets, and a second lever was always followed by 2 pellets. After acquisition, rats received downshift sessions once per week, wherein the lever previously associated with 12 pellets was downshifted to only be followed by 2 pellets. Prior to each of 4 downshift sessions, rats received intraperitoneal injections of either WIN or vehicle solution. Lever presses to each lever during discrete “forced choice” and simultaneous “free choice” trials and head entries into the cup where food was delivered, or “goal entries,” were both recorded to assess preference and explore downshift effects. Although acute WIN administration did not affect lever preference relative to vehicle controls, it did result in decreased lever pressing in favor of goal tracking during the downshift. Therefore, WIN seems to encourage rats to be more focused on the outcome instead of responding to signals for the outcome, which may have implications for reducing impulsive behavior despite extensive training.

Prior work has found that religious individuals experience greater concerns about mortality when thinking about Jesus taking human form (Arrowood & Cox, 2018). Building on this, the present research examined how intrinsic religiosity (i.e., a more “mature” form of religion with a development for a deeper, more meaningful relationship with God) would moderate these effects. Christian individuals were asked to complete the Religious Orientation Scale, followed by reading an essay that either described Jesus as being fully human or a description of His lost years (i.e., neutral condition). The dependent variable consisted of people’s fear of mortality. The results revealed that low intrinsic individuals experienced a heightened fear of death following a creaturely Jesus prime. High intrinsic individuals, however, did not differ from neutral conditions. This study suggests that intrinsically valuing religion can serve as a buffer against existential anxieties stemming from humanistic concerns.

Anxiety disorders are a widespread and serious health concern currently affecting approximately 18% of the adult population per year (Kessler, et al., 2005); thus, there is a strong need to develop and improve therapeutic treatments for anxiety. Moreover, because sex differences in the prevalence of affective disorders in humans are well documented, this study involves both male and female rats. Vocalizations allow for a dynamic assessment of an animal’s emotional state. The ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) of rats are produced at frequencies above the level of human hearing. USVs are often used as a tool to assess the emotional state of rats. Previous research has identified two main call types for rats: 22 kHz (related to strongly negative emotion) and 50 kHz. 50 kHz calls can then be further broken down into constant frequency (CF) and frequency modulated (FM) subtypes. FM calls are produced with a bandwidth greater than 15 kHz; these calls are related to positive emotional states. Whereas, CF calls are produced with a constant frequency and a bandwidth less than 10 kHz. Our lab hypothesizes that CF 50 kHz calls are expressions of anxiety in rats. Our lab has previously explored the vocalizations of rats across a continuum of negative affective state (i.e., from anxiety to fear) within a single testing session using a sequence of temporally consistent mild footshocks. The current experiment explores USV production in male and female rats when the temporal predictability was reduced by randomizing the time between footshocks. We utilized an unpredictable footshock paradigm with the goal of increasing or prolonging a state of anxiety as compared to our previous procedure. In this paradigm, shocks were administered across three successive days: on Day 1, mild footshocks were administered in a pseudo-randomized pattern, on Day 2, subjects were returned to the same context but did not receive footshocks, and on Day 3, a single reinstatement shock was administered. Differences in USV calling behavior across test days will be explored in male and female rats. In addition to USVs, rearing and freezing behavior were also recorded and used to assess anxiety and fear. These results will enhance our understanding of vocal expression of emotional states in rats, which improves the dominant animal model used to study anxiety disorders and potential therapeutic interventions.

Discrimination learning involves responses (e.g., cheering for TCU) that are rewarded under some conditions (e.g., at a TCU football game) but not others (e.g., in the library). Occasion setting involves a higher-order discrimination in which one stimulus (i.e., the occasion setter) signals whether response to a second stimulus (i.e., a discriminative stimulus) will be rewarded (e.g., followed by food) or not. In the current experiments, pigeons were trained in a spatial occasion setting task in which an occasion setter (i.e., a colored background) provided information about if and where to respond relative to a discriminative stimulus that served as a landmark (i.e., a colored box embedded within the occasion setter). These experiments examined the effect of spatial ambiguity on occasion setting. In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained on a task in which spatially stable occasion setters gave information about where to respond relative to spatially unstable landmarks (←YB, ZB→, ←WA, XA→, ←C→). In Experiment 2, a different set of pigeons were trained with both a spatially unstable and two spatially stable occasion setters paired with landmarks that were spatially unstable (←WA, WB→, ←XA, YB→, ←C→). Transfer tests showed that the stable occasion setters were able to control responding to spatially unstable landmarks that they had not been paired with in training.