Parent Encouragement And Coaching of Happiness in Youth
Maternal Positive Affect Socialization and Child Neural Reward Response
University of Pittsburgh
180 participants
Oct 28, 2025
INTERVENTIONAL
Conditions
Summary
The goal of this mechanistic clinical trial is to examine whether parent-coaching aimed at increasing child positive affect will increase child neural response to reward. The main questions it aims to answer are: Aim 1. Characterize child neural reward response and its relation to maternal socialization of positive emotions at baseline in healthy young children. Aim 2. Evaluate how coaching-related changes in maternal socialization of positive emotion expression contribute to increases in child neural reward response over time. Aim 3. Examine how maternal socialization of positive emotion expression contributes to increases in child neural reward response in the moment. Participating mother-child dyads will be randomized to either 3 sessions of parent coaching of child positive affect or 3 sessions of a general parenting support intervention and neural response to reward and affective behavior will be examined pre and post intervention.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria5
- Birth mother (biologically female, any gender)
- Providing regular care for participating child (i.e., at least 50% of time)
- Elevated, clinically significant levels of depression (16 or higher on CES-D)
- Aged 18+
- Aged 4-6 years
Exclusion Criteria6
- Lifetime history of a bipolar disorder
- Lifetime history of a psychotic disorder
- T-score greater than 63 on the internalizing or externalizing composites of the CBCL
- Lifetime history of a psychiatric illness
- Lifetime history of neurodevelopmental disorder
- Lifetime history of neurological disorder
Interventions
Three sessions of parent coaching of child positive affect will be administered based on modules from PCIT-ED.
General parent support and psychoeducation based on components of standard PCIT.
Locations(1)
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NCT06725160