Preoccupied
Bertel Hansen et al.
American Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 (hereafter referred to as 9/11) in the United States had a profound impact on the physical and mental health of Americans, but the effects beyond the United States are largely unknown. To understand the wider aftermath, we examined the consequences of the 9/11 attacks on mental disorders in the Kingdom of Denmark. Utilizing population data from the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register from 1995 to 2012, we used a time-series intervention approach to estimate the change in the incidence rate of mental disorders after the 9/11 attacks. Based on analyses of 1,448,250 contacts with psychiatric services, we found that the attacks were followed by an immediate 16% increase in the incidence rate of trauma- and stressor-related disorders. This surge dissipated approximately a year after 9/11. In contrast, no similar increases were found for other disorders. This is consistent with the prominent role of external stressors in the etiology of trauma- and stressor-related disorders. The results indicate that the effects of 9/11 on mental disorders extended across the Atlantic Ocean to Denmark. Thus, the impact of terrorist attacks on mental health is likely not limited to inhabitants of the country under attack; it also extends to people far away and without immediate relation to it.
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Don't stop believing: Rituals improve performance by decreasing anxiety
Alison Wood Brooks et al.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, November 2016, Pages 71-85
Abstract:
From public speaking to first dates, people frequently experience performance anxiety. And when experienced immediately before or during performance, anxiety harms performance. Across a series of experiments, we explore the efficacy of a common strategy that people employ to cope with performance-induced anxiety: rituals. We define a ritual as a predefined sequence of symbolic actions often characterized by formality and repetition that lacks direct instrumental purpose. Using different instantiations of rituals and measures of anxiety (both physiological and self-report), we find that enacting rituals improves performance in public and private performance domains by decreasing anxiety. Belief that a specific series of behaviors constitute a ritual is a critical ingredient to reduce anxiety and improve performance: engaging in behaviors described as a "ritual" improved performance more than engaging in the same behaviors described as "random behaviors."
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Gerald Haeffel
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current research tested a new theory of depression that integrates work on sleep and cognition. In general, good sleep is essential for physical and mental health. However, we theorize that sleep can actually increase risk for depressive symptoms in cognitively vulnerable individuals. This is because the negative cognitions generated by these individuals are strengthened and consolidated each night during sleep. Three studies were conducted to test this theory. Studies 1 (n = 134) and 2 (n = 47) used prospective designs and showed that undergraduates with high, but not low, levels of cognitive vulnerability were most likely to exhibit increases in depressive symptoms when sleeping well as operationalized by self-reported quality and objectively measured duration (via actigraphy). Study 3 (n = 40) used an experimental design and provides the first causal evidence that it may be possible to prevent future depressive symptoms in cognitively at-risk undergraduates by restricting their sleep during times of high perceived stress.
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The Impact of Outward Bound Programming on Psychosocial Functioning for Male Military Veterans
David Scheinfeld, Aaron Rochlen & Michael Russell
Psychology of Men & Masculinity, forthcoming
Abstract:
This pilot study examined male U.S. military veterans' change in overall mental health symptoms after attending an Outward Bound for Veterans (OB4V) course. Two hundred and forty two male veterans, primarily serving in Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, and New Dawn were assigned to either a treatment group or a waitlist control group. Data were collected before and within 1 week after OB4V course attendance. Overall mental health symptoms (outcome) and level of conformity to masculine norms (moderator) were measured using the Outcomes Questionnaire-45 (OQ-45) total score and the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory. Results indicated participation in OB4V had a significant effect on veterans' overall mental health symptoms. Conformity to traditional masculine norms did not moderate change in OQ-45 scores, suggesting veterans attain similar mental health improvement following OB4V regardless of conformity level (i.e., low, medium, or high) to masculine norms. Findings indicate that OB4V provides male veterans a therapeutic intervention to improve overall mental health symptoms. OB4V and similar therapeutic adventure approaches may provide a culture-centered approach to meet the unique needs of men and veterans.
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Janet Pauketat et al.
Motivation and Emotion, October 2016, Pages 750-759
Abstract:
When forecasting how they will feel in the future, people overestimate the impact that imagined negative events will have on their affective states, partly because they underestimate their own psychological resiliency. Because self-affirmation enhances resiliency, two studies examined whether self-affirmation prior to forecasting reduces the extremity of affective forecasts. Participants in self-affirmation conditions completed a values scale or wrote an essay asserting their most important value, whereas participants in the no-affirmation condition asserted a relatively unimportant value. Participants then predicted their affective reactions to a negative or positive imagined event. In both studies, self-affirmation reduced the unpleasant affect expected to result from a negative event, but had no impact on affective forecasts for a positive event. This pattern was mediated by participants' cognitive appraisals of the imagined event, but not by differential focus on that event. Results are consistent with self-affirmation activating or enhancing psychological resiliency to counteract immune neglect during affective forecasting of a negative event.
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Noticing nature: Individual and social benefits of a two-week intervention
Holli-Anne Passmore & Mark Holder
Journal of Positive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examined the effects of a two-week nature-based well-being intervention. Undergraduates (N = 395) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: nature, human-built or a business-as-usual control. Participants paid attention to how nature (or human-built objects, depending on assignment) in their everyday surroundings made them feel, photographed the objects/scenes that evoked emotion in them and provided a description of emotions evoked. Post-intervention levels of net positive affect, elevating experiences, a general sense of connectedness (to other people, to nature and to life as a whole) and prosocial orientation were significantly higher in the nature group compared to the human-built and control groups. Trait levels of nature connectedness and engagement with beauty did not moderate nature's beneficial impact on well-being. Qualitative findings revealed significant differences in the emotional themes evoked by nature vs. human-built objects/scenes. This research provides important empirical support for nature involvement as an effective positive psychology intervention.
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Beliefs about emotion's malleability influence state emotion regulation
Elizabeth Kneeland et al.
Motivation and Emotion, October 2016, Pages 740-749
Abstract:
The current study examined how manipulating information about whether emotions are fixed or malleable influences the extent to which individuals engage in different emotion regulation strategies. We hypothesized that fixed, compared to malleable, emotion beliefs would produce less effort invested in emotion regulation. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions emphasizing that emotions are malleable or fixed, and then completed an autobiographical negative emotion induction. Participants reported seven different emotion regulation strategies they used during the recall task. Participants in the fixed emotion condition, compared to those in the malleable emotion condition, reported engaging significantly less in self-blame and perspective-taking. They engaged somewhat, but not significantly, less in all of the other strategies, except acceptance. These results suggest that emotion malleability beliefs can be experimentally manipulated and systematically influence subsequent emotion regulatory behavior. Implications for affective science and mental health are discussed.