Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 9h

Grateful to @willemkuyken.bsky.social for being such a gracious host and insightful guide at Oxford — and to Jamie Delgadillo for the same at King’s College London. Inspiring conversations, wonderful campuses, and a fantastic trip all around. 🇬🇧🎓

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Reposted by Christian Webb, PhD

Leigh Turner @leighturner.bsky.social · 5d

"Dr. Balfour Mount, who coined the term 'palliative care' and whose profound empathy helped revolutionize health-care in North America, died peacefully on Sept. 25 at the palliative care unit that bears his name." www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Balfour Mount, who revolutionized end-of-life care, died at palliative unit named in his honour | CBC News

Mount devoted his life to caring for others and alleviating suffering. In interviews, his family and colleagues remembered him as both deeply compassionate and as a fierce advocate for the humanity of...

www.cbc.ca

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 26d

@mcleanhospital.bsky.social Technology in Psychiatry Summit #TIPS returns this year Dec 11-12. We have exciting keynotes lined up, including Drs. Pattie Maes (MIT Media Lab), Isaac Galatzer-Levy (Google DeepMind), and Derrick Hull (Slingshot AI). Submissions are now open. See below for info.

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 29d

collab w/ the wonderful @sgoldbergphd.bsky.social @lorihilt.bsky.social @hadarfisher.bsky.social @carolineswords.bsky.social and Dan Bolt

Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 29d

Conventional self-report and EMA measures of rumination provide distinct and clinically meaningful information. When deciding to use EMA in intervention studies, researchers should carefully consider the psychometric properties of their measures and the precise construct they intend to capture

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 29d

We found larger changes in rumination for the conventional self-report measures relative to EMA. Notably, change in both self-report and EMA rumination accounted for unique variance in overall depressive symptom improvement, demonstrating incremental predictive validity. 5/n

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 29d

Conventional self-report and EMA rumination were only modestly correlated, particularly w/ regards to change over time, which may be due to the lower reliability of change scores and that they tap different “selves” (e.g., experiencing vs. remembering self) 4/n

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 29d

While the reliability of both conventional self-report rumination (at baseline and post-intervention) and mean EMA rumination scores were high, we found a substantial decline in reliability when assessing change over time, especially for EMA. 3/n

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 29d

We analyzed data from 4 app-based meditation trials (N=412) to assess the reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change of conventional retrospective self-report vs. EMA measures of improvement in rumination. 2/n

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · 29d

📱EMA is increasingly used in intervention studies to acquire a more fine-grained and ecologically valid assessment of change. But EMA is relatively burdensome. What's the added value? We tried to address this question in our new paper now out @jmirpub.bsky.social www.jmir.org/2025/1/e69297 1/n

Ecological Momentary Assessment as a Measure of Intervention Change: Evaluation in 4 Digital Mental Health Trials

Background: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) is increasingly being incorporated into intervention studies to acquire a more fine-grained and ecologically valid assessment of change. The added uti...

www.jmir.org

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Sep 12

There is still time to submit your symposium, workshop, or poster for the 2025 Technology in Psychiatry Summit (TIPS). Submission deadline is Oct 9. TIPS is taking place virtually as a 2-day meeting Dec 11th and 12th, 2025. #TIPS #technologyinpsychiatry

Link: techinpsych.org

Technology in Psychiatry Summit | Supporting Mental Health in the Digital Age

techinpsych.org

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 24

Thanks, Charly. in general it was teens with lower levels of symptoms (e.g., fewer emotional difficulties (SDQ), lower depressive symptoms (CESD), and less executive function difficulties (BRIEF)). Details in the paper

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 24

Preprint now available here: osf.io/preprints/ps...

OSF

osf.io

Reposted by Christian Webb, PhD

Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 22

🚨 New research alert

We applied machine learning to the large MYRIAD trial (84 schools and 8,376 UK teens) to ask:

👉 Which adolescents benefit most from mindfulness delivered in schools?

Bottom line: One-size-fits-all doesn’t work.

Paper link: tinyurl.com/vvpvfunh

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tinyurl.com

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 22

Coauthors @willemkuyken.bsky.social @hinzeverena.bsky.social and bluesky-less Drs. Ren, Dalgeish, Ford, Greenberg, and Montero-Marin (hope not missing any bluesky accounts)

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 22

Focusing only on individual-level interventions risks overlooking broader influences. Future precision prevention should integrate multilevel data—capturing both individual and contextual drivers of outcomes.
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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 22

Youth mental health ≠ just individual factors.
School climate, poverty & inequities matter too.
Prevention must move beyond one-size-fits-all to integrate both personal + systemic influences.
5/n

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 22

Machine learning can identify which adolescents are more likely to benefit from SBMT vs. TAU.

This may point to a path toward precision prevention in schools. Next step: prospective trials testing whether algorithm-guided intervention assignment improves outcomes. 4/n

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 22

We used ML on baseline student + school characteristics to predict change in depression in SBMT vs. TAU.

Results:
• 19% of students fared better with SBMT (d = 0.22)
• 37% fared better with TAU (d = 0.22)
• Compared to negligible average between-group effects in the trial (d = 0.03)
3/n

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 22

The MYRIAD trial compared school-based mindfulness training (SBMT) vs. teaching as usual (TAU) in > 8,000 teens in 84 UK schools. SBMT did *not* outperform TAU in the overall trial. Background via NYT: www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/h... 2/n

Are We Talking Too Much About Mental Health? (Published 2024)

www.nytimes.com

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 22

🚨 New research alert

We applied machine learning to the large MYRIAD trial (84 schools and 8,376 UK teens) to ask:

👉 Which adolescents benefit most from mindfulness delivered in schools?

Bottom line: One-size-fits-all doesn’t work.

Paper link: tinyurl.com/vvpvfunh

1/n

tinyurl.com

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Reposted by Christian Webb, PhD

Koraly @drkoraly.bsky.social · Aug 22

My lab has an open post-doc position!

We will begin reviewing applications as they come in.

The post-doc will work with a vibrant research team at Penn State in the Department of Psychology and the Child Study Center.

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...

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Postdoctoral Research Scholar, The Cognition, Affect, and Temperament Lab, College of the Liberal Arts, Department of Psychology-2

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 19

Does your uni have any firewalled LLMs (contained in your institution and doesn't share data with the web/AI companies). Maybe some LLM solution like arxiv.org/abs/2402.13846
Hadar may have more ideas (she's traveling). Julian Rubel or Justin Baker may have thoughts too. Happy to reach out to them

Large Language Models are Advanced Anonymizers

Recent privacy research on large language models (LLMs) has shown that they achieve near-human-level performance at inferring personal data from online texts. With ever-increasing model capabilities, ...

arxiv.org

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Aug 19

A lab postdoc, @hadarfisher.bsky.social, has done work using LLMs to detect emotional states, & activity levels in BA. Couple preprints
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
osf.io/preprints/ps...
The 1st link is more relevant. There are tools to de-identify e.g., via google cloud, microsoft

Using Natural Language Processing to Track Negative Emotions in the Daily Lives of Adolescents

Tracking emotion fluctuations in adolescents’ daily lives is essential for understanding mood dynamics and identifying early markers of affective disorders. This study examines the potential of text-b...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Christian Webb, PhD @christianwebb.bsky.social · Jul 17

Excellent new paper spearheaded by lab member @hadarfisher.bsky.social finding that emotion rigidity (assessed via EMA) in youth predicts future depressive symptoms over a 2 year follow-up.

Hadar Fisher @hadarfisher.bsky.social · Jul 17

🚨New paper on emotion rigidity as a risk factor for future depression out in BRAT!
Thank you to @christianwebb.bsky.social @diegopizzagalli.bsky.social and the awesome teddylab team @nigeljaffe.bsky.social, KristinaPidvirny, and Anna Tierney 🙌

Free 50d access: authors.elsevier.com/a/1lRqe1KMdl...

authors.elsevier.com

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