Basket case
Mark Seery et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite common findings suggesting that lack of negative life events should be optimal, recent work has revealed a curvilinear pattern, such that some cumulative lifetime adversity is instead associated with optimal well-being. This work, however, is limited in that responses to specific stressors as they occurred were not assessed, thereby precluding investigation of resilience. The current research addressed this critical gap by directly testing the relationship between adversity history and resilience to stressors. Specifically, we used a multimethod approach across two studies to assess responses to controlled laboratory stressors (respectively requiring passive endurance and active instrumental performance). Results revealed hypothesized U-shaped relationships: Relative to a history of either no adversity or nonextreme high adversity, a moderate number of adverse life events was associated with less negative responses to pain and more positive psychophysiological responses while taking a test. These results provide novel evidence in support of adversity-derived propensity for resilience that generalizes across stressors.
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The Impact of Housing Stressors on the Mental Health of a Low-Income African-American Population
Rodney Green et al.
Review of Black Political Economy, March 2013, Pages 53-100
Abstract:
Health and disease reflect broad social conditions including economic, environmental, and cultural components. The impact of challenging housing conditions experienced by low-income African American households on their mental health is an example of this principle. Do physical housing conditions, the presence of roaches and rodents, plumbing defects, and heating/cooling problems contribute to mental health dysfunction such as being depressed, feeling worried, feeling sad, feeling helpless, and feeling emotionally upset? To address this research question, a sample of 128 households that originally lived in public housing in Washington, D.C. were surveyed. These households had been relocated to other low-income housing during the demolition and reconstruction phase of a HOPE VI project, some to alternative public housing developments and others to private units based on vouchers. The survey included self-reports by heads of household on their housing conditions and mental health status using Likert scales. The survey also asked participants for demographic, socio-economic, and physical health data and for information on neighborhood characteristics. Correlation and regression analyses were used to estimate the impact of building structure, building systems, neighborhood characteristics, physical health, and socio-economic/demographic variables on mental health stresses. Specific housing issues included the number of bedrooms, plumbing, heating, cooling, rodents, roaches, and building security (the independent variables). Mental health stresses (the dependent variables) included feeling depressed, nervous, anxious, sad, helpless, and having trouble concentrating. Several alternative specifications and models were used and estimated. They generally demonstrated strong overall explanatory value. The findings from these models suggested that challenging housing conditions significantly contributed to many mental health disorders. For example, in the 2SLS model of "problem being depressed", the condition of the apartment (β = 0.278, t = 2.022) and plumbing (β = 0.182, t = 2.145) were significant and the model's explanatory power was reasonable with an adjusted R2 = 0.221. Many non-housing control variables were also significantly associated with mental health challenges.
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Self-Affirmation Improves Problem-Solving under Stress
David Creswell et al.
PLoS ONE, May 2013
Abstract:
High levels of acute and chronic stress are known to impair problem-solving and creativity on a broad range of tasks. Despite this evidence, we know little about protective factors for mitigating the deleterious effects of stress on problem-solving. Building on previous research showing that self-affirmation can buffer stress, we tested whether an experimental manipulation of self-affirmation improves problem-solving performance in chronically stressed participants. Eighty undergraduates indicated their perceived chronic stress over the previous month and were randomly assigned to either a self-affirmation or control condition. They then completed 30 difficult remote associate problem-solving items under time pressure in front of an evaluator. Results showed that self-affirmation improved problem-solving performance in underperforming chronically stressed individuals. This research suggests a novel means for boosting problem-solving under stress and may have important implications for understanding how self-affirmation boosts academic achievement in school settings.
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David Creswell et al.
Psychosomatic Medicine, May 2013, Pages 397-403
Objective: Although previous research provides evidence for the role of rewarding activities in reducing hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis responses to stress, no studies have tested whether rewards can buffer cortisol responses in humans undergoing social stressors.
Method: This study experimentally investigated whether viewing appetitive rewarding pictures reduces cortisol responses to an acute stress challenge. Fifty-four heterosexual men were randomly assigned to view either mildly erotic (reward) or neutral images (control) of mixed-sex couples before completing the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST).
Results: Participants in the reward condition had significantly lower area-under-the-curve cortisol reactivity to the TSST (mean [M] = 363.46) in comparison with participants in the control group (M = 807.06; F(1,46) = 4.84, p = .033, η2 = 0.095). Reward participants also had improved cognitive performance on the math portion of the TSST (M = 20.74) in comparison with control participants (M = 13.82; F(44) = 5.44, p = .024, η2 = 0.11). The stress-buffering effects of reward were specific to hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity: the reward and control groups did not differ on psychological perceptions of anticipatory or poststress perceptions, heart rate, or blood pressure responses.
Conclusions: This research provides the first evidence linking the experience of reward with reduced stress reactivity in humans and suggests a potential novel reward pathway for coping under stress.
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Long-Term Occupational Stress Is Associated with Regional Reductions in Brain Tissue Volumes
Eva Blix et al.
PLoS ONE, June 2013
Abstract:
There are increasing reports of cognitive and psychological declines related to occupational stress in subjects without psychiatric premorbidity or major life trauma. The underlying neurobiology is unknown, and many question the notion that the described disabilities represent a medical condition. Using PET we recently found that persons suffering from chronic occupational stress had limbic reductions in the 5-HT1A receptor binding potential. Here we examine whether chronic work-related stress is also associated with changes in brain structure. We performed MRI-based voxel-based morphometry and structural volumetry in stressed subjects and unstressed controls focusing on gray (GM) and white matter (WM) volumes, and the volumes of hippocampus, caudate, and putamen - structures known to be susceptible to neurotoxic changes. Stressed subjects exhibited significant reductions in the GM volumes of the anterior cingulate cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Furthermore, their caudate and putamen volumes were reduced, and the volumes correlated inversely to the degree of perceived stress. Our results add to previous data on chronic psychosocial stress, and indicate a morphological involvement of the frontostriatal circuits. The present findings of morphological changes in these regions confirm our previous conclusion that symptoms from occupational stress merit careful investigations and targeted treatment.
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Christopher Jones et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Three experiments tested whether disliking of predominately univalently negative attitude objects could be reduced by a procedure pairing approach behaviors with subliminally presented images of the objects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that participants who approached images of insects rated insects less negatively than participants who did not approach insect pictures. Experiment 2 extended this effect to spiders and used an implicit measure of spider attitudes. Experiment 3 examined the consequences of an approach induction for affect during actual approach behavior in a sample of individuals with elevated levels of spider fear by using a Behavioral Approach Task. Fearful individuals who approached spider pictures reported less anxiety when encountering live spiders than participants who did not approach spider pictures. As such, the results provided evidence on explicit, implicit, and behavioral measures that negative and predominately univalent attitudes can be influenced by approach behaviors. Implications for attitude change interventions and potential contribution to the efficacy of exposure therapy are discussed.
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Implicit theories of emotion shape regulation of negative affect
Andreas Kappes & Andra Schikowski
Cognition & Emotion, Summer 2013, Pages 952-960
Abstract:
Implicit theories of emotion - assumptions about whether emotions are fixed (entity theory) or malleable (incremental theory) - have previously been shown to influence affective outcomes over time. We examined whether implicit theories of emotion also relate to the immediate regulation of negative affect. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that the more students endorsed an entity theory of emotion, the more discomfort they reported while watching an aversive movie clip, the more they avoided affective stimuli in this movie clip, the more negative affect they reported after the clip, and the less likely they were to watch the same clip again to learn about its ending. These findings suggest that implicit theories of emotion might produce poor affective outcomes immediately as well as over time. They also offer insight into why some people avoid negative affect while others confront it.
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Esther van den Bos et al.
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
Stress responses to social evaluation are thought to increase during adolescence, which may be due to pubertal maturation. However, empirical evidence is scarce. This study is the first to investigate the relation between pubertal development and biological responses to a social-evaluative stressor longitudinally. Participants performed the Leiden Public Speaking Task twice, with a 2-year interval (N = 217; age at Time 1: 8-17 years). The results support an increase in sensitivity to social evaluation during adolescence. The overall cortisol and alpha-amylase responses increased - both between and within participants - and were more strongly related to self-reported pubertal development than to age. The cortisol response shifted from speech delivery toward anticipation. The alpha-amylase response increased in both phases.
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Tom McAdams, Alice Gregory & Thalia Eley
Behavior Genetics, July 2013, Pages 314-328
Abstract:
An increasing body of evidence shows that many ‘environmental' measures are heritable, indicating genetic involvement in environmental exposure (or gene-environment correlation). In the present study we attempt to clarify why three such ‘environmental' measures (maternal negativity, paternal negativity and negative life events) are consistently found to be heritable. Through multivariate genetic analysis of a sample of adolescent twins from the UK we show that the heritability of these putative environmental measures can be explained via their association with five behavioural phenotypes: oppositionality, delinquency, physical aggression, depression and anxiety. This is consistent with the notion that being genetically susceptible to certain behavioural difficulties could lead to exposure to certain life events, and this may account for the reported heritability of ‘environmental' measures. Results are discussed in the context of possible active, evocative and passive gene-environment correlations.
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Stress and decision making: A few minutes make all the difference
Stephan Pabst, Matthias Brand & Oliver Wolf
Behavioural Brain Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Stress has been shown to impair decision making. However the temporal development of this phenomenon remains poorly understood. We speculated that the rapid stress induced increase in norepinephrine and the delayed increase in cortisol might exert opposing effects on decision making under risk. Therefore, three different experimental groups underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and performed the Game of Dice Task (GDT) at different time points in relation to the stressor, which lasted approximately 18 min. The first group performed the GDT 5 min after stress onset, the second and third group performed the GDT either 18 or 28 min after TSST onset. Decision-making performance of the control group was measured after a respective resting time. Results confirmed a rapid activation of the sympathetic nervous system and a somewhat slower response of the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. In the GDT an improvement of decision-making performance in the 5 and 18 min stress groups compared to controls and the 28 min stress group occurred. Descriptively, decision making of the 28 min after stress group was more risky than decision making of the control group. Our findings are in line with the idea that a moderate increase in catecholamines enhances decision-making performance, while elevated cortisol concentrations may negatively affect decision making presumably via rapid nongenomic mechanisms.
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Monica Uddin et al.
Biodemography and Social Biology, Spring 2013, Pages 68-84
Abstract:
Low socioeconomic position (SEP) has previously been linked to a number of negative health indicators, including poor mental health. The biologic mechanisms linking SEP and mental health remain poorly understood. Recent work suggests that social exposures influence DNA methylation in a manner salient to mental health. We conducted a pilot investigation to assess whether SEP, measured as educational attainment, modifies the association between genomic methylation profiles and traumatic stress in a trauma-exposed sample. Results show that methylation × SEP interactions occur preferentially in genes pertaining to nervous system function, suggesting a plausible biological pathway by which SEP may enhance sensitivity to stress and, in turn, risk of posttraumatic stress disorder.
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Community Disorder, Victimization Exposure, and Mental Health in a National Sample of Youth
Heather Turner et al.
Journal of Health and Social Behavior, June 2013, Pages 258-275
Abstract:
This study considers whether elevated distress among youth living in more disordered neighborhoods can be explained by personal exposure to violence and victimization, level of non-victimization adversity, and family support. Analyses were based on a sample of 2,039 youth ages 10 to 17 who participated in the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence, a national telephone survey conducted in 2008. Using structural equation modeling, we find no direct effects of community disorder on distress, once the significant mediating effects of victimization, family support, and adversity are taken into account. Using a comprehensive measure of victimization covering several domains of experiences, we show that past-year exposure to child maltreatment, sexual victimization, peer assault and bullying, and property crime each significantly mediate the community disorder-distress association. A measure of the total number of victimization types to which youth were exposed (i.e., level of "poly-victimization") had the strongest mediating effect.
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Mortality Salience Increases Defensive Distancing From People With Terminal Cancer
Lauren Smith & Tim Kasser
Death Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Based on principles of terror management theory, we hypothesized that participants would distance more from a target person with terminal cancer than from a target with arthritis, and that this effect would be stronger following mortality salience. In Study 1, adults rated how similar their personalities were to a target person; in Study 2, participants arranged two chairs in preparation for meeting the target person. Both studies found that distancing from the person with terminal cancer increased after participants wrote about their own death (vs. giving a speech). Thus, death anxiety may explain why people avoid close contact with terminally-ill people; further analyses suggest that gender and self-esteem may also influence such distancing from the terminally-ill.
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The biological effects of acute psychosocial stress on delay discounting
Kenta Kimura et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Organisms prefer to receive rewards sooner rather than later because they excessively discount the subjective value of future rewards, a phenomenon called delay discounting. Recent studies have reported an association between cortisol - which is secreted by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis - and delay discounting. However, no study has examined whether acutely induced psychosocial stress modulates delay discounting. Thus, the present study examined the effect of acute psychosocial stress and its hormonal and inflammatory correlates on the rate of delay discounting. To accomplish this purpose, we assessed the participants' discounting rates using the questionnaire version with inter-temporal choice before and after an acute psychosocial stress task (the Trier Social Stress Test; TSST). The results demonstrated that TSST increased rates of delay discounting in only cortisol responders (not in non-responders), indicating the possible influence of the pathway from the HPA axis to the dopaminergic systems under acute stress. Furthermore, the findings of correlation analysis indicated a U-shaped relationship between baseline level of C-reactive protein and delay discounting rate, suggesting a complex relationship between inflammatory markers and delay discounting rate.