Romantic relationship distress,gender, socioeconomic status,and inflammation: A preregistered report

Poor quality romantic relationships increase risk for health problems; elevated systemic inflammation is one promising underlying mechanism. This registered report utilized data from three publicly available data sets with large sample sizes (Add Health, MIDUS, NSHAP) to test this possibility. An internal meta‐analysis across all three studies determined that romantic relationship distress was unrelated to inflammation (assessed via C‐reactive protein levels). In addition, this link was not moderated by gender, socioeconomic status (SES), or the combination of gender and SES.     

Dispositional and comparative optimism interact to predict avoidance of a looming health threat

Research indicates that when confronted with a health threat, individuals high in both dispositional and comparative optimism employ a more avoidant style of coping than individuals high in dispositional but low in comparative optimism. We examined the hypothesis that threat distance moderates this interactive optimism association. In two studies, participants were randomly assigned to a looming or distant threat condition. Study 1 revealed that in the looming threat condition, participants high in both forms of optimism were more likely to minimise the threat and less inclined to seek additional health information relative to participants high in dispositional but low in comparative optimism. In Study 2, the same interaction pattern emerged on a measure of psychological abstraction suggesting these variables combine to alter broad information processing strategies. Implications for considering multiple forms of optimism when delivering health status information are discussed.     

Living alone,marital status,gender and health

Non-married people have generally been found to be less healthy than the married. It has been suggested that this difference may be brought about by the greater lack of social integration of those living alone. This hypothesis was tested by comparing the health of those living alone with those living with another person in the four non-married categories of never married, separated, divorced and widowed for women and men separately, initially controlling for age, education and income and subsequently adding five proximate indices of social integration. The person lived with was further categorized as an adult, cohabitee, child aged 4 or under, child aged 5 to 17, adult child, parent, relative or non-relative. The three indices of health were the 30-item General Health Questionnaire of psychological distress. a 15-item checklist of common physical symptoms and alcohol intake. The main differences obtained were that women living alone drank more alcohol than those cohabiting or living with a child aged 4 or under, and that widowers living alone were more psychologically distressed than those living with an adult child, even when social integration was controlled. The results suggested that living alone was not generally associated with poor health and so could not account for the difference between the married and non-married.     

初中生人格型乐观、应对策略与学业成绩的关系

采用生活取向测量、应对方式量表对514名初中生进行调查,旨在了解人格型乐观主义、应对策略与学业成绩之间的关系。运用相关分析和回归分析的方法对它们的关系进行了考察。结果发现初中生积极和消极应对策略在其乐观主义影响学业成绩中的中介效应不显著,在不同学业成绩群体中,乐观主义、应对策略和学业成绩的关系会产生变化,乐观主义和积极应对策略对学业成绩有显著的预测力。     

Premature termination as a function of intake data based on ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and income

Although it is acknowledged that premature termination is detrimental to the therapy process, there is limited information on how to utilize client demographic data to indicate which clients have greatest potential to prematurely terminate. The study assessed how client ethnicity interacts with client gender, therapist gender, therapist ethnicity, and client socioeconomic status (education and income) to affect premature termination. The study consisted of 527 cases which received therapy services from the Auburn University Marriage and Family Therapy Center from October 1993 to October 1999. The three definitions of premature termination used were termination after one session, prior to six sessions, and by therapist report. Results indicated that interactions of client income and ethnicity and therapist gender and ethnicity were the most useful demographic data indicators of premature termination.     

How Dispositional Optimists and Pessimists Evaluate their Past,Present and Anticipated Future Life Satisfaction: A Lifespan Approach

Dispositional optimism is typically conceptualized with respect to generalized positive expectancies for personal future outcomes. The present work draws on lifespan development theory to evaluate how dispositional optimists and pessimists from across the lifespan evaluate their past, present and anticipated future life satisfaction (LS). Using data from an American probability sample (n = 3871, ages = 30–84 years, 55% female), I compared dispositional optimists and pessimists across six age decades. Subjective LS trajectories reflected in mean trends in ratings of past, present and future LS were contoured by lifestage, revealing inclining trajectories among young dispositional optimists and pessimists and declining trajectories among older optimists and pessimists. After adjusting for age‐specific normative trends, however, differences between dispositional optimists and pessimists in subjective LS trajectories were consistent across lifestage, revealing a single dissociative pattern wherein optimists rated their past, present and anticipated future LS more positively than did pessimists. Of the three temporal perspectives, evaluations of present (rather than past or future) LS were most consistently related to dispositional optimism. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

大学生归因方式、气质性乐观与心理幸福感的关系

采用问卷调查的方法,对350名大学生的归因方式、气质性乐观与心理幸福感(即抑郁、生活满意度)的关系进行了研究,结果表明:(1)归因方式问卷的总分与气质性乐观、生活满意度呈显著负相关,与抑郁呈显著正相关,气质性乐观与抑郁呈显著负相关,与生活满意度呈显著正相关;(2)归因方式的自身性维度上,乐观者、悲观者的归因方式无显著性差异;持久性和整体性维度上,对可控性低水平事件的归因方式无显著性差异,对中、高水平事件,悲观者的归因方式比乐观者更悲观;(3)归因方式对抑郁、生活满意度的影响以气质性乐观为中介变量.     

气质性乐观与心理健康关系的元分析

运用元分析方法分别探讨了气质性乐观与心理健康的积极指标和消极指标的关系。共有106项研究满足了元分析的标准,涉及气质性乐观与心理健康积极指标的研究有70项,包括83个独立样本(N=30627);涉及气质性乐观与心理健康消极指标的研究有75项,包括105个独立样本(N=39064)。元分析结果发现:(1)整体上气质性乐观与心理健康积极指标有显著正相关(r=0.41),与心理健康消极指标有显著负相关(r=-0.41)。(2)气质性乐观与不同心理健康指标的相关有显著差异,积极指标中,与自尊的相关最高;消极指标中,与抑郁的相关最高。(3)气质性乐观测量工具的差异对其与心理健康的关系没有显著影响。(4)不同年龄阶段群体中气质性乐观与心理健康的关系没有显著差异。(5)文化背景差异对两者的关系有显著影响,西方文化中气质性乐观与心理健康的相关高于东方文化中的相关。     

Reciprocal altruism: It’s relationship to locus of control and dispositional optimism among Nigerian undergraduates

The study examined locus of control and dispositional optimism influences on reciprocal altruism among Nigerian university undergraduate students. Participants consisted of 253 undergraduate students in their second year of study (males = 151 (60%), females = 102 (40%); mean age = 21.2, SD = 9.10). They completed the Dispositional Optimism Test-Revised (Scheier, Carver, &; Bridges, 1994 Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., &; Bridges, M. W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem: A re-evaluation of the Life Orientation Test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 1063–1078. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.1063[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), the Altruistic Personality Scale (Rushton, Chrisjohn &; Fekken, 1981 Rushton, J. P., Chrisjohn, R. D., &; Fekken, G. C. (1981). The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 1, 292–302. [Google Scholar]), and the Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966 Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs, 80(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0092976[Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]). Multiple regression analysis indicated that internal locus of control positively predicted reciprocal altruism; while dispositional optimism did not. Future research should examine other dimensions of optimism such as adaptive utility, comparative and strategic dispositional optimism involved that may provide more insight into the understanding of reciprocal altruism in Nigeria.     

社会经济地位与抑郁的关系：系统综述和元分析

社会经济地位与抑郁的关系在既有研究中存在分歧,为明确两者间的整体关联强度及其影响因素,对纳入的56项研究(65个效应值)进行了元分析。结果发现：社会经济地位与抑郁存在显著的负相关(r=-0.15,95%CI [-0.18,-0.12]),但相关程度较低。此外,社会经济地位与抑郁的关系受社会经济地位测量工具、测量类型和测量形式,抑郁测量工具以及取样年代调节,但不受性别、年龄、设计类型以及个体主义文化指数的调节。该结果提示社会经济地位劣势可能是导致民众抑郁的重要风险因素。在贫富差距日益扩大的时代,关心社会底层群众生存和发展困境并建立长久而有效的帮扶机制可从社会面减少抑郁的发病率。     

An exercise in nostalgia: Nostalgia promotes health optimism and physical activity

Objective: Previous research has shown that nostalgia, a sentimental longing for the past, leads to greater feelings of optimism, with other work demonstrating that optimistic thinking (general & health-orientated) is associated with better physical and psychological health. Integrating these two lines of research, the current studies examined whether nostalgia-induced health optimism promotes attitudes and behaviours associated with better physical well-being.

Methods: Participants, in three experiments, were randomly assigned to write about either a nostalgic or ordinary event. Following this, everyone completed a measure of health optimism (Studies 1–3), measures of health attitudes (Study 2) and had their physical activity monitored over the course of 2 weeks (Study 3).

Results: The results revealed that, in comparison to control conditions, nostalgic reverie led to greater health optimism (Studies 1–3). Further, heightened health optimism following nostalgic reflection led to more positive health attitudes (Study 2), and increased physical activity over a two-week period (i.e. Fitbit activity trackers; Study 3).

Conclusions: These findings highlight the importance of nostalgia on health attitudes and behaviours. Specifically, this work suggests that nostalgia can be used as a mechanism to increase the importance, perceived efficacy and behaviour associated with better physical health.     

Dispositional optimism and luck attributions: Implications for philosophical theories of luck

We conducted two studies to determine whether there is a relationship between dispositional optimism and the attribution of good or bad luck to ambiguous luck scenarios. Study 1 presented five scenarios that contained both a lucky and an unlucky component, thereby making them ambiguous in regard to being an overall case of good or bad luck. Participants rated each scenario in toto on a four-point Likert scale and then completed an optimism questionnaire. The results showed a significant correlation between optimism and assignments of luck: more optimistic people rated the characters in the ambiguous scenarios as more lucky while more pessimistic people rated the same characters in the same scenarios as more unlucky. Study 2 separated the good and bad luck components of the study 1 scenarios and presented the components individually to a new group of participants. Participants rated the luckiness of each component on the same four-point scale and then completed the optimism questionnaire. We found that the luckiness of the bad luck component could be significantly predicted by their level of optimism. We discuss how these findings pose problems for philosophical accounts that treat luck as an objective property.     

Dispositional optimism,self‐framing and medical decision‐making

Self‐framing is an important but underinvestigated area in risk communication and behavioural decision‐making, especially in medical settings. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship among dispositional optimism, self‐frame and decision‐making. Participants (N = 500) responded to the Life Orientation Test‐Revised and self‐framing test of medical decision‐making problem. The participants whose scores were higher than the middle value were regarded as highly optimistic individuals. The rest were regarded as low optimistic individuals. The results showed that compared to the high dispositional optimism group, participants from the low dispositional optimism group showed a greater tendency to use negative vocabulary to construct their self‐frame, and tended to choose the radiation therapy with high treatment survival rate, but low 5‐year survival rate. Based on the current findings, it can be concluded that self‐framing effect still exists in medical situation and individual differences in dispositional optimism can influence the processing of information in a framed decision task, as well as risky decision‐making.     

Psychological distress and well-being in advanced cancer: The effects of optimism and coping

This study examined the relations among optimism, coping, functional status, and psychological adjustment in 75 adults diagnosed with cancer. Both the positive and the negative aspects of psychological adjustment were assessed. All participants had been diagnosed with advanced stages of cancer (i.e., Stages II, III, and IV). Participants completed three assessments across a 4-month time period. Both optimism and coping were associated with psychological adjustment, even after controlling for functional status and prior adjustment. Additionally, optimism and coping were differentially related to distress and well-being. Optimism was strongly and positively associated with well-being and inversely related to distress. Escape-Avoidance coping was positively associated with distress and Accepting Responsibility coping was negatively associated with well-being. Comparisons between the current and prior studies indicated that individuals who are diagnosed with more advanced stages of cancer or who have survived bone marrow transplantation exhibit higher levels of optimism than do healthy individuals and individuals with early-stage disease.