Positive and negative
State-Level Social Capital and Suicide Mortality in the 50 U.S. States
Nathan Smith & Ichiro Kawachi
Social Science & Medicine, November 2014, Pages 269–277
Abstract:
This study investigated whether state levels of social capital are associated with rates of completed suicides in the fifty U.S. states. To do this we regressed state-level suicide rates on an index of social capital, along with other variables known to influence suicide rates such as gun ownership, income inequality, alcohol abuse and dependence, drug abuse and dependence, serious mental illness, unemployment, percent of population living in urban areas, poverty, population stability, and living in a “suicide belt” state. Suicide rates were aggregated from 1999 to 2002, and examined separately by sex and different race/ethnic groups. The results showed that White men and women in states with higher levels of social capital had significantly lower rates of suicide when controlling for the other influential variables. When we examined sub-dimensions of social capital, we found that community organizations (for White women) and group membership (for White men) were particularly strongly associated with lower suicide risk.
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Time Period and Birth Cohort Differences in Depressive Symptoms in the U.S., 1982–2013
Jean Twenge
Social Indicators Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across four surveys (N = 6.9 million), Americans reported substantially higher levels of depressive symptoms, particularly somatic symptoms, in the 2000s–2010s compared to the 1980s–1990s. High school students in the 2010s (vs. the 1980s) reported more somatic symptoms (e.g., trouble sleeping, thinking, and remembering; shortness of breath) and were twice as likely to have seen a professional for mental issues. College students in recent years (vs. the 1980s) were more likely to report feeling overwhelmed and to believe they were below average in mental and physical health, but were less likely to say they felt depressed. Total Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scores were higher among adults in 2000 (vs. 1988), especially somatic symptoms. Teens displayed less suicidal ideation in 2011 versus 1991 and were slightly less likely to commit suicide. Thus, more subtle symptoms of depression became more prevalent even as some overt indicators of depression became less prevalent.
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The Unforeseen Costs of Extraordinary Experience
Gus Cooney, Daniel Gilbert & Timothy Wilson
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
People seek extraordinary experiences — from drinking rare wines and taking exotic vacations to jumping from airplanes and shaking hands with celebrities. But are such experiences worth having? We found that participants thoroughly enjoyed having experiences that were superior to those had by their peers, but that having had such experiences spoiled their subsequent social interactions and ultimately left them feeling worse than they would have felt if they had had an ordinary experience instead. Participants were able to predict the benefits of having an extraordinary experience but were unable to predict the costs. These studies suggest that people may pay a surprising price for the experiences they covet most.
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Emodiversity and the Emotional Ecosystem
Jordi Quoidbach et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Bridging psychological research exploring emotional complexity and research in the natural sciences on the measurement of biodiversity, we introduce — and demonstrate the benefits of — emodiversity: the variety and relative abundance of the emotions that humans experience. Two cross-sectional studies across more than 37,000 respondents demonstrate that emodiversity is an independent predictor of mental and physical health — such as decreased depression and doctor’s visits — over and above mean levels of positive and negative emotion. These results remained robust after controlling for gender, age, and the 5 main dimensions of personality. Emodiversity is a practically important and previously unidentified metric for assessing the health of the human emotional ecosystem.
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Adriana Sum Miu & David Scott Yeager
Clinical Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The transition to high school coincides with an increase in the prevalence of depressive symptoms. Could this be due in part to increasing beliefs about the fixedness of personal traits at a time of frequent social setbacks? And could teaching adolescents that people can change help prevent the increase in depressive symptoms? A longitudinal intervention experiment involved three independent samples of students entering high school (N = 599). A brief self-administered reading and writing activity taught an incremental theory of personality — the belief that people’s socially relevant characteristics have the potential to change. The intervention reduced the incidence of clinically significant levels of self-reported depressive symptoms 9 months postintervention by nearly 40% among adolescents assigned to the intervention condition, compared with control participants. Analyses of symptom clusters, measures of self-esteem, and measures of natural language use explored the outcomes that did and did not show treatment effects. Moderation analyses confirmed theoretical expectations. Among adolescents assigned to the control condition, those who endorsed more of an entity theory of personality — believing people cannot change — showed greater increases in depressive symptoms during the year. The effect of this risk factor was eliminated by the intervention.
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Friend support and psychological distress in a U.S. adult twin sample
Briana Horwitz et al.
Personal Relationships, forthcoming
Abstract:
Friend support is often assumed to exert direct environmental influences on psychological distress, yet the role of both genetic and environmental influences on this association has not been examined. This study investigates whether both genetic and environmental factors explain the link between friend support and psychological distress in adults. The sample was drawn from the Midlife Development in the United States study and included 947 pairs of monozygotic, same-sex dizygotic (DZ), and opposite-sex DZ twins. Results showed that genetic influences explain the association between friend support and psychological distress, suggesting that heritable contributions to friend support also shape psychological distress. Interventions focused on psychological distress should consider how individuals' heritable characteristics influence their friend support and psychological distress.
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Compulsory Schooling, Education, Depression and Memory: New Evidence from SHARELIFE
Laura Crespo, Borja López-Noval & Pedro Mira
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this paper we provide new evidence on the causal effect of education on adult depression and cognition. We use SHARE data and schooling reforms in several European countries as instruments for educational attainment. We find that an extra year of education has a large and significant protective effect on mental health: the probability of suffering depression decreases by 6.5 percentage points. We find a large and significant protective effect on cognition as measured by word recall. We also explore whether heterogeneity and selection play a part in the large discrepancy between OLS and IV (LATE) estimates of the effect of education on depression and cognition. Using the data available in SHARELIFE on early life conditions of the respondents such as the individuals’ socioeconomic status, health, and performance at school, we identify subgroups particularly affected by the reforms and with high marginal health returns to education.
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Do Slumped and Upright Postures Affect Stress Responses? A Randomized Trial
Shwetha Nair et al.
Health Psychology, forthcoming
Objective: The hypothesis that muscular states are related to emotions has been supported predominantly by research on facial expressions. However, body posture also may be important to the initiation and modulation of emotions. This experiment aimed to investigate whether an upright seated posture could influence affective and cardiovascular responses to a psychological stress task, relative to a slumped seated posture.
Method: There were 74 participants who were randomly assigned to either a slumped or upright seated posture. Their backs were strapped with physiotherapy tape to hold this posture throughout the study. Participants were told a cover story to reduce expectation effects of posture. Participants completed a reading task, the Trier Social Stress speech task, assessments of mood, self-esteem, and perceived threat. Blood pressure and heart rate were continuously measured.
Results: Upright participants reported higher self-esteem, more arousal, better mood, and lower fear, compared to slumped participants. Linguistic analysis showed slumped participants used more negative emotion words, first-person singular pronouns, affective process words, sadness words, and fewer positive emotion words and total words during the speech. Upright participants had higher pulse pressure during and after the stressor.
Conclusions: Adopting an upright seated posture in the face of stress can maintain self-esteem, reduce negative mood, and increase positive mood compared to a slumped posture. Furthermore, sitting upright increases rate of speech and reduces self-focus. Sitting upright may be a simple behavioral strategy to help build resilience to stress. The research is consistent with embodied cognition theories that muscular and autonomic states influence emotional responding.
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Why People Are in a Generally Good Mood
Ed Diener et al.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Evidence shows that people feel mild positive moods when no strong emotional events are occurring, a phenomenon known as positive mood offset. We offer an evolutionary explanation of this characteristic, showing that it improves fertility, fecundity, and health, and abets other characteristics that were critical to reproductive success. We review research showing that positive mood offset is virtually universal in the nations of the world, even among people who live in extremely difficult circumstances. Positive moods increase the likelihood of the types of adaptive behaviors that likely characterized our Paleolithic ancestors, such as creativity, planning, mating, and sociality. Because of the ubiquity and apparent advantages of positive moods, it is a reasonable hypothesis that humans were selected for positivity offset in our evolutionary past. We outline additional evidence that is needed to help confirm that positive mood offset is an evolutionary adaptation in humans and we explore the research questions that the hypothesis generates.
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Sean Byars, Stephen Stearns & Jacobus Boomsma
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, 7 November 2014
Abstract:
Opposite phenotypic and behavioural traits associated with copy number variation and disruptions to imprinted genes with parent-of-origin effects have led to the hypothesis that autism and schizophrenia share molecular risk factors and pathogenic mechanisms, but a direct phenotypic comparison of how their risks covary has not been attempted. Here, we use health registry data collected on Denmark's roughly 5 million residents between 1978 and 2009 to detect opposing risks of autism and schizophrenia depending on normal variation (mean ± 1 s.d.) in adjusted birth size, which we use as a proxy for diametric gene-dosage variation in utero. Above-average-sized babies (weight, 3691–4090 g; length, 52.8–54.3 cm) had significantly higher risk for autism spectrum (AS) and significantly lower risk for schizophrenia spectrum (SS) disorders. By contrast, below-average-sized babies (2891–3290 g; 49.7–51.2 cm) had significantly lower risk for AS and significantly higher risk for SS disorders. This is the first study directly comparing autism and schizophrenia risks in the same population, and provides the first large-scale empirical support for the hypothesis that diametric gene-dosage effects contribute to these disorders. Only the kinship theory of genomic imprinting predicts the opposing risk patterns that we discovered, suggesting that molecular research on mental disease risk would benefit from considering evolutionary theory.
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Sync or sink? Interpersonal synchrony impacts self-esteem
Joanne Lumsden, Lynden Miles & Neil Macrae
Frontiers in Psychology, September 2014
Abstract:
Synchronized behavior has significant social influence both in terms of everyday activities (e.g., walking and talking) as well as via more historical contexts (e.g., cultural rituals). Grounded in the science of coordination dynamics, previous research has revealed that interpersonal synchrony has numerous affiliative and pro-social consequences, such as enhanced rapport, cooperation, and social-cognitive functioning. The current study sought to explore the impact of intentional synchrony versus asynchrony on an individual’s self-esteem and their feelings of social connection with a partner. The results revealed that individuals felt better about themselves following a period of synchronous compared to asynchronous movement, while they also perceived a greater self-other overlap with their partner. These findings not only extend previous research on social connections following interpersonal synchrony, but also provide the first demonstration of an influence on self-evaluations. Overall, it appears that moving in time with others may result in us feeling better about ourselves compared to moving to our own rhythm.
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Golam Khandaker et al.
JAMA Psychiatry, October 2014, Pages 1121-1128
Objective: To test the hypothesis that higher serum levels of IL-6 and CRP in childhood would increase future risks for depression and psychosis.
Design, Setting, and Participants: The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)is a prospective general population birth cohort study based in Avon County, England. We have studied a subsample of approximately 4500 individuals from the cohort with data on childhood IL-6 and CRP levels and later psychiatric assessments.
Results: After adjusting for sex, age, body mass index, ethnicity, social class, past psychological and behavioral problems, and maternal postpartum depression, participants in the top third of IL-6 values compared with the bottom third at age 9 years were more likely to be depressed (CIS-R) at age 18 years (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 1.55; 95% CI, 1.13-2.14). Results using the MFQ were similar. Risks of PEs and of psychotic disorder at age 18 years were also increased with higher IL-6 levels at baseline (adjusted OR, 1.81; 95% CI, 1.01-3.28; and adjusted OR, 2.40; 95% CI, 0.88-6.22, respectively). Higher IL-6 levels in childhood were associated with subsequent risks of depression and PEs in a dose-dependent manner.
Conclusions and Relevance: Higher levels of the systemic inflammatory marker IL-6 in childhood are associated with an increased risk of developing depression and psychosis in young adulthood. Inflammatory pathways may provide important new intervention and prevention targets for these disorders. Inflammation might explain the high comorbidity between heart disease, diabetes mellitus, depression, and schizophrenia.
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Erin Dursa et al.
Journal of Traumatic Stress, October 2014, Pages 542–549
Abstract:
Multiple studies have reported the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) veterans; however, these studies have been limited to populations who use the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for health care, specialty clinic populations, or veterans who deployed. The 3 aims of this study were to report weighted prevalence estimates of a positive screen for PTSD among OEF/OIF and nondeployed veterans, demographic subgroups, and VA health care system users and nonusers. The study analyzed data from the National Health Study for a New Generation of U.S. Veterans, a large population-based cohort of OEF/OIF and OEF/OIF-era veterans. The overall weighted prevalence of a positive screen for PTSD in the study population was 13.5%: 15.8% among OEF/OIF veterans and 10.9% in nondeployed veterans. Among OEF/OIF veterans, there was increased risk of a positive screen for PTSD among VA health care users (OR = 2.71), African Americans (OR = 1.61), those who served in the Army (OR = 2.67), and those on active duty (OR = 1.69). The same trend with decreased magnitude was observed in nondeployed veterans. PTSD is a significant public health problem in OEF/OIF-era veterans, and should not be considered an outcome solely related to deployment.
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Annette Voellmin et al.
Psychoneuroendocrinology, January 2015, Pages 58–67
Background: Chronic or prolonged stress exposure in childhood can alter structural and functional brain development, leading to mental and physical illness and alterations of psychobiological stress systems in adulthood. Recently, attenuation in stress reactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and cardiovascular system have been related to the number of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). We set out to investigate the association of ACE duration and age of ACE occurrence on stress reactivity.
Methods: 104 women in the age range 18-25 years (mean = 21.7) free of mental and physical illness underwent psychosocial stress testing with the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST). Free saliva cortisol and heart rate were assessed repeatedly before and after the MIST.
Results: Number of ACEs was associated with attenuated cortisol and heart rate responses to stress in a dose-response relationship. Whereas overall duration of ACEs was significantly associated with an attenuated cortisol response, the specific age of first ACE occurrence did not contribute further to the dampened stress response.
Conclusions: ACEs are associated with blunted endocrine and cardiovascular stress reactivity in young and healthy women. Adverse life events in childhood, particularly if they occur repeatedly and chronically, show a strong association with alterations in stress reactivity in adulthood, potentially predisposing for later mental or physical disorders.
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Joel Wong et al.
Asian American Journal of Psychology, September 2014, Pages 237-242
Abstract:
Although the past decade has witnessed a growth in research on Asian Americans’ suicide-related outcomes, previous studies have tended not to address within-group ethnic variability among Asian Americans. Therefore, this study examined ethnic differences in suicide ideation in a nationally representative sample of Asian Americans that included the six largest Asian American ethnic groups — Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese Americans. Participants were 1,332 Asian American adults who participated in the National Epidemiologic Survey of Alcohol and Related Conditions. The authors found that participants who had lived a longer proportion of their lives in the United States had increased odds of lifetime suicide ideation. There were significant ethnic differences in suicide ideation rates, with Korean Americans and Indian Americans reporting the highest and lowest ideation rates, respectively. Ethnicity was also a significant moderator of the relationship between proportion of life in the United Sates and suicide ideation. The potential adverse impact of proportion of life in the United States on suicide ideation was weaker among Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese Americans, relative to non-Chinese, non-Japanese, non-Korean, and non-Vietnamese Asian Americans, respectively. In contrast, the association between proportion of life in the United States and suicide ideation was stronger among Indian Americans than among non-Indian Americans. These findings underscore the importance of disaggregating data on Asian American suicide-related outcomes.