Depression, anxiety, hostility, and physical health

This study assessed the relationship of depression, anxiety, and hostility to physical health in a multicultural student population (N=106). When controlling for a variety of demographic and health risk factors (viz., age, sex, body mass, smoking, alcohol, salt, caffeine, and exercise), hostility, depression, and anxiety were related to higher reported incidences of physical symptoms and somatic illness. Depression and hostility had the strongest relationships with physical health, although the most striking single relationship was between depression and illness. Results suggest that it may be premature to focus our attention on hostility in research on the personality-illness relationship. They also suggest that the health behavior model of the relationship between personality and disease does not provide an adequate explanation, since negative affect was significantly associated with illness even when controlling for a variety of health risk factors. This work was supported, in part, by an intramural grant from the University of Hawaii, #R511.     

Depression,anxiety, hostility,and physical health

This study assessed the relationship of depression, anxiety, and hostility to physical health in a multicultural student population (N=106). When controlling for a variety of demographic and health risk factors (viz., age, sex, body mass, smoking, alcohol, salt, caffeine, and exercise), hostility, depression, and anxiety were related to higher reported incidences of physical symptoms and somatic illness. Depression and hostility had the strongest relationships with physical health, although the most striking single relationship was between depression and illness. Results suggest that it may be premature to focus our attention on hostility in research on the personality-illness relationship. They also suggest that the health behavior model of the relationship between personality and disease does not provide an adequate explanation, since negative affect was significantly associated with illness even when controlling for a variety of health risk factors. This work was supported, in part, by an intramural grant from the University of Hawaii, #R511.     

Frustration Intolerance Beliefs as Predictors of Emotional Problems in University Undergraduates

The present study examined the relationship between Frustration Intolerance Beliefs as suggested by the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy framework and emotional problems. Data were collected from 332 university undergraduate students (age 19–26) who completed Demographic Information Sheet, Frustration Discomfort Scale and three subscales of Brief Symptom Inventory including depression, anxiety and hostility. The current findings confirmed the association between frustration intolerance and irrational beliefs and their respective roles in psychological distress among non-clinical student population. Results indicated that FDS subscales were differently related to specific emotions as entitlement and emotional intolerance sub-scales were significantly positively associated with depression, anxiety, and hostility while achievement was significantly negatively associated with hostility. The study has implications for counsellors, school psychologists and policy makers as it highlights the importance of rational group and individual counselling of rational ideas to reduce the emotional problems of students hindering their educational and personal growth.     

Comparing cognitive fusion and cognitive reappraisal as predictors of college student mental health

Transdiagnostic cognitive behavioral interventions target different cognitive processes to promote mental health, including cognitive fusion and cognitive reappraisal. Determining the relative impact of cognitive fusion and reappraisal on a range of student mental health concerns could help interventions target psychopathological cognitive processes more effectively. Therefore, this study examined the longitudinal impact of cognitive fusion and reappraisal on mental health and functioning outcomes. A series of hierarchical regression models tested the effects of cognitive fusion and reappraisal in a sample of college students (n = 339). When controlling for reappraisal and baseline symptoms, fusion predicted distress, depression, generalized anxiety, social anxiety, hostility, academic distress, and student role problems 1 month later. Reappraisal predicted only student role problems longitudinally when controlling for fusion. These results suggest that cognitive fusion is a stronger predictor than reappraisal for a range of student mental health concerns and may be a particularly important target for improving student mental health.     

Some correlates of health locus of control among multicultural individuals

The relationship of locus of control to depression, anxiety, hostility, and physical health was assessed in a sample of multicultural college students (N = 162). Powerful Others Health Locus of Control was correlated with depression, anxiety, hostility, and recent physical symptoms while Chance Health Locus of Control (CHLC) was correlated with all of the above as well as chronic physical symptoms and major health problems. When controlling for a variety of health risk factors (viz., age, sex, body mass, exercise, smoking, salt, alcohol, and caffeine), only CHLC remained significant in the physical health models. Results support the cognitive model of mental health which emphasize the importance of adaptive beliefs. Specifically, they suggest that issues about control are related to negative affect and indicate that the often-cited relationship of an external locus of control to depression and anxiety also holds for hostility. The findings do not, however, support the view that anxiety and depression are associated with different types of external locus of control but rather suggest a unified set of locus of control beliefs underlying the three types of negative affect. In addition, evidence is provided for the external validity of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scales with respect to mental health. Further, the results indicate that belief about one’s health may play a significant role in one’s physical health and that the health behavior model of the relationship between locus of control and physical health is insufficient to explain the relationship. As the Chance and Powerful Others MHLC scales were not related to health habits in this sample but were related to mental health (viz., depression, anxiety, and hostility), locus of control beliefs may be related to physical health via their relationship with mental health.     

The Fixed Mindset of Anxiety Predicts Future Distress: A Longitudinal Study

Mindsets, or beliefs about the malleability of self-attributes such as intelligence and personality, have been linked to a wide range of outcomes in educational and social psychology. There has been recent interest in exploring this construct in clinical psychological contexts. To that end, research has shown that the fixed mindset of anxiety—the belief that anxiety is fixed and unchangeable—is related to a variety of psychological distress symptoms, emotion regulation strategies, and treatment preferences. One outstanding question is whether the fixed mindset of anxiety predicts future psychological symptoms. To address this question, the current longitudinal study assessed weekly distress and anxiety mindset across 5 weeks. We found that fixed mindset of anxiety is predictive of future weekly distress, even after controlling for the previous week’s distress, sex, socioeconomic status, baseline depression symptoms, and presence of psychiatric diagnosis. These findings add evidence to an emerging conceptual framework in which the fixed mindset of anxiety represents an important risk factor for the onset of future psychological problems.     

Anxiety within families: interrelations, consistency, and change

In a community sample of mothers (N = 763), each with a focal child aged 4.5 years, anxiety levels were high. Only 54% of mothers had anxiety scores within the "normal" Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) range, compared with 85% for depression. A subsample (N = 116) was selected for two-parent families, one to three children, and mothers spread over low, medium, and high anxiety levels. Mothers' anxiety was not significantly related to age, education, or work status, but rather to mothers' and fathers' independent ratings of marital satisfaction and family functioning, and to fathers' own anxiety and depression. Fathers' anxiety was related not to their own views of marital satisfaction and family functioning, but rather to mothers' views and to maternal anxiety. Assessments 8 years later--of anxiety, depression, and family functioning--showed high consistency over time, particularly maternal anxiety (r = .70) and paternal depression (r = .81). Although means did not change significantly over time for fathers, mothers' anxiety, depression, and perceptions of family functioning all improved (p < .001). For parents who were later to separate (compared with the others), initial family functioning, dyadic adjustment, and maternal anxiety were significantly "worse." The strongest predictor of later break-up was fathers' dyadic adjustment.     

Dispositional forgiveness of self, others, and situations

Six studies regarding forgiveness are presented. The Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS), a self-report measure of dispositional forgiveness (with subscales to assess forgiveness of self, others, and situations) was developed and demonstrated good psychometric properties. Forgiveness correlated positively with cognitive flexibility, positive affect, and distraction; it correlated negatively with rumination, vengeance, and hostility. Forgiveness predicted four components of psychological well-being (anger, anxiety, depression, and satisfaction with life); forgiveness of situations accounted for unique variance in these components of psychological well-being. Forgiveness and hostility demonstrated equivalent, inverse associations with relationship duration, and forgiveness accounted for unique variance in relationship satisfaction, even when controlling for trust. Forgiveness level correlated positively with decreased negativity in statements written about transgressions in the present versus the past tense.     

Psychological mechanisms in the maintenance of insomnia: arousal, distress, and sleep-related beliefs

The purpose of this study was to examine whether arousal, distress, and sleep-related beliefs are related to the maintenance of insomnia. From a randomly selected sample from the general population (n=3600), 1936 participants filled out a baseline and 1-year follow-up survey. Logistic regressions were used to investigate whether arousal, distress, and beliefs were related to sleep status (insomnia: n=116; poor sleep: n=222; normal sleep: n=529; good sleep: n=234) over 1 year. Cluster analysis was employed to assess whether it was possible to classify the participants based on their profiles of psychological functioning. The results showed that beliefs in the long-term negative consequences of insomnia, anxiety, depression, and arousal were significantly related to the maintenance of insomnia (18-72% of the variance). Of the individuals with persistent insomnia, 91% belonged to a cluster characterized by high scores on sleep-related beliefs, anxiety, depression, and arousal, and 9% to a cluster defined by low scores on the mechanisms. This study shows that sleep-related beliefs, anxiety, depression, and arousal are related to the maintenance of persistent insomnia, but also that these mechanisms often co-occur in individuals with insomnia.     

Mood-states, recall and subjective comprehensibility of medical information in non-patient volunteers

Factors were investigated related to the comprehensibility, recall and retention of medical information, using non-patient volunteers. At the first session, subjective comprehensibility, immediate recall and the mood-states of anxiety, depression and hostility were measured. A week later recall, anxiety, depression and hostility were reassessed. In terms of percentages of idea-units recalled, immediate recall was 44% and delayed recall was 31%. Immediate (though not delayed) recall and also subjective comprehensibility were negatively correlated with both anxiety and depression as measured at the first, but not the second session, thus highlighting the primacy of immediate mood-state in influencing recall. There was no relation between subjective comprehensibility and either of the recall scores. The results imply that subjective comprehensibility and recall are relatively independent, a result apparently inconsistent with Ley's model of compliance, but suggest that both can be influenced by depressed or anxious moods. Taken together with other findings, our results could support a curvilinear relation between anxiety and recall. To maximize recall and comprehensibility, at least within a certain range of anxiety levels, anxiety and depression at the time the instructions are presented should be minimized. In a clinical setting, this may be relevant to improving patient compliance.     

Caretaker Psychological Factors Predicting Premature Termination of Children's Counseling

This study examines the psychological factors associated with caretakers' premature termination of counseling for their children. Data were collected on the 85 primary caretakers of 85 children in Texas who applied for counseling at community mental health centers or who received private practitioner care. The general hypothesis of the study was that scores on general hostility, intrapunitive hostility, extrapunitive hostility, paranoid ideation, depression, and anxiety would discriminate caretakers who prematurely terminated their children's counseling from both those caretakers whose children, in the judgment of the counselors, met therapeutic goals and those caretakers whose children did not meet therapeutic goals but who attended at least 10 counseling sessions. The effect size results suggest that counselors should primarily consider caretaker intrapunitive hostility when anticipating potential premature termination of counseling for children.     

Constructive anger verbal behavior predicts blood pressure in a population-based sample.

The creation of an observational Constructive Anger Behavior-Verbal Style Scale (CAB-V) and its relation to resting blood pressure (BP) in an age- and sex-stratified, population-based sample is examined. Participants (N = 1,862) provided hypertension risk factor information, had resting BP assessed multiple times, and completed a videotaped interview, which was later coded for CAB-V and Hostile Style. High CAB-V scores remained a significant predictor of lower resting BP when controlling for the effects of standard hypertension risk factors (age, sex, body mass index, physical activity, alcohol use, smoking status, parental myocardial infarction history, education, and diabetic status) and psychosocial measures (anxiety, depression, hostility, social support, and Hostile Style). This relation also remained when excluding known hypertensive persons. Results suggest that constructive anger expression may have an independent beneficial association with resting BP.     

Relation of anxiety to hostility in the course of inpatient treatment

The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between anxiety and hostility in hospitalized psychiatric patients, with the passage of time. The used psychometric instruments were the state of anxiety subscale (sA) of the Delusions Symptoms States Inventory (DSSI) and the Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ). The two questionnaires were administered during the first week of admission and completed again before the discharge of the patient. Two groups of patients emerged and were examined according to the sA scores reported on the second measurement. Group I (n = 44) consisted of patients reporting lower anxiety scores on the second measurement and Group II (n = 22) consisted of patients reporting higher anxiety scores on the second measurement. In Group I, the drop of anxiety scores was accompanied by parallel and highly significant drops of all hostility scores. In Group II, the increased anxiety scores were accompanied by non‐significant or marginally significant changes of hostility scores. The notion that hostility and anxiety are positively related was not fully supported. Also, the opposite thesis that there is a negative relationship between anxiety and hostility was not supported. The present study suggests that the levels of anxiety during the course of inpatient treatment are a factor influencing the temporal relationship between anxiety and hostility. Aggr. Behav. 00:1–6. 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Mastery matters most: How mastery and positive relations link attachment avoidance and anxiety to negative emotions

Attachment avoidance and anxiety are associated with negative emotions. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations are not fully understood. We investigated environmental mastery and positive relations with others as two mechanisms behind the attachment–emotion link in a sample of 343 adults. As predicted, attachment avoidance and anxiety were related to greater fear, hostility, envy and depression through lower mastery. Contrary to our hypothesis, positive relations mediated only the attachment–depression link. In addition, by adopting a moderated mediation approach, we were able to show that mastery mattered most for individuals high on avoidance: The indirect effect of avoidance through lack of mastery on fear, hostility and depression (but not on envy) increased with higher avoidance scores. Contrary to our predictions, poor relationships did not matter more as sources of negative emotions as anxiety increased. These findings underscore that the emotional life of avoidantly attached individuals is especially jeopardised by poor mastery.     

Distinctions Between Hostile and Nonhostile Forms of Perceived Criticism From Others

Criticism and hostility from others are related to fluctuations in symptom severity across many disorders, including depression and anxiety. Objective coding systems typically allow for distinctions between criticism and hostility, but the primary self-report measure of perceptions of criticism (the Perceived Criticism Measure) contains no such distinction. This report presents results from two samples regarding the assessment of specific perceptions of hostile and nonhostile criticism. In addition to these specific perceptions, we assessed relationship satisfaction, perceptions of overall criticism, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Perceptions of hostile criticism were similar to ratings of overall criticism, as indicated by a positive correlation between these two and similar correlations with related variables. In contrast, perceptions of nonhostile criticism demonstrated more complex patterns of associations, showing a positive correlation with relationship satisfaction, a negative correlation with perceptions of hostile criticism, and a positive association with general perceptions of criticism only in the context of low depressive symptoms (as depressive symptoms increased, this association became significantly weaker). These results suggest that respondents do distinguish between perceptions of hostile and nonhostile criticism, and these perceptions are not simply different points on the same continuum. Moreover, they suggest that individuals with higher levels of depression may be less likely to incorporate nonhostile criticism into their overall perceptions of criticism from others.     

高职大学毕业生的应对方式与心理健康的关系

以187名高职大学毕业生为被试,采用问卷调查法,对应对方式和心理健康的关系进行了探讨。结果表明:(1)高职大学毕业生应对方式的使用程度依次是解决问题、求助、幻想、逃避、合理化及自责。在解决问题上存在显著性别差异。求助和合理化因子存在显著专业差异。(2)高职大学毕业生心理健康的总体状况不容乐观。在抑郁和恐怖上存在性别差异。偏执因子的专业效应显著。强迫症状、人际敏感、抑郁、恐怖和精神病性的交互作用显著。(3)幻想、自责的应对方式与健康不良症状存在普遍关联。求助则反之。     

Individual differences in achieving tendency: Review of evidence bearing on a questionnaire measure

The Mehrabian Achieving Tendency Scale (MATS) provides a broad-scoped assessment of individual characteristics associated with achievement. The MATS is highly reliable and reasonably free of response bias. It correlated negatively with various measures of general (trait) anxiety and fear of success. The MATS successfully predicted performance in situations approximating real-life tests of work and school performance and academic attitudes (e.g., level of aspiration, interest and satisfaction, leadership and initiative). The MATS also predicted occupational choice and occupational/organizational commitment and attractive/appropriate self-presentation. Within a general model of personality and temperament, the MATS was shown to consist primarily of trait dominance and secondarily of trait pleasure. The model successfully predicted relationships of the MATS with a variety of personality measures.     

The relation between defense use and adaptive behavior

In two studies we examine the association between a person’s pattern of defense use, assessed by a new measure called the Defense-Q, and their adaptive behavior. We compare each person’s Defense-Q profile to a theoretical Adaptive Defense Profile (ADP) to obtain an ADP similarity score. In Study 1 we show in a student sample that ADP similarity scores are positively related to observed empathy and competence and negatively to hostility. In Study 2 we demonstrate in a population-based community sample that ADP similarity scores are positively related to nurse’s ratings of competence and nutritional based weight control programs and negatively related to hostility, depression, alcohol use, and weight control through the use of pills. These results suggest that defense use is related to adaptive behavior in a theoretically consistent manner, and that the Defense-Q shows promise as an observer-based instrument to assess defenses.     

Religious orientation and mental health: a study with Turkish university students

The present study examined the relationship between religious orientation and mental health symptoms among Turkish students. A total of 341 undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 26 completed the Brief Symptom Inventory and Age Universal Intrinsic-Extrinsic Scale. Extrinsic orientation was found to be correlated positively with symptoms of anxiety and depression. There were also significant correlations between hostility scores and both intrinsic and extrinsic religious orientations. Patterns were similar to those reported previously, but correlations were mostly in the .10-.14 range. In multiple-regression models, extrinsic orientation emerged as the only significant predictor for hostility, anxiety, and depression; however, only 2% of the variance was explained.     

高中生不良情绪状态的特点研究

采用问卷法对北京、新疆、重庆、浙江、河南共6015名高中生的不良情绪状态进行了研究.结果表明,高中生的焦虑、抑郁、孤独、敌对、恐惧等五种不良情绪的状态均处于中等程度,随着年龄的增长,高中生不良情绪的这五个方面表现出较为一致的变化特点:随着年龄的增长,其不良情绪的状态呈缓慢上升的变化趋势,高二学生的抑郁、孤独、敌对、恐惧等不良情绪状态显著高于高一学生;高三学生的五种不良情绪状态均略高于高二学生,但是未达显著性水平,高中阶段的五种不良情绪未出现显著的性别差异.