Fade to black
Tasha Howe et al.
Self and Identity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research in the 1980s suggested that young “metalheads” were at risk for poor developmental outcomes. No other study has assessed this group as adults; thus, we examined 1980s heavy metal groupies, musicians, and fans at middle age, using snowball sampling from Facebook. Online surveys assessed adverse childhood experiences, personality, adult attachment, and past and current functioning in 377 participants. Results revealed that metal enthusiasts did often experience traumatic and risky “sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll” lives. However, the “metalhead” identity also served as a protective factor against negative outcomes. They were significantly happier in their youth and better adjusted currently than either middle-aged or current college-age youth comparison groups. Thus, participation in fringe style cultures may enhance identity development in troubled youth.
---------------------
Hannah Raila, Brian Scholl & June Gruber
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Given the many benefits conferred by trait happiness and life satisfaction, a primary goal is to determine how these traits relate to underlying cognitive processes. For example, visual attention acts as a gateway to awareness, raising the question of whether happy and satisfied people attend to (and therefore see) the world differently. Previous work suggests that biases in selective attention are associated with both trait negativity and with positive affect states, but to our knowledge, no previous work has explored whether trait-happy individuals attend to the world differently. Here, we employed eye tracking as a continuous measure of sustained overt attention during passive viewing of displays containing positive and neutral photographs to determine whether selective attention to positive scenes is associated with measures of trait happiness and life satisfaction. Both trait measures were significantly correlated with selective attention for positive (vs. neutral) scene s, and this general pattern was robust across several types of positive stimuli (achievement, social, and primary reward), and not because of positive or negative state affect. Such effects were especially prominent during the later phases of sustained viewing. This suggests that people who are happy and satisfied with life may literally see the world in a more positive light, as if through rose-colored glasses. Future work should investigate the causal relationship between such attention biases and one’s happiness and life satisfaction.
---------------------
Kimberly Albert, Jens Pruessner & Paul Newhouse
Psychoneuroendocrinology, September 2015, Pages 14-24
Abstract:
Although ovarian hormones are thought to have a potential role in the well-known sex difference in mood and anxiety disorders, the mechanisms through which ovarian hormone changes contribute to stress regulation are not well understood. One mechanism by which ovarian hormones might impact mood regulation is by mediating the effect of psychosocial stress, which often precedes depressive episodes and may have mood consequences that are particularly relevant in women. In the current study, brain activity and mood response to psychosocial stress was examined in healthy, normally cycling women at either the high or low estradiol phase of the menstrual cycle. Twenty eight women were exposed to the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST), with brain activity determined through functional magnetic resonance imaging, and behavioral response assessed with subjective mood and stress measures. Brain activity responses to psychosocial stress differed between women in the low versus high estro gen phase of the menstrual cycle: women with high estradiol levels showed significantly less deactivation in limbic regions during psychosocial stress compared to women with low estradiol levels. Additionally, women with higher estradiol levels also had less subjective distress in response to the MIST than women with lower estradiol levels. The results of this study suggest that, in normally cycling premenopausal women, high estradiol levels attenuate the brain activation changes and negative mood response to psychosocial stress. Normal ovarian hormone fluctuations may alter the impact of psychosocially stressful events by presenting periods of increased vulnerability to psychosocial stress during low estradiol phases of the menstrual cycle. This menstrual cycle-related fluctuation in stress vulnerability may be relevant to the greater risk for affective disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder in women.
---------------------
Short Alleles, Bigger Smiles? The Effect of 5-HTTLPR on Positive Emotional Expressions
Claudia Haase et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
The present research examined the effect of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene on objectively coded positive emotional expressions (i.e., laughing and smiling behavior objectively coded using the Facial Action Coding System). Three studies with independent samples of participants were conducted. Study 1 examined young adults watching still cartoons. Study 2 examined young, middle-aged, and older adults watching a thematically ambiguous yet subtly amusing film clip. Study 3 examined middle-aged and older spouses discussing an area of marital conflict (that typically produces both positive and negative emotion). Aggregating data across studies, results showed that the short allele of 5-HTTLPR predicted heightened positive emotional expressions. Results remained stable when controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and depressive symptoms. These findings are consistent with the notion that the short allele of 5-HTTLPR functions as an emotion amplifier, whi ch may confer heightened susceptibility to environmental conditions.
---------------------
The Great Escape: The Role of Self-esteem and Self-related Cognition in Terror Management
Arnaud Wisman, Nathan Heflick & Jamie Goldenberg
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, September 2015, Pages 121-132
Abstract:
Integrating terror management theory and objective self-awareness theory, we propose the existential escape hypothesis, which states that people with low self-esteem should be especially prone to escaping self-awareness as a distal response to thoughts of death. This is because they lack the means to bolster the self as a defense, and the propensity to bolster the self reduces the motivation to escape from self-awareness. Five studies supported this hypothesis. Individuals low, but not high, in self-esteem scored lower on a measure of private self-awareness (Study 1), showed less implicit self-activation (Studies 2 & 3), were more likely to choose to write about others than themselves (Study 4), and consumed more alcohol in a field study at a nightclub (Study 5) in response to mortality reminders. Implications for terror management theory (highlighting an additional route to defend against mortality awareness), self-regulation, physical health and well-being are discussed.
---------------------
Suicide in the City: Do Characteristics of Place Really Influence Risk?
Justin Denney et al.
Social Science Quarterly, June 2015, Pages 313-329
Objective: This article investigates the role of social context on individual suicide mortality with attention paid to the possibility that contextual effects are simply the sum of individual characteristics associated with suicide.
Methods: We use restricted data from the 1986-2006 National Health Interview Survey-Linked Mortality Files, which include nearly 1 million records and 1,300 suicides, to examine the role of familial and socioeconomic context on adult suicide.
Results: Results show that adults living in cities with more socioeconomic disadvantage and fewer families living together have higher odds of suicidal death than adults living in less disadvantaged cities and cities with more families living together, respectively, after controlling for individual-level socioeconomic status, marital status, and family size.
Conclusion: The findings support classic sociological arguments that the risk of suicide is indeed influenced by the social milieu and cannot simply be explained by the aggregation of individual characteristics.
---------------------
Tom Johnsen & Oddgeir Friborg
Psychological Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
A meta-analysis examining temporal changes (time trends) in the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) as a treatment for unipolar depression was conducted. A comprehensive search of psychotherapy trials yielded 70 eligible studies from 1977 to 2014. Effect sizes (ES) were quantified as Hedge’s g based on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD). Rates of remission were also registered. The publication year of each study was examined as a linear metaregression predictor of ES, and as part of a 2-way interaction with other moderators (Year × Moderator). The average ES of the BDI was 1.58 (95% CI [1.43, 1.74]), and 1.69 for the HRSD (95% CI [1.48, 1.89]). Subgroup analyses revealed that women profited more from therapy than did men (p < .05). Experienced psychologists (g = 1.55) achieved better results (p < .01) than less experienced student therapists (g = 0.98). The metaregressions examining the temporal tren ds indicated that the effects of CBT have declined linearly and steadily since its introduction, as measured by patients’ self-reports (the BDI, p < .001), clinicians’ ratings (the HRSD, p < .01) and rates of remission (p < .01). Subgroup analyses confirmed that the declining trend was present in both within-group (pre/post) designs (p < .01) and controlled trial designs (p = .02). Thus, modern CBT clinical trials seemingly provided less relief from depressive symptoms as compared with the seminal trials. Potential causes and possible implications for future studies are discussed.
---------------------
Directed Abstraction: Encouraging Broad, Personal Generalizations Following a Success Experience
Peter Zunick, Russell Fazio & Michael Vasey
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
People with negative self-views may fail to generalize appropriately from success experiences (e.g., Wood, Heimpel, Newby-Clark, & Ross, 2005). We drew on theories regarding self-views (Swann, Griffin, Predmore, & Gaines, 1987) and abstraction (Semin & Fiedler, 1991), as well as past linguistic framing work (e.g., Marigold, Holmes, & Ross, 2007, 2010; Salancik, 1974), to create a new technique to encourage people with negative self-views to generalize broadly from a success experience to the self-concept. We call this technique directed abstraction. In Experiment 1, participants with negative self-views who completed a directed abstraction writing task following success feedback regarding a novel laboratory task generalized more from that success, reporting higher ability levels and greater expectations of future success in the relevant domain. In Experiment 2, directed abstraction produced similar results (including more positive self-related affect, e.g., pride) after parti cipants recalled a past public speaking success. In Experiment 3, participants high in fear of public speaking gave two speeches in a context designed to be challenging yet also to elicit successful performances. Directed abstraction helped these participants generalize from their success to beliefs about their abilities, expectations about the future, and confidence as a speaker. In Experiment 4, directed abstraction following success on a verbal task increased persistence in the face of failure on a subsequent verbal task. We discuss implications for understanding how and when people generalize from a success, compare directed abstraction to existing interventions, and suggest practical applications for this influence technique.
---------------------
Depression as sickness behavior? A test of the host defense hypothesis in a high pathogen population
Jonathan Stieglitz et al.
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Sadness is an emotion universally recognized across cultures, suggesting it plays an important functional role in regulating human behavior. Numerous adaptive explanations of persistent sadness interfering with daily functioning (hereafter “depression”) have been proposed, but most do not explain frequent bidirectional associations between depression and greater immune activation. Here we test several predictions of the host defense hypothesis, which posits that depression is part of a broader coordinated evolved response to infection or tissue injury (i.e. “sickness behavior”) that promotes energy conservation and reallocation to facilitate immune activation. In a high pathogen population of lean and relatively egalitarian Bolivian forager-horticulturalists, we test whether depression and its symptoms are associated with greater baseline concentration of immune biomarkers reliably associated with depression in Western populations (i.e. tumor necro sis factor alpha [TNF-α], interleukin-1 beta [IL-1β], interleukin-6 [IL-6], and C-reactive protein [CRP]). We also test whether greater pro-inflammatory cytokine responses to ex vivo antigen stimulation are associated with depression and its symptoms, which is expected if depression facilitates immune activation. These predictions are largely supported in a sample of older adult Tsimane (mean ± SD age = 53.2 ± 11.0, range = 34-85, n = 649) after adjusting for potential confounders. Emotional, cognitive and somatic symptoms of depression are each associated with greater immune activation, both at baseline and in response to ex vivo stimulation. The association between depression and greater immune activation is therefore not unique to Western populations. While our findings are not predicted by other adaptive hypotheses of depression, they are not incompatible with those hypotheses and future research is necessary to isolate and test competing predi ctions.
---------------------
Wesley Moons & Grant Shields
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Psychological stressors reliably trigger systemic inflammatory activity as indexed by levels of proinflammatory cytokines. This experiment demonstrates that one’s specific emotional reaction to a stressor may be a significant determinant of whether an inflammatory reaction occurs in response to that stressor. Based on extant correlational evidence and theory, a causal approach was used to determine whether an avoidant emotion (anxiety) triggers more inflammatory activity than an approach emotion (anger). In an experimental design (N = 40), a 3-way Emotion Condition × Time × Analyte interaction revealed that a writing-based anxiety induction, but not a writing-based anger induction, increased mean levels of interferon-γ (IFN- γ) and interleukin-1β (IL-1β), but not interleukin-6 (IL-6) in oral mucous, F(2, 54) = 4.64, p = .01, ηp2 = .15. Further, self-reported state anxiety predicted elevated levels of proinflammatory cyto kines, all ΔR2 >.06, ps <.04, but self-reported state anger did not. These results constitute the first evidence to our knowledge that specific negative emotions can differentially cause inflammatory activity and support a theoretical model explaining these effects based on the avoidance or approach motivations associated with emotions.
---------------------
The Health Consequences of Adverse Labor Market Events: Evidence from Panel Data
Johanna Catherine Maclean et al.
Industrial Relations, July 2015, Pages 478-498
Abstract:
This study investigates the associations between self-assessed adverse labor market events (experiencing problems with coworkers, employment changes, financial strain) and health. Longitudinal data are obtained from the National Epidemiological Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions. Our findings suggest problems with coworkers, employment changes, and financial strain are associated, respectively, with a 3.1 percent (3.3 percent), 0.9 percent (0.2 percent), and 4.5 percent (5.1 percent) reduction in mental health among men (women). Associations are smaller in magnitude and less significant for physical health.
---------------------
Wenyi Lin, Jing Hu & Yanfei Gong
Social Behavior and Personality, Spring 2015, Pages 383-396
Abstract:
We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the influence of manipulating facial expression on error monitoring in individuals. The participants were 11 undergraduate students who had been diagnosed with minor depression (MinD). We recorded error-related negativity (ERN) as the participants performed a modified flanker task in 3 conditions: Duchenne smile, standard smile, and no smile. Behavioral data results showed that, in both the Duchenne smile and standard smile conditions, error rates were significantly lower than in the no-smile condition. The ERP analysis results indicated that, compared to the no-smile condition, both Duchenne and standard smiling facial expressions decreased ERN amplitude, and ERN amplitudes were smallest for those in the Duchenne smile condition. Our findings suggested that even brief smile manipulation may improve long-term negative mood states of people with MinD.
---------------------
Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Stressful Life Events: Testing for Selection and Socialization
Ulrich Orth & Eva Luciano
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examined whether self-esteem and narcissism predict the occurrence of stressful life events (i.e., selection) and whether stressful life events predict change in self-esteem and narcissism (i.e., socialization). The analyses were based on longitudinal data from 2 studies, including samples of 328 young adults (Study 1) and 371 adults (Study 2). The effects of self-esteem and narcissism were mutually controlled for each other and, moreover, controlled for effects of depression. After conducting the study-level analyses, we meta-analytically aggregated the findings. Self-esteem had a selection effect, suggesting that low self-esteem led to the occurrence of stressful life events; however, this effect became nonsignificant when depression was controlled for. Regardless of whether depression was controlled for or not, narcissism had a selection effect, suggesting that high narcissism led to the occurrence of stressful life events. Moreover, stressful life events had a socializ ation effect on self-esteem, but not on narcissism, suggesting that the occurrence of stressful life events decreased self-esteem. Analyses of trait-state models indicated that narcissism consisted almost exclusively of perfectly stable trait variance, providing a possible explanation for the absence of socialization effects on narcissism. The findings have significant implications because they suggest that a person’s level of narcissism influences whether stressful life events occur, and that self-esteem is shaped by the occurrence of stressful life events. Moreover, we discuss the possibility that depression mediates the selection effect of low self-esteem on stressful life events.
---------------------
Susann Steudte-Schmiedgen et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, September 2015, Pages 123-133
Background: Previous evidence on endocrine risk markers for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been inconclusive. Here, we report results of the first prospective study to investigate whether long-term hair cortisol levels and experimentally-induced cortisol stress reactivity are predictive of the development of PTSD symptomatology in response to trauma during military deployment.
Methods: Male soldiers were examined before deployment to Afghanistan and at a 12-month post-deployment follow-up using dimensional measures for psychopathological symptoms. The predictive value of baseline (i) hair cortisol concentrations (HCC, N = 90) and (ii) salivary cortisol stress reactivity (measured by the Trier Social Stress Test, N = 80) for the development of PTSD symptomatology after being exposed to new-onset traumatic events was analyzed.
Results: Baseline cortisol activity significantly predicted PTSD symptom change from baseline to follow-up upon trauma exposure. Specifically, our results consistently revealed that lower HCC and lower cortisol stress reactivity were predictive of a greater increase in PTSD symptomatology in soldiers who had experienced new-onset traumatic events (explaining 5% and 10.3% of variance, respectively). Longitudinal analyses revealed an increase in HCC from baseline to follow-up and a trend for a negative relationship between HCC changes and the number of new-onset traumatic events. Additional pre-deployment analyses revealed that trauma history was reflected in lower HCC (at trend level) and that HCC were negatively related to stressful load.
Conclusions: Our data indicate that attenuated cortisol secretion is a risk marker for subsequent development of PTSD symptomatology upon trauma exposure. Future studies are needed to confirm our findings in other samples.