Life events,predisposing cognitive strategies and well‐being

To investigate the extent to which the cognitive strategies people apply in various situations, and their subjective well‐being, predispose them to certain life events, 210 students filled in questionnaires measuring their strategy use, self‐esteem, and depression at the beginning of their studies. Self‐esteem and depression were also measured four and five years later. The participants also filled in a life‐event questionnaire yearly between the first and last measurements. Four groups were identified based on the patterns of positive and negative life events. Moreover, the cognitive strategies young adults reported at the beginning of their studies, and their well‐being, were found to predict group membership. Those who had experienced many positive and only few negative life events showed high well‐being and adaptive strategies, whereas those who had faced many negative but only few positive events reported low well‐being and self‐protective strategies. Groups that experienced many positive and many negative, or only few positive and few negative events, were in between these two extremes. Life event patterning was also found to influence later well‐being. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social support as a moderator of day‐to‐day relationships between daily negative events and daily psychological well‐being

Every day for 3 weeks, a sample of college students described the events that occurred each day and provided measures of their self‐esteem, depressogenic thinking and mood. They also provided measures of depressive symptoms and the social support they perceived from friends and family members. A series of multilevel random coefficient modelling analyses found that daily well‐being was positively related to the number of positive events that occurred each day and was negatively related to the number of negative events. Relationships between well‐being and positive events were stronger for more than for less depressed participants and relationships between well‐being and negative events were weaker for participants who perceived more support from friends than for those who perceived less support. Depression was unrelated to the strength of relationships between negative events and well‐being, and the social support from friends was unrelated to relationships between positive events and well‐being. Surprisingly, relationships between negative events and well‐being were stronger for participants who perceived more support from family members than for those who perceived less support. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Narcissism and well‐being: A longitudinal perspective

This study used a longitudinal design to examine both concurrent and prospective relations between narcissism and several indicators of well‐being in a non‐clinical population. Consistent with previous research, the concurrent analyses showed that (1) narcissism was related to greater well‐being with self‐esteem fully mediating the association, and (2) narcissism was related to greater self‐esteem contingency on negative interpersonal events. The prospective analyses showed that greater well‐being predicted an increase in narcissism; however, higher narcissism did not predict changes in well‐being. Lower affective reactivity to negative interpersonal events also predicted an increase in narcissism. The “would‐be” narcissist appears to be a person reporting feeling well and not overly concerned by an aversive social environment. However, narcissism does not appear to predict future benefits for one's well‐being. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ruminative self-focus, negative life events, and negative affect

Ruminative thinking is believed to exacerbate the psychological distress that follows stressful life events. An experience-sampling study was conducted in which participants recorded negative life events, ruminative self-focus, and negative affect eight times daily over one week. Occasions when participants reported a negative event were marked by higher levels of negative affect. Additionally, negative events were prospectively associated with higher levels of negative affect at the next sampling occasion, and this relationship was partially mediated by momentary ruminative self-focus. Depressive symptoms were associated with more frequent negative events, but not with increased reactivity to negative events. Trait rumination was associated with reports of more severe negative events and increased reactivity to negative events. These results suggest that the extent to which a person engages in ruminative self-focus after everyday stressors is an important determinant of the degree of distress experienced after such events. Further, dispositional measures of rumination predict mood reactivity to everyday stressors in a non-clinical sample.     

The relationship between daily events and mood: The mood measure may matter

Measures of daily mood have been used as immediate indicators of the effects of the psychosocial environment, the latter concept often measured by daily events. We examined the prediction of two measures of daily mood, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Nowlis Mood Adjective Checklist (MACL), by daily desirable and undesirable events and by day of the week. Unlike prior studies, the event assessment and type of subjects studied (community residents) were the same in both studies, allowing an attribution of differential associations between the two mood scales and either daily events or day of the week to the different mood measures. The mood measures had similar and expected associations with daily events, although the MACL scale generally had stronger associations with events. Surprisingly, the pattern of day of the week effects for positive, yet not negative, mood were different for the two mood measures. Consistent with the weekend's increase in desirable daily events, MACL positive affectincreased on weekends, relative to weekdays, whereas PANAS positive mooddecreased on weekends. Also, for both positive and negative affect scales, the MACL scales had stronger associations with day of week than the PANAS scales. These results suggest caution in the choice of mood measure to use in studies of daily events and pose questions about the meaning of these mood measures.This work was supported, in part, by grant MH39234 from NIMH. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Ambulatory emotional reactivity to negative daily life events predicts remission from major depressive disorder

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is often associated with altered emotional reactivity. However, the functional significance of altered emotional reactivity in MDD is uncertain. This study was the first to examine the predictive relationship between intensely sampled ambulatory emotional reactivity and the clinical course of MDD. Forty-six outpatients who met criteria for MDD underwent six days of experience sampling of their ambulatory reactivity to everyday negative and positive life events. After experience sampling, all outpatients received pharmacotherapy with supportive psychotherapy and were followed clinically for 18 months. At one month, less emotional reactivity to negative and positive daily events predicted higher depressive symptom severity. Importantly, patients who exhibited less negative emotional reactivity to daily negative life events were less likely to recover from MDD over the 18 month follow-up. Relationships between ambulatory emotional reactivity and MDD course were not accounted for by the duration or the severity of initial MDD symptoms. Diminished ambulatory emotional reactivity appears to be functionally significant in depression. Intensive sampling of ambulatory emotions may have utility for predicting the clinical course of MDD.     

Affect- and self-based models of relationships between daily events and daily well-being

The present study examined affect- self-based explanatory models of relationships between daily events and daily well-being. Twice a week for up to 10 weeks, participants described the events that occurred each day and provided measures of their daily affect, self-esteem, and depressogenic thinking. Participants also provided trait-level measures of affect, depression, and self-esteem. Measures of daily well-being representing each model covaried jointly and independently with daily negative and positive events. Positive events buffered the effects of negative events on daily self-esteem and daily depressogenic thinking, whereas there was no buffering effect for daily affect. More depressed people were more reactive to positive events, and those higher in trait PA were less reactive to negative events. Buffering effects for self-esteem were pronounced for those with lower trait self-esteem, and buffering effects for daily depressogenic adjustment were now more pronounced for those with higher trait negative affect. The results suggest that affect- and self-based models provide complementary perspectives on relationships between psychological well-being and daily events.     

Trait Self‐Control Predicts Adolescents’ Exposure and Reactivity to Daily Stressful Events

The current study used an influence model of personality and stress processes to examine the association between individual differences in trait self‐control and daily stress exposure and reactivity in adolescent youth. A total of 129 adolescents (M_age = 14.7 years, 59% female) completed individual difference measures of self‐control, neuroticism, and measures of responses to stress. Participants then reported on daily stressful events, stress severity, mood, coping, and mindlessness (a predictor of acting on impulse) for 14 consecutive days. Self‐control predicted less exposure to daily stress, less reactivity to daily stress, and more adaptive responses to stress. Specifically, adolescents with higher self‐control experienced fewer daily stressors and reported lower stress severity, particularly when daily mindlessness was high. Second, adolescents with higher self‐control reported less mindlessness in response to daily stress relative to those with lower self‐control, but they did not show differences in emotional reactivity to stress. Finally, results also offered evidence for an indirect effect of problem‐focused coping strategies between self‐control and emotional reactivity to stress. The current investigation illustrates the importance of trait self‐control in daily stress processes among adolescents and suggests possible mechanisms through which self‐control confers these positive effects.     

Personality Strengths as Resilience: A One‐Year Multiwave Study

We examined how personality strengths prospectively predict reactions to negative life events. Participants were 797 community adults from 42 countries. At five points over the course of 1 year, participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring seven personality strengths (hope, grit, meaning in life, curiosity, gratitude, control beliefs, and use of strengths), subjective well‐being, and frequency and severity of negative life events. Using hierarchical linear modeling with assessment periods nested within participants, results from lagged analyses found that only hope emerged as a resilience factor. To illustrate the importance of using appropriate lagged analyses in resilience research, we ran nonlagged analyses; these results suggest that all seven personality strengths moderated the effect of negative life events on subjective well‐being, with greater strengths associated with healthier outcomes. To provide evidence that personality strengths confer resilience, a prospective examination is needed with the inclusion of events and responses to them. The use of concurrent methodologies and analyses, which is the norm in psychology, often leads to erroneous conclusions. Hope, the ability to generate routes to reach goals and the motivation to use those routes, was shown to be particularly important in promoting resilience.     

Development and initial validation of the Brief Adolescent Life Event Scale (BALES)

We report initial validity analyses of the Brief Adolescent Life Event Scale (BALES). This instrument addresses negative and positive events pertinent to the well being of adolescent boys and girls, and is designed for use in studies utilizing an extended research protocol. Selection of items was guided by emerging perspectives on positive psychology , action theory , and personality vulnerability , as well as by new developments in statistical modeling theory. The 36 items of the scale tap negative and positive events, each of which addresses interpersonal and achievement life domains. Using a large sample of early-adolescents ( N = 895), we confirmed the hypothesized structure that includes four domain-level latent factors (i.e., negative interpersonal events, negative achievement events, positive interpersonal events, positive achievement events), and two overarching factors (negative events and positive events). Indices of positive and negative events predicted adolescent depressive symptoms in expected ways, and positive events buffered the effect of negative events on depressive symptoms. These findings encourage an informed use of the BALES and highlight considerations involved in the development of brief measures of stress and coping processes.     

Incivility at work,upset at home? Testing the cross‐level moderation effect of emotional dysregulation among female nurses from primary health care

Workplace incivility is a growing problem in nursing. However, most studies that explore this psychosocial risk and its consequences do so considering a single level and a between‐person perspective. The aims of the study were to explore whether the effects of experiencing incivility during work‐time could explain the daily levels of well‐being of nurses at home; and to analyze if that relationship could be moderated by their levels of emotional dysregulation as a trait. This is a multilevel study with diary methodology. The study was carried out in 18 primary health‐care centers belonging to Madrid and the Basque Country, in Spain. Ninety‐four nurses completed a general questionnaire and 54 of them a diary booklet over five consecutive working days in two different moments, immediately after work and at bedtime. The results showed that nurses’ emotional dysregulation moderated the relationship between daily workplace incivility and daily fatigue, and positive affect at night at home. However, there were no direct effects of daily incivility on these outcome variables. In conclusion, the presence of difficulties in emotional regulation among nurses can increase the negative effects of daily workplace incivility on their health and well‐being.     

Relationships Between Meaning in Life,Social and Achievement Events,and Positive and Negative Affect in Daily Life

Research on meaning in life has generally focused on global meaning judgments. This study examined how people's daily experiences, represented by events that occur in daily life, influence their perceived sense of meaning on a daily basis. One hundred sixty‐two college students completed daily reports for 2 weeks. We examined the relationships among daily social and achievement events, daily positive and negative affect, and daily meaning in life. In addition, we tested the possible moderating influence of depressive symptoms on these relationships. Positive daily social and achievement events were related to greater daily meaning, above and beyond the contributions of daily positive and negative affect. Negative social and achievement events were related to less daily meaning, and negative achievement events covaried with daily meaning above and beyond positive and negative affect. Depression moderated the relationships between positive events and meaning, such that people who reported more depressive symptoms had greater increases in daily meaning in response to positive social and achievement events than individuals who reported fewer symptoms. These findings suggest the important role that daily events may play in fluctuations in people's affective experiences and sense of meaning in life.     

Influence of recorder affect on the content of behavioural diaries and the recall of behaviours

Two experiments are described. In Experiment 1, supervisors (N = 4) kept daily performance diaries for each of four subordinates over an eight‐week period. In Experiment 2, students (N = 48) kept behavioural diaries for their instructor over a three‐week period. Daily measures of positive and negative affect were used to predict the favourability, person‐typicality and behavioural specificity of diary entries. Diary‐keepers tended to record behaviours that were consistent with their affect levels. Analyses of the variability of the favourability and person‐typicality ratings further suggested that high negative affect induced diary‐keepers to make fine discriminations among events, while high positive affect induced diary‐keepers to perceive events as similar. Diary‐keeper affect and the three diary content variables were used to predict memory for the diary entries. Diary‐keepers in Experiment 1 reported higher recall for negative behaviours than for positive behaviours, particularly if the behaviours were typical of others. This same negativity effect in recall emerged in Experiment 2, but only when there was low consistency in the positive affect experienced by diary‐keepers at encoding and recall. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chinese writing system and learning to read

One of the obvious characteristics of the Chinese writing system is its visual complexity. How do children develop their reading and writing ability in such a system? The areas we address in the present study include: (1) The basic unit in character recognition and writing of Chinese children. (2) The role of familiarity of components and the position frequency of components in character recognition and writing. In the first experiment, the subjects were first‐, second‐, fourth‐, and sixth‐graders. Children were asked to delay copy five types of characters: familiar single characters, familiar compound characters, unfamiliar compounds with familiar components, unfamiliar compounds with unfamiliar components, and noncharacters, with the components in impossible positions. The results show that older children were affected more by the familiarity and the position frequency of components in the delayed copy task. In the second experiment, the subjects were from the same grades. Children were asked to carry out lexical decision for five types of characters: real compound characters, pseudocharacters with well‐formed structure and real components, noncharacters with ill‐formed structure but real components, and noncharacters with well‐formed structure but nonreal components. The results show that children can be aware of the ill‐formed structure early, and become aware of well‐formed structure but nonreal components as they grow older. The results suggest that the component of character is the basic unit in children's lexical representation. Familiarity of components and the position frequency of components in characters affect children's character recognition and writing.     

Learning to learn during visual discrimination in group housed dwarf goats (Capra hircus)

Using an automated learning device, we investigated "learning to learn" by dwarf goats (Capra hircus) in what was for them a familiar environment and normal social settings. Nine problems, each consisting of four discriminable black symbols, each with one S-super+ and three different S-super(-), were presented on a computer screen. Mean daily learning success improved over the course of the first four problems, and the improvement was maintained throughout the remaining five problems. The number of trials to reach the learning criterion decreased significantly beginning with problem four. Such results may be interpreted as evidence that the goats were developing a learning set. In the present case, the learning set appeared to have two components. One involved gaining familiarity and apparent understanding of the learning device and the basic requirements of the discrimination task. The second component involved learning potential error factors to be ignored, as well as learning commonalities that carried over from one problem to the next. Among the error factors, evidence of apparent preferences for specific symbols was seen, which had a predictable effect on performances.     

Differential activation of judgments in employee well‐being

To complement environment‐centred perspectives on employee well‐being, which primarily examine the characteristics of external stimuli, a two‐component framework is presented of cognitive processes in responding to those stimuli. First, it is argued that the experience of well‐being derives in part from up to eight kinds of judgment, which operate on an environmental input. These judgments include comparisons with other people, alternative situations and other times, and assessments against three personal reference points: significance for self, relevant self‐efficacy, and novelty or familiarity. The framework's second component sets out situational and personal factors that may differentially promote activation of the judgments. Evidence is reviewed for each judgment's role in well‐being and for the proposed activation contingencies, and a research agenda is presented.     

Right‐Wing Authoritarianism: Protective Factor Against or Risk Factor for Depression?

Because the authoritarian personality was introduced to explain the rise of fascism during World War II, research focused on its ability to predict prejudice, leaving its associations with well‐being largely unexplored. Studies that did examine these associations yielded inconsistent results, and some authors even argued that authoritarianism buffers against the negative effects of psychological vulnerability factors (i.e. D‐type personality) and negative life events on well‐being, especially among people in an authoritarian environment. Using a cross‐sectional community sample (N = 1010), Study 1 failed to support the idea that authoritarianism relates to depressive symptoms and buffers against the negative effects of D‐type personality on depressive symptoms. Using a longitudinal college student sample (N = 499), Study 2 showed that authoritarianism did not moderate the effects of life events either and even predicted over‐time increases in depressive symptoms. Using a longitudinal high school sample (N = 590), Study 3 showed that this effect emerged regardless of degree of fit with the social environment (i.e. with family and friends). Taken together, results suggest that authoritarianism constitutes a risk factor for rather than a protective factor against depressive symptoms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Borderline personality features and instability of daily negative affect and self-esteem

We used a daily process design and multilevel modeling to examine the role of borderline personality features in the day-to-day stability of college students' negative affect and self-esteem and their reactivity to interpersonal stressors. At the end of each day for two weeks, students completed a checklist of daily stressors and measures of state affect and self-esteem. We predicted that high scores on a measure of borderline features would be related to more daily interpersonal stressors, greater negative affective and self-esteem reactivity to these stressors, and less day-to-day carryover of negative mood and self-esteem. The first and third hypotheses were supported, but not the second. The findings demonstrate the utility of a daily process methodology and multilevel modeling to study the day-to-day functioning of individuals with borderline features.