On the bright side
Is the Emotion-Health Connection a "First-World Problem"?
Sarah Pressman, Matthew Gallagher & Shane Lopez
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Emotions have been shown to play a critical role in health outcomes, but research on this topic has been limited to studies in industrialized countries, which prevents broad generalizations. This study assessed whether emotion-health connections persist across various regions, including less-developed countries, where the degree to which people's fundamental needs are met might be a better predictor of physical well-being. Individuals from 142 countries (N = 150,048) were surveyed about their emotions, health, hunger, shelter, and threats to safety. Both positive and negative emotions exhibited unique, moderate effects on self-reported health, and together, they accounted for 46.1% of the variance. These associations were stronger than the relative impact of hunger, homelessness, and threats to safety and were not simply attributable to countries' gross domestic products (GDPs). Furthermore, connections between positive emotion and health were stronger in low-GDP countries than in high-GDP countries. Our findings suggest that emotion matters for health around the globe and may in fact be more critical in less-developed areas.
----------------------
Rituals Alleviate Grieving for Loved Ones, Lovers, and Lotteries
Michael Norton & Francesca Gino
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three experiments explored the impact of mourning rituals - after losses of loved ones, lovers, and lotteries - on mitigating grief. Participants who were directed to reflect on past rituals or who were assigned to complete novel rituals after experiencing losses reported lower levels of grief. Increased feelings of control after rituals mediated the link between use of rituals and reduced grief after losses, and the benefits of rituals accrued not only to individuals who professed a belief in rituals' effectiveness but also to those who did not. Although the specific rituals in which people engage after losses vary widely by culture and religion - and among our participants - our results suggest a common psychological mechanism underlying their effectiveness: regained feelings of control.
----------------------
Christopher Boyce, Alex Wood & Nattavudh Powdthavee
Social Indicators Research, March 2013, Pages 287-305
Abstract:
Personality is the strongest and most consistent cross-sectional predictor of high subjective well-being. Less predictive economic factors, such as higher income or improved job status, are often the focus of applied subjective well-being research due to a perception that they can change whereas personality cannot. As such there has been limited investigation into personality change and how such changes might bring about higher well-being. In a longitudinal analysis of 8625 individuals we examine Big Five personality measures at two time points to determine whether an individual's personality changes and also the extent to which such changes in personality can predict changes in life satisfaction. We find that personality changes at least as much as economic factors and relates much more strongly to changes in life satisfaction. Our results therefore suggest that personality can change and that such change is important and meaningful. Our findings may help inform policy debate over how best to help individuals and nations improve their well-being.
----------------------
The Effect of Birth Cohort on Well-Being: The Legacy of Economic Hard Times
Angelina Sutin et al.
Psychological Science, March 2013, Pages 379-385
Abstract:
In the present research, we examined the effects of age, cohort, and time of measurement on well-being across adulthood. Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of two independent samples - one with more than 10,000 repeated assessments across 30 years (mean assessments per participant = 4.44, SD = 3.47) and one with nationally representative data - suggested that well-being declines with age. This decline, however, reversed when we controlled for birth cohort. That is, once we accounted for the fact that older cohorts had lower levels of well-being, all cohorts increased in well-being with age relative to their own baseline. Participants tested more recently had higher well-being, but time of measurement, unlike cohort, did not change the shape of the trajectory. Although well-being increased with age for everyone, cohorts that lived through the economic challenges of the early 20th century had lower well-being than those born during more prosperous times.
----------------------
Carol Graham & Milena Nikolova
Journal of Socio-Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We explore the relationship between access to cell phones, TV, and the internet and subjective well-being worldwide, using pooled cross-sectional data from the Gallup World Poll for 2009-2011. We find that technology access is positive for well-being in general, but with diminishing marginal returns for those who already have much access. Moreover, we find signs of increased stress and anger among cohorts for whom access to the technologies is new. We also explore whether increased financial inclusion - through cell phones and mobile banking - has additional effects on well-being in Sub-Saharan Africa. We show that well-being levels are higher in the countries with higher levels of access to mobile banking, but so are stress and anger. Our findings are in line with earlier research, which shows that while development raises aggregate levels of well-being in the long run, high levels of frustration often accompany the process.
----------------------
Social Ecology Moderates the Association between Self-Esteem and Happiness
Masaki Yuki et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research has found cross-cultural differences in the strength of the association between self-esteem and happiness. We propose that this difference can be explained by relational mobility, or the degree to which options exist in the given socio-ecological context for relationship formation and dissolution. In Study 1, we found that the association between self-esteem and happiness was stronger among American participants than among Japanese participants. As predicted, this cultural difference was explained by the difference in relational mobility. In Study 2, we found that the association between self-esteem and happiness was stronger among Japanese living in relationally mobile regions than among Japanese living in less mobile regions. In Study 3, we manipulated relational mobility and demonstrated that the thought of living in a relationally mobile society caused individuals to base their life satisfaction judgments on self-esteem. Overall, our research demonstrates the utility of examining cultural differences from a socio-ecological perspective.
----------------------
The Relationship Between Right-Wing Ideological Attitudes and Psychological Well-Being
Emma Onraet, Alain Van Hiel & Kristof Dhont
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, April 2013, Pages 509-522
Abstract:
The relationship between right-wing ideological attitudes and psychological well-being has been intensively studied. Although some studies supported the hypothesis that right-wing attitudes are negatively related with well-being, other research yielded positive or nonsignificant relationships. We conducted a meta-analysis (total samples = 97, total N = 69,221) of measures of well-being, including positive and negative affect, life satisfaction, self-esteem, and intrinsic goal pursuit. The obtained effect sizes were generally weak and nonsignificant, except for a moderate relationship between intrinsic goal pursuit and social dominance orientation. Our results thus do not support previous theories that claim that right-wing attitudes yield substantial relationships with psychological well-being.
----------------------
The impact of the financial crisis on happiness in affluent European countries
Bent Greve
Journal of Comparative Social Welfare, Fall 2012, Pages 183-193
Abstract:
The impact of income on happiness has received much academic attention. In general, countries with a higher income per capita have higher levels of happiness; nevertheless, as Easterlin has observed, an increase in income is not necessarily correlated with an increase in happiness. Easterlin's paradox has been central to the debate. By contrast, studies do not, in general, analyse the opposite situation; that is, whether a decline in income will have a negative impact on the level of happiness. Based upon recent data from the European Social Survey this article tries to fill this gap by looking at changes in happiness in the wake of the recent financial crisis and consequent change in income as measured by gross domestic product per capita. The article, using data for 15 European countries released in 2011 covering the year 2010, concludes that such a causal relationship cannot be confirmed on the basis of the present limited data. The reason why the relationship cannot be confirmed needs to be explored further.
----------------------
Happiness by association: Breadth of free association influences affective states
Tad Brunyé et al.
Cognition, April 2013, Pages 93-98
Abstract:
Several studies have demonstrated that affective states influence the number of associations formed between remotely related concepts. Someone in a neutral or negative affective state might draw the association between cold and hot, whereas someone in a positive affective state might spontaneously form the more distant association between cold and sneeze. Could the reverse be true, that generating increasingly broad or narrow associations will put someone in a more or less positive affective state? We test this possibility by using verbal free association tasks, and asking whether the breadth of semantic associativity between cue words and generated responses might predict resulting affective states. Two experiments show that generating broader associations, regardless of their valence, changes affect; specifically, broader associations lowered negative affect and marginally increased positive affect over time. These findings carry implications for theories positing interactions between brain areas mediating associative processing and affect, and may hold promise for enhancing affect in clinical contexts.
----------------------
Singled Out as the Effect to be Explained: Implications for Collective Self-Esteem
Susanne Bruckmüller
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, February 2013, Pages 237-249
Abstract:
The description and explanation of intergroup differences tend to be framed in terms of how nonnormative (untypical and/or stigmatized) groups differ from normative groups rather than vice versa. Three experiments examined how this affects group members' collective self-esteem. Single participants felt worse about being single when they read (Study 1) or wrote (Study 2) about how singles differ from coupled people than when they read or wrote about how coupled people differ from singles - although they mentioned more positive aspects of being single under the former comparative framing. In Study 3, left-handed participants indicated lower private collective self-esteem after writing about how left-handers differ from right-handers than after writing about how right-handers differ from left-handers. Thus, regardless of the specific characteristics that the comparison focused on, being marked as different and having to explain one's group identity negatively affected members of nonnormative, but not members of normative groups.
----------------------
Accentuating your masculine side: Agentic traits generally dominate self-evaluation, even in China
Chongzeng Bi, Oscar Ybarra & Yufang Zhao
Social Psychology, Spring 2013, Pages 103-108
Abstract:
Recent research investigating self-judgment has shown that people are more likely to base their evaluations of self on agency-related traits than communion-related traits. In the present research, we tested the hypothesis that agency-related traits dominate self-evaluation by expanding the purview of the fundamental dimensions to consider characteristics typically studied in the gender-role literature, but that nevertheless should be related to agency and communion. Further, we carried out these tests on two samples from China, a cultural context that, relative to many Western countries, emphasizes the interpersonal or communion dimension. Despite the differences in traits used and cultural samples studied, the findings generally supported the agency dominates self-esteem perspective, albeit with some additional findings in Study 2. The findings are discussed with regard to the influence of social norms and the types of inferences people are able to draw about themselves given such norms.
----------------------
Mozart Effect, Cognitive Dissonance, and the Pleasure of Music
Leonid Perlovsky et al.
Behavioural Brain Research, 1 May 2013, Pages 9-14
Abstract:
We explore a possibility that the ‘Mozart effect' points to a fundamental cognitive function of music. Would such an effect of music be due to the hedonicity, a fundamental dimension of mental experience? The present paper explores a recent hypothesis that music helps to tolerate cognitive dissonances and thus enabled accumulation of knowledge and human cultural evolution. We studied whether the influence of music is related to its hedonicity and whether pleasant or unpleasant music would influence scholarly test performance and cognitive dissonance. Specific hypotheses evaluated in this study are that during a test students experience contradictory cognitions that cause cognitive dissonances. If some music helps to tolerate cognitive dissonances, then first, this music should increase the duration during which participants can tolerate stressful conditions while evaluating test choices. Second, this should result in improved performance. These hypotheses are tentatively confirmed in the reported experiments as the agreeable music was correlated with longer duration of tests under stressful conditions and better performance above that under indifferent or unpleasant music. It follows that music likely performs a fundamental cognitive function explaining the origin and evolution of musical ability that have been considered a mystery.
----------------------
Effects of a 10-Day Oxytocin Trial in Older Adults on Health and Well-Being
Jorge Barraza et al.
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) modulates functioning of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and regulates a range of social processes. Clinical studies have used intranasal OT administration to treat symptoms arising from a number of psychiatric disorders including autism, schizophrenia, and depression. Most of this research, however, has been based on single dose treatments of OT in younger adult populations. The present study examined the impact on the health and psychological well-being of a 10-day OT administration in an older adult population. Residentially housed older adults (N = 41, mean age of 80) were enrolled in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Participants received 40 IU intranasal OT or placebo for 10 consecutive days. No changes in mood or cardiovascular states were observed across the 10-day period. Repeated-measures ANOVAs showed that dispositional gratitude improved for the OT infused participants, although gratitude declined for placebo controls over the 10 days (p = .015). Those in the OT condition did not report a decline in physical functioning over time as was observed in the placebo condition (p = .05), and also reported less fatigue compared with controls (p = .03). No significant adverse events were reported throughout the entirety of the study, indicating that OT can be safely used with older adults.
----------------------
Well-Being over the Life Span: Semiparametric Evidence from British and German Longitudinal Data
Christoph Wunder et al.
Review of Economics and Statistics, March 2013, Pages 154-167
Abstract:
This paper applies semiparametric regression models using penalized splines to investigate the profile of well-being over the life span. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), the analysis shows a common, and quite similar, age-specific pattern of life satisfaction for both Britain and Germany that can be characterized by three age stages. The evidence suggests that the U-shaped profile is a good approximation of decreasing and increasing well-being in the first and second stage. After people reached their late 60s, however, a decline in well-being is found in the third stage.
----------------------
Well-Being From the Knife? Psychological Effects of Aesthetic Surgery
Jürgen Margraf, Andrea Meyer & Kristen Lavallee
Clinical Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many people surgically alter their physical appearance with the intent of boosting their social and psychological well-being; however, the long-term effectiveness of aesthetic surgery on improving well-being is unconfirmed. The present comparison-controlled study examines outcomes in a sample of 544 patients who underwent aesthetic surgery (surgery group) and 264 participants who were interested in aesthetic surgery but did not undergo it (comparison group). Participants were followed 3, 6, and 12 months after aesthetic surgery or after contacting the clinic (comparisons). Overall, the results reveal positive outcomes of receiving aesthetic surgery across areas, including anxiety, social phobia, depression, body dysmorphia, goal attainment, quality of life, life satisfaction, attractiveness, mental and physical health, well-being, self-efficacy and self-esteem. Among those dissatisfied with a particular physical feature and considering aesthetic surgery, undergoing surgery appears to result in positive self-reported psychological changes.
----------------------
Social Threat and Cognitive Load Magnify Self-Enhancement and Attenuate Self-Deprecation
Jennifer Beer, David Chester & Brent Hughes
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Has self-enhancement been too heavily emphasized as a motivating factor in social comparisons? Recently, researchers have argued that some types of social-comparative judgments may differ in important ways from other self-evaluative phenomena typically offered as evidence of self-enhancement motivation. In contrast to a large body of research showing that self-esteem threat affects other self-evaluative processes, the literature remains silent on how self-esteem threat affects social comparisons between self and an average peer. Furthermore, whereas social comparisons appear self-favoring (i.e. ‘better than average') in many domains, they are predictably self-deprecating (i.e., ‘worse than average') in others. As a result, recent models of social-comparative judgment posit that cognitive efficiency, rather than self-enhancement, may more typically account for the manner in which people compare themselves to peers. The current research addresses this controversy by investigating how the tension between self-enhancement and need for cognitive efficiency is resolved in social comparison. Two experiments examined the crossed effects of self-esteem threat and cognitive load on social comparisons of personality traits (Experiment 1) and likelihood of future events (Experiment 2a-b). Both self-esteem threat and cognitive load increased the self-favoring nature of social comparisons including those otherwise characterized by self-deprecation. The findings show that self-enhancement does significantly influence social comparison with peers and, in fact, most parsimoniously accounts for these social-comparative judgments when cognitive resources are limited. Furthermore, self-deprecating social comparisons are attenuated in the face of self-esteem threat and, therefore, do not provide a substantial challenge to the role of self-enhancement in social comparison.