How positive emotions build physical health: perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral between positive emotions and vagal tone

Using Mobile Sensing to Test Clinical Models of Depression, Social Anxiety, State Affect, and Social Isolation Among College Students

Background

Research in psychology demonstrates a strong link between state affect (moment-to-moment experiences of positive or negative emotionality) and trait affect (eg, relatively enduring depression and social anxiety symptoms), and a tendency to withdraw (eg, spending time at home). However, existing work is based almost exclusively on static, self-reported descriptions of emotions and behavior that limit generalizability. Despite adoption of increasingly sophisticated research designs and technology (eg, mobile sensing using a global positioning system [GPS]), little research has integrated these seemingly disparate forms of data to improve understanding of how emotional experiences in everyday life are associated with time spent at home, and whether this is influenced by depression or social anxiety symptoms.

Objective

We hypothesized that more time spent at home would be associated with more negative and less positive affect.

Methods

We recruited 72 undergraduate participants from a southeast university in the United States. We assessed depression and social anxiety symptoms using self-report instruments at baseline. An app (Sensus) installed on participants’ personal mobile phones repeatedly collected in situ self-reported state affect and GPS location data for up to 2 weeks. Time spent at home was a proxy for social isolation.

Results

We tested separate models examining the relations between state affect and time spent at home, with levels of depression and social anxiety as moderators. Models differed only in the temporal links examined. One model focused on associations between changes in affect and time spent at home within short, 4-hour time windows. The other 3 models focused on associations between mean-level affect within a day and time spent at home (1) the same day, (2) the following day, and (3) the previous day. Overall, we obtained many of the expected main effects (although there were some null effects), in which higher social anxiety was associated with more time or greater likelihood of spending time at home, and more negative or less positive affect was linked to longer homestay. Interactions indicated that, among individuals higher in social anxiety, higher negative affect and lower positive affect within a day was associated with greater likelihood of spending time at home the following day.

Conclusions

Results demonstrate the feasibility and utility of modeling the relationship between affect and homestay using fine-grained GPS data. Although these findings must be replicated in a larger study and with clinical samples, they suggest that integrating repeated state affect assessments in situ with continuous GPS data can increase understanding of how actual homestay is related to affect in everyday life and to symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Engaging in an experiential processing mode increases positive emotional response during recall of pleasant autobiographical memories

It is important to identify effective emotion regulation strategies to increase positive emotion experience in the general population and in clinical conditions characterized by anhedonia. There are indications that engaging in experiential processing (direct awareness of sensory and bodily experience) bolsters positive emotion experience but this has not been extensively tested during memory recall. To further test this notion, 99 community participants recalled two positive autobiographical memories. Prior to the second recall, participants either underwent an experiential, analytical, or distraction induction (n = 33 per condition). Subjective happiness and sadness ratings and heart rate variability (HRV) response were measured during each recall. Greater spontaneous use of experiential processing during the first memory was associated with greater happiness experience, but was unrelated to HRV and sadness experience. Inducing experiential processing increased happiness experience relative to both the analytical and distraction conditions (but had no impact on sadness experience). There was a significant difference in HRV between conditions. The experiential condition led to a trend-significant increase, and the other conditions a non-significant decrease, in HRV from the first to the second memory. These results suggest that engaging in experiential processing is an effective way to up-regulate positive emotion experience during positive memory recall.

Can natural ways to stimulate the vagus nerve improve seizure control?

The vagus nerve (VN) is the longest cranial nerve, innervating the neck, thorax and abdomen, with afferent fibers transmitting a range of interoceptive stimuli and efferent fibres to somatic structures and autonomic preganglions. Over the last few decades, electrical stimulation of the VN using implanted devices (VNS) has been developed leading to its approval for the treatment of epilepsy and depression. More recently, non-invasive devices to stimulation the VN have been developed. The VN has many functions and the activity that is most amenable to assessment is its effect in controlling the cardiac rhythm. This can be easily assessed by measuring heart rate variability (HRV). Decreased HRV is a result of poorer vagal parasympathetic tone and is associated with a wide range of ill health conditions including a higher risk of early mortality. People with epilepsy, particularly those with poorly controlled seizures, have been shown to have impaired parasympathetic tone. So, might natural ways to stimulate the VN, shown to improve parasympathetic tone as indicated by increased HRV, improve seizure control? There are numerous natural ways that have been shown to stimulate the VN, improving HRV and hence parasympathetic tone. These natural ways fall mainly into 3 categories - stress reduction, exercise, and nutrition. Though the natural ways to stimulate the VN have been shown to increase HRV, they have not been shown to reduce seizures. The exception is listening to Mozart's music, which has been shown to increase parasympathetic tone and decrease seizures. Clearly much more work is required to examine the effect of the various ways to increase HRV on seizure occurrence.

Deficits in autonomic indices of emotion regulation and reward processing associated with prescription opioid use and misuse

RATIONALE

Prescription opioid misuse and high-dose opioid use may result in allostatic dysregulation of hedonic brain circuitry, leading to reduced emotion regulation capacity. In particular, opioid misuse may blunt the ability to experience and upregulate positive affect from natural rewards.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this study was to examine associations between opioid use/misuse and autonomic indices of emotion regulation capability in a sample of chronic pain patients receiving prescription opioid pharmacotherapy.

METHODS

Chronic pain patients taking long-term opioid analgesics (N = 40) completed an emotion regulation task while heart rate variability (HRV) was recorded, and also completed self-report measures of opioid misuse, craving, pain severity, and emotional distress. Based on a validated cut-point on the Current Opioid Misuse Measure, participants were grouped as opioid misusers or non-misusers. Opioid misuse status and morphine equivalent daily dose (MEDD) were examined as predictors of HRV and self-reports of emotion regulation.

RESULTS

Opioid misusers exhibited significantly less HRV during positive and negative emotion regulation, and significantly less positive effect, than non-misusers, after controlling for confounders including pain severity and emotional distress. MEDD was inversely associated with positive emotion regulation efficacy.

CONCLUSION

Findings implicate the presence of reward processing deficits among chronic pain patients with opioid-misusing behaviors, and opioid dosage was associated with deficient emotion regulation, suggesting the presence of compromised top-down cognitive control over bottom-up hedonic processes. Emotion regulation among opioid misusers may represent an important treatment target.

Mindfulness and Loving-Kindness Meditation

An experiment involving 115 undergraduate students (74.8% females; mean age = 20.5 years, SD = 4.3) was conducted to explore effects of meditation on social connectedness, nature connectedness, and affect. Participants listened to one of three brief guided meditation Mp3 recordings via the internet, which involved mindfulness meditation (MM), loving-kindness meditation (LKM), or progressive muscle relaxation (active control group). Participants in the MM and LKM groups reported greater social and nature connectedness at post-test than those in the control group. There were no significant differences in connectedness between the MM and LKM groups, suggesting they are both effective for enhancing connectedness. There were no significant changes in negative or positive affect at post-test due to the interventions. Recommendations for future research are provided.

Conceptual and methodological issues in research on mindfulness and meditation

Both basic science and clinical research on mindfulness, meditation, and related constructs have dramatically increased in recent years. However, interpretation of these research results has been challenging. The present article addresses unique conceptual and methodological problems posed by research in this area. Included among the key topics is the role of first-person experience and how it can be best studied, the challenges posed by intervention research designs in which true double-blinding is not possible, the nature of control and comparison conditions for research that includes mindfulness or other meditation-based interventions, issues in the adequate description of mindfulness and related trainings and interventions, the question of how mindfulness can be measured, questions regarding what can and cannot be inferred from self-report measures, and considerations regarding the structure of study design and data analyses. Most of these topics are germane to both basic and clinical research studies and have important bearing on the future scientific understanding of mindfulness and meditation.

Moral Elevation and Moral Beauty: A Review of the Empirical Literature

Moral elevation is defined as the emotional response to witnessing acts of moral beauty. Studies have found that elevation entails pleasant feelings of warmth in the chest, feeling uplifted, moved, and optimistic about humanity. Elevation motivates affiliation with others as well as moral action tendencies. The main goal of this review was to gather and organize the empirical findings from the last 16 years of elevation research with regard to psychological and physiological characteristics, motivational tendencies, behavioral outcomes, neuronal mechanisms, moderators, and correlates of elevation. A secondary goal was to examine whether elevation is congruent with Fredrickson's (2001) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. It was concluded that there is strong evidence that elevation broadens the thought-action repertoire and relatively weak evidence that it builds lasting resources. Potential evolutionary functions, the forms of measurement of elevation, the process of how elevation is triggered, practical applications and directions for future research were also addressed.

Common variant in OXTR predicts growth in positive emotions from loving-kindness training

Ample research suggests that social connection reliably generates positive emotions. Oxytocin, a neuropeptide implicated in social cognition and behavior, is one biological mechanism that may influence an individual's capacity to extract positive emotions from social contexts. Because variation in certain genes may indicate underlying neurobiological differences, we tested whether several SNPs in two genes related to oxytocin signaling would show effects on positive emotions that were context-specific, depending on sociality. For six weeks, a sample of mid-life adults (N=122) participated in either socially-focused loving-kindness training or mindfulness training. During this timespan they reported their positive emotions daily. Five SNPs within OXTR and CD38 were assayed, and each was tested for its individual effect on daily emotions. The hypothesized three-way interaction between time, training type, and genetic variability emerged: Individuals homozygous for the G allele of OXTR rs1042778 experienced gains in daily positive emotions from loving-kindness training, whereas individuals with the T allele did not experience gains in positive emotions with either training. These findings are among the first to show how genetic differences in oxytocin signaling may influence an individual's capacity to experience positive emotions as a result of a socially-focused intervention.

Perceived weight discrimination, changes in health, and daily stressors

OBJECTIVE

To examine whether perceived weight discrimination is associated with change in health markers over time and whether it is associated with daily stressors, physical symptoms, and affect.

METHODS

Participants were selected from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study if they had data on perceived weight discrimination and health markers at MIDUS II (2004-2006), health markers at MIDUS III (2013-2014), and a body mass index ≥25 kg/m(2) (N = 1,841). A subset of these participants (N = 1,153) reported on their experiences daily for 8 days as part of the second National Study of Daily Experiences.

RESULTS

Perceived weight discrimination was associated with declines in mental and physical health over time (median β = 0.06). Participants who reported weight discrimination experienced more daily stressors (β = 0.13), physical symptoms (β = 0.13), and negative affect (β = 0.13) and less positive affect (β = -0.12) over the 8 days of the second National Study of Daily Experiences. Weight discrimination was most strongly associated with interpersonal stressors (median β = 0.14), feelings of anger (β = 0.16) and frustration (β = 0.14), lower attention (β = -0.14) and activity (β = -0.16), and more nonspecific physical symptoms (e.g., fatigue; β = 0.10).

CONCLUSIONS

This research replicates the association between perceived weight discrimination and worse health over time and extends this literature to show that people who experience weight discrimination have more daily stressors, physical symptoms, and negative emotions.

Sharing More Than the Sofa

Following an initial act of self-control, human performance on subsequent tasks that also require self-control exertion is impaired. This phenomenon, termed ego depletion, is constrained by beliefs and perceptions in humans. Interestingly, this effect has also been observed in dogs, which arguably do not share similar belief systems. This observation suggests that a common biological mechanism might underlie the phenomenon for both species. It also suggests that we can learn something about human self-control by conducting research with dogs. In this article, we relate findings on the depletion effect in dogs to the different mechanisms that are proposed to explain the effect in humans. Finally, we elaborate on practical implications for working dogs.

Positive affect and its association with viral control among women with HIV infection

OBJECTIVE

We assessed the relationship between positive affect and viral suppression among women with HIV infection.

METHOD

Three waves of 6-month data were analyzed from 995 women on HIV antiretroviral therapy participating in the Women's Interagency HIV Study (10/11-3/13). The predictor variable was self-reported positive affect over 2 waves of data collection, and the outcome was suppressed viral load, defined as plasma HIV-1 RNA <200 copies/mL, measured at a third wave.

RESULTS

Women with higher positive affect (36%) were more likely to have viral suppression at a subsequent wave (OR 1.92, 95% CI [1.34, 2.74]). Adjusting for covariates and their interactions, including negative affect, Wave 1 viral suppression, adherence, study site, recruitment cohort, substance use, heavy drinking, relationship status, interpersonal difficulties, and demographics, a statistically significant interaction was detected between negative affect, positive affect and viral suppression, t(965) = -2.7, p = .008. The association of positive affect and viral suppression differed at negative affect quartile values. For those reporting no negative affect, the AOR for positive affect and viral suppression was 2.41 (95% CI [1.35, 4.31]); at a negative affect score of 2, the AOR was 1.44 (95% CI [0.87, 2.36]); and at a score of 5.5, the AOR was 0.58 (95% CI [0.24, 1.42]).

CONCLUSION

Our central finding related to the interaction effect, that positive affect is associated with viral control under conditions of lower negative affect, is consistent with previous theory and research with other health outcomes, and can help guide efforts to further delineate mechanisms linking affect and health. (PsycINFO Database Record

Protective Processes Underlying the Links between Marital Quality and Physical Health

Although the links between marital quality and physical health are now well established, the psychological processes through which marriage impacts health remain unclear. Additionally, prior research on the links between marriage and health has focused mainly on how negative aspects of relationships (e.g., conflict, hostility) can be damaging to one's physical health. In this article, we describe the strength and strain model of marital quality and health, which provides a roadmap for studying protective factors underlying marriage-health links. We home in one relationship process-partner responsiveness-and one broad class of psychological mechanisms-affective processes-to illustrate core aspects of the model. Our review suggests that future research will profit from a greater integration of theory from the social psychology of close relationships into studies of relationships and health.

Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training

Despite increasing interest in the effects of mental training practices such as meditation, there is much ambiguity regarding whether and to what extent the various types of mental practice have differential effects on psychological change. To address this gap, we compare the effects of four common meditation practices on measures of state change in affect, mind-wandering, meta-cognition, and interoception. In the context of a 9-month mental training program called the ReSource Project, 229 mid-life adults (mean age 41) provided daily reports before and after meditation practice. Participants received training in the following three successive modules: the first module (presence) included breathing meditation and body scan, the second (affect) included loving-kindness meditation, and the third (perspective) included observing-thought meditation. Using multilevel modeling, we found that body scan led to the greatest state increase in interoceptive awareness and the greatest decrease in thought content, loving-kindness meditation led to the greatest increase in feelings of warmth and positive thoughts about others, and observing-thought meditation led to the greatest increase in meta-cognitive awareness. All practices, including breathing meditation, increased positivity of affect, energy, and present focus and decreased thought distraction. Complementary network analysis of intervariate relationships revealed distinct phenomenological clusters of psychological change congruent with the content of each practice. These findings together suggest that although different meditation practices may have common beneficial effects, each practice can also be characterized by a distinct short-term psychological fingerprint, the latter having important implications for the use of meditative practices in different intervention contexts and with different populations.

Family Financial Stress and Adolescent Sexual Risk-Taking: The Role of Self-Regulation

The ability to control one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors is known as self-regulation. Family stress and low adolescent self-regulation have been linked with increased engagement in risky sexual behaviors, which peak in late adolescence and early adulthood. The purpose of this study was to assess whether adolescent self-regulation, measured by parent and adolescent self-report and respiratory sinus arrhythmia, mediates or moderates the relationship between family financial stress and risky sexual behaviors. We assessed these relationships in a 4-year longitudinal sample of 450 adolescents (52 % female; 70 % white) and their parents using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that high family financial stress predicts engagement in risky sexual behaviors as mediated, but not moderated, by adolescent self-regulation. The results suggest that adolescent self-regulatory capacities are a mechanism through which proximal external forces influence adolescent risk-taking. Promoting adolescent self-regulation, especially in the face of external stressors, may be an important method to reduce risk-taking behaviors as adolescents transition to adulthood.

Understanding resilience: New approaches for preventing and treating PTSD

All individuals experience stressful life events, and up to 84% of the general population will experience at least one potentially traumatic event. In some cases, acute or chronic stressors lead to the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other psychopathology; however, the majority of people are resilient to such effects. Resilience is the ability to adapt successfully in the face of stress and adversity. A wealth of research has begun to identify the genetic, epigenetic, neural, and environmental underpinnings of resilience, and has indicated that resilience is mediated by adaptive changes encompassing several environmental factors, neural circuits, numerous neurotransmitters, and molecular pathways. The first part of this review focuses on recent findings regarding the genetic, epigenetic, developmental, psychosocial, and neurochemical factors as well as neural circuits and molecular pathways that underlie the development of resilience. Emerging and exciting areas of research and novel methodological approaches, including genome-wide gene expression studies, immune, endocannabinoid, oxytocin, and glutamatergic systems, are explored to help delineate innovative mechanisms that may contribute to resilience. The second part reviews several interventions and preventative approaches designed to enhance resilience in both developmental and adult populations. Specifically, the review will delineate approaches aimed to bolster resilience in individuals with PTSD. Furthermore, we discuss novel pharmacologic approaches, including the N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor ketamine and neuropeptide Y (NPY), as exciting new prospects for not only the treatment of PTSD but as new targets to enhance resilience. Our growing understanding of resilience and interventions will hopefully lead to the development of new strategies for not just treating PTSD but also screening and early identification of at-risk youth and adults. Taken together, efforts aimed at dissemination and implementation of novel interventions to enhance resilience will have to keep pace with the growth of new preventive and treatment strategies.

Helping from the heart: Voluntary upregulation of heart rate variability predicts altruistic behavior

Our various daily activities continually require regulation of our internal state. These regulatory processes covary with changes in High Frequency Heart Rate Variability (HF-HRV), a marker of parasympathetic activity. Specifically, incidental increases in HF-HRV accompany positive social engagement behavior and prosocial action. Little is known about deliberate regulation of HF-HRV and the role of voluntary parasympathetic regulation in prosocial behavior. Here, we present a novel biofeedback task that measures the ability to deliberately increase HF-HRV. In two large samples, we find that a) participants are able to voluntarily upregulate HF-HRV, and b) variation in this ability predicts individual differences in altruistic prosocial behavior, but not non-altruistic forms of prosociality, assessed through 14 different measures. Our findings suggest that self-induction of parasympathetic states is involved in altruistic action. The biofeedback task may provide a measure of deliberate parasympathetic regulation, with implications for the study of attention, emotion, and social behavior.

Positive affect, social connectedness, and healthy biomarkers in Japan and the U.S

Previous studies have shown that positive affect (PA) and social connectedness predict better health in the United States (U.S.). However, the relevance of such findings for other cultural contexts has been largely ignored. The present study investigated the interplay of PA, social connectedness, and health using large probability samples of Japanese and U.S. adults. Health was measured objectively with biomarkers that represent well-functioning physiological systems: HDL (high-density lipoprotein) and DHEA-S (dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate). Lower levels of both biomarkers (i.e., less healthy biomarker profile) were found among those in Japan who reported high PA in combination with low social connectedness. In the U.S., the general pattern was that those with greater PA showed healthier HDL levels regardless of social connectedness. The findings highlight cultural variations in the health implications of how PA and social connectedness come together. (PsycINFO Database Record

Perceived Closeness to Multiple Social Connections and Attachment Style

Throughout life people form multiple close connections. These connections play an important role, such as providing social and instrumental support. Despite this, relatively little is known about how and why closeness to multiple others changes over time. To fill this gap, we examined changes in perceived closeness to multiple social connections and used a well-studied relational individual difference—attachment style—to shed light on those changes. Multilevel analysis and different indexes revealed that attachment avoidance was associated with lower mean perceived closeness and greater fluctuations in perceived closeness over time. These associations were moderated by attachment anxiety, such that low levels of avoidance and anxiety (i.e., security) were associated with greater stability of perceived closeness. Our results demonstrate that perceived closeness in one’s social connections tend to change, even over relatively short periods of time, and individual differences such as attachment style are important correlates of these changes.

Trait Self-Compassion Reflects Emotional Flexibility Through an Association with High Vagally Mediated Heart Rate Variability

Converging evidence shows a positive effect of self-compassion on self-reported well-being and mental health. However, few studies have examined the relation between self-compassion and psychophysiological measures. In the present study, we therefore examined the relation between trait self-compassion and vagally mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) in 53 students (39 female, mean age = 23.63). Trait self-compassion was assessed using the Self-Compassion Scale, and resting vmHRV was measured during a 5-min ECG baseline period. We hypothesized that higher levels of trait self-compassion would predict higher levels of resting vmHRV. Controlling for potential covariates (including age, gender, and BMI), the results confirmed our hypotheses, showing that higher levels of trait self-compassion predicted higher vmHRV. These results were validated with a 24-h measure of vmHRV, acquired from a subsample of the participants (n = 26, 16 female, mean age = 23.85), confirming the positive correlation between high trait self-compassion and higher vmHRV. The relation between trait self-compassion, vmHRV, self-reported trait anxiety (the trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; STAI) and self-reported rumination (the Rumination subscale of the Rumination-Reflection Questionnaire; RRQ-Rum) was also investigated. Higher levels of trait anxiety and rumination were highly correlated with low levels of trait self-compassion. Trait anxiety, but not rumination, correlated marginally significantly with the level of vmHRV. The findings of the present study indicate that trait self-compassion predicts a better ability to physiologically and psychologically adapt emotional responses. Possible implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

Replication initiatives will not salvage the trustworthiness of psychology

Replication initiatives in psychology continue to gather considerable attention from far outside the field, as well as controversy from within. Some accomplishments of these initiatives are noted, but this article focuses on why they do not provide a general solution for what ails psychology. There are inherent limitations to mass replications ever being conducted in many areas of psychology, both in terms of their practicality and their prospects for improving the science. Unnecessary compromises were built into the ground rules for design and publication of the Open Science Collaboration: Psychology that undermine its effectiveness. Some ground rules could actually be flipped into guidance for how not to conduct replications. Greater adherence to best publication practices, transparency in the design and publishing of research, strengthening of independent post-publication peer review and firmer enforcement of rules about data sharing and declarations of conflict of interest would make many replications unnecessary. Yet, it has been difficult to move beyond simple endorsement of these measures to consistent implementation. Given the strong institutional support for questionable publication practices, progress will depend on effective individual and collective use of social media to expose lapses and demand reform. Some recent incidents highlight the necessity of this.

Affectionate Touch to Promote Relational, Psychological, and Physical Well-Being in Adulthood: A Theoretical Model and Review of the Research

Throughout the life span, individuals engage in affectionate touch with close others. Touch receipt promotes well-being in infancy, but the impacts of touch in adult close relationships have been largely unexplored. In this article, we propose that affectionate touch receipt promotes relational, psychological, and physical well-being in adulthood, and we present a theoretical mechanistic model to explain why affectionate touch may promote these outcomes. The model includes pathways through which touch could affect well-being by reducing stress and by promoting well-being independent of stress. Specifically, two immediate outcomes of affectionate touch receipt—relational-cognitive changes and neurobiological changes—are described as important mechanisms underlying the effects of affectionate touch on well-being. We also review and evaluate the existing research linking affectionate touch to well-being in adulthood and propose an agenda to advance research in this area. This theoretical perspective provides a foundation for future work on touch in adult close relationships.

The Impact of Social and Cultural Engagement and Dieting on Well-Being and Resilience in a Group of Residents in the Metropolitan Area of Naples

Social isolation and exclusion are associated with poor health status and premature death. A number of related isolation factors, inadequate transportation system and restrictions in individuals' life space, have been associated with malnutrition in older adults. Since eating is a social event, isolation can have a negative effect on nutrition. Cultural involvement and participation in interactive activities are essential tools to fight social isolation, and they can counteract the detrimental effects of social isolation on health. To provide data supporting the hypothesis that encouraging participation might represent an innovative preventive and health promoting strategy for healthy living and aging, we developed an ad hoc questionnaire to investigate the relationship between cultural participation, well-being, and resilience in a sample of residents in the metropolitan area of Naples. The questionnaire includes a question on adherence to diet or to a special nutritional regimen; in addition, the participants are asked to mention their height and weight. We investigated the relationship between BMI, adherence to diet, and perceived well-being (PWB) and resilience in a sample of 571 subjects over 60 years of age. Here, we present evidence that engagement into social and cultural activities is associated with higher well-being and resilience, in particular in females over 60 years of age.

A Heart and A Mind: Self-distancing Facilitates the Association Between Heart Rate Variability, and Wise Reasoning

Cardiac vagal tone (indexed via resting heart rate variability [HRV]) has been previously associated with superior executive functioning. Is HRV related to wiser reasoning and less biased judgments? Here we hypothesize that this will be the case when adopting a self-distanced (as opposed to a self-immersed) perspective, with self-distancing enabling individuals with higher HRV to overcome bias-promoting egocentric impulses and to reason wisely. However, higher HRV may not be associated with greater wisdom when adopting a self-immersed perspective. Participants were randomly assigned to reflect on societal issues from a self-distanced- or self-immersed perspective, with responses coded for reasoning quality. In a separate task, participants read about and evaluated a person performing morally ambiguous actions, with responses coded for dispositional vs. situational attributions. We simultaneously assessed resting cardiac recordings, obtaining six HRV indicators. As hypothesized, in the self-distanced condition, each HRV indicator was positively related to prevalence of wisdom-related reasoning (e.g., prevalence of recognition of limits of one’s knowledge, recognition that the world is in flux/change, consideration of others’ opinions and search for an integration of these opinions) and to balanced vs. biased attributions (recognition of situational and dispositional factors vs. focus on dispositional factors alone). In contrast, there was no relationship between these variables in the self-immersed condition. We discuss implications for research on psychophysiology, cognition, and wisdom.

Life Satisfaction Among Ethnic Minorities in Europe

Although life satisfaction (LS) of ethnic minorities can be significantly undermined by several psychological and material hardships, relatively few studies have examined this issue across Europe. The aim of the present study is to examine the impact of belonging to an ethnic minority group on LS, using data from the sixth wave of the European Social Survey (ESS6), carried out in 2012 in 29 countries ( N = 54,540). About 6.7% of all the participants in the ESS6 considered themselves belonging to an ethnic minority group. Our findings show that LS is lower for the ethnic minorities than for the majority not only in the pooled ESS6 sample but also in 19 European countries, most notably in Slovakia and in the Czech Republic. Multilevel analysis indicated that the negative impact of ethnic minority status on LS tended to be enhanced in ex-Communist countries as well as in countries with higher ethnic diversity. The findings of this study show clearly that policy makers of several European countries should focus on increasing social justice and solidarity, and providing ethnic minorities real opportunities to feel more integrated into society.

Resilience, Pain Interference, and Upper Limb Loss: Testing the Mediating Effects of Positive Emotion and Activity Restriction on Distress

OBJECTIVE

To test mediating effects of positive emotion and activity restriction on the associations of resilience and pain interference with distress reported by individuals with traumatic upper limb loss evaluated for prosthetics.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional correlational study of several demographic and self-report measures of resilience, pain interference, activity restriction, positive emotions, and symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress.

SETTING

Six regional centers throughout the United States.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 263 prospective participants consented to be evaluated for eligibility and need for upper extremity prosthetics; participants (N=202; 57 women [28.2%] and 145 men [71.8%]; mean age, 41.81±14.83y; range, 18.01-72.95y) who sustained traumatic injuries were retained in this study. Most of them were identified as white (70.8%; n=143), followed by black (10.4%; n=21), Hispanic (9.9%; n=20), Asian (3.0%; n=6), other (1.5%; n=3), and missing (4.5%; n=9).

INTERVENTIONS

Not applicable.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Primary Care Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Screen and depression screen.

RESULTS

Resilience and pain interference were significantly correlated in predicted directions with positive emotions, activity restriction, and the 2 distress variables. A path model revealed that the associations of resilience and pain interference with both distress variables were completely mediated by positive emotions and activity restriction. There were no significant direct effects of resilience or pain interference on either distress variable.

CONCLUSIONS

Resilience may facilitate adjustment via beneficial and predicted associations with positive emotions and active engagement with the environment. These relations are independent of the significant and inverse associations of pain interference with these same variables. Longitudinal research is needed to understand interactions between positive emotions and activity over time in promoting adjustment after traumatic limb loss. Individuals reporting depression and/or posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms may require interventions that reduce avoidance and promote activities that may increase the likelihood of experiencing positive emotions.

The neural correlates of social connection

Cultivating social connection has long been a goal of psychology, philosophy, religion, and public policy. Yet the psychological and neural responses that accompany a feeling of connection to others remain unclear. In the present study, we used functional neuroimaging to shed light on the neural correlates of self- and other-focused processes during the successful self-generation of feelings of social connection. To do this, we used a trait judgment task to localize functional activation related to self-focused thought. We then examined brain responses during guided exercises designed both to encourage feeling love and connection from others (i.e., self-focused) and to generate feelings of love and connection toward others (i.e., other-focused). Our results indicated that generating feelings of social connection recruited a portion of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) implicated in thinking about both the self and others. Within this larger area, we observed distinct profiles of activation within different subregions. Although rostral anterior cingulate cortex was more strongly activated by other-focused components of the task, a more dorsal portion of MPFC was comparatively more active during primarily self-focused components of the task. Somewhat surprisingly, stronger feelings of social connection were not associated with greater activation in the anterior cingulate, but rather with less activation in the dorsal region of the MPFC related to self-focused thought. These results are consistent with the possibility that reducing certain kinds of self-focused thought might yield a greater sense of social connection to and care for others.

Disease Prevention and Health Promotion: How Integrative Medicine Fits

As a discipline, preventive medicine has traditionally been described to encompass primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. The fields of preventive medicine and public health share the objectives of promoting general health, preventing disease, and applying epidemiologic techniques to these goals. This paper discusses a conceptual approach between the overlap and potential synergies of integrative medicine principles and practices with preventive medicine in the context of these levels of prevention, acknowledging the relative deficiency of research on the effectiveness of practice-based integrative care. One goal of integrative medicine is to make the widest array of appropriate options available to patients, ultimately blurring the boundaries between conventional and complementary medicine. Both disciplines should be subject to rigorous scientific inquiry so that interventions that are efficacious and effective are systematically distinguished from those that are not. Furthermore, principles of preventive medicine can be infused into prevalent practices in complementary and integrative medicine, promoting public health in the context of more responsible practices. The case is made that an integrative preventive approach involves the responsible use of science with responsiveness to the needs of patients that persist when conclusive data are exhausted, providing a framework to make clinical decisions among integrative therapies.

The role of positive affect in pain and its treatment

OBJECTIVE

This narrative review summarizes and integrates the available literature on positive affect (PA) and pain to: (1) provide a brief overview of PA and summarize the key findings that have emerged in the study of PA and pain; (2) provide a theoretical foundation from which to understand how PA operates in the context of chronic pain (CP); and (3) highlight how the prevailing psychosocial treatments for CP address PA in the therapeutic context, and offer suggestions for how future treatment development research can maximize the benefit of PA for patients with CP.

RESULTS

In experimental studies, the evidence suggests PA is analgesic. In clinical studies, the association of PA and pain is dynamic, time variant, and may be best considered in context of its interacting role with negative affect.

DISCUSSION

We offer an "upward spiral" model of PA, resilience and pain self-management, which makes specific predictions that PA will buffer maladaptive cognitive and affective responses to pain, and promote active engagement in valued goals that enhance CP self-management.

Contribution of Positivity Ratio and Self-Control to Reduced Gambling Severity among Adolescents

In the past few years, gambling among adolescents has become a common health risk behavior, one that might lead to other health risk behaviors. Research on the etiology of gambling behavior among adolescents has hitherto focused primarily on the factors contributing to increased gambling severity (GS). The present study is different, in that it examines two key personality components that may help curb GS: self-control (SC) and positivity ratio (PR)--the latter being defined as the positive ratio between positive and negative affects--as factors that predict reduced GS among adolescents. A convenience sample of 595 adolescents, ages 13 to 19 (M = 15.13, SD = 1.53), from six secondary and middle schools in five major cities in Israel, was taken between February and April 2012. Four instruments were used: a Gambling Behavior Scale, the DSM-IV (adapted for juveniles), the Adolescent SC Scale, and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. The main findings showed that PR moderated the association between SC and GS--highlighting the importance of PR in reducing the likelihood of problem gambling and bolstering the individual's SC skills and pointing to possible preventive actions that might be taken in the community to promote healthy adolescent behavior.

Resilience, traumatic brain injury, depression, and posttraumatic stress among Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans

OBJECTIVE

We examined the prospective influence of the resilient, undercontrolled, and overcontrolled personality prototypes on depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms among Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans. After accounting for the possible influence of combat exposure, we expected that the resilient prototype would predict lower depression and PTSD over time and would be associated with adaptive coping strategies, higher social support, lower psychological inflexibility, and higher self-reported resilience relative to overcontrolled and undercontrolled prototypes, independent of traumatic brain injury (TBI) status.

METHOD

One hundred twenty-seven veterans (107 men, 20 women; average age = 37) participated in the study. Personality was assessed at baseline, and PTSD and depression symptoms were assessed 8 months later. Path analysis was used to test the direct and indirect effects of personality on distress.

RESULTS

No direct effects were observed from personality to distress. The resilient prototype did have significant indirect effects on PTSD and depression through its beneficial effects on social support, coping and psychological inflexibility. TBI also had direct effects on PTSD.

CONCLUSIONS

A resilient personality prototype appears to influence veteran adjustment through its positive associations with greater social support and psychological flexibility, and lower use of avoidant coping. Low social support, avoidant coping, and psychological inflexibility are related to overcontrolled and undercontrolled personality prototypes, and these behaviors seem to characterize veterans who experience problems with depression and PTSD over time. A positive TBI status is directly and prospectively associated with PTSD symptomology independent of personality prototype. Implications for clinical interventions and future research are discussed.

Childhood trauma and personal mastery: their influence on emotional reactivity to everyday events in a community sample of middle-aged adults

Childhood trauma is associated with premature declines in health in midlife and old age. Pathways that have been implicated, but less studied include social-emotional regulation, biological programming, and habitual patterns of thought and action. In this study we focused on childhood trauma’s influence via alterations in social-emotional regulation to everyday life events, a pathway that has been linked to subsequent health effects. Data from a 30-day daily diary of community residents who participated in a study of resilience in Midlife (n = 191, M_age = 54, SD = 7.50, 54% women) was used to examine whether self-reports of childhood trauma were associated with daily well-being, as well as reported and emotional reactivity to daily negative and positive events. Childhood trauma reports were associated with reporting lower overall levels of and greater variability in daily well-being. Childhood trauma was linked to greater reports of daily negative events, but not to positive events. Focusing on emotional reactivity to daily events, residents who reported higher levels of childhood trauma showed stronger decreases in well-being when experiencing negative events and also stronger increases in well-being with positive events. For those reporting childhood trauma, higher levels of mastery were associated with stronger decreases in well-being with negative events and stronger increases in well-being with positive events, suggesting that mastery increases sensitivity to daily negative and positive events. Our results suggest that childhood trauma may lead to poorer health in midlife through disturbances in the patterns of everyday life events and responses to those events. Further, our findings indicate that mastery may have a different meaning for those who experienced childhood trauma. We discuss social-emotional regulation as one pathway linking childhood trauma to health, and psychosocial resources to consider when building resilience-promoting interventions for mitigating the detrimental health effects of childhood trauma.

The effect of grounding the human body on mood

Earthing (grounding) refers to bringing the body in contact with the Earth. Health benefits were previously reported, but no study exists about mood. This study was conducted to assess if Earthing improves mood. 40 adult participants were either grounded or sham-grounded (no grounding) for 1 hr. while relaxing in a comfortable recliner chair equipped with a conductive pillow, mat, and patches connecting them to the ground. This pilot project was double-blinded and the Brief Mood Introspection Scale (comprising 4 mood scales) was used. Pleasant and positive moods statistically significantly improved among grounded-but not sham-grounded-participants. It is concluded that the 1-hr. contact with the Earth improved mood more than expected by relaxation alone. More extensive studies are, therefore, warranted.

Compassion-based emotion regulation up-regulates experienced positive affect and associated neural networks

Emotion regulation research has primarily focused on techniques that attenuate or modulate the impact of emotional stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that this mode regulation can be problematic in the context of regulation of emotion elicited by the suffering of others, resulting in reduced emotional connectedness. Here, we investigated the effects of an alternative emotion regulation technique based on the up-regulation of positive affect via Compassion-meditation on experiential and neural affective responses to depictions of individuals in distress, and compared these with the established emotion regulation strategy of Reappraisal. Using fMRI, we scanned 15 expert practitioners of Compassion-meditation either passively viewing, or using Compassion-meditation or Reappraisal to modulate their emotional reactions to film clips depicting people in distress. Both strategies effectively, but differentially regulated experienced affect, with Compassion primarily increasing positive and Reappraisal primarily decreasing negative affect. Imaging results showed that Compassion, relative to both passive-viewing and Reappraisal increased activation in regions involved in affiliation, positive affect and reward processing including ventral striatum and medial orbitfrontal cortex. This network was shown to be active prior to stimulus presentation, suggesting that the regulatory mechanism of Compassion is the stimulus-independent endogenous generation of positive affect.

Compassion-based emotion regulation up-regulates experienced positive affect and associated neural networks

Emotion regulation research has primarily focused on techniques that attenuate or modulate the impact of emotional stimuli. Recent evidence suggests that this mode regulation can be problematic in the context of regulation of emotion elicited by the suffering of others, resulting in reduced emotional connectedness. Here, we investigated the effects of an alternative emotion regulation technique based on the up-regulation of positive affect via Compassion-meditation on experiential and neural affective responses to depictions of individuals in distress, and compared these with the established emotion regulation strategy of Reappraisal. Using fMRI, we scanned 15 expert practitioners of Compassion-meditation either passively viewing, or using Compassion-meditation or Reappraisal to modulate their emotional reactions to film clips depicting people in distress. Both strategies effectively, but differentially regulated experienced affect, with Compassion primarily increasing positive and Reappraisal primarily decreasing negative affect. Imaging results showed that Compassion, relative to both passive-viewing and Reappraisal increased activation in regions involved in affiliation, positive affect and reward processing including ventral striatum and medial orbitfrontal cortex. This network was shown to be active prior to stimulus presentation, suggesting that the regulatory mechanism of Compassion is the stimulus-independent endogenous generation of positive affect.