Understanding risk for psychopathology through imaging gene-environment interactions

Examining the interplay of genes, experience and the brain is crucial to understanding psychopathology. We review the recent gene-environment interaction (G×E) and imaging genetics literature with the goal of developing models to bridge these approaches within single imaging gene-environment interaction (IG×E) studies. We explore challenges inherent in both G×E and imaging genetics and highlight studies that address these limitations. In specifying IG×E models, we examine statistical methods for combining these approaches, and explore plausible biological mechanisms (e.g. epigenetics) through which these conditional mechanisms can be understood. Finally, we discuss the potential contribution that IG×E studies can make to understanding psychopathology and developing more personalized and effective prevention and treatment.     

Robustness and idealization in models of cognitive labor

Scientific research is almost always conducted by communities of scientists of varying size and complexity. Such communities are effective, in part, because they divide their cognitive labor: not every scientist works on the same project. Philip Kitcher and Michael Strevens have pioneered efforts to understand this division of cognitive labor by proposing models of how scientists make decisions about which project to work on. For such models to be useful, they must be simple enough for us to understand their dynamics, but faithful enough to reality that we can use them to analyze real scientific communities. To satisfy the first requirement, we must employ idealizations to simplify the model. The second requirement demands that these idealizations not be so extreme that we lose the ability to describe real-world phenomena. This paper investigates the status of the assumptions that Kitcher and Strevens make in their models, by first inquiring whether they are reasonable representations of reality, and then by checking the models’ robustness against weakenings of these assumptions. To do this, we first argue against the reality of the assumptions, and then develop a series of agent-based simulations to systematically test their effects on model outcomes. We find that the models are not robust against weakenings of these idealizations. In fact we find that under certain conditions, this can lead to the model predicting outcomes that are qualitatively opposite of the original model outcomes.     

Daily emotional dynamics in depressed youth: a cell phone ecological momentary assessment study

This study used a new cell phone ecological momentary assessment approach to investigate daily emotional dynamics in 47 youths with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 32 no-psychopathology controls (CON) (ages 7-17 years). Information about emotional experience in the natural environment was obtained using answer-only cell phones, while MDD youths received an 8-week course of cognitive behavioral therapy and/or psychopharmacological treatment. Compared with CON youths, MDD youths reported more intense and labile global negative affect; greater sadness, anger, and nervousness; and a lower ratio of positive to negative affect. These differences increased with pubertal maturation. MDD youths spent more time alone and less time with their families than CON youths. Although differences in emotional experiences were found across social contexts, MDD youths were more negative than CON youths in all contexts examined. As the MDD participants progressed through treatment, diagnostic group differences in the intensity and lability of negative affect decreased, but there were no changes in the ratio of positive to negative affect or in measures of social context. We discuss methodological innovations and advantages of this approach, including improved ecological validity and access to information about variability in emotions, change in emotions over time, the balance of positive and negative emotions, and the social context of emotional experience.     

Hemispheric laterality measured in Rembrandt's portraits using pupil diameter and aesthetic verbal judgements

Eckhard Hess claimed that pupils dilate to pleasant images and constrict to unpleasant images. However, his work was confounded since his image's luminances and contrasts across conditions were inconsistent. We overcome this limitation and suggest a new, promising methodology for research in this area. We presented rightward or leftward facing male and female portraits by Rembrandt to observers in either their original or mirror-reversed position. Since emotional content may be expressed differently on each side of the face, we used Rembrandt's portraits since most of his males had their right-cheek exposed and females had their left-cheek exposed. This raises questions regarding the emotional and cognitive significance of such biased positioning. Simultaneously, we measured observers pupil size while asking observers to report how (dis)pleasing they found each image. We found that in viewing male portraits pupil diameter was a function of arousal. That is, larger pupil diameter occurred for images rated both low and high in pleasantness. We discuss these findings in regard to the perceived dominance of males and how emotional expressions may be driven by hemispheric laterality.     

Being of two minds: Switching mindsets exhausts self-regulatory resources

The human psyche is equipped with the capacity to solve problems using different mental states or mindsets. Different mindsets can lead to different judgment and decision making styles, each associated with its own perspective and biases. To change perspective, people can, and often do, switch mindsets. We argue, however, that mindset switching can be costly for subsequent decisions. We propose that mindset switching is an executive function that relies on the same psychological resource that governs other acts of executive functioning, including self-regulation. This implies that there are psychic costs to switching mindsets that are borne out in depleted executive resources. One implication of this framework is that switching mindsets should render people more likely to fail at subsequent self-regulation than they would if maintaining a consistent mindset. The findings from experiments that manipulated mindset switching in five domains support this model.     

Extending Religion-Health Research to Secular Minorities: Issues and Concerns

Claims about religion’s beneficial effects on physical and psychological health have received substantial attention in popular media, but empirical support for these claims is mixed. Many of these claims are tenuous because they fail to address basic methodological issues relating to construct validity, sampling methods or analytical problems. A more conceptual problem has to do with the near universal lack of atheist control samples. While many studies include samples of individuals classified as “low spirituality” or religious “nones”, these groups are heterogeneous and contain only a fraction of members who would be considered truly secular. We illustrate the importance of including an atheist control group whenever possible in the religiosity/spirituality and health research and discuss areas for further investigation.     

The presence of a calling and academic satisfaction: Examining potential mediators

The present study examined the relation of calling and academic satisfaction with a diverse sample of 312 undergraduate students. The presence of a calling was moderately correlated with academic satisfaction, and a multiple mediation model was utilized to test three potential mediators to this relation: career decision self-efficacy, work hope, and meaning in life. Using bootstrapping techniques, significant indirect effects were found for two of the three mediators, career decision self-efficacy, and work hope. After including the mediators in the model, the relation of calling and academic satisfaction was non-significant. These results indicate that calling relates to greater satisfaction in the academic domain in part because of increased career decision self-efficacy and work hope. Directions for future research are discussed.