Event content in a daily survey is differentially associated with concurrent mood

Daily life events were grouped according to their life content area and according to the desirability of the event as rated by the subject. Associations among event groupings and concurrently measured daily mood were examined. As in studies of major life events, some event classifications were more strongly associated with mood than were others: Specifically, desirable family-leisure events and undesirable work events were strongly related to mood. The results suggests that particular life areas deserve special attention in understanding environmental stress.     

Dream lucidity is associated with positive waking mood

Lucid dreaming is a unique phenomenon with potential applications for therapeutic interventions. Few studies have investigated the effects of lucidity on an individual’s waking mood, which could have valuable implications for improving psychological wellbeing. The current experiment aims to investigate whether the experience of lucidity enhances positive waking mood, and whether lucidity is associated with dream emotional content and subjective sleep quality. 20 participants were asked to complete lucid dream induction techniques along with an online dream diary for one week, which featured a 19-item lucidity questionnaire, and subjective ratings of sleep quality, dream emotional content, and waking mood. Results indicated that higher lucidity was associated with more positive dream content and elevated positive waking mood the next day, although there was no relationship with sleep quality. The results of the research and suggestions for future investigations, such as the need for longitudinal studies of lucidity and mood, are discussed.     

Positive mood is associated with the implicit use of distraction

Previous research demonstrates that individuals in a positive mood are differentially distracted by irrelevant information during an ongoing task (Rowe et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 104:383–388, 2007). The present study investigated whether susceptibility to distraction shown by individuals in a positive mood results in greater implicit memory for that distraction. Participants performed a similarity-judgment task on pictures that were superimposed with distracting words. When these previously distracting words could be used as solutions on a delayed implicit task administered several minutes later, performance was positively correlated with pleasantness of mood. Individuals in a positive mood are more likely than others to use previously irrelevant information to facilitate performance on a subsequent implicit task, a finding with implications for the relationship between positive mood and creativity.     

Prenatal daily musical exposure is associated with enhanced neural representation of speech fundamental frequency: Evidence from neonatal frequency-following responses

Fetal hearing experiences shape the linguistic and musical preferences of neonates. From the very first moment after birth, newborns prefer their native language, recognize their mother's voice, and show a greater responsiveness to lullabies presented during pregnancy. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this experience inducing plasticity have remained elusive. Here we recorded the frequency-following response (FFR), an auditory evoked potential elicited to periodic complex sounds, to show that prenatal music exposure is associated to enhanced neural encoding of speech stimuli periodicity, which relates to the perceptual experience of pitch. FFRs were recorded in a sample of 60 healthy neonates born at term and aged 12–72 hours. The sample was divided into two groups according to their prenatal musical exposure (29 daily musically exposed; 31 not-daily musically exposed). Prenatal exposure was assessed retrospectively by a questionnaire in which mothers reported how often they sang or listened to music through loudspeakers during the last trimester of pregnancy. The FFR was recorded to either a /da/ or an /oa/ speech-syllable stimulus. Analyses were centered on stimuli sections of identical duration (113 ms) and fundamental frequency (F₀ = 113 Hz). Neural encoding of stimuli periodicity was quantified as the FFR spectral amplitude at the stimulus F₀. Data revealed that newborns exposed daily to music exhibit larger spectral amplitudes at F₀ as compared to not-daily musically-exposed newborns, regardless of the eliciting stimulus. Our results suggest that prenatal music exposure facilitates the tuning to human speech fundamental frequency, which may support early language processing and acquisition.

Research Highlights

• Frequency-following responses to speech were collected from a sample of neonates prenatally exposed to music daily and compared to neonates not-daily exposed to music.
• Neonates who experienced daily prenatal music exposure exhibit enhanced frequency-following responses to the periodicity of speech sounds.
• Prenatal music exposure is associated with a fine-tuned encoding of human speech fundamental frequency, which may facilitate early language processing and acquisition.

     

Breast-feeding is associated with reduced perceived stress and negative mood in mothers.

Two studies examined the effects of breast-feeding on maternal stress and mood. In Experiment 1, perceived stress in the past month was compared between 28 breast-feeding and 27 bottle-feeding mothers. Breast-feeding mothers reported less perceived stress, after controlling for demographic confounds. In Experiment 2, mood ratings were assessed in the same 24 mothers both before and then after 1 breast-feeding and 1 bottle-feeding session. Breast-feeding was associated with a decrease in negative mood, and bottle-feeding was associated with a decrease in positive mood from pre- to postfeeding. Results indicated that breast-feeding buffers negative mood. These effects appeared to be attributable to the effects of breast-feeding itself and not solely to individual-differences factors.     

Collaborative coping and daily mood in couples dealing with prostate cancer

Collaborative coping (i.e., spouses pooling resources and problem solving jointly) may be associated with better daily mood because of heightened perceptions of efficacy in coping with stressful events. The study examined the daily processes of collaborative coping (individuals' perceptions that the spouse collaborated), perceived coping effectiveness (ratings of how well they dealt with the event), and mood (i.e., Positive and Negative Affect Scale) across 14 days in 57 older couples coping with stressors involving the husband's prostate cancer and daily life in general. In hierarchical multivariate linear models, collaborative coping was associated with more positive same-day mood for both husbands and wives and less negative mood for wives only. These associations were partially mediated by heightened perceptions of coping effectiveness. Exploratory analyses revealed that collaborative coping was more frequent among wives who performed more poorly on cognitive tests and couples who reported greater marital satisfaction and more frequently using collaboration to make decisions. The results suggest that older couples may benefit from collaborative coping in dealing with problems surrounding illness.     

Mindfulness meditation is associated with decreases in partner negative affect in daily life

To date, very little research has examined the extrapersonal effects of mindfulness meditation practice. In this study, we investigated whether individual meditation practice exerted an influence on friends or romantic partners. Thirty-five dyads completed an 8-week single-subject protocol using an A-B-A-B design to compare non-meditation phases with meditation phases. One member of each pair was randomly assigned to meditate daily for 15 min during the B-phases of the study; the other dyad member did not meditate in either the A or B phases. Daily diaries for each participant assessed negative affect, positive affect, and facets of mindfulness. For participants in the intermittent meditation condition, meditation was associated with decreased negative affect, increased positive affect, and higher scores on the mindfulness facets of observing, describing, and nonreactivity to inner experience. Results further demonstrated that the negative affect of non-meditating partners decreased during the weeks that their partner meditated and was lower on days that their partner meditated. We did not find similar results for positive affect or mindfulness at the group level. Exploratory analyses suggested that the extrapersonal effects of meditation days on a partner's negative affect might be stronger in romantic couples. This study indicates that 15 min of daily meditation in novice meditators can decrease the negative affect of relationship partners.     

Current negative mood encourages changes in end-of-life treatment decisions and is associated with false memories

To investigate the effects of mood on people's end-of-life treatment decisions and their false memories of those decisions, participants took part in two sessions. At Time 1, participants were experimentally induced into positive or negative moods. They decided whether they would want to receive or refuse treatments in a range of hypothetical medical scenarios, such as tube feeding while in a coma. Four weeks later, at Time 2, participants were induced into the same or the opposite mood and made these decisions a second time. They also recalled their previous decisions. Participants in negative moods at Time 2 changed more of their current decisions and falsely remembered more of their previous decisions than participants in positive moods. These findings suggest that people's current moods influence whether they change their treatment decisions; current decisions in turn bias recall of past decisions.     

Relations of daily hassles with both anxious and depressed mood in students

Stressful life experiences have been related to emotional distress, but whether different classes of stressful events are associated with different emotional reactions has not been assessed. In this study, 34 college students completed the Inventory of College Students' Recent Life Experiences, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Beck Depression Inventory. Consistent with previous research, most classes of daily hassles were significantly related to both depression and anxiety. The nonsignificant difference for one class of life experience, Friendship Problems, to be more strongly associated with anxiety than depression should be studied carefully.     

Emotion regulation and mood brightening in daily life vary with depressive symptom levels

Naturalistic studies of emotional reactivity in depression have repeatedly found larger decreases in negative affect (NA) among depressed individuals in response to daily positive events. This so-called mood-brightening (MB) effect represents a theoretical and empirical oddity. The current study is a secondary analysis investigating whether the MB effect is moderated by spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies, which have been implicated in the maintenance and modulation of NA in prior work. Participants (N?=?95) representing a large spectrum of depressive symptom severity reported their experiences of NA and the occurrence of positive events in daily life over the course of seven days using the experience sampling method. Our findings replicate and build upon those of prior studies relating to the MB effect in the following ways: (1) we observed the MB effect for specific negative emotions of sadness, anger, anxiety; and (2) we found evidence that the MB effect is moderated by spontaneous use of rumination, distraction, and expressive suppression, which have been shown to enhance or dampen NA. The role of emotion regulation strategies in daily emotional reactivity to pleasant events is discussed.     

Personality traits associated with seasonal disturbances in mood and behavior

It has recently been shown that those individuals who experience more profound seasonal disturbances in mood and behavior have increased levels of neurotic personality traits (Jang, Lam, Livesley, & Vernon, 1997; Kane & Lowis, 1999; Murray, Hay, & Armstrong, 1995). The present study however proposes that the development and nature of seasonal depressions may be better explained through consideration of the combined effects of neurotic and extraverted personality traits. Using the EPQ and the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire, personality and levels of seasonal disturbance were measured in 77 adults (16 males and 61 females). As predicted, increased levels of neurotic personality traits were associated with more profound seasonal disturbances in mood and behavior but the degree of seasonal variation in mood and behavior was equally well explained in terms of “impulsivity” as reflecting the activity of the Behavioral Activation System. Overall, it is concluded that a more integrated approach to personality could be adopted to aid the understanding of seasonal depressions.     

Factors associated with depressed mood among adolescents in Northern Ireland

This paper presents data on the pattern of self‐reported depressed mood among a sample of 887 11–15 year‐old secondary school students living in Northern Ireland. In addition, the paper examines the association between depressed mood and stressful life events, family support and perceived control. Analysis of variance of mean depression scores did not reveal main or interaction effects for age (school year) or sex. However, a school year×sex interaction effect was found when the variation in depression scores due to family cohesiveness (or support) was partialled out in an ANCOVA. In years 1 and 2, males reported higher mean depression scores than females, whereas the pattern was reversed in years 3 and 4. The co‐variates of stressful life events and perceived control did not significantly affect the pattern of mean depression scores. This would tend to suggest that the sex difference in depression found consistently with adults may begin to emerge in middle adolescence; and that the nature and level of family relationships may influence the prevalence and pattern of adolescent depression. The study found a higher mean depression score and a larger proportion of ‘cases’ (27%) than has been recorded in studies of young adolescents living outside Northern Ireland. However, the extent to which higher levels of symptomatology may be related to the politically unsettled nature of Northern Irish society is unclear. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality traits associated with seasonal disturbances in mood and behavior

It has recently been shown that those individuals who experience more profound seasonal disturbances in mood and behavior have increased levels of neurotic personality traits (Jang, Lam, Livesley, & Vernon, 1997; Kane & Lowis, 1999; Murray, Hay, & Armstrong, 1995). The present study however proposes that the development and nature of seasonal depressions may be better explained through consideration of the combined effects of neurotic and extraverted personality traits. Using the EPQ and the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire, personality and levels of seasonal disturbance were measured in 77 adults (16 males and 61 females). As predicted, increased levels of neurotic personality traits were associated with more profound seasonal disturbances in mood and behavior but the degree of seasonal variation in mood and behavior was equally well explained in terms of “impulsivity” as reflecting the activity of the Behavioral Activation System. Overall, it is concluded that a more integrated approach to personality could be adopted to aid the understanding of seasonal depressions.     

Evidence from rats that morphine tolerance is a learned response.

It is proposed that the direct analgesic effect of morphine becomes attenuated over the course of successive administrations of the narcotic by a conditioned, compensatory, hyperalgesic response elicited by the administration procedure, the net result being analgesic tolerance. Using the "hot plate" analgesia assessment situation with rats, this conditioning view of tolerance is supported by several findings: (a) It is necessary to have reliable environmental cues predicting the systemic effects of morphine if tolerance is to be observed, (b) a hyperalgesic conditioned response may be observed in morphine-tolerant subjects when drug administration cues are followed by a placebo, and (c) merely by repeatedly presenting environmental cues previously associated with morphine (but now presented with a placebo), morphine tolerance can be extinguished.     

Beyond positive or negative: variability in daily parent-adolescent interaction quality is associated with adolescent emotion dysregulation

Previous work on the contribution of family environments to adolescent emotion dysregulation has tended to focus on broad parenting characteristics (such as warmth); however, it is possible that day-to-day variability in parenting may also relate to emotion dysregulation. The current study sought to test whether inconsistency in the quality of daily parent-youth interactions related to multiple indices of emotion dysregulation in adolescents. Two-hundred-twenty-two adolescents (ages 13–16; 53% female) participated with one parent. Adolescents completed 14-days of diary reporting on the quality of interactions with their parent (negative/neutral/positive) and their emotion dysregulation experiences for each day. Analyses reveal that, beyond the effects of average interaction quality, adolescents with greater variability in the quality of their interactions with their parent reported greater average emotion dysregulation across the days of diary recording and demonstrated greater variability in their ratings of daily emotion dysregulation. Findings were not accounted for by parental warmth or hostility, parent-reported trait-level emotion regulation, or day-level associations between study variables. In these ways, greater variability – and not merely greater negativity – during interactions between parents and adolescents was related to adolescent emotion dysregulation, suggesting that consistency in parent–adolescent relationships may be an important dimension of psychosocial risk to consider within families.     

Evidence that episodic memory impairment during tobacco abstinence is independent of attentional mechanisms

Previous studies have demonstrated reductions in episodic memory during nicotine withdrawal. However, these studies have been unable to dissociate memory reductions from losses in attention associated with tobacco abstinence. In the present study, the authors sought to determine whether episodic memory reduction is a primary effect of nicotine withdrawal during tobacco abstinence. Heavy smokers were tested when smoking normally and following 24 hrs of abstinence. Participants were tested with a recognition memory task in which items were studied under full and divided attention conditions. Forward digit span and backward digit span were also included as control measures. Withdrawal was associated with a reduction in memory performance that was independent of attention at encoding. The authors conclude that impairment of episodic memory is a primary effect of nicotine withdrawal during tobacco abstinence. Further research is required to determine if this is associated with continued use of tobacco and cessation failures.