Community‐Based Participatory Research With Black Churches

Black Americans are more likely than other racial/ethnic groups to rely on spiritual and religious resources for mental health support. As such, counselors must seek unique ways to reach and understand Black communities. This article provides an overview of Black Americans' help‐seeking behaviors, the significance and culture of the Black Church, and a framework for counselors and counseling researchers to form effective partnerships to conduct community‐based participatory research initiatives that will produce empirical outcomes and promote culturally responsive mental health and wellness programming in Black communities.     

The Importance of the Community Context in the Epidemiology of Early Adolescent Substance Use and Delinquency in a Rural Sample

Considerable research has demonstrated that substance use and delinquency during early adolescence can have long-term negative health consequences. As the correlates of these behaviors cross levels and contexts, it is likely that a social ecological approach will provide insight to inform community prevention. This approach informs the present study, which focuses on developing a multiple-method measurement strategy to examine associations among community risks, resources, and rates of early adolescent substance use and delinquency in 28 rural and small town communities. Measures include five domains of community risk, four domains of community resources, and population rates of early adolescent substance use and delinquency. Results demonstrated that several measures of context were significantly associated with community rates of adolescent substance use and delinquency, and different risks and resources appear important for different outcomes. Multiple associations were curvilinear, and interactions may also be important. Findings suggest that it may be worthwhile to create and test new intervention strategies that target community factors in the pursuit of prevention.     

Enhancing attributional style as a resiliency factor in depressogenic stress generation

Abstract

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests depression and cognitive vulnerabilities to depression may lead individuals to generate stressful events. However, there has been no study to date that has directly examined factors that may lead individuals to be less likely to generate stressful events. The present study examines whether an enhancing attributional style, the tendency to make global and stable inferences following occurrence of a positive event, functions as a resiliency factor in stress generation. One hundred and sixty-seven female students completed measures of depression symptoms and attributional style at baseline and occurrence of life events since baseline at a four-week follow-up. Results indicated that an enhancing attributional style predicted decreased levels of stressful events over the following four weeks, even when controlling for depression symptoms. The findings of this study suggest that there may be resiliency factors that can help protect individuals from the generation of stressful events.     

Information becomes evidence when an explanation can incorporate it into a causal framework

Recognizing information as evidence is central to the development of scientific reasoning. When does information about an event come to be treated as evidence relevant to explaining the event? We asked whether this was increasingly likely to happen when an explanation becomes available that can incorporate both the event and the information into a single causal framework. In three studies, we presented participants with events for which there were two possible and plausible explanations (a baseline and one of two alternative explanations), as well as with two pieces of background information. While all explanations could account for the event, only one alternative explanation (the “target” explanation) could incorporate both the event and the background information into a single causal framework. The results indicated that information is more likely to be seen as evidentially relevant to an event when there is an explanation available that can accommodate both the event and the information into a single casual framework than when such an explanation is lacking. Furthermore, the presence of this information renders the target alternative increasingly plausible. That is, it is the interdependence of explanation or theory and evidence that allows us to realize that some information is likely to be evidential. However, for this to happen, the relation between explanation and information must be made salient, either by explicitly asking about it (as we did in Study 1) or by fleshing out the target explanation (as we did in Study 3).     

Tragedy or tragicomedy: Mixed feelings induced by positive and negative emotional events

Based on the theory of appraisal, we predicted that positive and negative events happening to the same people or things in a specific chronological order (i.e., a negative event following a positive event) would induce different mixed feelings than the same events happening to different people or things. Pairs of emotional pictures with different captions were used to create two event groups. In the “tragic event” group, the positive and negative events happened to the same person or things, and in the “tragicomic event” group, the positive and negative events happened to different people or things. We designed two experiments to explore and compare the generation of mixed feelings in those two groups. In Experiment 1, the negative event was shown first, and in Experiment 2, the negative event was shown second (although the chronological order of the depicted events was the same). The participants were 381 undergraduates: 195 in Experiment 1 and 186 in Experiment 2. In both experiments, we found that tragic events introduced less intense mixed feelings than did tragicomic events due to fewer pleasurable feelings induced by the tragic events. There was no significant difference in the report of negative emotions between the groups. Appraisal theory and negative bias effects may explain these results.     

Social Support,Positive College Events,and College Satisfaction: Evidence for Boosting Effects1

On the basis of previous research on college satisfaction and Cohen and Wills'(1985) social support framework, we hypothesized that structural social support has a main effect on college satisfaction and that the effect of positive college events on college satisfaction is boosted by self-esteem and belonging functional social support. Analyses were based upon a convenience sample of 392 community college students enrolled in psychology courses. Structural social support had a main effect on college satisfaction, and positive college events interacted with self-esteem functional social support. The beneficial effect of positive college events on college satisfaction increased as the level of self-esteem functional social support increased.     

A general systems approach to suicide prevention: lessons from cardiac prevention and control

The pathology of cardiac disease includes genetic, physical, biochemical, psychological, social, and environmental vectors. Factors contributing to suicide have been identified in these same areas. Survival from an acute cardiac event requires a systematized and multisectoral response. Communities that do not have systematized response capabilities to acute cardiac events have poorer survival outcomes. Suicide prevention and control may also be responsive to an integrated community response system. This paper examines the development of a community cardiac care model, explores potential parallels for a community suicide prevention and control model, and outlines a general systems theory framework for a suicide prevention and control system.     

The effect of positive events at work on after-work fatigue: they matter most in face of adversity

There is evidence that daily negative events at work enhance fatigue. In contrast, positive events may trigger processes that increase, but also processes that decrease, energetic resources. Accordingly, results regarding a main effect of positive events on fatigue have been mixed. However, a clearer pattern between positive events and fatigue can be expected under adverse circumstances (i.e., accumulation of negative events, high chronic stressors). Positive events may facilitate coping and accelerate recovery processes and, thus, reduce resource drain due to daily negative events and chronic stressors. Predicting fatigue in a diary study with 76 employees, we investigated interactions between daily positive events and (a) daily negative events and (b) chronic social stressors. Multilevel modeling revealed that negative but not positive events were associated with increased end-of-work fatigue. However, positive events interacted with negative events and with chronic social stressors. As expected, positive events were negatively associated with fatigue only on days with many negative events, but not so on days with few negative events. Analogously, positive events were negatively associated with fatigue only among employees with high, compared with low, chronic social stressors. We conclude that the beneficial short-term effects of positive events on energetic resources are largely confined to adverse circumstances.     

Experimentally testing Taylor's stress,coping and adaptation framework

Abstract

Taylor (1995) constructed a comprehensive framework of stress and adaptation, which considers internal and external resources/impediments as moderators, based on previous studies and models. However, most past research used correlation designs and has not taken into account all of the framework's components within one study. This study tested the effects of the event (minor, major), primary appraisal (benign, severe), coping (problem-focused coping (PFC) versus emotion-focused coping), external resources (with/without social support), and internal impediments (hostility), on estimated distress (dependent variable) in written imagined stressful daily scenarios. All components except hostility were experimentally manipulated within subjects in the scenarios. The scenarios were rated by 281 Dutch students. The variables event, appraisal, and social support significantly and independently affected estimated distress. Event and appraisal synergistically interacted in relation to estimated distress. Finally, appraisal interacted with coping such that the distress-reducing effects of PFC occurred only in benign events, while coping did not affect estimated distress in severely appraised events. This study experimentally tested most components of Taylor's framework, and showed that events, appraisal, and social resources were independent determinants of estimated distress, and that appraisal interacts in a complex manner with the event and with coping.     

Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health

For centuries, folk theory has promoted the idea that positive emotions are good for your health. Accumulating empirical evidence is providing support for this anecdotal wisdom. We use the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998; 2001) as a framework to demonstrate that positive emotions contribute to psychological and physical well-being via more effective coping. We argue that the health benefits advanced by positive emotions may be instantiated in certain traits that are characterized by the experience of positive emotion. Towards this end, we examine individual differences in psychological resilience (the ability to bounce back from negative events by using positive emotions to cope) and positive emotional granularity (the tendency to represent experiences of positive emotion with precision and specificity). Individual differences in these traits are examined in two studies, one using psychophysiological evidence, the second using evidence from experience sampling, to demonstrate that positive emotions play a crucial role in enhancing coping resources in the face of negative events. Implications for research on coping and health are discussed.     

Stress-coping-support in rural communities: A model for primary prevention

Conclusion Because of the relatively small and homogeneous population in rural communities, community-wide prevention efforts are often more manageable than in urban areas. Community needs and resources can be identified more easily, and the feasibility of different interventions can be assessed more readily.To guide the rural prevention agent in developing community programs, the stress-coping-support framework has been proposed here. The value of this model is that it delineates the aspects of community life that must be assessed, and it outlines several different intervention goals. The model in its most general form proposes that prevention activities should reduce stress, increase coping, and build support. While this model can be applied to any community or target group, the framework has been elaborated here to address the unique physical, occupational, and societal characteristics of rural communities.Although some of the issues in applying this model to rural, as opposed to urban, areas have been pointed out here, the variation among rural communities has not been addressed fully. The different types of rural communities, e.g., the mining town, the isolated farmlands, the Indian reservation, have unique characteristics which may determine whether a proposed prevention program is needed, feasible, and effective.It is hoped that rural practitioners, long sensitive to the need for prevention, will use this model to devise additional prevention directions and to generate useful and culturally syntonic programs for their communities.     

Leader–member exchange and turnover before and after succession events

We conducted two studies that investigated the role of leadership succession as a moderator of the relationship between LMX and turnover in organizations. In a sample of 330 employees in 45 veterinary hospitals, high-LMX employees were less likely to leave the organization prior to a succession event but in nine hospitals that experienced a succession event, high-LMX employees were more likely to leave than low-LMX employees following the event. In the second study, we used a between subjects repeated measures simulation of leadership succession in a survey of 496 employed adults across different organizations. We found LMX is predictive of affective and cognitive reactions to succession events, and that these reactions mediate the relationship between LMX and turnover intentions after a simulated succession event. We discuss the implications of finding that succession events can be disruptive to organizations and groups because high-LMX employees may subsequently leave.     

Physical Attractiveness,Mood, and the Decision to Card for the Purchase of Alcohol: Evidence for a Mood-Management Hypothesis1

Research has shown that physical attractiveness is associated with a decrease in being carded for the purchase of alcohol. Two studies examine whether this relationship might be moderated by the mood of the decision maker. Participants were randomly assigned to a 2 × 2 (Mood: Positive or Neutral × Attraction: High or Low) factorial design in which they first described a series of positive (or negative) life events, and then viewed a video of a female college student. Males were less likely to card an attractive target than an unattractive target; negative mood increased the tendency for an unattractive target to be carded, and decreased the tendency for an attractive target to be carded. Study 2 considered whether this influence may have been a result of the participant's interest in dating the target. Female subjects rated a female target in terms of their willingness to have the target date their brother or a close friend. Data revealed an interesting mood by attractiveness interaction, indicating that an attractive target was less likely to be carded, and a positive mood state appeared to enhance this general tendency. Results from both studies are interpreted within a mood-management conceptual framework.     

An exploration of the relationship among valence,fading affect,rehearsal frequency,and memory vividness for past personal events

The affect associated with negative (or unpleasant) memories typically tends to fade faster than the affect associated with positive (or pleasant) memories, a phenomenon called the fading affect bias (FAB). We conducted a study to explore the mechanisms related to the FAB. A retrospective recall procedure was used to obtain three self-report measures (memory vividness, rehearsal frequency, affective fading) for both positive events and negative events. Affect for positive events faded less than affect for negative events, and positive events were recalled more vividly than negative events. The perceived vividness of an event (memory vividness) and the extent to which an event has been rehearsed (rehearsal frequency) were explored as possible mediators of the relation between event valence and affect fading. Additional models conceived of affect fading and rehearsal frequency as contributors to a memory’s vividness. Results suggested that memory vividness was a plausible mediator of the relation between an event’s valence and affect fading. Rehearsal frequency was also a plausible mediator of this relation, but only via its effects on memory vividness. Additional modelling results suggested that affect fading and rehearsal frequency were both plausible mediators of the relation between an event’s valence and the event’s rated memory vividness.     

Cognitive resources, valence, and memory retrieval of emotional events in older adults

In 2 studies with older adults, the authors investigated the effect of executive attention resources on the retrieval of emotional public events. Participants completed a battery of working memory tasks, as a measure of executive attention, and a battery of tasks assessing memory, as well as subjective experiences associated with the retrieval of remote public events. Participants also rated the valence of each public event story. The group-rated valence of the public event stories predicted retrieval and the quality of experiences associated with them, such that emotionally arousing events elicited the highest memory rates and the richest experiences. Furthermore, positive public events elicited the highest memory rates. Executive attention moderated only the relationship between event valence and how participants' associated memories are experienced at retrieval, such that superior executive attention resources predicted richer experiences associated with positive relative to neutral and negative stories. The current results extend previous findings on the effects of aging on emotion regulation, suggesting that cognitive control resources modulate subjective experiences associated with retrieved memories for remote real life events, but not memory retrieval itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).     

Positive life events, attributional style, and hopefulness: testing a model of recovery from depression

A model of a recovery process from depression that is compatible with the hopelessness theory of depressive onset is proposed. This model predicts that depressives who have an enhancing attributional style for positive events (i.e., make global, stable attributions for such events) will be more likely to regain hopefulness and, thereby, recover from depression, when positive events occur. This prediction was tested by following a group of depressed college students longitudinally for 6 weeks. Although neither positive events alone nor attributional style alone predicted reduction in hopelessness, depressives who both showed the enhancing attributional style for positive events and experienced more positive events showed dramatic reductions in hopelessness which were accompanied by remission of depressive symptoms. Thus, attributional style for positive events may be a factor that enables some depressives to recover when positive events occur in their lives.     

Imagination inflation: Imagining a childhood event inflates confidence that it occurred

Counterfactual imaginings are known to have far-reaching implications. In the present experiment, we ask if imagining events from one’s past can affect memory for childhood events. We draw on the social psychology literature showing that imagining a future event increases the subjective likelihood that the event will occur. The concepts of cognitive availability and the source-monitoring framework provide reasons to expect that imagination may inflate confidence that a childhood event occurred. However, people routinely produce myriad counterfactual imaginings (i.e., daydreams and fantasies) but usually do not confuse them with past experiences. To determine the effects of imagining a childhood event, we pretested subjects on how confident they were that a number of childhood events had happened, asked them to imagine some of those events, and then gathered new confidence measures. For each of the target items, imagination inflated confidence that the event had occurred in childhood. We discuss implications for situations in which imagination is used as an aid in searching for presumably lost memories.     

Taking seriously the "what then?" question: an ethical framework for the responsible management of medical disasters

When healthcare resources become overwhelmed in medical disasters, as they inevitably will, we have to ask, in an unflinching fashion, the question: "What then?" or more precisely, "What should we do when we run out of resources?" In a mass casualty event worthy of the designation, we will indeed run out of resources, perhaps quite quickly. This article provides an ethical framework for the responsible management of medical disasters in which the "What then?" question must be asked. The framework begins with a critique of existing guidance from professional associations of physicians and then argues for an alternative approach that qualifies the obligation to preserve life, takes seriously the ethical challenges of overwhelmed healthcare resources, and countenances physician-assisted suicide as a last resort.     

Cross-modal source monitoring confusions between perceived and imagined events

Two experiments tested the prediction based on the source monitoring framework that imagination is most likely to lead to false memories when related perceived events have occurred. Consistent with this, people were more likely to falsely remember seeing events when the events had been both imagined as seen and actually heard than when they were just heard, just visually imagined, or imagined both visually and auditorily. Furthermore, when people considered potential sources for memories or more carefully evaluated features of remembered events, source errors were reduced. On average, misattributed ("false") memories differed in phenomenal qualities from true memories. Taken together, these findings show that as different qualities of mental experience flexibly enter into source attributions, qualities derived from related perceptual events are particularly likely to lead to false claims that imagined events were seen, even when the event involves a primary modality (auditory) different from the target event (visual).     

Reminiscence bump in autobiographical memory: Unexplained by novelty,emotionality, valence,or importance of personal events

People tend to recall a disproportionately large number of personal events from their adolescence and early adulthood. This “reminiscence bump” has been examined extensively, but its causes remain unclear. In this Internet-based experiment, nearly 3,500 participants were given 10 cue words and were asked to describe the personal events that came to mind. Furthermore, they were asked to date each event and to indicate whether it was a first-time experience. Finally, the participants were asked to rate the strength of the emotional reaction to the event or the valence or the importance of the event. Surprisingly, the reminiscence bump consisted of relatively fewer novel, emotional, important positive or negative events. This result increases the likelihood of an alternative explanation—namely, that memory is generally enhanced in adolescence and early adulthood. However, this account has not been tested directly.