Disturbia
Honor and the Stigma of Mental Healthcare
Ryan Brown, Mikiko Imura & Lara Mayeux
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, forthcoming
Abstract:
Most prior research on cultures of honor has focused on interpersonal aggression. The present studies examined the novel hypothesis that honor-culture ideology enhances the stigmatization of mental health needs and inhibits the use of mental health services. Study 1 demonstrated that people who strongly endorsed honor-related beliefs and values were especially concerned that seeking help for mental health needs would indicate personal weakness and would harm their reputations. Studies 2 and 3 showed that honor states in the U.S. South and West invested less in mental healthcare resources, compared with non-honor states in the North (Study 2), and that parents living in honor states were less likely than parents in non-honor states to use mental health services on behalf of their children (Study 3). Together, these studies reveal an overlooked consequence of honor ideology for psychological well-being at the individual, social, and institutional levels.
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Julie Phillips
Social Science & Medicine, August 2014, Pages 151–160
Abstract:
The increases in suicide among middle-aged baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) in the United States since 1999 suggest a changing epidemiology of suicide. Using data from 1935 to 2010, this paper conducts age-period-cohort analyses to determine the impact of cohorts in shaping temporal patterns of suicide in the United States. The analysis demonstrates that age, period and cohort effects are all important in determining suicide trends. Net of age and period effects, the cohort pattern of suicide rates is U-shaped, with cohorts born between 1915 and 1945 possessing among the very lowest suicide rates. Suicide rates begin to rise with boomers and subsequent cohorts exhibit increasingly higher rates of suicide. The general pattern exists for both men and women but is especially pronounced among males. The average suicide rate over the entire period for males is about 28 per 100,000, 95% CI [27.4, 28.7]. For males born in 1930-34, the suicide rate is estimated to be 17.4 per 100,000, 95% CI [15.9, 18.8]; for males born between 1955 and 1959, the rate is essentially the same as the average for the period while for males born between 1985 and 1989, the suicide rate is estimated to be 37.8 per 100,000, 95% CI [33.1, 43.4]. The results dispute popular claims that boomers exhibit an elevated suicide rate relative to other generations, but boomers do appear to have ushered in new cohort patterns of suicide rates over the life course. These patterns are interpreted within a Durkheimian framework that suggests weakened forms of social integration and regulation among postwar cohorts may be producing increased suicide rates.
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Jonathan Cylus, Maria Glymour & Mauricio Avendano
American Journal of Epidemiology, 1 July 2014, Pages 45-52
Abstract:
The recent economic recession has led to increases in suicide, but whether US state unemployment insurance programs ameliorate this association has not been examined. Exploiting US state variations in the generosity of benefit programs between 1968 and 2008, we tested the hypothesis that more generous unemployment benefit programs reduce the impact of economic downturns on suicide. Using state linear fixed-effect models, we found a negative additive interaction between unemployment rates and benefits among the US working-age (20–64 years) population (β = −0.57, 95% confidence interval: −0.86, −0.27; P < 0.001). The finding of a negative additive interaction was robust across multiple model specifications. Our results suggest that the impact of unemployment rates on suicide is offset by the presence of generous state unemployment benefit programs, though estimated effects are small in magnitude.
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Job loss, wealth and depression during the Great Recession in the USA and Europe
Carlos Riumallo-Herl et al.
International Journal of Epidemiology, forthcoming
Aim: To examine whether late-career job loss increased depression among older workers approaching retirement in the USA and Europe.
Methods: Longitudinal data came from the Health and Retirement Survey and the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe. Workers aged 50 to 64 years in 13 European countries and the USA were assessed biennially from 2006 to 2010. Individual fixed effects models were used to test the effect of job loss on depressive symptoms, controlling for age, sex, physical health, initial wealth and socio-demographic factors.
Results: Job loss was associated with a 4.78% [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.823% to 8.74%] increase in depressive symptoms in the USA compared with a 3.35% (95% CI: 0.486% to 6.22%) increase in Europe. Job loss due to a worker’s unexpected firm closure increased depression scores in both the USA (beta = 28.2%, 95% CI: 8.55% to 47.8%) and Europe (beta = 7.50%, 95% CI: 1.25% to 13.70%), but pooled models suggested significantly stronger effects for US workers (P < 0.001). American workers who were poorer before the recession experienced significantly larger increases in depressive symptoms compared with wealthier US workers (beta for interaction = −0.054, 95% CI: −0.082 to −0.025), whereas pre-existing wealth did not moderate the impact of job loss among European workers.
Conclusions: Job loss is associated with increased depressive symptoms in the USA and Europe, but effects of job loss due to plant closure are stronger for American workers. Wealth mitigates the impact of job loss on depression in the USA more than in Europe.
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Effects of college education on demonstrated happiness in the United States
Pavlo Buryi & Scott Gilbert
Applied Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
Among the many documented benefits of a college education is a higher level of self-reported happiness. The present work considers instead the level of demonstrated happiness and unhappiness within groups, the latter proxied by the conditional probability of suicide within groups having a college education and those without. Those with college are not happier for it, in these terms, and actually have slightly higher rates of suicide than those without college, based on a recent US data.
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Consequences of ADHD Medication Use for Children's Outcomes
Søren Dalsgaard, Helena Skyt Nielsen & Marianne Simonsen
Journal of Health Economics, September 2014, Pages 137–151
Abstract:
This paper estimates effects of early ADHD medication use on key human capital outcomes for children diagnosed with ADHD while using rarely available register based data on diagnoses and prescription drug purchases. Our main identification strategy exploits plausible exogenous assignment of children to hospitals with specialist physicians, while our analysis of health outcomes also allows for an individual level panel data strategy. We find that the behavior of specialist physicians varies considerably across hospitals and that the prescribing behavior does affect the probability that a given child is treated. Results show that children diagnosed with ADHD in pharmacological treatment have fewer hospital contacts if treated and that treatment to some extent protects against criminal behavior.
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Happy Twitter Tweets Are More Likely in American States with Lower Levels of Resident Neuroticism
Stewart McCann
Psychological Reports, June 2014, Pages 891-895
Abstract:
Relations between Big Five personality scores aggregated at the American state level and the happiness of Twitter tweet content emanating from each of the 50 American states were explored with the 50 states as the units of analysis. Tweet happiness correlated negatively with Neuroticism, and the relation remained when partial correlation and multiple regression adjusted and controlled for state socioeconomic status, white population percent, and urban population percent. In contrast, state levels of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness showed no relation to state levels of the happiness of tweet content.
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Making sense of misfortune: Deservingness, self-esteem, and patterns of self-defeat
Mitchell Callan, Aaron Kay & Rael Dawtry
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, July 2014, Pages 142-162
Abstract:
Drawing on theorizing and research suggesting that people are motivated to view their world as an orderly and predictable place in which people get what they deserve, the authors proposed that (a) random and uncontrollable bad outcomes will lower self-esteem and (b) this, in turn, will lead to the adoption of self-defeating beliefs and behaviors. Four experiments demonstrated that participants who experienced or recalled bad (vs. good) breaks devalued their self-esteem (Studies 1a and 1b), and that decrements in self-esteem (whether arrived at through misfortune or failure experience) increase beliefs about deserving bad outcomes (Studies 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b). Five studies (Studies 3–7) extended these findings by showing that this, in turn, can engender a wide array of self-defeating beliefs and behaviors, including claimed self-handicapping ahead of an ability test (Study 3), the preference for others to view the self less favorably (Studies 4–5), chronic self-handicapping and thoughts of physical self-harm (Study 6), and choosing to receive negative feedback during an ability test (Study 7). The current findings highlight the important role that concerns about deservingness play in the link between lower self-esteem and patterns of self-defeating beliefs and behaviors. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
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Forgiveness Increases Meaning in Life
Daryl Van Tongeren et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Close relationships are a source of meaning in life. Interpersonal offenses can disrupt one’s sense of meaning within close relationships. To restore a sense of meaning, people may employ relational repair strategies such as forgiveness. We hypothesized that forgiveness is a meaning-making mechanism because it helps repair relationships, thus restoring the positive effects of relationships on meaning. Study 1 (N = 491) revealed that dispositional forgiveness and the degree of forgiveness following an offense were positively related to meaning in life. Study 2 (N = 210), a 6-month longitudinal study of romantic couples, revealed that participants who regularly forgave their partner reported increased meaning in life over time. In addition, forgiveness helped recover lost meaning among those participants reporting more frequent partner offenses. These results provide initial evidence that forgiveness recovers a sense of meaning in life after interpersonal offenses.
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Crowd-powered positive psychological interventions
Robert Morris & Rosalind Picard
Journal of Positive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent advances in crowdsourcing have led to new forms of assistive technologies, commonly referred to as crowd-powered devices. To best serve the user, these technologies crowdsource human intelligence as needed, when automated methods alone are insufficient. In this paper, we provide an overview of how these systems work and how they can be used to enhance technological interventions for positive psychology. As a specific example, we describe previous work that crowdsources positive reappraisals, providing users timely and personalized suggestions for ways to reconstrue stressful thoughts and situations. We then describe how this approach could be extended for use with other positive psychological interventions. Finally, we outline future directions for crowd-powered positive psychological interventions.
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Suicide and the Great Recession of 2007-2009: The Role of Economic Factors in the 50 U.S. States
Julie Phillips & Colleen Nugent
Social Science & Medicine, September 2014, Pages 22–31
Abstract:
After several decades of decline, U.S. suicide rates have risen since 2005, a trend driven largely by increases among those aged 45-64 that began in 1999. A prominent explanation for this pattern relates to deteriorating economic conditions, especially the sharp rise in unemployment associated with the Great Recession of 2007-2009. We pool data from 1997 to 2010 on the 50 U.S. states to examine the role of economic factors in producing the recent rise in suicide rates. Unlike prior studies, we examine trends in the total suicide rate and in the rate disaggregated by sex, age group and time period and include a number of important confounding factors in a multivariate analysis. We find a strong positive association between unemployment rates and total suicide rates over time within states. The association appears stronger in states that had higher female labor force participation rates over the period, suggesting that the Great Recession may generate greater levels of anomie in this context. Once we consider contextual factors such as female labor force participation, we find that rising unemployment had a similar adverse effect on male and female suicide rates. A positive effect of unemployment on temporal variation in middle-aged suicide exists but not for other age groups. Other economic characteristics, such as percent of manufacturing jobs and per capita income, are not associated with temporal variation in suicide rates within states but are associated with variation between states in suicide rates. The findings suggest that the following may be important components of effective prevention strategies: 1) specifically targeting employers and workplaces as important stakeholders in the prevention of suicide, 2) disseminating information about health risks tied to un/employment, and 3) linking the unemployed to mental health resources.
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Revenge and psychological adjustment after homicidal loss
Mariëtte van Denderen et al.
Aggressive Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Feelings of revenge are a common human response to being hurt by others. Among crime victims of severe sexual or physical violence, significant correlations have been reported between revenge and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Homicide is one of the most severe forms of interpersonal violence. It is therefore likely that individuals bereaved by homicide experience high levels of revenge, which may hamper efforts to cope with traumatic loss. The relationship between revenge and psychological adjustment following homicidal loss has not yet been empirically examined. In the current cross-sectional study, we used self-report data from 331 spouses, family members and friends of homicide victims to examine the relationships between dispositional revenge and situational revenge on the one hand and symptom-levels of PTSD and complicated grief, as well as indices of positive functioning, on the other hand. Furthermore, the association between revenge and socio-demographic and offense-related factors was examined. Participants were recruited from a governmental support organization, a website with information for homicidally bereaved individuals, and members of support groups. Levels of both dispositional and situational revenge were positively associated with symptoms of PTSD and complicated grief, and negatively with positive functioning. Participants reported significantly less situational revenge in cases where the perpetrator was a direct family member than cases where the perpetrator was an indirect family member, friend, or someone unknown. Homicidally bereaved individuals reported more situational revenge, but not more dispositional revenge than a sample of students who had experienced relatively mild interpersonal transgressions.
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Regulating emotion to improve physical health through the amygdala
Yiying Song et al.
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
The opinion of mind-body interaction has been increasingly acknowledged in recent years, as exemplified by accumulating evidence indicating that physical health (body) is associated with emotion and emotion regulation (mind). Yet the neural basis linking emotion regulation with physical health remains largely uninvestigated. Here we used magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural basis of this pathway in a large population of healthy young adults. With a systematic study revealing the association of self-reported physical health and emotion traits of personality and general affective experiences, we further demonstrated that, for better physical health, individuals needed to regulate their emotion more effectively. Importantly, individuals who had larger gray matter (GM) volume in the amygdala reported not only a higher ability of emotion regulation but also better physical health. Further, GM volume in the amygdala mediated the correlation between emotion regulation ability and physical health. Our findings suggest that the amygdala plays a critical role in the neural circuit through which emotion regulation may influence physical health. Therefore, our study takes the first step towards exploring the neuroanatomical basis for body-mind interaction, and may inform interventions aimed at promoting physical health by augmenting skills of emotion regulation.
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Behavior Problems After Early Life Stress: Contributions of the Hippocampus and Amygdala
Jamie Hanson et al.
Biological Psychiatry, forthcoming
Background: Early life stress (ELS) can compromise development, with higher amounts of adversity linked to behavior problems. To understand this linkage, a growing body of research has examined two brain regions involved with socio-emotional functioning- the amygdala and hippocampus. Yet empirical studies have reported increases, decreases, and also no differences within human and non-human animal samples exposed to different forms of ELS. Divergence in findings may stem from methodological factors and/or non-linear effects of ELS.
Methods: We completed rigorous hand-tracing of the amygdala and hippocampus in three samples of children who suffered different forms of ELS (i.e., physical abuse, early neglect, or low SES). In addition, interview-based measures of cumulative life stress were also collected with children and their parents or guardians. These same measures were also collected in a fourth sample of comparison children who had not suffered any of these forms of ELS.
Results: Smaller amygdala volumes were found for children exposed to these different forms of ELS. Smaller hippocampal volumes were also noted for children who suffered physical abuse or from low SES-households. Smaller amygdala and hippocampal volumes were also associated with greater cumulative stress exposure and also behavior problems. Hippocampal volumes partially mediated the relationship between ELS and greater behavior problems.
Conclusions: This study suggests ELS may shape the development of brain areas involved with emotion processing and regulation in similar ways. Differences in the amygdala and hippocampus may be a shared diathesis for later negative outcomes related to ELS.
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Experiential avoidance and well-being: A daily diary analysis
Kyla Machell, Fallon Goodman & Todd Kashdan
Cognition and Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Experiential avoidance (EA) is a regulatory strategy characterised by efforts to control or avoid unpleasant thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. Most studies of EA have used trait measures without considering the effects of EA on psychological functioning in naturalistic settings. To address this gap, we used daily diary methodology to examine the influence of EA of anxiety on everyday well-being. For two weeks, 89 participants provided daily reports of EA, positive and negative affect, enjoyment of daily events and meaning in life (MIL). Daily EA predicted higher negative affect, lower positive affect, less enjoyment of daily events (exercising, eating food and listening to music) and less MIL. The effect of EA on positive affect was not accounted for by the amount of negative affect experienced. Our daily measure of EA was a stronger predictor of daily well-being than a traditional trait measure (The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire). Taken together, results offer insights into the adverse effects of EA on daily well-being and suggest that EA is a context-specific regulatory strategy that might be best captured using a state-dependent measure.