Looking on the bright side
Life skills, wealth, health, and wellbeing in later life
Andrew Steptoe & Jane Wardle
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Life skills play a key role in promoting educational and occupational success in early life, but their relevance at older ages is uncertain. Here we measured five life skills - conscientiousness, emotional stability, determination, control, and optimism - in 8,119 men and women aged 52 and older (mean 66.7 y). We show that the number of skills is associated with wealth, income, subjective wellbeing, less depression, low social isolation and loneliness, more close relationships, better self-rated health, fewer chronic diseases and impaired activities of daily living, faster walking speed, and favorable objective biomarkers (concentration of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, vitamin D and C-reactive protein, and less central obesity). Life skills also predicted sustained psychological wellbeing, less loneliness, and a lower incidence of new chronic disease and physical impairment over a 4-y period. These analyses took account of age, sex, parental socioeconomic background, education, and cognitive function. No single life skill was responsible for the associations we observed, nor were they driven by factors such as socioeconomic status or health. Despite the vicissitudes of later life, life skills impact a range of outcomes, and the maintenance of these attributes may benefit the older population.
Managing the death of close others: Evidence of higher valuing of ingroup identity in young adults who have experienced the death of a close other
Uri Lifshin et al.
Self and Identity, forthcoming
Abstract:
The death of a close other (DOCO) is perhaps the most difficult experience that people endure. According to terror management theory (TMT), people manage the potentially terrorizing awareness of their mortality by immersing in cultural worldviews that allow them to feel like valuable members of a meaningful universe who may have some existence or trace after death. Although TMT has potential implications for understanding how people cope with DOCO, few studies have examined this possibility. We report results from four studies showing that, in line with TMT, students who experienced DOCO reported stronger valuing of their identification with their in-groups, which in turn was associated with higher levels of self-esteem. These findings shed new light on the social-psychological dynamics of DOCO.
The cascade of positive events: Does exercise on a given day increase the frequency of additional positive events?
Kevin Young et al.
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research suggests exercise promotes well-being while reducing the risk and symptoms of certain psychiatric disorders. Similarly, positive events improve quality of life and may minimize the impact of negative life events; a dearth of positive events is also associated with increased psychiatric symptoms. Thus, increasing physical exercise and the occurrence of positive events is central to well-being promotion. Behavioral activation theory suggests the occurrence of one positive event increases the likelihood of engaging in subsequent positive events. We used a daily diary approach to examine this possible positive cascade, exploring relationships between exercise and positive social and achievement events. For three weeks, participants (N = 179) completed questionnaires at the end of each day. Multi-level modeling analyses revealed that daily exercise predicted increased positive social and achievement events on the same day. Exercise on one day also predicted greater positive social events on the subsequent day. Positive events did not affect exercise on the next day. Findings suggest that exercise creates a positive cascade, increasing positive social and achievement events experienced on the same day and positive social events on the following day.
Don't walk in her shoes! Different forms of perspective taking affect stress physiology
Anneke Buffone et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Helping behavior predicts both positive and negative outcomes for helpers' health and well-being. One reason for this may be that helpers can engage in different kinds of perspective taking, which in turn have different effects on well-being. Imaging oneself in a suffering other's place, or imagine-self perspective taking (ISPT), has been shown to lead to greater levels of personal distress than merely thinking about the other's feelings, or imagine-other perspective taking (IOPT). However, no research has examined the effects of ISPT and IOPT live as a person is engaged in helping behavior. Since self-report on emotional states is obtrusive during pursuit of a helping goal we examined distress indirectly by exploring whether ISPT and IOPT might differentially affect stress physiology during helping behavior. The present research set out to explore whether different forms of perspective taking may differently affect a helper's stress physiology. We hypothesized that during helping ISPT would induce a pattern of negative arousal, or threat, while IOPT would predict relatively greater invigorating arousal, or challenge. 202 participants (83 women) engaged in ISPT, IOPT, or remaining objective while actively providing help to a suffering person via a speech task. As predicted, ISPT compared to IOPT/remaining objective resulted in relative threat, whereas IOPT resulted in marginally greater relative challenge. This effect was mediated by increased perceived demands of the situation. Moreover, self-reported distress was only associated with threat during ISPT, but not during IOPT. Different forms of perspective taking may have different effects on helpers' health and well-being.
Social Anxiety is Characterized by Biased Learning About Performance and the Self
Leonie Koban et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
People learn about their self from social information, and recent work suggests that healthy adults show a positive bias for learning self-related information. In contrast, social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by a negative view of the self, yet what causes and maintains this negative self-view is not well understood. Here the authors use a novel experimental paradigm and computational model to test the hypothesis that biased social learning regarding self-evaluation and self-feelings represents a core feature that distinguishes adults with SAD from healthy controls. Twenty-one adults with SAD and 35 healthy controls (HCs) performed a speech in front of 3 judges. They subsequently evaluated themselves and received performance feedback from the judges and then rated how they felt about themselves and the judges. Affective updating (i.e., change in feelings about the self over time, in response to feedback from the judges) was modeled using an adapted Rescorla-Wagner learning model. HCs demonstrated a positivity bias in affective updating, which was absent in SAD. Further, self-performance ratings revealed group differences in learning from positive feedback - a difference that endured at an average of 1 year follow up. These findings demonstrate the presence and long-term endurance of positively biased social learning about the self among healthy adults, a bias that is absent or reversed among socially anxious adults.
A Social Exclusion Manipulation Interacts with Acquired Capability for Suicide to Predict Self-Aggressive Behaviors
Jennifer Hames et al.
Archives of Suicide Research, forthcoming
Objectives: The interpersonal theory of suicide posits that individuals who simultaneously experience high levels of thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability for suicide are at high risk for a lethal or near-lethal suicide attempt. Although supported by self-report studies, no study has examined facets of the theory experimentally. The present study aimed to examine the belongingness and capability components of the theory by testing whether experimentally manipulated social exclusion interacts with self-reported acquired capability to predict higher self-administered shock levels on a self-aggression paradigm.
Methods: 253 students completed self-report measures and were then randomly assigned to a social exclusion manipulation condition (future alone, future belonging, no feedback). Participants then participated in the self-aggression paradigm.
Results: The positive association between acquired capability and self-aggression was strongest among participants in the future alone social exclusion condition. In those assigned to the future belonging or no feedback conditions, the association between acquired capability and self-aggression was non-significant.