Sufferable
Loran Nordgren, Mary-Hunter Morris McDonnell & George Loewenstein
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Torture is prohibited by statutes worldwide, yet the legal definition of torture is almost invariably based on an inherently subjective judgment involving pain severity. In four experiments, we demonstrate that judgments of whether specific interrogation tactics constitute torture are subject to an empathy gap: People who are experiencing even a mild version of the specific pain produced by an interrogation tactic are more likely to classify that tactic as torture or as unethical than are those who are not experiencing pain. This discrepancy could result from an overestimation of the pain of torture by people in pain, an underestimation of the pain of torture by those not in pain, or both. The fourth experiment shows that the discrepancy results from an underestimation of pain by people who are not experiencing it. Given that legal standards guiding torture are typically established by people who are not in pain, this research suggests that practices that do constitute torture are likely to not be classified as such.
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Can seeking happiness make people happy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness
Iris Mauss et al.
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Happiness is a key ingredient of well-being. It is thus reasonable to expect that valuing happiness will have beneficial outcomes. We argue that this may not always be the case. Instead, valuing happiness could be self-defeating, because the more people value happiness, the more likely they will feel disappointed. This should apply particularly in positive situations, in which people have every reason to be happy. Two studies support this hypothesis. In Study 1, female participants who valued happiness more (vs. less) reported lower happiness when under conditions of low, but not high, life stress. In Study 2, compared to a control group, female participants who were experimentally induced to value happiness reacted less positively to a happy, but not a sad, emotion induction. This effect was mediated by participants' disappointment at their own feelings. Paradoxically, therefore, valuing happiness may lead people to be less happy just when happiness is within reach.
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Touching a Teddy Bear Mitigates Negative Effects of Social Exclusion to Increase Prosocial Behavior
Kenneth Tai, Xue Zheng & Jayanth Narayanan
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is little empirical research to date that looks at how the deleterious effects of social exclusion can be mitigated. We examined how touching an inanimate object - a teddy bear - might impact the effect of social exclusion on prosocial behavior. Across two studies, we found that socially excluded individuals who touched a teddy bear acted more prosocially as compared to socially excluded individuals who just viewed the teddy bear from a distance. This effect was only observed for socially excluded participants and not for socially included (or control) participants. Overall, the findings suggest that touching a teddy bear mitigates the negative effects of social exclusion to increase prosocial behavior. In Study 2, positive emotion was found to mediate the relationship between touch and prosocial behavior. These results suggest a possible means to attenuate the unpleasant effects of social exclusion.
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Joel Weinberger et al.
Consciousness and Cognition, June 2011, Pages 173-180
Abstract:
We examined effects of exposure to unreportable images of spiders on approach towards a tarantula. Pretests revealed awareness of the stimuli was at chance. Participants high or low (top and bottom 15%) on fear of spiders were randomly assigned to receive computer-generated exposure to unreportable pictures of spiders or outdoor scenes. They then engaged in a Behavioral Approach Task (BAT) with a live tarantula. Non-fearful participants completed more BAT items than spider-fearful individuals. Additionally, as predicted, a significant interaction (F(1, 48) = 5.12, p < .03) between fear of spiders and stimulus demonstrated that spider-fearful participants exposed to spiders completed more BAT items than spider-fearful participants exposed to control stimuli (but not as many as non-fearful participants). The findings support the hypothesis that exposure to unreportable feared stimuli promotes approach towards the feared object. Future research and clinical implications were discussed.
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Jitender Sareen et al.
Archives of General Psychiatry, April 2011, Pages 419-427
Context: There has been increasing concern about the impact of the global economic recession on mental health. To date, findings on the relationship between income and mental illness have been mixed. Some studies have found that lower income is associated with mental illness, while other studies have not found this relationship.
Objective: To examine the relationship between income, mental disorders, and suicide attempts.
Design: Prospective, longitudinal, nationally representative survey.
Setting: United States general population.
Participants: A total of 34 653 noninstitutionalized adults (aged ≥20 years) interviewed at 2 time points 3 years apart.
Main Outcomes: Lifetime DSM-IV Axis I and Axis II mental disorders and lifetime suicide attempts, as well as incident mental disorders and change in income during the follow-up period.
Results: After adjusting for potential confounders, the presence of most of the lifetime Axis I and Axis II mental disorders was associated with lower levels of income. Participants with household income of less than $20 000 per year were at increased risk of incident mood disorders during the 3-year follow-up period in comparison with those with income of $70 000 or more per year. A decrease in household income during the 2 time points was also associated with an increased risk of incident mood, anxiety, or substance use disorders (adjusted odds ratio, 1.30; 99% confidence interval, 1.06-1.60) in comparison with respondents with no change in income. Baseline presence of mental disorders did not increase the risk of change in personal or household income in the follow-up period.
Conclusions: Low levels of household income are associated with several lifetime mental disorders and suicide attempts, and a reduction in household income is associated with increased risk for incident mental disorders. Policymakers need to consider optimal methods of intervention for mental disorders and suicidal behavior among low-income individuals.
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Joanne Frattaroli, Michael Thomas & Sonja Lyubomirsky
Emotion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Our study sought to determine whether experimental disclosure could improve exam performance and psychological health in students taking a graduate school entrance exam. Students preparing for the GRE, MCAT, LSAT, or PCAT were randomly assigned to write expressively about their upcoming exam or to a neutral writing condition. Participants completed measures of depressive symptoms and test anxiety before and after writing, and exam scores were collected. The experimental disclosure group had significantly higher test scores and significantly lower pre-exam depressive symptoms than the neutral writing group. Although benefits for depressive symptoms were found in expressive writers regardless of exam type, the advantage of expressive writing for test performance was only observed in students taking the MCAT or LSAT.
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Marriage and Suicide among Chinese Rural Young Women
Jie Zhang
Social Forces, September 2010, Pages 311-326
Abstract:
Suicides by young females in rural China contribute substantially to the high rate of suicide and the total number of suicides in China. Given the traditional familial structure that remains largely intact in rural China, this research focuses on whether being married is a risk or protective factor for suicide by young women. I examined 168 rural female suicides ages 15 to 35 in comparison with 211 rural female controls in the same age range. It was found that being married is not a protective factor for suicide in rural China. Fertility events are not related to suicide risk for rural young women. Social support is stronger for unmarried women than for married women, and risk factors tend to be family-related issues. I interpret the findings in light of Durkheim's notion of fatalistic suicide and add the Strain Theory of Suicide to account for the rural young women's suicide in Chinese culture contexts.
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Fathers' Depression Related to Positive and Negative Parenting Behaviors With 1-Year-Old Children
Neal Davis et al.
Pediatrics, April 2011, Pages 612-618
Objective: To examine the associations between depression in fathers of 1-year-old children and specific positive and negative parenting behaviors discussed by pediatric providers at well-child visits.
Methods: We performed a cross-sectional secondary analysis by using interview data from 1746 fathers of 1-year-old children in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Positive parenting behaviors included fathers' reports of playing games, singing songs, and reading stories to their children 3 days in a typical week. Negative parenting behavior included fathers' reports of spanking their 1-year-old children in the previous month. Depression was assessed by using the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview Short Form. Weighted bivariate and multivariate analyses of parenting behaviors were performed while controlling for demographics and paternal substance abuse.
Results: Overall, 7% of fathers had depression. In bivariate analyses, depressed fathers were more likely than nondepressed fathers to report spanking their 1-year-old children in the previous month (41% compared with 13%; P < .01). In multivariate analyses, depressed fathers were less likely to report reading to their children 3 days in a typical week (adjusted odds ratio: 0.38 [95% confidence interval: 0.15-0.98]) and much more likely to report spanking (adjusted odds ratio: 3.92 [95% confidence interval: 1.23-12.5]). Seventy-seven percent of depressed fathers reported talking to their children's doctor in the previous year.
Conclusions: Paternal depression is associated with parenting behaviors relevant to well-child visits. Pediatric providers should consider screening fathers for depression, discussing specific parenting behaviors (eg, reading to children and appropriate discipline), and referring for treatment if appropriate.
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Katherine Stroebe et al.
British Journal of Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Two studies (a) explored the role of pervasiveness of discrimination (pervasive vs. rare) in determining targets' responses to discrimination, and (b) examined the extent to which threats to participants' worldview can account, in part, for detrimental effects of pervasive discrimination. As predicted, across both studies, pervasiveness of discrimination moderated the relationship between attributions to prejudice for failure to obtain a job and psychological well-being (depressed affect and state self-esteem). When discrimination was presented as pervasive, attributions to prejudice related to lower state self-esteem and greater depressed affect. When discrimination was portrayed as rare, attributions to prejudice were related to higher state self-esteem and unrelated to depressed affect. Study 2 further showed that being able to affirm the world as just countered the negative consequences of pervasive discrimination, whereas it did not influence responses to discrimination that was perceived as rare.
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Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain
Ethan Kross et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 12 April 2011, Pages 6270-6275
Abstract:
How similar are the experiences of social rejection and physical pain? Extant research suggests that a network of brain regions that support the affective but not the sensory components of physical pain underlie both experiences. Here we demonstrate that when rejection is powerfully elicited - by having people who recently experienced an unwanted break-up view a photograph of their ex-partner as they think about being rejected - areas that support the sensory components of physical pain (secondary somatosensory cortex; dorsal posterior insula) become active. We demonstrate the overlap between social rejection and physical pain in these areas by comparing both conditions in the same individuals using functional MRI. We further demonstrate the specificity of the secondary somatosensory cortex and dorsal posterior insula activity to physical pain by comparing activated locations in our study with a database of over 500 published studies. Activation in these regions was highly diagnostic of physical pain, with positive predictive values up to 88%. These results give new meaning to the idea that rejection "hurts." They demonstrate that rejection and physical pain are similar not only in that they are both distressing-they share a common somatosensory representation as well.
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Perception of suffering and compassion experience: Brain gender disparities
Roberto Mercadillo et al.
Brain and Cognition, June 2011, Pages 5-14
Abstract:
Compassion is considered a moral emotion related to the perception of suffering in others, and resulting in a motivation to alleviate the afflicted party. We compared brain correlates of compassion-evoking images in women and men. BOLD functional images of 24 healthy volunteers (twelve women and twelve men; age = 27 ± 2.5 y.o.) were acquired in a 3T magnetic resonance scanner while subjects viewed pictures of human suffering previously verified to elicit compassion and indicated their compassionate experience by finger movements. Functional analysis revealed that while women manifested activation in areas involved in basic emotional, empathic, and moral processes, such as basal regions and cingulate and frontal cortices, activation in men was restricted mainly to the occipital cortex and parahippocampal gyrus. These findings suggest that compassion and its moral elements constitute gender-relative subjective phenomena emerging from differently evolved neural mechanisms and socially learned features possibly related to nurturing skills.
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Your Flaws Are My Pain: Linking Empathy To Vicarious Embarrassment
Sören Krach et al.
PLoS ONE, April 2011, e18675
Abstract:
People vicariously experience embarrassment when observing others' public pratfalls or etiquette violations. In two consecutive studies we investigated the subjective experience and the neural correlates of vicarious embarrassment for others in a broad range of situations. We demonstrated, first, that vicarious embarrassment was experienced regardless of whether the observed protagonist acted accidentally or intentionally and was aware or unaware that he/she was in an embarrassing situation. Second, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we showed that the anterior cingulate cortex and the left anterior insula, two cortical structures typically involved in vicarious feelings of others' pain, are also strongly implicated in experiencing the ‘social pain' for others' flaws and pratfalls. This holds true even for situations that engage protagonists not aware of their current predicament. Importantly, the activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and the left anterior insula positively correlated with individual differences in trait empathy. The present findings establish the empathic process as a fundamental prerequisite for vicarious embarrassment experiences, thus connecting affect and cognition to interpersonal processes.
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Why is Cancer More Depressing for Men than Women among Older White Adults?
Tetyana Pudrovska
Social Forces, December 2010, Pages 535-558
Abstract:
Using data from two waves of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (N = 8,054), I examine gender differences in psychological adjustment to cancer among older white adults. Results from different types of longitudinal models reveal that cancer has more adverse psychological implications for men than women. Men's higher levels of depression are reduced after adjustment for adherence to masculinity ideals of strength, independence and invincibility. Cancer poses a threat to the masculine identity because it entails lack of control over one's body and other consequences incompatible with traditional masculinity. This study contributes to sociological knowledge of the ways in which gender shapes psychological resilience and vulnerability to cancer through meanings people attach to gender roles.
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Felicia Rodica Balteş et al.
Brain and Cognition, June 2011, Pages 146-157
Abstract:
Operatic music involves both singing and acting (as well as rich audiovisual background arising from the orchestra and elaborate scenery and costumes) that multiply the mechanisms by which emotions are induced in listeners. The present study investigated the effects of music, plot, and acting performance on emotions induced by opera. There were three experimental conditions: (1) participants listened to a musically complex and dramatically coherent excerpt from Tosca; (2) they read a summary of the plot and listened to the same musical excerpt again; and (3) they re-listened to music while they watched the subtitled film of this acting performance. In addition, a control condition was included, in which an independent sample of participants succesively listened three times to the same musical excerpt. We measured subjective changes using both dimensional, and specific music-induced emotion questionnaires. Cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiratory responses were also recorded, and the participants kept track of their musical chills. Music listening alone elicited positive emotion and autonomic arousal, seen in faster heart rate, but slower respiration rate and reduced skin conductance. Knowing the (sad) plot while listening to the music a second time reduced positive emotions (peacefulness, joyful activation), and increased negative ones (sadness), while high autonomic arousal was maintained. Watching the acting performance increased emotional arousal and changed its valence again (from less positive/sad to transcendent), in the context of continued high autonomic arousal. The repeated exposure to music did not by itself induce this pattern of modifications. These results indicate that the multiple musical and dramatic means involved in operatic performance specifically contribute to the genesis of music-induced emotions and their physiological correlates.
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Kimberly Rhoades et al.
Journal of Family Psychology, April 2011, Pages 282-291
Abstract:
We examined direct and indirect pathways from marital hostility to toddler anger/frustration via harsh parenting and parental depressive symptoms, with an additional focus on the moderating role of genetic influences as inferred from birth parent anger/frustration. Participants were 361 linked triads of birth mothers, adoptive parents, and adopted children who were 9 (T1) and 18 (T2) months old across the study period. Results indicated an indirect effect from T1 marital hostility to T2 toddler anger/frustration via T2 parental harsh discipline. Results also indicated that the association between marital hostility and toddler anger was moderated by birth mother anger/frustration. For children whose birth mothers reported high levels of anger/frustration, adoptive parents' marital hostility at T1 predicted toddler anger/frustration at T2. This relation did not hold for children whose birth mothers reported low levels of anger/frustration. The results suggest that children whose birth mothers report elevated frustration might inherit an emotional lability that makes them more sensitive to the effects of marital hostility.
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Nancy Skopp et al.
Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, April 2011, Pages 361-377
Abstract:
Suicide risk and protective factors among 5,187 active duty service members who presented for services at a military outpatient behavioral health clinic were examined. Results indicated that childhood adversity was a significant predictor of suicidal ideation even after controlling for legal, work, financial, and relationship problems, and psychiatric disorders (alcohol abuse, depression, and posttraumatic stress disorder). Childhood adversity was significantly higher among service members who reported prior suicide attempts as compared with service members who did not report prior suicide attempts. The presence of an intimate partner was inversely associated with suicidal ideation. Military unit support moderated the relation between childhood adversity and suicidal ideation, such that this association was positive at lower, but not higher, levels of unit support.
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Constance Hammen, Patricia Brennan & Robyne Le Brocque
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, forthcoming
Objective: Broadening the concept of stress generation beyond acute life events, the current study explores predictors of the creation of stressful environments - specifically, selection into early childrearing by age 20. It was predicted that youth with early onset depressive disorders would be at higher risk for early childrearing accompanied by greater depression and parenting maladjustment. Additional analyses tested hypotheses about the roles of interpersonal vulnerability and intergenerational transmission of depression and examined gender differences.
Method: A community sample of 706 adolescents and their mothers were studied at ages 15 and 20. The sample was originally selected to oversample families with depressed mothers.
Results: Results confirmed the hypotheses for women but not men: Young women with depression by age 15 were at greater risk for interpersonal difficulties at age 15 and early childrearing, accompanied by further depression and parenting dysfunction at age 20. The effects of (grand)maternal depression were evident in predicting youth early onset depression and interpersonal difficulties, as well as higher rates of depression among their daughters who had children by age 20.
Conclusions: The study expands the definition of stress generation to include the role of past depression and other risk factors as predictors of selection into a stressful childrearing environment. The findings also describe aspects of the intergenerational transmission of depression. The results highlight potentially important targets for interventions in young women to prevent recurrence of major depression and parenting dysfunction.
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Suicide and employment status during Ireland's Celtic Tiger economy
Paul Corcoran & Ella Arensman
European Journal of Public Health, April 2011, Pages 209-214
Background: Studies have identified employment as a protective factor against suicide. We examined employment status and risk of suicide in Ireland during the 11-year period 1996-2006, a period of economic boom commonly known as the Celtic Tiger.
Methods: Data relating to the 5270 suicides and 789 deaths of undetermined intent registered as occurring in Ireland in 1996-2006 and relevant population data were obtained from the Irish Central Statistics Office and analysed using Poisson regression.
Results: Unemployment fell from 12% in 1996 to 4% in 2000, a level at which it remained until 2006. Male and female rates of suicide and undetermined death were stable during 1996-2006 though suicide among unemployed men increased. Relative to employment, unemployment was associated with a 2-3-fold increased risk of male suicide and undetermined death but generally a 4-6-fold increased risk in women. Unemployment was associated with greater increased risk of suicide and undetermined death when its level was low (2001-06) than in the period of decreasing unemployment (1996-2000). Unemployment was a stronger risk factor in men aged 35-54 years and with increasing age in women. Retired persons aged >55 years had a similar risk to their employed counterparts. Being a homemaker was associated with increased risk in women aged >35 years.
Conclusion: The current Irish context of rapidly increasing unemployment suggests that rates may rise again as in previous recessions. Appropriate social policy responses are required to mitigate the potential impact of unemployment on suicides.