Early life adversity potentiates the effects of later life stress on cumulative physiological dysregulation

Background and Objectives: Previous research indicates that early life adversity may heighten stress reactivity and impair mechanisms for adaptive coping, suggesting that experience of stress in early life may also potentiate adults' physiological vulnerability to stress in later life. The study tested this hypothesis by investigating whether the experience of stressful events and circumstances (SEC) in childhood or adolescence amplified the effect of adulthood SEC on physiological dysregulation (allostatic load, AL) in later midlife. Design: Observational data were used in the present study. Physiological functioning was measured in later midlife (participants' age ranged from 49 to 63 years). Both childhood/adolescence and adulthood SEC were reported retrospectively on the same occasion. Methods: Participants were 5309 Danish men and women from Copenhagen Aging and Midlife Biobank (CAMB). SEC included socioeconomic and family factors. The AL index was based on nine cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune biomarkers. Results: Experience of SEC in both early life and adulthood independently predicted higher AL. In men, experience of SEC in early life also potentiated the effect of SEC in adulthood on AL. Conclusions: The results provide further insight into the mechanisms behind the “biological embedding” of childhood stress.     

早期应激对情绪调节的影响及其神经机制

在个体生命早期遭遇的长期或重大的应激经历会显著增加个体罹患抑郁、焦虑等心理疾患的风险, 而情绪调节能力的损伤是引发这些心理疾患的重要因素之一。以人类为对象的行为实验和调查研究表明, 早期应激不仅会影响日常生活中情绪调节策略的使用, 还会对情绪调节能力造成影响, 其影响方向可能与早期应激的严重程度有关。目前, 大部分研究表明严重的早期应激会损伤情绪调节能力, 但中度的早期应激也可能提高情绪调节能力。更为整合性的研究表明情绪调节能力中介了早期应激和各类疾患之间的关系。进一步, 我们从神经层面上阐述了早期应激对情绪调节相关脑区和神经环路的影响。未来研究应当注意控制无关变量, 进一步探究不同早期应激对于情绪调节的影响。     

Emotional suppression explains the link between early life stress and plasma oxytocin

Early life stress (ELS) has been found to be associated with lower concentrations of plasma oxytocin (OT) in adulthood. It is not yet clear, however, what mechanisms underlie this association. The goal of the present study was to test the role of emotional suppression as an intervening variable between ELS in childhood and plasma OT. In a nonclinical sample of 90 men, ELS, emotional suppression, and plasma OT were assessed. Emotional suppression was positively associated with ELS (r = 0.37, p < 0.001) and negatively associated with plasma OT concentrations (r = ?0.30, p < 0.01). In contrast, cognitive reappraisal – an alternative emotion regulation strategy – was not correlated with ELS or plasma OT concentrations. Cross-sectional regression analyses revealed that the ELS explained variance in plasma OT via emotional suppression. Moderation analyses revealed that the combination of high ELS and high emotional suppression was associated with the lowest concentrations of plasma oxytocin. These findings are consistent with the view that emotional suppression may be one pathway linking ELS and OT.     

The relationship between early life stress and working memory in adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analysis

ABSTRACT

Exposure to early life stress has been linked to impairment in cognitive functioning in adulthood. The aim of this study was to systematically review the literature on the relationship between early life stress and working memory, a central component of cognitive functioning. Database searches yielded 358 abstracts matching the search terms. Abstract screening followed by full-text review resulted in 26 publications suitable for inclusion, of which 23 were included in the meta-analysis. Results of the meta-analysis suggested exposure to early life stress was associated with poorer working memory. Even though there were a wide variety of working memory tasks used, this effect was significant for both phonological and visuospatial working memory tasks, and both visual and aural task presentation modalities. The effect was also found in samples with and without clinical psychopathology. This review provides recommendations for future research and implications for clinical practice.     

Implementation of a brief early intervention in times of socio-economic crisis: effects on parental stress

The paper investigates the effect of brief early intervention on parental stress in the midst of a socio-economic crisis, such as the one that struck Greece in the past decade. During this period, a psychoanalytically oriented prevention programme with parents and their infants/young children, named ‘Early Intervention Programme’, was designed and implemented in the Department of Child Psychiatry at ‘Aghia Sophia’ Children’s Hospital in Athens, Greece. The families that attended the programme were asked to participate in a research study regarding its effectiveness; data were collected from 102 mothers and 73 fathers. This paper presents the statistical findings regarding parental stress, mainly because it is a factor that has systematically been shown to negatively influence several aspects of a child’s development, but also because our hypothesis was that parental stress would be influenced by the negative external conditions. The results showed that both mothers’ and fathers’ stress levels were high before their participation to the programme (with fathers’ Total Stress scores falling within the clinical range), while they decreased to a statistically significant level after the completion of the programme. These findings are discussed in conjunction with some illustrative clinical material. Based on these, it is argued that the implementation of a psychoanalytically oriented brief early intervention programme with parents and infants/young children can alleviate parental stress, and thus support the parental capacity to efficiently deal with the high demands of early development, even in periods of economic crisis where the tensions for young parents are significant and the available mental health resources are scarce.     

儿童早期的母亲生活压力对其5岁行为问题的预测效应：链式中介分析

通过对107名幼儿及其母亲历时5年的5次追踪测量, 考察了儿童早期(9~38个月)母亲生活压力对5岁时儿童行为问题的预测效应及其作用机制。结果发现, 在儿童早期, 母亲生活压力具有相对的稳定性, 但引起母亲生活压力的主要生活事件排序有所变化; 儿童早期母亲生活压力对儿童行为问题的作用机制有两种方式：一方面表现为母亲生活压力对儿童5岁时的情绪症状和品行问题的直接效应; 另一方面表现为通过减少母亲积极养育行为进一步影响儿童情绪症状和同伴问题的间接效应; 此外, 儿童早期母亲生活压力还通过积极养育和儿童努力控制的链式中介作用对儿童过度活跃和亲社会行为产生影响。结论:母亲生活压力对儿童行为问题具有预测效应, 这种效应的机制包括母亲生活压力的直接效应以及通过积极养育、努力控制的间接效应。     

Depression and stressful environments: identifying gaps in conceptualization and measurement

Background and Objectives: Stress is well known as a trigger of depressive reactions, fear, anxiety, and behavioral disorders. However, there are many gaps in the conceptualization and measurement of environmental stress. Results: Exciting developments in the neuroscience of stress have increasingly expanded our knowledge of mechanisms by which stress may affect emotional and behavioral adjustment. Ironically, environmental stress has often been a silent player in human studies of stress processes. There is a significant need for increased efforts to include environmental stress variables in models of internalizing and other disorders. Measurement and conceptualization issues are prominent, and this article makes the case for improved methods of measuring acute, chronic, and early life stress, and for additional conceptualization of the dynamically changing and bidirectional effects of stress on disorder over time. Conclusions: There is a critical need for greater focus on and better measurement of the environment and its impact on emotional and other disorders, with emphasis on developmentally informed hypotheses. Empirical findings and new perspectives may contribute enormously to our understanding of normal and abnormal outcomes, and also to the challenge of effective interventions to promote mental health and optimal functioning.     

Evidence for a developmental shift in the motivation underlying helping in early childhood

We investigated children's positive emotions as an indicator of their underlying prosocial motivation. In Study 1, 2-, and 5-year-old children (N = 64) could either help an individual or watch as another person provided help. Following the helping event and using depth sensor imaging, we measured children's positive emotions through changes in postural elevation. For 2-year-olds, helping the individual and watching another person help was equally rewarding; 5-year-olds showed greater postural elevation after actively helping. In Study 2, 5-year-olds’ (N = 59) positive emotions following helping were greater when an audience was watching. Together, these results suggest that 2-year-old children have an intrinsic concern that individuals be helped whereas 5-year-old children have an additional, strategic motivation to improve their reputation by helping.     

Managing stress and managing illness: Survival and quality of life in chronic disease

Interest has been steadily building in the impact of stress on psychological and physiological functioning, in particular on immune system responses, furthering the concept of a strong connection between the mind and the body. Implications for prevention of disease onset or treatment of stress-induced illness or immunocompromised conditions have been explored through the implementation of stress management techniques. Cognitive behavioral stress management interventions, biofeedback, relaxation, guided imagery, hypnosis, individual and group psychotherapy, aerobic exercise, and guided self-efficacy treatment are briefly reviewed to identify possible treatment mechanisms that may affect immune function and promote quality of life. The application of behavioral techniques to reduce distress and sharpen coping skills has great promise in reducing the costs associated with chronic disease and in enhancing quality of life among those afflicted.Presented at the APA Presidential Miniconvention, To Your Health: Psychology Through the Life Span, Session VIII, Assuring a Healthy Lifestyle: Psychology Delivers. Chair: Diane J. Willis, Ph.D. The third author received partial funding through the Terry Fox Research Fellowship 5257, National Cancer Institute of Canada.     

Negative life events and symptoms of depression and anxiety: stress causation and/or stress generation

Background and Objectives: Stressful life events are known to contribute to development of depression; however, it is possible this link is bidirectional. The present study examined whether such stress generation effects are greater than the effects of stressful life events on depression, and whether stress generation is also evident with anxiety. Design: Participants were two large age cohorts (N = 732 aged 44 years; N = 705 aged 63 years) from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study. Methods: Stressful life events, depression, and anxiety symptoms were measured twice five years apart. Cross-lagged panel analysis examined the mutual influences of stressful life events on depression and on anxiety over time. Results: Life events predicted later depressive symptomatology (p = .01), but the depression predicting life events relationship was less strong (p = .06), whereas earlier anxiety predicted life events five years later (p = .001). There was evidence of sex differences in the extent to which life events predicted later anxiety. Conclusions: This study provides evidence of stress causation for depression and weaker evidence for stress generation. In contrast, there was strong evidence of stress generation for anxiety but weaker evidence for stress causation, and that differed for men and women.     

Effects of a yoga-based intervention for young adults on quality of life and perceived stress: The potential mediating roles of mindfulness and self-compassion

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the effects of a yoga-based program on quality of life, perceived stress, mindfulness, and self-compassion in young adults. These variables were measured in 33 self-selected participants of a four-month residential yoga intervention before and after the program. Forty-three demographically matched controls completed the same questionnaires at two time points with a four-month interval inbetween. Participation in the program predicted increases in quality of life and decreases in perceived stress, mediated by mindfulness and self-compassion. Multiple mediator models revealed that the effect of group on quality of life was simultaneously mediated by mindfulness and self-compassion, while the effect of group on perceived stress was only mediated by self-compassion. These positive effects on perceived stress and quality of life suggest that yoga-based interventions may be of value in cultivating subjective well-being in young adults. Furthermore, yoga-based and mindfulness-based interventions may share underlying mechanisms.     

Lexical stress,frequency, and stress neighbourhood effects in the early stages of Italian reading development

We examined the development of stress assignment in reading Italian aloud. We investigated frequency effects as a marker of the use of item-specific lexical knowledge in assigning stress together with stress dominance and stress neighbourhood (the number of words sharing both stress and ending) as markers of distributional information regarding properties of the lexicon extracted from spoken language. We tested second- and fourth-graders in a reading-aloud experiment including high- and low-frequency words and nonwords. Results show that despite the regularity of orthography–phonology mappings in Italian and the predominant use of phonological recoding procedures, item-specific lexical knowledge is also used, even by beginning readers. The frequency effect was significant and did not increase with age, while stress errors on low-frequency words decreased with increasing grade. Stress neighbourhood increasingly affected stress assignment on nonwords with older children. Taken together, our findings show that both item-specific knowledge and general information about stress distribution are relevant in children's reading, suggesting the simultaneous use of both lexical and sublexical information. Moreover, as the reading system develops, and knowledge about the relative distribution of stress neighbourhood increases, larger grain-size units are also exploited.     

Early Adversity and the Prospective Prediction of Depressive and Anxiety Disorders in Adolescents

The current study was a prospective exploration of the specificity of early childhood adversities as predictors of anxiety and depressive disorders in adolescents. Participants were 816 adolescents (414~males, 402 females) with diagnostic information collected at age 15; information on early adversities had been collected from the mothers during pregnancy, at birth, age 6 months, and age 5~years for a related study. Adolescents with pure anxiety disorders were compared with adolescents with pure depressive disorders (major depressive disorder, dysthymia), and these groups were compared to never-ill controls. Analyses controlled for gender and maternal depression and anxiety disorders. Results indicated that adolescents with anxiety disorders were more likely than depressed youth to have been exposed to various early stressors, such as maternal prenatal stress, multiple maternal partner changes, and more total adversities, whereas few early childhood variables predicted depressive disorders. Even when current family stressors at age 15 were controlled, early adversity variables again significantly predicted anxiety disorders. Results suggest that anxiety disorders may be more strongly related to early stress exposure, while depressive disorders may be related to more proximal stressors or to early stressors not assessed in the current study.     

Using tenets from the Bhagavad Gita in counselling diaspora Hindu older adults: Impact on stress mitigation and improving quality of life

This article reports a study on the impact of a Bhagavad Gita (BG) text-based counselling programme for long-term immigrant diaspora Hindu older adults in the US and UK. Compared with the journal writing sessions, participants of the BG lessons reported lower stress and better quality of life post-test (p ≤ 0.025; Hedges' g = −0.65–0.36). Results of the latent class analyses highlighted complex behaviour patterns in the post-test dataset and foregrounded six classes/subgroups of participants likely to gain most from the BG programme: older adult females, diaspora Hindu older adults with postgraduate-professional qualifications, widowed older adults, those living alone or with other kith-kin, those with above threshold programme compliance (defined as those who attended 13–24 (>50%) BG lessons, and completed 13–24 (>50%) BG homework lessons). Overall, the results of the study endorse the connection between age and religiosity and support a BG text-based counselling programme as a workable strategy for long-term immigrant diaspora Hindu older adults. The BG text provides a firm ethnoculturally grounded counselling approach to work with diaspora Hindu older adult clients, taking cognisance of their intersectional realities. It may help them cope with the dynamics of the modern, traditional, and continuously shifting realities in a foreign milieu.     

The development of numerosity estimation: Evidence for a linear number representation early in life

Several studies investigating the development of approximate number representations used the number-to-position task and reported evidence for a shift from a logarithmic to a linear representation of numerical magnitude with increasing age. However, this interpretation as well as the number-to-position method itself has been questioned recently. The current study tested 5- and 8-year-old children on a newly established numerosity production task to examine developmental changes in number representations and to test the idea of a representational shift. Modelling of the children's numerical estimations revealed that responses of the 8-year-old children approximate a simple positive linear relation between estimated and actual numbers. Interestingly, however, the estimations of the 5-year-old children were best described by a bilinear model reflecting a relatively accurate linear representation of small numbers and no apparent magnitude knowledge for large numbers. Taken together, our findings provide no support for a shift of mental representations from a logarithmic to a linear metric but rather suggest that the range of number words which are appropriately conceptualised and represented by linear analogue magnitude codes expands during development.     

语音象征的产生机制：基于敏感期的先天后天作用模型

Bouba-Kiki效应(简称BK效应)指语音和形状特征之间的映射关系。针对BK效应的产生机制,先天论和后天论之间争论激烈。先天论的观点认为人们对语音象征的敏感性是出生时便存在的一种语言机制。而后天论的观点则强调语音象征是语言经验的产物。上述理论均获得大量研究证据的支持,且均无法完全否定对方。这表明,上述理论可能均未完整揭示语音象征的产生机制。鉴于此,针对BK效应的产生机制,梳理先天论与后天论的支持证据,并率先提出语言相关的BK效应敏感期假设。同时,梳理了支持BK效应敏感期的初步研究证据及可能的影响因素。进而,以语言相关的BK效应敏感期假设为基础,提出语音象征产生的先天后天相互作用模型,以整合以往研究中的矛盾。最后,展望了语音象征的未来研究进展和方向。     

Self-efficacy moderates the relationship between stress appraisal and quality of life among rescue workers

Abstract

Rescue workers are frequently exposed to highly stressful situations during their everyday work activity. Stress and coping theory emphasizes the interaction between primary and secondary appraisal in determining coping responses to stressful events and quality of life. According to Social Cognitive Theory, stress reactions depend on self-appraisal of coping capabilities.

The present study investigated whether self-efficacy moderates the relationship between stress appraisal and professional quality of life. A self-administered questionnaire was submitted to a sample of 451 Italian rescue workers (firefighters, paramedics, and medical technicians), including the Professional Quality of Life Scale, which measures three dimensions of emergency workers' quality of working life: compassion fatigue, burnout, and compassion satisfaction. Multiple regression analyses indicated that the relationship between stress appraisal and professional quality of life was significant only among rescue workers with low levels of self-efficacy but not among those with higher levels of self-efficacy. These results confirmed the expectations based on Social Cognitive Theory that self-efficacy buffers the impact of perceived stressful encounters on professional quality of life. Results suggest the usefulness of interventions aimed at increasing rescue workers' psychosocial skills.     

Understanding the relationships between age,gender, and life satisfaction: the mediating role of stress and religiosity

Although hundreds of investigations have examined the relationship between age and life satisfaction, a recent review of these studies reveals that relatively little is known about the nature of this relationship, especially between genders and across cultures, and the mechanisms that link age to life satisfaction. Using a large-scale study in Malaysia, the present research explores the mediating effects of stress and religiosity that might be responsible for the empirical findings reported in previous studies. Contrary to previous findings based on US studies, this study finds that women are more satisfied with their lives than men in the early and later stages of life. Chronic stress and religiosity were found to partially mediate the relationship between age and life satisfaction, suggesting that these may be mechanisms that explain the findings of previous studies.     

Measures of life stress and social support specific to an Asian student population

We designed two new measures—the Index of Life Stress (ILS) and the Index of Social Support (ISS)—to assist in the prediction of cultural adjustment for an Asian international student population. In the present study, these two measures were administered to 101 Asian international students. Stability estimates over 1 month were high: .97 for the ILS and .81 for the ISS. Construct validity, assessed via factor analyses, and concurrent validity, assessed via regression analyses to criteria of depression, hopelessness, and suicide ideation were satisfactory. Incremental validity for these two measures relative to extant measures of life stress and social support were computed. Results from these analyses indicated that these two measures added incrementally to the prediction of adjustment beyond that offered by existing measures.