Resistance,reactance, and misinterpretation: Highlighting the challenge of persuading people with depression to seek help

Interventions that increase help‐seeking among people with depression have the potential to save lives. Several efforts have been impressively successful; however, research has also chronicled inconsistent results, with some endeavors indicating boomerang effects. The goal of the current analysis is to synthesize select findings from cognitive theorizing on depression with persuasion scholarship to explain how and why the combination of unfavorable attitudes toward help‐seeking, attitudes that are increasingly resistant to influence, psychological reactance, and cognitive errors can result in challenging responses to messages encouraging help‐seeking among people with depression. In addition, we highlight the importance of utilizing theory‐based approaches to circumvent resistance to persuasion and provide an explanation as to why the provision of immediate help‐seeking mechanisms could be a key aspect of successful intervention efforts. We also stress the importance of formative research and pilot testing, and warn against the potentially harmful error of assessing messages targeting people with depression on those without heightened levels of depressive symptomatology. Ideally, this effort will draw attention to the challenge of persuading people with depression to seek help and also motivate social psychologists to consider the ways they can use their craft to positively influence the health and well‐being of people with depression.     

The organization of narrative discourse in Lewy body spectrum disorder

Narrative discourse is an essential component of day-to-day communication, but little is known about narrative in Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including Parkinson’s disease (PD), Parkinson’s disease with dementia (PDD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We performed a detailed analysis of a semi-structured speech sample in 32 non-aphasic patients with LBSD, and we related their narrative impairments to gray matter (GM) atrophy using voxel-based morphometry. We found that patients with PDD and DLB have significant difficulty organizing their narrative speech. This was correlated with deficits on measures of executive functioning and speech fluency. Regression analyses associated this deficit with reduced cortical volume in inferior frontal and anterior cingulate regions. These findings are consistent with a model of narrative discourse that includes executive as well as language components and with an impairment of the organizational component of narrative discourse in patients with PDD and DLB.     

Visual word recognition is accompanied by covert articulation: evidence for a speech-like phonological representation

Two lexical decision task (LDT) experiments examined whether visual word recognition involves the use of a speech-like phonological code that may be generated via covert articulation. In Experiment 1, each visual item was presented with an irrelevant spoken word (ISW) that was either phonologically identical, similar, or dissimilar to it. An ISW delayed classification of a visual word when the two were phonologically similar, and it delayed the classification of a pseudoword when it was identical to the base word from which the pseudoword was derived. In Experiment 2, a LDT was performed with and without articulatory suppression, and pseudowords consisted of regular pseudowords and pseudohomophones. Articulatory suppression decreased sound-specific ISW effects for words and regular pseudowords but not for pseudohomophones. These findings indicate that the processing of an orthographically legal letter sequence generally involves the specification of more than one sound code, one of which involves covert articulation.     

Promotion of Sexual Health and Sexual Responsibility in Women’s Health and Men’s Health Magazines

This study analyzed the promotion of sexual health and sexual responsibility in Women’s Health and Men’s Health magazines as characterized by the Surgeon General’s Call to Action along with sexual health objectives targeted by Healthy People 2020 and sexual healthy behavior outcomes established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This study also identified the most frequently addressed sexual health topics included in Women’s Health and Men’s Health. Two coders conducted a content analysis of a total of 599 articles from 64 issues (32 Women’s Health and 32 Men’s Health) published between January 2009 and November 2012. More than half of all articles addressing sexual health were found to promote sexual health (57 %). Promotion of sexual responsibility was rare with variables such as ensuring that pregnancy occurs only when desired, recognition and tolerance for diversity, limiting the number of sexual partners, and using birth control consistently each mentioned in <3 % of articles in this study sample. Among topics coded, improving sex life (29 %), what men like (19 %), and what women like (18 %) were the most common in Women’s Health while What women like (46 %), improving sex life (27 %), and other men’s sexual health (16 %) were the most frequent topics in Men’s Health. Among the least common topics mentioned were homosexuality (0.16 %) and HIV/AIDS (0.33 %). No articles addressed rape or dating violence.     

Effects of dialect on merger perception: ERP and behavioral correlates

Native speakers of a language are often unable to consciously perceive, and have altered neural responses to, phonemic contrasts not present in their language. This study examined whether speakers of dialects of the same language with different phoneme inventories also show measurably different neural responses to contrasts not present in their dialect. Speakers with (n=11) and without (n=11) an American English I/E (pin/pen) vowel merger in speech production were asked to discriminate perceptually between minimal pairs of words that contrasted in the critical vowel merger and minimal pairs of control words while their event-related potential (ERPs) were recorded. Compared with unmerged dialect speakers, merged dialect speakers were less able to make behavioral discriminations and exhibited a reduced late positive ERP component (LPC) effect to incongruent merger vowel stimuli. These results indicate that between dialects of a single language, the behavioral response differences may reflect neural differences related to conscious phonological decision processes.     

From Insult to Injury: Explaining the Impact of Incivility

Previous research has demonstrated that violence, harassment, and discrimination have negative consequences for individual well-being. However, this literature has focused less on subtle forms of mistreatment, such as incivility. The current study addresses this gap by developing and testing a conceptual model of incivility, as experienced in institutions of higher education. A survey of 1,043 university students revealed that over 75% had experienced uncivil behavior from other members of their institution in the prior year. Structural equation analyses suggest that these incivility targets endured psychological distress, dissatisfaction with and disengagement from their institution, and performance decline. We also identified perceptions of injustice and ostracism as key mediators in this process, which operated somewhat differently depending on the formal institutional status of the incivility instigator. Implications for theory and research are discussed.     

Emotional Intelligence,Relationship Satisfaction,and the Moderating Effect of ADHD Symptomatology

The present cross-sectional study examined the extent to which ADHD symptomatology moderated the association between emotional intelligence (EI) and relationship satisfaction. A sample of 139 undergraduate students completed self-report measures of ADHD symptomatology, romantic relationship satisfaction, and EI. Hierarchical regression analysis found a significant interaction between emotional intelligence and ADHD symptomatology in their associations with relationship satisfaction while controlling for comorbid depressive symptoms. Simple slopes analyses revealed that EI was positively associated with relationship satisfaction among individuals with higher ADHD symptomatology, but not significantly associated among individuals with lower ADHD symptomatology. These results suggest that EI might play a particularly important role in the relationship quality of individuals with ADHD symptomatology and suggest an important topic for future research.     

Betrayed? That’s Me: Implicit and Explicit Betrayed Self-Concept in Young Adults Abused as Children

Attenuated awareness of betrayal, or “betrayal blindness,” is a proposed survival mechanism in relationships where awareness of betrayal will mobilize confront-or-withdraw responses that jeopardize a needed relationship. Empirical tests of betrayal blindness and its effects are hampered by the methodological conundrum of how to measure an absence of awareness. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity of a novel empirical method to measure implicit betrayed self-concept, the first step in a long-term research aim to operationalize “betrayal blindness.” Informed by betrayal trauma theory, we hypothesized that a history of betrayal within close childhood relationships (but not recent close relationships or “not-close” relationships) would predict implicit betrayed-self associations in young adulthood. An adaptation of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and measured implicit and explicit betrayed-self associations and self-reported history of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse in 529 university undergraduates was designed. Internal consistency reliability of the betrayed self IAT was low but adequate. Hierarchical regression modeling revealed that history of abuse within close childhood relationships (but not recent close relationships or “not-close” relationships) predicted betrayed-self IAT scores. The effect size was small, β = .12, p < .05, 95% CI [.01, .07], R² = .12. In addition, history of betrayal by someone close (but not someone “not close”) at any age predicted increased explicit evaluations of the self as betrayed versus respected, a small effect size, R² = .16. Findings indicate that implicit betrayed self-concept can be measured empirically.