Correction to: The role of daily need crafting in daily fluctuations in adolescents’ need-based and affective experiences

Motivation and Emotion -     

Are daily fluctuations in perceived environment associated with walking?

The physical environment is thought to influence walking; however, daily variations in perceived environment have received little attention. The current study sought to examine if key within-person factors (i.e., implementation intentions, social support, affect and self-efficacy) would be associated with walking and if perceived access to supportive environments (e.g., access to nice walking paths) and perceived environmental barriers (e.g., bad weather and safety issues) were uniquely associated with walking after controlling for other constructs. Participants (N = 14, 50.0% men, 78.6% White, M age = 59.4 ± 6.4) were in the intervention arm of an 8-week controlled trial promoting walking via personal digital assistants. Participants completed electronic surveys twice a day (total entries = 804) in which they reported brisk walking levels and psychosocial and environmental factors. Multilevel modelling was used to examine within-person variations in constructs as determinants of walking. Results suggested that daily variations in implementation intentions, social support and positive affect were positively associated with walking. Further, perceived access to supportive environments, though not perceived environmental barriers, was positively associated with walking after controlling for other constructs (p < 0.05). Future research should explore intervention components that target context-specific information about perceived access to supportive environments as part of a broader perspective on intervention development.     

Capturing worry in daily life: are trait questionnaires sufficient?

Worry is crucial in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders and has been associated with several other adverse health outcomes. Yet, little is known about the frequency and perseveration of worry in daily life, and its predictability by widely used trait questionnaires. In this study 432 students completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), the Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Trait version (STAI-T) and kept a log of worry frequency and duration during six consecutive days and nights. The results showed that worry is a very common phenomenon that is predicted by the two trait worry questionnaires, independent of trait anxiety. The often clinically utilized PSWQ predicted worry duration better than the WDQ, and exclusively predicted night-time worry and several other indices of perseverative and potentially pathogenic worry. Although this study provides some support for the predictive validity of the PSWQ and the WDQ, these questionnaires did not account for the larger part of variance in daily worry. Future studies of worry and its associated perseverative processes should consider using momentary assessments.     

Linking daily ethical leadership to followers’ daily behaviour: the roles of daily work engagement and previous abusive supervision

The aim of this study was to advance literature on ethical leadership towards its day-level application. Daily ethical leadership is defined as ethical leadership behaviours a leader exhibits on a given day. Beneficial effects of daily ethical leadership on daily helping behaviour and daily counterproductive work behaviour via daily work engagement were examined. Furthermore, yesterday’s abusive supervision was postulated to moderate the impact of today’s ethical leadership on work engagement indicating moderated mediation. The relationship between daily ethical leadership and daily work engagement should be stronger when previous abusive supervision was high. This model was tested using an experience sampling methodology spread over 5 working days. The sample consisted of 241 employees from different organizations. Results supported the beneficial indirect impact of daily ethical leadership on daily helping through strengthening daily work engagement. The indirect effect was non-significant for daily counterproductive work behaviour. Consistent with theoretical assumptions, both indirect effects were strongest with high previous abusive supervision and diminished when previous abusive supervision was low. Implications for leadership research and managerial practice are discussed.     

Supportive supervisors improve employees' daily lives: The role supervisors play in the impact of daily workload on life satisfaction via work–family conflict

This article presents a multilevel approach that uncovers how day-to-day variations in workload influence life satisfaction by creating work–family conflict, as well as the role supportive supervisors play in influencing these daily relationships. In this experience-sampling study, 135 employees responded to 2 daily surveys (one at work and one at home) for 5 days and a one-time post-study survey. With a total of 810 surveys, hierarchical linear modeling revealed that employees' daily perceived workload positively predicted daily work–family conflict, which in turn negatively predicted daily life satisfaction. Importantly, we found support for a cross-level interaction where supervisor work–family specific support (measured once in the post-study survey) negatively moderated the relationship between daily workload and work–family conflict, attesting the importance of supervisory support in reducing daily interference between work and family.     

When does the daily hazard rate for committing suicide stabilize in psychiatric outpatients?

To ascertain whether the daily hazard risk rate for committing suicide by psychiatric outpatients stabilizes over time, a parametric survival analysis was calculated for the 6891 outpatients who were followed by Brown, Beck, Steer, and Grisham. Approximately 3 1/4 years after a patient's initial evaluation, the daily hazard rate leveled off and dropped below the hazard rate that would occur if a constant (exponential) daily hazard rate were assumed. The cost-effectiveness of conducting follow-up studies to identify suicidal risk factors in psychiatric outpatients beyond three years was questioned.     

How do habits guide behavior? Perceived and actual triggers of habits in daily life

What are the psychological mechanisms that trigger habits in daily life? Two studies reveal that strong habits are influenced by context cues associated with past performance (e.g., locations) but are relatively unaffected by current goals. Specifically, performance contexts—but not goals—automatically triggered strongly habitual behaviors in memory (Experiment 1) and triggered overt habit performance (Experiment 2). Nonetheless, habits sometimes appear to be linked to goals because people self-perceive their habits to be guided by goals. Furthermore, habits of moderate strength are automatically influenced by goals, yielding a curvilinear, U-shaped relation between habit strength and actual goal influence. Thus, research that taps self-perceptions or moderately strong habits may find habits to be linked to goals.     

How can mindfulness be promoted? Workload and recovery experiences as antecedents of daily fluctuations in mindfulness

While previous work on mindfulness has focused predominantly on the benefits of mindfulness and of mindfulness interventions, the present article addresses the question of how natural experiences of mindfulness can be promoted in the context of work. Accordingly, this article sheds light on day‐to‐day fluctuations in workload and recovery experiences (psychological detachment and sleep quality) as antecedents of state mindfulness. Furthermore, this study extends extant research that has documented beneficial effects of mindfulness on subsequent recovery experiences by arguing that the relationship between mindfulness and recovery experiences is reciprocal rather than unidirectional. Using an experience‐sampling design across five workdays and involving three daily measurement occasions, we found that sleep quality and workload were related to subsequent levels of mindfulness. While not displaying a significant direct relationship with mindfulness, psychological detachment was indirectly related to mindfulness via sleep quality. Fatigue was identified as an important mechanism explaining these relationships. Furthermore, findings confirmed that the relationship between mindfulness and recovery experiences is reciprocal rather than unidirectional. Taken together, this study contributes to an enriched understanding of the role of mindfulness in organizations by shedding light on factors that precede the experience of mindfulness and by pointing to the existence of gain spirals associated with recovery experiences and mindfulness.

Practitioner points

• Organizations seeking to promote mindfulness among their workforce should try to keep workload to a manageable degree.
• Organizations may also pay attention to care for employees' day‐to‐day recovery as it has been shown to facilitate mindfulness.

     

Associations between childhood adversity and daily suppression and avoidance in response to stress in adulthood: can neurobiological sensitivity help explain this relationship?

Background and objectives: Although it has been postulated that psychological responses to stress in adulthood are grounded in childhood experiences in the family environment, evidence has been inconsistent. This study tested whether two putative measures of neurobiological sensitivity (vagal flexibility and attentional capacity) moderated the relation between women’s reported exposure to a risky childhood environment and current engagement in suppressive or avoidant coping in response to daily stress.

Design and methods: Adult women (N?=?158) recruited for a study of stress, coping, and aging reported on early adversity (EA) in their childhood family environment and completed a week-long daily diary in which they described their most stressful event of the day and indicated the degree to which they used suppression or avoidance in response to that event. In addition, women completed a visual tracking task during which heart rate variability and attentional capacity were assessed.

Results: Multilevel mixed modeling analyses revealed that greater EA predicted greater suppression and avoidance only among women with higher attentional capacity. Similarly, greater EA predicted greater use of suppression, but only among women with greater vagal flexibility.

Conclusion: Childhood adversity may predispose individuals with high neurobiological sensitivity to a lifetime of maladaptive coping.     

Activated or deactivated? Understanding how cognitive appraisals can drive emotional activation in the aftermath of daily work events

Introduction

Past research has highlighted the relevance of cognitive appraisals in the link events-emotions (e.g., appraisal of an event's importance and its pleasant or unpleasant valence). We hypothesized a 3-way interaction between affective events (hassles and uplifts), cognitive appraisals of importance and intrinsic pleasantness on emotional activation.

Adolescents’ regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs and daily affect intensity

Self-efficacy beliefs in emotion regulation were shown to foster well-being and psychosocial adaptation over time. In this study, we investigated their relationship with daily affect intensity among 199 adolescents aged 15–19. Participants completed the Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale measuring perceived capability to manage the experience and expression of negative emotions (SE-NE) and positive emotions (SE-PO). Through Experience Sampling Method, for 1 week they also repeatedly rated their positive affect (happiness and contentment) and negative affect (anger, anxiety, sadness). Multilevel regression models revealed an additive intensifying predictive effect of SE-PO and SE-NE on happiness and contentment, and a single direct negative effect of SE-NE on sadness. Models also highlighted an interactive effect of SE-PO and SE-NE on all negative affect variables, such that only at low SE-PO levels did high SE-NE predict lower negative affect. Findings support the relation between adolescents’ regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs and their daily affect intensity, bringing forward suggestions for intervention.     

What about the “ups and downs” in our daily life? The influence of affective instability on mental health

Although affective instability is considered to be a crucial factor for mental disorders, research on affective instability and mental health is still rare. The aim of the present study was to investigate affective instability and mental health operationalized by the degree of psychological distress and life satisfaction. Using ecological momentary assessment, we investigated affective intensity and instability in a general population sample (n = 218). Psychological distress and life satisfaction were examined cross-sectionally and longitudinally. In general, we found that positive affect was more variable than negative affect. When we accounted for the overlap between variables, our findings demonstrated that besides the effects of intensity in negative affect and positive affect, higher positive affective instability was related to better concurrent mental health. Longitudinally, negative affective intensity was a decisive factor in the development of mental health. In sum, our findings revealed that affective instability was not dysfunctional per se. In fact, instability in positive affect seems to be important to achieve mental health.     

Who self-initiates gratitude interventions in daily life? An examination of intentions,curiosity, depressive symptoms,and life satisfaction

Despite a variety of interventions to increase well-being, little is known about who is interested in and initiates exercises on their own. We explored individual differences that predict who is most likely to participate in a voluntary gratitude intervention. College students (n = 226) completed measures of curiosity, depressive symptoms, life satisfaction, and intentions to change their lifestyle. Afterwards, participants received a personalized invitation to take part in a web-based intervention to enhance their well-being (anonymous and strictly voluntary). Results suggested that 11.5% of participants started the gratitude intervention. Individuals endorsing strong intentions to change their lifestyle (+1 SD above mean) were 2.2 times more likely than their peers to start the gratitude intervention. People with greater trait curiosity endorsed greater intentions to start this intervention; people with greater depressive symptoms endorsed weaker intentions. Both curiosity and depressive symptoms indirectly influenced initiation of the gratitude intervention via intentions. These findings provide support for particular paths that lead to the initial behavioral effort towards healthy change. We discuss the implications for attempting to increase and sustain people’s well-being.     

Shame behind the corner? A daily diary investigation of pathological narcissism

This study investigated the association between narcissism and shame, considering different measures of narcissism, different levels of analysis, and different situational conditions. Nonclinical participants (N = 196) completed baseline measures, followed by daily questionnaires for 28 days. Multilevel models indicated that trait and daily vulnerable narcissism, as well as trait neuroticism, were positively associated with daily shame. When controlling for vulnerable narcissism, trait grandiose narcissism was unrelated to shame, and daily grandiose narcissism was mostly negatively related to it. As for situations, social stress and workload were related to increased shame, especially in those high in trait neuroticism, or narcissism scales with neurotic content. Results highlight the key role of shame in pathological narcissistic functioning.     

Social support coping style predicts women’s cortisol in the laboratory and daily life: the moderating role of social attentional biases

Background and Objectives: Social stress and associated coping responses can profoundly influence women’s stress physiology and health. Implicit social attentional biases can also influence psychological and physiological stress responses. The purpose of this study was to explore whether a coping style characterized by greater use of social support predicts indices of cortisol activity in laboratory and daily life contexts among female university students. We hypothesized that the relation of this coping style to cortisol activity would be moderated by women’s attentional biases.

Methods: Seventy-four women (M_age?=?19.44, range: 17.8–27.8, 64% White) completed an interpersonal stress task and an attentional bias task in the lab, along with a self-report coping inventory. Participants provided five saliva samples during the lab protocol, followed by three saliva samples per day for three consecutive weekdays. Outcome measures included cortisol response to lab tasks (AUCg), diurnal cortisol slope, diurnal AUCg, and cortisol awakening response (CARi).

Results: A coping style characterized by greater use of social support predicted lower lab AUCg and lower, flatter average diurnal cortisol slope for women with attentional avoidance compared to women with attentional vigilance (ps?<?.05).

Conclusions: Responding to stress by using social support is linked to lower cortisol responses to social stress and diurnal cortisol activity for women with implicit avoidance of social threat cues.     

A longitudinal examination of daily amounts of screen time and technoference in infants aged 2–11 months and associations with maternal sociodemographic factors

This study aimed to examine longitudinal developmental patterns in the daily amounts of screen time and technoference in infants aged 2, 4, 7, and 11 months and to examine associations with maternal sociodemographic factors across all age groups.The results showed that the amount of screen time varied between 6 and 17 min a day, while interruptions in mother-infant interactions due to maternal use of digital technology occurred between 5 and 6 times a day. There was a significant increase in infant screen time from 2 to 4 months, from 4–7 months, and from 7–11 months, and in technoference from 2 to 4 months and from 4–7 months. Maternal age and household income were not associated with infant screen time, but maternal educational level was negatively associated with infant screen time throughout the first year. No associations were found between technoference and maternal age, maternal educational level, or household income.Future research focusing on infant screen time and technoference should aim at including samples that reflect the general population, include measures of screen time and technoference that do not rely on parental report, and include measures of the effects of early infant screen time and technoference on later development.     

How was your day? Couples’ affect when telling and hearing daily events

This study examined day‐to‐day mood changes associated with disclosure of positive and stressful events as affect regulation within couples. In daily diaries, 48 couples cohabiting in the United States reported whether they told their partner about the most positive and stressful event of their day. Participants reported greater positive affect on days when they told their partner about the most positive event of their day. This effect was less pronounced among avoidant women. Participants also reported greater positive affect on days when their partner shared their most positive event. Sharing about stressors was not associated with greater negative affect. These findings underscore the importance of investigating affect regulation processes such as daily event disclosures from a dyadic perspective.     

Talking about daily emotional events: Psychological well-being moderates the intensity–disclosure link

The intensity of distressing events predicts people’s disclosure of those events at between-person and within-person levels. Depression symptoms seem to attenuate the within-person relation, but past research has not taken a multidimensional view of depression as a moderator. The authors tested whether two constructs related to depression-general psychological well-being and life satisfaction-account for depression’s moderating effects. In a daily diary study, college students (N = 116) rated the intensity of the day’s most unpleasant event and their disclosure of the event each day for 14 days. Participants completed measures of disclosure tendencies, depression symptoms, well-being, and life satisfaction prior to the diary portion of the study. Multilevel modeling analyses revealed moderating effects of disclosure tendencies and depression on the within-person intensity–disclosure relation. However, when psychological well-being and life satisfaction were entered, depression was no longer a significant moderator, but well-being was. Psychological well-being therefore determines the expression of individual differences in the disclosure of daily emotional events.