Unemployment and the relationship between borderline personality pathology and health

Evidence suggests that employment may buffer against the negative health outcomes associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD). The purpose of the current analyses was to examine unemployment and the BPD-health relationship prospectively. Participants were 1536 older adults in a longitudinal study of health and aging, with repeated measures of physical health, depressive symptoms, and life satisfaction. We measured BPD features using multiple sources at baseline, and used principal components analysis to obtain latent scores. Multilevel models indicated that unemployment experiences did not moderate the prospective relationship between BPD features and physical health or life satisfaction, but did strengthen the positive relationship between BPD features and depressive symptoms. These findings provide insight into mechanisms of recovery for individuals with BPD.     

Affective processes as mediators of links between close relationships and physical health

Close relationships are known to predict physical health outcomes. The time has come for a shift toward achieving a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms. One promising group of psychological mechanisms is affective processes, such as discrete emotions, emotion regulation, and affect reactivity. In this paper, we discuss the evidence linking relationship functioning with both the positive and negative valences of each affective process, considering the contributions of different types of close relationships across the lifespan, and the evidence for each affective process impacting physical health. We note evidence suggesting that affective processes may also have a causal impact on relationship function. When available, we review literature testing full mediational pathways, from relationship functioning to affective processes to physical health, as the ideal methodology for testing these links. Finally, we identify core themes and propose key future directions for this research.     

Approaching Religiosity/Spirituality and Health from the Eudaimonic Perspective

Religiosity/spirituality (RS) has been linked to positive health outcomes across a large number of studies, with these effects seen most strongly among disadvantaged groups such as minorities, women, and those of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Given that disadvantaged groups typically have worse health outcomes and not better, it is not clear why the effects of RS are stronger for disadvantaged groups. A key difficulty in understanding the relationship between RS and health lies in the theoretical perspectives used in research. Health and well‐being is typically assessed from the hedonic perspective which emphasizes pleasure and happiness as important outcomes and assumes that difficult life situations contribute to negative health. The eudaimonic perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes meaning and relationships, and assumes that difficult life situations can contribute to increased meaning in life and stronger relationships. The eudaimonic perspective provides a better framework for understanding why RS leads to better health for disadvantaged groups for three reasons. First, having meaning in life and strong relationships are related to positive health outcomes and buffer the negative effects of stress. Second, in addition to being more religious, disadvantaged groups report lower hedonic well‐being and report higher eudaimonic well‐being. Third, low SES religious individuals have better than expected health outcomes and low SES materialistic individuals have worse than expected health outcomes. Overall, the eudaimonic perspective better accounts for the research findings in RS and health and provides a strong foundation for future research in this area.     

Close relationships and health: The interactive effect of positive and negative aspects

Most health research focuses on the independent associations of positive or negative aspects of close relationships with health outcomes. A small but growing literature has begun to examine interactive effects of positive and negative aspects. These interactive effects frequently predict health independently or above‐and‐beyond main effects of either the positive or the negative aspects, suggesting unique relationship processes or emergent features of these close relationship patterns. Our goal in this review is to lay out the existing approaches to studying the interactive effects of positive and negative aspects of close relationships and to review available evidence linking these interactive effects to health outcomes. We conclude by discussing important unresolved issues and highlighting critical directions for future research.     

积极情绪与身心健康关系研究的进展

积极情绪与身体健康、心理健康和社会适应有密切的关系。首先,积极情绪不仅能够降低传染性疾病的感染风险,能够影响非传染性疾病病情、病程及死亡率。其次,积极情绪能够降低个体的心理易感性,使个体更好的应对负性或压力事件。最后,现有的研究表明积极情绪和社会交往存在相互促进的关系。现存的直接效应模型和压力缓冲模型解释了积极情绪直接和间接促进健康的机制。未来的研究还需在研究方法和模型完善等方面进一步改进。     

Individual Differences in Affective States During Meditation

Previous research has shown the positive effects of meditation on physical and mental health, but little is known about what psychological processes occur during meditation. The current study investigated experience of affective states in Zen meditation during a 3-day meditation retreat using a single-case design. We used a novel push-button method to measure affective states and multilevel models to analyze the 6 single-case studies. As expected, we found that participants were more likely to have a no-self/spiritual or joy/elation experience toward the end of a meditation session than toward the beginning. Contrary to what we expected, there was no relationship between the meditation session variables and having an anguish/suffering experience. Individual differences had a non-negligible influence on the relationships for all 3 affective states, meaning that meditation did not produce the same results in the participants. We conclude by discussing how our method can be incorporated into future studies of meditation, or other religious variables.     

Do Existential Variables Mediate Between Religious-Spiritual Facets of Functionality and Psychological Wellbeing

Religiosity has been related to psychological wellbeing outcomes. Although this relationship is primarily based on studies of church attendance or prayer and wellbeing, more recent work has focused on the potential mechanisms that may mediate the religion-wellbeing findings. One of the major function of religion is finding of meaning of life and improving hope. Recent studies have indicated that hope and meaning of life are the potential variables mediate between religion and wellbeing. It was hypothesized that one pathway through which religiosity may exert its positive influence on psychological wellbeing is through finding meaning of life and improving hope. One study was conducted examining the relationships among spiritual experiences, hope, meaning of life and psychological wellbeing operationalized as satisfaction with life, positive affect and negative affect. The following research tools were used: Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale, Purpose in Life Test, Hearth Hope Index, Cantril Ladder, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. Meaning of life and hope were noticed to mediate between spiritual experiences and satisfaction with life as well as between spiritual experiences and positive affect. Spiritual experiences were not related to negative affect. Both meaning of life and hope predicted negative affect. This study found meaning of life and hope to be an important factors in the religion-wellbeing relationship and related to positive psychological outcomes, including improved satisfaction with life and positive affect as well as reduced negative affect.     

Goal Adjustment Capacities,Subjective Well‐being,and Physical Health

This article addresses how individuals can adjust to the experience of unattainable goals and protect their subjective well‐being and physical health. We discuss theoretical aspects involved in the self‐regulation of unattainable goals and point to the importance of general individual differences in goal disengagement and goal reengagement capacities. In addition, we review the extant literature, suggesting that goal disengagement capacities can reduce psychological distress and ameliorate patterns of biological dysregulation and physical health problems if individuals experience unattainable goals. Goal reengagement capacities, by contrast, are shown to be associated with positive indicators of subjective well‐being (e.g., positive affect or purpose in life) but rarely predict psychological distress or physical health outcomes. We finally address several remaining issues that have become apparent in the extant literature and may deserve more attention in future research.     

What Are the Costs of Marital Conflict and Dissolution to Children's Physical Health?

Do parental marital conflict and dissolution influence the risk trajectory of children's physical health risk? This paper reviews evidence addressing this question in the context of understanding how early environmental adversities may trigger a succession of risks that lead to poor health in childhood and greater risk for chronic health problems in adulthood. We first review existing evidence linking marital conflict and dissolution to offspring's physical health outcomes. Next, we provide evidence supporting biopsychosocial pathways that may link marital conflict and dissolution with accelerated health risk trajectories across the lifespan. Specifically, we posit that consequential to the stresses associated with marital conflict and disruption, parenting practices are compromised, leading to offspring deficits in affective, behavioral, and cognitive domains. These deficits, in turn, are hypothesized to increase health risk through poor health behaviors and by altering physiological stress-response systems, including neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and neurotransmitter functioning. On the basis of the available direct evidence and theoretically plausible pathways, it appears that there is a cost of marital conflict and disruption to children's health; however, more comprehensive investigations are needed to further elucidate this relationship. In the final section, we address limitations in the current literature and identify research that is needed to better evaluate the association between marital conflict and dissolution and children's physical health.     

Individual and dyadic associations among relational self‐expansion potential,affect, and perceived health

A growing body of literature suggests that specific markers of relationship quality are meaningfully linked to health outcomes. We tested whether relational self‐expansion potential might be one of these markers in cross‐sectional samples of individuals and romantic couples. Study 1 found that greater self‐expansion potential was linked to better perceived physical health via both higher positive affect (PA) and lower negative affect (NA). Study 2 replicated these findings for PA (but not NA) and revealed both actor and partner effects of self‐expansion potential. Results remained robust when statistically accounting for gender, age, body mass index, agreeableness, neuroticism, and perceived partner responsiveness. These findings identify a new relationship‐level “active ingredient” associated with health and have implications for future physical health studies.     

Does self-affirmation, cognitive processing, or discovery of meaning explain cancer-related health benefits of expressive writing?

Although expressive writing has positive effects on health, little is known about the underlying psychological mechanisms for these effects. The present study assessed self-affirmation, cognitive processing, and discovery of meaning as potential mediators of the effects of expressive writing on physical health in early-stage breast cancer survivors. A content analysis of the essays showed that self-affirmation writing was associated with fewer physical symptoms at a 3-month follow-up assessment, with self-affirmation writing fully mediating the effects of the emotional expression and benefit-finding writing conditions on reduced physical symptoms. Cognitive processing and discovery of meaning writing were not associated with any physical health outcomes. Consistent with evidence showing that self-affirmation plays an important role in buffering stress, the present study provides the first evidence for self-affirmation as a viable mechanism underlying the health benefits of expressive writing.     

The relationship between self-control and health: The mediating effect of avoidant coping

Trait self-control is related to a number of positive outcomes, including mental health, interpersonal success, academic success and health-related behaviours. This study sought to explore the relationships between self-control, reports of mental and physical health symptoms and coping styles. The results revealed that higher self-control was related to fewer mental and physical health symptoms and less avoidance coping. There was not a significant relationship between self-control and problem-focused or emotion-focused coping styles. Further, the relationships between self-control and mental and physical health outcomes were partially mediated by avoidance coping style. Specifically, the data suggest lower self-control is associated with unhealthy coping strategies (avoidance coping), which in turn are associated with worse mental health outcomes and greater reports of physical health symptoms. Thus lower trait self-control can serve as an indicator, suggesting circumstances in which individuals' tendencies to engage in unhealthy coping strategies are increased. These findings add to a growing body of literature underscoring the importance of trait self-control.     

Psychological resources, positive illusions, and health

Psychological beliefs such as optimism, personal control, and a sense of meaning are known to be protective of mental health. Are they protective of physical health as well? The authors present a program of research that has tested the implications of cognitive adaptation theory and research on positive illusions for the relation of positive beliefs to disease progression among men infected with HIV. The investigations have revealed that even unrealistically optimistic beliefs about the future may be health protective. The ability to find meaning in the experience is also associated with a less rapid course of illness. Taken together, the research suggests that psychological beliefs such as meaning, control, and optimism act as resources, which may not only preserve mental health in the context of traumatic or life-threatening events but be protective of physical health as well.     

The relationship between self-control and health: The mediating effect of avoidant coping

Trait self-control is related to a number of positive outcomes, including mental health, interpersonal success, academic success and health-related behaviours. This study sought to explore the relationships between self-control, reports of mental and physical health symptoms and coping styles. The results revealed that higher self-control was related to fewer mental and physical health symptoms and less avoidance coping. There was not a significant relationship between self-control and problem-focused or emotion-focused coping styles. Further, the relationships between self-control and mental and physical health outcomes were partially mediated by avoidance coping style. Specifically, the data suggest lower self-control is associated with unhealthy coping strategies (avoidance coping), which in turn are associated with worse mental health outcomes and greater reports of physical health symptoms. Thus lower trait self-control can serve as an indicator, suggesting circumstances in which individuals’ tendencies to engage in unhealthy coping strategies are increased. These findings add to a growing body of literature underscoring the importance of trait self-control.     

Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?

“Success” in dieting interventions has traditionally been defined as weight loss. It is implicit in this definition that losing weight will lead to improved health, and yet, health outcomes are not routinely included in studies of diets. In this article, we evaluate whether weight loss improves health by reviewing health outcomes of long‐term randomized controlled diet studies. We examine whether weight‐loss diets lead to improved cholesterol, triglycerides, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and fasting blood glucose and test whether the amount of weight lost is predictive of these health outcomes. Across all studies, there were minimal improvements in these health outcomes, and none of these correlated with weight change. A few positive effects emerged, however, for hypertension and diabetes medication use and diabetes and stroke incidence. We conclude by discussing factors that potentially confound the relationship between weight loss and health outcomes, such as increased exercise, healthier eating, and engagement with the health care system, and we provide suggestions for future research.     

Acculturation and Latino Adolescent Mental Health: Integration of Individual,Environmental, and Family Influences

In order to address the mental health disparities that exist for Latino adolescents in the United States, psychologists must understand specific factors that contribute to the high risk of mental health problems in Latino youth. Given the significant percentage of Latino youth who are immigrants or the children of immigrants, acculturation is a key factor in understanding mental health among this population. However, limitations in the conceptualization and measurement of acculturation have led to conflicting findings in the literature. Thus, the goal of the current review is to examine and critique research linking acculturation and mental health outcomes for Latino youth, as well as to integrate individual, environmental, and family influences of this relationship. An integrated theoretical model is presented and implications for clinical practice and future directions are discussed.     

Environment and Physical Activity Dynamics: The Role of Residential Self-selection

OBJECTIVES: Within the socio-ecologic framework, diet and physical activity are influenced by individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and public policy factors. A basic principle underlying this framework is that environments can influence an individual's behavior. However, in the vast majority of cross-sectional and even the few longitudinal studies of this relationship, the question of whether individuals select their area of residence based on physical activity-related amenities is ignored. In this paper, we address a critical methodological issue: self-selection of residential location, which is generally not accounted for, and can significantly compromise research on the relationship between environmental factors and physical activity behaviors. METHOD: We define and discuss the problem of residential self-selection in the study of neighborhood influences on health and health behavior, review methods used to control for residential self-selection in the literature, and present our strategy for addressing this potentially important source of bias. CONCLUSION: Existing research has built our understanding of residential self-selection bias, but important gaps remain. Our strategy uses data from a longitudinal cohort study linked to contemporaneous environmental measures to create a multi-equation model system to simultaneously estimate residential choice, environmental influences on physical activity, and downstream health outcomes such as obesity and clinical cardiovascular disease risk factor measures.     

Early environment, emotions, responses to stress, and health

A harsh early family environment is related to mental and physical health in adulthood. An important question is why family environment in childhood is associated with these outcomes so long after its initial occurrence. We describe a program of research that evaluates a model linking these variables to each other. Specifically, we hypothesize that low social competence and negative emotional states may mediate relations between a harsh early family environment and physiological/neuroendocrine responses to stress, as well as long-term health outcomes. We report evidence that the model characterizes self-rated health, cortisol responses to stress, and, in males only, elevated cardiovascular responses to stress. We discuss how the social context of early life (such as SES) may affect the family environment in ways that precipitate adverse health consequences. Perspectives on comorbidities in physical and mental health are discussed.     

The Association Between Strength of Religious Faith and Psychological Functioning

Recently researchers have begun examining the benefit of religious faith on mental and physical health outcomes. This study examined the relationship between religious faith and psychological functioning in 342 university students in diverse educational and geographic settings including a private West Coast Catholic college (sample 1), a Southern public state university (sample 2), and a Southern private Baptist college (sample 3). Participants completed several self-report measures. Strength of religious faith was significantly associated with optimism and experiencing meaning in life among sample 1. Results from sample 2 suggest that strength of religious faith was significantly associated with coping with stress, optimism, experiencing meaning in life, viewing life as a positive challenge, and low anxiety. Strength of religious faith was significantly associated with viewing life as a positive challenge and self-acceptance among sample 3. Although modest correlations surfaced, results suggest that strength of religious faith is associated with several important positive mental health benefits among college students.     

Attitude similarity and familiarity and their links to mental health: An examination of potential interpersonal mediators

Similarity and familiarity with partner’s attitudes are linked to positive relationship outcomes, while interpersonal variables have been linked to mental health. Using multilevel models (MLMs), we modeled the associations between these attitudinal variables and mental health outcomes in 74 married couples. We found that higher levels of attitude similarity in couples were linked to lower depression, while higher levels of attitude familiarity in couples were associated with greater satisfaction with life. Mediational analyses indicated marital satisfaction and interpersonal stress mediated the link between attitude similarity and depression. Marital satisfaction also mediated the link between familiarity and satisfaction with life. This study is the first linking attitude familiarity to mental health and provides evidence that familiarity and similarity have mental health effects partly due to their interpersonal consequences.