An exploratory study of social support, distress, and life disruption among low-income Hispanic women under treatment for early stage breast cancer.

Relationships between distress and perceived availability of social support were examined in 51 Hispanic women being treated for early stage breast cancer. Distress and different types (emotional, instrumental) and sources (spouse, women family members, other family members, friends) of support were measured at presurgery, postsurgery, and at 3-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups. Emotional support from friends and instrumental support from spouse at presurgery predicted lower distress postsurgery. No other prospective benefits of perceived support emerged. Distress at several time points predicted erosion of subsequent support, particularly instrumental support from women in the family. In contrast to the adverse effects of distress (and independent of them), illness-related disruption of recreational and social activities at 6 months elicited greater support at 12 months.     

Neuroticism,Extraversion, Perceived Social Support,and Escape Television Viewing as Determinants of Psychological Distress in Crime Victims

This study describes a longitudinal analysis of the relationship among neuroticism, extraversion, educational level, perceived social support, escape viewing, and psychological distress in crime victims. A sample of 170 crime victims completed self-report measures of these concepts. Personality traits, educational level, and baseline rates at 3 months postcrime of perceived social support and escape television viewing were modeled as predictors of psychological distress at 6 and 9 months postcrime. Neuroticism and extraversion significantly predicted psychological distress following victimization. Escape viewing had direct effects on distress and mediated the relationship between neuroticism and distress. Distress symptoms at 3 months were the strongest predictors of distress at 6 and 9 months postcrime.     

情绪调节困难对大学生手机成瘾的影响:相貌负面身体自我和社交回避与苦恼的链式中介作用

为考察相貌负面身体自我、社交回避与苦恼在情绪调节困难和手机成瘾关系中的链式中介效应,使用情绪调节困难量表、相貌负面身体自我量表、社交回避与苦恼量表和大学生手机成瘾倾向量表对734名大学生进行问卷调查。研究显示：（1）情绪调节困难会正向预测大学生手机成瘾;（2）相貌负面身体自我是情绪调节困难与大学生手机成瘾之间关系的中介变量;（3）社交回避与苦恼是相貌负面身体自我与大学生手机成瘾之间关系的中介变量;（4）社交回避与苦恼是情绪调节困难与大学生手机成瘾之间关系的中介变量。因此,相貌负面身体自我和社交回避与苦恼在情绪调节困难与大学生手机成瘾之间起链式中介作用,这些结果对于大学生手机成瘾的预防与干预具有重要的价值。     

Moral elevation and compassionate goals predict posttraumatic growth in the context of a college shooting

Abstract

After a mass shooting, community members may experience not only distress, but also feeling uplifted or morally elevated by others’ prosocial responses to the trauma. Those experiencing elevation may be more likely to strive to support others (compassionate goals) and to endorse posttraumatic growth (PTG). However, the role of elevation in PTG, and the relative contribution of compassionate goals (both from and toward others), remains unknown. Students, faculty, and staff (N = 385) completed measures four months after a campus shooting, and a subset repeated measures at eight months (n = 82). As expected, compassionate goals toward others incrementally predicted higher PTG beyond perceptions of compassionate goals from others. Also, elevation concurrently and prospectively predicted higher PTG. Lastly, elevation mediated effects of others’ compassionate goals on PTG, as hypothesized (95% CI = 2.59 to 5.43). These findings have implications for understanding the social and emotional processes that facilitate PTG.     

Maternal preconceptions about parenting predict child temperament, maternal sensitivity, and children's empathy

This study examined the influence of maternal preconceptions on child difficult temperament at 6 months and maternal sensitivity at 12-15 months and whether all 3 variables predicted children's empathy at 21-24 months. Within a low-income, ethnically diverse sample of 175 mother-child dyads, path models were tested with 3 empathy indices (prosocial, indifference, inquisitive) as outcomes. Results indicated that maternal preconceptions significantly predicted child difficult temperament, maternal sensitivity, and children's empathy. Temperament mediated the link between maternal preconceptions and inquisitiveness, and maternal sensitivity mediated the link between preconceptions and prosocial responses. Group modeling techniques revealed no significant differences across gender or ethnicity. Correlations suggested contextual effects based on the familiarity of the person in distress. The implications and utility of developing parenting interventions are discussed.     

Children’s Intent Attributions and Feelings of Distress: Associations with Maternal and Paternal Parenting Practices

Many studies point to the importance of social information processing mechanisms in understanding distinct child behaviors such as aggression. However, few studies have assessed whether parenting might be related to such mechanisms. This study considers how aversive forms of parenting (i.e., corporal punishment, psychological control) as well as parental warmth and responsiveness might be concurrently associated with children’s hostile intent attributions and emotional distress in response to ambiguous provocation scenarios (both instrumental and relational). A sample of 219 children (101 boys, 118 girls) and their parents participated. Bivariate associations showed that parenting dimensions and child variables were significantly associated in mostly expected ways, but only in father–child relationships (especially father–son relationships). Analyses generally showed dimensions of aversive parenting by fathers to be associated with a greater tendency toward hostile attributional bias in children. Moreover, paternal warmth and responsiveness, as well as corporal punishment, were associated with less emotional distress in boys. In contrast, paternal psychological control predicted greater emotional distress in boys. The findings suggest that the tone of the father–son relationship, in particular, may help set the tone for how boys interpret their social world. Psychological control figures prominently in this regard.     

Don't hide your happiness! Positive emotion dissociation, social connectedness, and psychological functioning

It is now clear that positive emotion leads to enhanced psychological functioning. What is less clear, however, is just why this is so. Drawing on a social-functional perspective, we argue that positive emotional behavior that accurately signals to others the individual's internal state will enhance social connectedness. Positive emotional behavior that does not accurately signal a person's experience--such as a smile that is not felt--may impede social connectedness and, in turn, psychological functioning. This perspective suggests that (a) the degree to which experience and behavior are dissociated during positive emotional episodes, over and above level of positive behavior, should predict worse psychological functioning and (b) the effect of dissociation should be mediated by social connectedness. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a short-term prospective longitudinal study, with a baseline assessment of depressive symptoms and well-being at Time 1. Six months later, at Time 2, we used a novel within-individual laboratory paradigm to measure the degree to which positive emotional behavior was dissociated from (vs. coherent with) a participant's positive emotional experience. We also assessed level of positive behavior and experience. Then, another 6 months later, we assessed social connectedness as a mediator and depressive symptoms and well-being as outcomes at Time 3. Even when controlling for baseline functioning and for level of positive emotion behavior and experience, we found that greater positive experience-behavior dissociation at Time 2 predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower levels of well-being at Time 3. As predicted, these associations were mediated by social connectedness.     

Family processes as pathways from income to young children's development

A variety of family processes have been hypothesized to mediate associations between income and young children's development. Maternal emotional distress, parental authoritative and authoritarian behavior (videotaped mother-child interactions), and provision of cognitively stimulating activities (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment [HOME] scales) were examined as possible mediators in a sample of 493 White and African American low-birth-weight premature infants who were followed from birth through age 5. Cognitive ability was assessed by standardized test, and child behavior problems by maternal report, when the children were 3 and 5 years of age. As expected, family income was associated with child outcomes. The provision of stimulating experiences in the home mediated the relation between family income and both children's outcomes; maternal emotional distress and parenting practices mediated the relation between income and children's behavior problems.     

Finding benefit in breast cancer during the year after diagnosis predicts better adjustment 5 to 8 years after diagnosis.

Cancer patients experience positive as well as adverse consequences from diagnosis and treatment. The study reported here examined longer term reverberations of such experiences. A set of benefit-finding items along with measures of well-being were completed by 230 early-stage breast cancer patients in the year postsurgery. Four to 7 years later, 96 of them again completed measures of well-being. Controlling for initial distress and depression, initial benefit finding in this sample predicted lower distress and depression at follow-up.     

Written emotional disclosure buffers the effects of social constraints on distress among cancer patients.

The aims of the present study were to examine whether written emotional disclosure would reduce distress among cancer patients and whether it would buffer the effects of high levels of social constraint (negative social responses to patients' expressions of emotion regarding their cancer) on distress. Cancer patients (N=104) were randomly assigned to write about their emotions regarding their cancer 20 min a day for 3 days or to write about a nonemotional topic. They completed questionnaires at baseline and 6 months postintervention. Results showed that written disclosure buffered the effects of social constraints on stress at the 6-month follow-up and that avoidance partly mediated these effects. The present data reinforce the notion that interventions should be tailored to patients' needs.     

The relations of effortful control and ego control to children's resiliency and social functioning

The relations of effortful control and ego control to children's (mean age = 137 months) resiliency, social status, and social competence were examined concurrently (Time 3) and over time. Adults reported on the constructs, and a behavioral measure of persistence was obtained. At Time 3, resiliency mediated the unique relations of both effortful and reactive control to social status, and effortful control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior. Negative emotionality moderated the relations of ego and effortful control to socially appropriate behavior. When levels of the variables 2 years prior were accounted for, all relations held at Time 3 except that effortful control did not predict resiliency (even though it was the stronger predictor at Time 3) and ego control directly predicted socially appropriate behavior.     

Early manifestations of personality and adult emotional functioning

Developmental antecedents to adult emotional functioning were investigated in an epidemiologic study using theories of personality and emotion. The authors tested whether different types of adult emotional distress can be linked to childhood personality attributes. Using data from 3,138 children at age 7, measures of 4 childhood personality attributes were developed and validated: Behavioral Inhibition, Distress Proneness, Attention, and Inappropriate Interpersonal Self-Regulation. Sound psychometric properties of these scales are demonstrated by considering the measures across multiple samples and in comparison with established child behavior measures. Emotional distress measures were obtained for 694 of these individuals at age 35. Of the personality attributes, 3 of 4 (except behavioral inhibition) predicted general levels of distress as well as specific aspects of adult emotional functioning.     

Improving mother–child interaction in low‐income Turkish–Dutch families: A study of mechanisms mediating improvements resulting from participating in a home‐based preschool intervention program

This study examined whether the effects on cognitive and language outcomes of a recently developed home‐based educational intervention program, Opstap Opnieuw, for 4–6‐years‐old disadvantaged children could be explained by improved mother–child interaction. The present sample (n=30) was drawn from a larger sample of Turkish–Dutch families (n=181) for which in a previous study significant effects of Opstap Opnieuw were found on children's (first) language and cognitive pre‐math skill, 5 months after the program ended. The present study focused on two facets of interaction quality as possible mediators of these program effects: the mean cognitive distancing level of mothers' communication and instruction behaviour as an indicator of the cognitive and verbal stimulation provided, and the degree of cooperation as an indicator of mothers' social‐emotional support to their children. Both measures were based on systematic observation of mother–child interaction during sorting tasks. Participation in the program appeared to improve mothers' social‐emotional support behaviour substantially, but not their cognitive distancing behaviour. For Turkish (first language) vocabulary, about half of the program effect appeared to be mediated by the improved social‐emotional support. For cognitive pre‐mathematical skills, two‐thirds of the program effect appeared to be mediated by improved social‐emotional support. Mothers' cognitive distancing was moderately‐strongly related to children's vocabulary development, but did not mediate program effects. Some implications of the results are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of post-migration stressors on refugees’ emotional distress and health: A longitudinal analysis

Refugees often experience poor physical and mental health outcomes following resettlement. These outcomes have been linked to the conditions that are experienced by refugees in the post-migration context, but little is known about the mechanisms by which these conditions influence health. We therefore conducted secondary analyses of the Survey of New Refugees, a large longitudinal study commissioned by the UK Home Office with data collected at four time points spanning 21 months. Refugees’ experience of emotional distress such as feeling stressed, worried, and depressed fully mediated the relationship between post-migration stressors and longitudinal general health. There was no evidence that perceived social support influenced this relationship. These findings suggest that emotional distress contributes to poor health outcomes among refugees and thus that interventions might target emotional distress.     

Socioeconomic status in childhood and adulthood: associations with dispositional optimism and pessimism over a 21-year follow-up

We examined whether dispositional optimism and pessimism (overall LOT-R and optimism and pessimism component scores) of 694 adults aged 24 and 27 were associated with socioeconomic status (SES) measured concurrently and in childhood at ages 3 and 6. SES measures included education, occupational status and unemployment, and income. Concurrent adulthood SES was associated with the overall LOT-R and optimism and the pessimism component scores. Childhood family SES predicted overall LOT-R and pessimism component scores, even after controlling statistically for the adulthood SES. Social mobility between SES of family of origin and current SES also influenced the scores. The current findings suggest that the foundation of dispositional optimism and pessimism is related to early SES of the family.     

Pathways to competence: parental adversity and the roles of parenting quality and social support

The authors studied a representative Canadian cohort from the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth at 3 points in time, when the participants were aged 10-11 years (n = 2,147), 12-13 years (n = 1,976), and 14-15 years (n = 1,762). The presence of parent-related adversity appeared detrimental to young people's emotional and behavioral competence. Parents' self-reports of adversity predicted children's self-reports of their own behavioral functioning 2 years later. The authors identified parenting quality and social support as independent resource variables for young people's competence, rather than protective variables in the face of parent-related adversity. Latent variable path analyses suggested the increasing value of both resource variables over time for all young people.     

Perceived partner support and psychosexual adjustment to breast cancer

Support from a partner can play a key role in a woman's emotional adjustment to breast cancer. However, little is known about the influence of partner behaviours on a woman's sexual adjustment. This study examined the prospective relationship between baseline levels of several types of perceived partner support (instrumental, informational, emotional and negative) and psychosexual adjustment (sexual functioning and relationship satisfaction) over the course of 12 months post-surgery in a sample of 130 women with breast cancer. Results indicated that perceptions of greater emotional and informational support from the partner at baseline were associated with less sexual difficulties among breast cancer patients concurrently and 6 months post-surgery. Baseline perceptions of greater emotional and instrumental support from a partner were associated with greater relationship satisfaction at all time points. Perceptions of informational support at baseline were related to greater concurrent relationship satisfaction. Baseline perceptions of negative partner support were related to less relationship satisfaction, but only concurrently. These findings suggest that the perception of a partner's provision of emotional, instrumental and informational support may each play a role in facilitating sexual adjustment and relationship satisfaction.     

Perceived partner support and psychosexual adjustment to breast cancer

Support from a partner can play a key role in a woman's emotional adjustment to breast cancer. However, little is known about the influence of partner behaviours on a woman's sexual adjustment. This study examined the prospective relationship between baseline levels of several types of perceived partner support (instrumental, informational, emotional and negative) and psychosexual adjustment (sexual functioning and relationship satisfaction) over the course of 12 months post-surgery in a sample of 130 women with breast cancer. Results indicated that perceptions of greater emotional and informational support from the partner at baseline were associated with less sexual difficulties among breast cancer patients concurrently and 6 months post-surgery. Baseline perceptions of greater emotional and instrumental support from a partner were associated with greater relationship satisfaction at all time points. Perceptions of informational support at baseline were related to greater concurrent relationship satisfaction. Baseline perceptions of negative partner support were related to less relationship satisfaction, but only concurrently. These findings suggest that the perception of a partner's provision of emotional, instrumental and informational support may each play a role in facilitating sexual adjustment and relationship satisfaction.     

Maternal posttraumatic stress symptoms and infant emotional reactivity and emotion regulation

The current study examined associations between maternal posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and infant emotional reactivity and emotion regulation during the first year of life in a primarily low-income, urban, ethnic/racial minority sample of 52 mother–infant dyads. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing their own trauma exposure history and current PTSD and depressive symptoms and their infants’ temperament when the infants were 6 months old. Dyads participated in the repeated Still-Face Paradigm (SFP-R) when the infants were 6 months old, and infant affective states were coded for each SFP-R episode. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing infant trauma exposure history and infant current emotional and behavioral symptoms when the infants were 13 months old. Maternal PTSD symptoms predicted infants’ emotion regulation at 6 months as assessed by (a) infant ability to recover from distress during the SFP-R and (b) maternal report of infant rate of recovery from distress/arousal in daily life. Maternal PTSD symptoms also predicted maternal report of infant externalizing, internalizing, and dysregulation symptoms at 13 months. Maternal PTSD was not associated with measures of infant emotional reactivity. Neither maternal depressive symptoms nor infant direct exposure to trauma accounted for the associations between maternal PTSD symptoms and infant outcomes. These findings suggest that maternal PTSD is associated with offspring emotion regulation difficulties as early as infancy. Such difficulties may contribute to increased risk of mental health problems among children of mothers with PTSD.     

Determinants and Consequences of Child Culture Brokering in Families from the Former Soviet Union

Child culture brokering occurs when immigrant children help their families navigate the new culture and language. The present study develops a model of the child culture broker role that situates it within the family and community economic and acculturative contexts of 328 families from the former Soviet Union. Path analysis was utilized to explore the relationships of community and family economic and cultural contexts with child culture brokering, child emotional distress, and family disagreements. All children reported some culture brokering for their parents. Less English proficient parents with lower status jobs, and living in areas with more Russian speaking families tended to utilize their children as brokers more often. Further, community economic conditions also predicted brokering indirectly, mediated by parent job social status. Brokering was related to child emotional distress and family disagreements. Further, culture brokering was a mediator of the impact of parent job social status on both child emotional distress and family disagreements. These results add to our understanding of the culture broker role and emphasize the utility of approaching research on it from an ecological perspective.