Connecting the dots from a distance: Does mentally traveling through space and time increase searching for life’s meaning?

As humans, we have the ability to travel beyond the present moment by considering past and future times as well as locations that are distant from oneself. An interesting possibility is that such mental travel to far-away times and places (vs. focusing on times and places closer to the present) may increase people’s desire to search for their lives’ meaning. Since searching for meaning involves the integration of separate life events into a coherent life story, mentally traveling farther away from the present may make people aware that their life stories include more than what is happening at this very minute. Such awareness, then, may increase their desire to ‘connect the dots’ between their life events by searching for some underlying meaning. Three experiments (N = 838) tested this prediction and found that greater (vs. lower) mental travel through space or time increased the search for life’s meaning.     

What differentiates episodic future thinking from complex scene imagery?

We investigated the contributions of familiarity of setting, self-relevance and self-projection in time to episodic future thinking. The role of familiarity of setting was assessed, in Experiment 1, by comparing episodic future thoughts to autobiographical future events supposed to occur in unfamiliar settings. The role of self-relevance was assessed, in Experiment 2, by comparing episodic future thoughts to future events involving familiar others. The role of self-projection in time was assessed, in both Experiments, by comparing episodic future thoughts to autobiographical events that were not temporal in nature. Results indicated that episodic future thoughts were more clearly represented than autobiographical future events occurring in unfamiliar setting and future events involving familiar others. Our results also revealed that episodic future thoughts were indistinguishable from autobiographical atemporal events with respect to both subjective and objective detail ratings. These results suggest that future and atemporal events are mentally represented in a similar way.     

中小幼教师职业倦怠对心理生活质量的影响:主观幸福感与人生意义的中介作用

为了解中小学、幼儿园教师职业倦怠的现状,探讨主观幸福感和人生意义在职业倦怠对心理生活质量影响的中介作用机制,采用“中小学教师职业倦怠问卷”“心理生活质量评价问卷”“主观幸福感量表”和“人生意义感量表”对广东省581名中小学和幼儿园教师实施调查。结果表明:(1)中小幼教师职业倦怠、主观幸福感、人生意义和心理生活质量两两间存在显著的相关关系;(2)中小幼教师职业倦怠能显著负向预测心理生活质量和主观幸福感; 主观幸福感能显著正向预测心理生活质量、人生意义; 人生意义能显著正向预测心理生活质量;(3)主观幸福感与人生意义在职业倦怠对中小幼教师心理生活质量影响间的链式中介作用成立。     

Mental Simulation, Affect, and Personality: A Conceptual Framework

Recent advances in theory and research on the relations among mental simulation, affect, and personality are summarized and combined. Research has shown that (a) affect and mental simulations can influence each other, (b) mental simulations can serve diverse self-motives, and (c) personality characteristics are related to divergent functions of mental simulations. Findings in these three areas are synthesized into a conceptual framework on the basis of three attributes of mental simulations: (a) time, whether simulations are prospective or retrospective; (b) direction, whether simulations are upward or downward; and (c) focus, whether simulations are contrasted or assimilated. This integrated framework not only may enable a greater understanding of existing findings, but also suggests novel and unique predictions for future research on understanding personality processes, automaticity in simulations, and coping with life events.     

Depression and resilience mediate the relationship between traumatic life events and ill physical health: results from a population study

We set out to investigate the mediating roles of depression, resilience, smoking, and alcohol use, in the relationship between potentially traumatic life events and objective and subjective, physical and mental health in a single study. A face-to-face, population-based survey was conducted in Hong Kong (N = 1147). Information on health conditions and traumatic life events was obtained, and participants completed measures of subjective physical and mental health, depression, and resilience. Smoking and drinking were not significant mediators of the relationship between life events and both objective and subjective health. Depressive symptomatology was found to mediate the relationship between life threatening illness and subjective physical health, the relationship between abuse (physical and sexual) and subjective mental health, and the relationship between the death of a parent/partner and subjective mental health. Resilience was found to mediate the relationships between multiple traumatic life events and subjective physical and mental health. Our results indicate that psychological factors rather than biological are important mediators of the relationship between life events exposure and health. Our findings provide evidence that depressive symptomatology has a mediating role only in the case of specific potentially traumatic life events and that resilience is only a critical factor in the face of exposure to multiple traumatic events, rather than single events. Our results also indicate that behavioural factors, such as smoking and drinking, are not significant mediators of the relationship between life events and health.     

基于双因素模型的老年人生命意义感与心理健康：老化态度的中介作用——基于双因素模型的老年人生命意义感与心理健康：老化态度的中介作用

在积极心理学的影响下,心理健康双因素模型包含主观幸福感和精神病理学指标。研究旨在验证心理健康双因素模型在老年人中的适用性,考察老化态度在生命意义感和心理健康间的多重中介作用。采用爱丁堡幸福量表、一般健康问卷、老化态度问卷和人生意义问卷调查了283名广州市社区老年人。结果发现：（1）心理健康双因素模型较单因素模型的拟合度更优。（2）生命意义感通过老化态度的三条路径（对身体变化、心理获得和心理社会丧失的积极态度）促进心理健康,但具体机制不同。增强意义体验、意义追寻通过老化态度的完全中介作用,提高主观幸福感。增强意义体验通过老化态度的完全中介作用,减弱意义追寻通过老化态度的部分中介作用,减少精神病理学症状。研究结果扩大了心理健康双因素模型的适用年龄范围,为提升老年人的心理健康提供实证依据。     

生命意义感获取的心理机制及其影响因素

生命意义感体验对个体身心健康有重要的影响,其相关研究也已开始受到心理学各个领域的广泛关注。生命意义感获得与维持的理论研究主要是包括意义感层次模型、意义感构建模型及意义感维持与流动模型。大五人格、心理模拟、积极/消极情绪和亲社会行为是影响个体生命意义感体验的主要因素。未来研究要进一步探讨生命意义感产生的影响因素,完善相关的理论模型,并要从时间序列的角度探讨意义感的产生过程,并对生命意义感获得及维持的跨文化差异进行探讨。     

心理时间旅行的动力机制：自我的作用

选取120名大学生,通过两个研究考察了自我在心理时间旅行中的动力机制。研究1以核心自我评价为评估自我概念的指标,发现自尊和一般自我效能对指向未来的心理时间旅行具有一定的预测效力。研究2通过启动使不同类型的自我概念在意识中占优,发现互倚组比独立组报告出更多具体的事件,且更关注他人和关系。研究表明,自我概念能够引导个体对过去和未来事件的建构。     

The hard-won benefits of familiarity in visual search: naturally familiar brand logos are found faster

Familiar items are found faster than unfamiliar ones in visual search tasks. This effect has important implications for cognitive theory, because it may reveal how mental representations of commonly encountered items are changed by experience to optimize performance. It remains unknown, however, whether everyday items with moderate levels of exposure would show benefits in visual search, and if so, what kind of experience would be required to produce them. Here, we tested whether familiar product logos were searched for faster than unfamiliar ones, and also familiarized subjects with previously unfamiliar logos. Subjects searched for preexperimentally familiar and unfamiliar logos, half of which were familiarized in the laboratory, amongst other, unfamiliar distractor logos. In three experiments, we used an N-back-like familiarization task, and in four others we used a task that asked detailed questions about the perceptual aspects of the logos. The number of familiarization exposures ranged from 30 to 84 per logo across experiments, with two experiments involving across-day familiarization. Preexperimentally familiar target logos were searched for faster than were unfamiliar, nonfamiliarized logos, by 8 % on average. This difference was reliable in all seven experiments. However, familiarization had little or no effect on search speeds; its average effect was to improve search times by 0.7 %, and its effect was significant in only one of the seven experiments. If priming, mere exposure, episodic memory, or relatively modest familiarity were responsible for familiarity’s effects on search, then performance should have improved following familiarization. Our results suggest that the search-related advantage of familiar logos does not develop easily or rapidly.     

Religion and Health: Anxiety,Religiosity, Meaning of Life and Mental Health

We examined the association among anxiety, religiosity, meaning of life and mental health in a nonclinical sample from a Chinese society. Four hundred fifty-one Taiwanese adults (150 males and 300 females) ranging in age from 17 to 73 years (M = 28.9, SD = 11.53) completed measures of Beck Anxiety Inventory, Medical Outcomes Study Health Survey, Perceived Stress Scale, Social Support Scale, and Personal Religiosity Scale (measuring religiosity and meaning of life). Meaning of life has a significant negative correlation with anxiety and a significant positive correlation with mental health and religiosity; however, religiosity does not correlate significantly anxiety and mental health after controlling for demographic measures, social support and physical health. Anxiety explains unique variance in mental health above meaning of life. Meaning of life was found to partially mediate the relationship between anxiety and mental health. These findings suggest that benefits of meaning of life for mental health can be at least partially accounted for by the effects of underlying anxiety.     

Familiarity and sex based stereotypes on instant impressions of male and female faculty

To address the stranger-to-stranger critique of stereotyping research, psychology students $(n= 139)$ and law students $(n = 58)$ rated photographs of familiar or unfamiliar male or female professors on competence. Results from Study 1 indicated that familiar male psychology faculty were rated as more competent than were familiar female faculty, whereas unfamiliar female faculty were rated as more competent than unfamiliar male faculty. By contrast, in Study 2, familiarity had a stronger positive effect on competence ratings of female faculty than it did for male faculty. Among psychology students, familiarity increased sex bias against female faculty, whereas among law students familiarity decreased sex bias. Together, these studies call into question the stranger-to-stranger critique of stereotyping research. Our findings have direct implications for the context of student evaluations. In male-dominated disciplines it is important for students to be exposed to female instructors in order to reduce pre-existing biases against such instructors.     

Does cognitive flexibility training enhance subjective mental functioning in healthy older adults?

Declining cognitive abilities in older adults can contribute to significant changes in socioemotional health and substantially reduce their perception of well-being. Whereas much attention has been dedicated to creating cognitive training programs to improve cognitive health in old age, there is little emphasis on the consequences of such interventions for subjective mental functioning. We created a randomized controlled trial in which we evaluated the effects of an adaptive computerized cognitive flexibility training. Healthy older adults (60–80 years old) were assigned to one of three conditions (frequent or infrequent switching or active control group) and performed 58 half-hour sessions within a period of 12 weeks. We measured effects on subjective cognitive failures and executive dysfunctioning, everyday functioning, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and quality of life, before, and after training. Additionally, participants’ proxies rated their cognitive failures and executive dysfunctioning. Subjective cognitive failures and executive dysfunctioning improved 4 weeks posttraining in all groups, although effect sizes were low (?_p² = .058 and .079, respectively) and there were no differences between groups (all p’s > .38). No significant changes in subjective reports were seen directly after training, which was the case in all groups. Proxies did not report any functional changes over time, yet their evaluations were significantly more favorable than those of the participants, both pretraining (p < .0005) and posttraining (p = .004). Although we found no evidence of improvement on subjective mental functioning, we adduce several factors that encourage further research into the effects of computerized cognitive training on subjective performance.     

Struggle with ultimate meaning: Nuanced associations with search for meaning,presence of meaning,and mental health

Struggle with ultimate meaning reflects concerns about whether one’s life has a deeper meaning or purpose. We examined whether this construct could be distinguished from presence of meaning in life and search for meaning. In two US samples – a web-based sample (N = 1047) and an undergraduate sample (N = 3978) – confirmatory factor analyses showed that struggle with ultimate meaning loaded on a factor that was distinct from but related to presence (negatively) and search (positively). Moderated regression analyses showed that people with low levels of presence combined with high levels of search for meaning were particularly likely to struggle with ultimate meaning. Additionally, when compared to presence and search, struggle with ultimate meaning related more strongly to depressive symptoms than presence or search. These results suggest that struggle with ultimate meaning represents a distinct component of how people grapple with meaning that has implications for mental health.     

Different slopes for different folks: Process analysis of spatial aptitude

Adults differing in spatial ability were tested on problems involving the mental rotation of familiar alphanumeric stimuli and unfamiliar stimuli drawn from the Primary Mental Abilities Space Test. Individual differences in spatial ability were associated with speed rather than accuracy of mental rotation processes. Ability differences were correlated with the time to rotate familiar alphanumerics and the additional time to encode, compare, and rotate unfamiliar stimuli. The results are discussed in terms of differences in elementary information processes associated with the representation and transformation of visual information.     

应激性生活事件对森林公安民警心理健康的影响

目的:探讨应激性生活事件对森林公安民警心理健康的影响。方法:对160名森林公安民警采用症状自评量表和生活事件量表进行心理状态评定和生活事件调查分析,并分析应激性生活事件对森林公安民警心理健康的影响。结果:共发放问卷160份,收回有效问卷124份。森林公安民警的心理健康水平及各因子得分均高于国内常模,除强迫因子和精神病性因子外,差异不显著;应激性生活事件中家庭有关问题强度频度偏重,工作学习中的问题强度频度次之,社交及其它问题强度频度最轻;森林公安民警的应激性生活事件与心理健康水平成正相关,应激性生活事件能有效预测森林公安民警的心理健康状况。结论:森林公安民警的心理问题比较突出,应激性生活事件能有效预测森林公安民警的心理健康状况。     

Some observations upon perceptual organization and the mere exposure effect

The mere repetition of events tends to enhance subjective familiarity and subjective preference for those events. It has been shown that the enhancement of subjective preference is neither contingent upon a feeling of familiarity nor an awareness of the physical identity of the stimulus during learning. This finding is surprising since the weight of existing theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that subjective preference is derivative of familiarity. An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that at least one preattentive/preconscious product, figure-ground organization, is shared between the processes responsible for preference enhancement and those responsible for the enhancement of recognition memory. There were two significant findings. First, subjects were able to discriminate between objectively familiar stimuli and objectively unfamiliar stimuli on the basis of preference judgments but were unable to do so on the basis of familiarity judgments. Second, preference enhancement occurred only for those objectively familiar stimuli for which the figure-ground aspects had not been phenomenally reversed. The significance of these findings is discussed.     

Sleep Quality and the Subjective Experience of Autobiographical Memory: Differential Associations by Memory Valence and Temporality

The primary goal of the present research was to examine associations between sleep quality and the subjective experience of autobiographical events. In an online study, 141 university students reported on past events that varied by valence (positive or negative) and temporality (most significant or from the previous 2 weeks); they also completed measures of sleep quality and depression. Relative to participants with good sleep quality, participants with poor sleep quality thought more about their negative experiences, reported negative events that occurred more frequently, and used more negative emotion words when describing recent negative events. In some instances, depressive symptoms mediated the relation between sleep quality and elements of autobiographical reports. Future experimental work should examine the directionality of these effects, with the ultimate goal of improving sleep quality, mental health, and the manner in which individuals discuss and make meaning of their negative life events. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting positive mental health in internally displaced persons in Indonesia: the roles of economic improvement and exposure to violent conflict

Positive mental health, rather than just the absence of mental illness, is rarely investigated among the internally displaced persons (IDPs) affected by violent conflict in low-income countries. The purpose of this study was to investigate a model that could explain the interrelationship between factors contributing to positive mental health in displaced populations. In a longitudinal study we examine poverty, exposure to traumatic events and the change of material well-being after one year. We collected data in two consecutive years (2005 and 2006) from a community-based sample of IDPs in Ambon, Indonesia, through face-to-face structured interviews with consenting adults. Participants of this study were IDPs lived in Ambon during the violent conflict period. We interviewed 471 IDPs in the first year and reinterviewed 399 (85%) of the same subjects in the second year. The IDPs possessed good sense of coherence and subjective well-being. Our final model, which was generated by the use of structural equation modeling, fits the data well (χ² = 52.51, df = 45, p = .21, CFI = .99, RMSEA = .019). Exposure to violent conflict had a negative impact on IDPs’ mental health initially and better economic conditions improved it (r = ?.30 and .29 respectively). Mental health status one year previously was a strong predictor of future mental health, followed by individual economic growth in the past year (r = .43 and .29 respectively). On a group level the IDPs were resilient and adaptive to survive in adverse living conditions after devastating violent conflict, and the economic improvement contributed to it.     

Mental health measurement among women veterans receiving co-located,collaborative care services

Routine use of measurement to identify patient concerns and track treatment progress is critical to high quality patient care. This is particularly relevant to the Primary Care Behavioral Health model, where rapid symptom assessment and effective referral management are critical to sustaining population-based care. However, research suggests that women who receive treatment in co-located collaborative care settings utilizing the PCBH model are less likely to be assessed with standard measures than men in these settings. The current study utilized regional retrospective data obtained from the Veterans Health Administration’s electronic medical record system to: (1) explore rates of mental health measurement for women receiving co-located collaborative care services (N = 1008); and (2) to identify predictors of mental health measurement in women veterans in these settings. Overall, only 8% of women had documentation of standard mental health measures. Measurement was predicted by diagnosis, facility size, length of care episode and care setting. Specifically, women diagnosed with depression were less likely than those with anxiety disorders to have standard mental health measurement documented. Several suggestions are offered to increase the quality of mental health care for women through regular use of measurement in integrated care settings.     

What's in a Forename? Cue Familiarity and Stereotypical Thinking

Recent research has characterized categorical thinking as an essential component of the person perception process. Yet relatively little is known about the myriad factors that moderate the accessibility of this mode of thought. With regard to this we hypothesized that the subjective familiarity of a person's forename may play an important role in triggering categorical thinking. Specifically, category-based knowledge may be more accessible when triggered by familiar than unfamiliar forenames. We report the results of three experiments that supported this prediction. Relative to unfamiliar names, participants required less time to verify the gender of familiar forenames (Experiment 1) and semantic priming was more pronounced when stereotype-related material followed the presentation of familiar than unfamiliar items (Experiment 2). Also, familiar forenames attracted more extreme gender-based evaluations than their unfamiliar counterparts (Experiment 3). We consider the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings for a variety of issues in person perception.