Do people ruminate because they haven’t digested their goals? The relations of rumination and reflection to goal internalization and ambivalence

In three studies it was investigated whether rumination was related to less internalized self-regulation and goals and whether reflection was related to more internalized self-regulation and goals. In all studies students completed questionnaires measuring rumination, reflection, and internalization of self-regulation and goals. In Study 1, rumination was related to less internalized self-regulation, whereas reflection was related to more internalized self-regulation. In Study 2, rumination was related to less internalized self-regulation and goals as well as to more avoidance- and extrinsic content of goals. Reflection was related to more internalized self-regulation and goals as well as to less avoidance content of goals. In Study 3, goal-specific rumination was related to less internalized goals and goal-specific reflection was related to more internalized goals. Collectively, the studies suggest that internalization of self-regulation and goals is critical for distinguishing between unconstructive and constructive self-focused repetitive thoughts.     

Reweighing the Ethical Tradeoffs in the Involuntary Hospitalization of Suicidal Patients

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States and the second cause of death among those ages 15–24 years. The current standard of care for suicidality management often involves an involuntary hospitalization deemed necessary by the attending psychiatrist. The purpose of this article is to reexamine the ethical tradeoffs inherent in the current practice of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization for suicidal patients, calling attention to the often-neglected harms inherent in this practice and proposing a path for future research. With accumulating evidence of the harms inherent in civil commitment, we propose that the relative value of this intervention needs to be reevaluated and more efficacious alternatives researched. Three arguments are presented: (1) that inadequate attention has been given to the harms resulting from the use of coercion and the loss of autonomy, (2) that inadequate evidence exists that involuntary hospitalization is an effective method to reduce deaths by suicide, and (3) that some suicidal patients may benefit more from therapeutic interventions that maximize and support autonomy and personal responsibility. Considering this evidence, we argue for a policy that limits the coercive hospitalization of suicidal individuals to those who lack decision-making capacity.     

Relationships among Personal Life Stories,Vicarious Life Stories about Mothers and Fathers,and Well-being

We examined whether vicarious life stories about mothers and fathers differed in their relationships with personal life stories and well-being. Seventy-six emerging adults completed scales measuring well-being and described three chapters in their personal, mothers’, and fathers’ life stories. Chapters were self-rated and content coded for emotional tone and positive/negative person change. Characteristics of personal life stories were positively correlated with characteristics of vicarious life stories for mothers and fathers. Personal life stories were higher on positive person change than vicarious life stories about mothers and fathers. Higher well-being was related to rating all three life stories as more positive, but results for content coding were more mixed. The results indicate that vicarious life stories for mothers and fathers are related in similar ways to personal life stories and well-being.     

The effects of attention on speech perception: an fMRI study

Focusing of attention to a specific speech source plays an important role in everyday speech perception. However, little is known of the neuronal substrates of focused attention in speech perception. Thus, the present study investigated the effects on neuronal activation of directed attention to auditory stimuli that differed in semantic content. Using an event-related fMRI protocol, single vowels, three-phoneme pseudowords and three- and four-phoneme real nouns and words were randomly presented to the subjects during four different instructional conditions. One condition was passive listening without any specific instructions of focusing of attention. The other conditions were attention focused on either the vowels, the pseudowords or the words. Thus, the acoustic stimulation was constant across conditions. The subjects were 13 healthy adults. Functional MRI was performed with a 1.5 T scanner, using an event-related design. During passive listening, there were significant activations bilaterally in the superior temporal gyrus. Instruction to attend to the pseudowords caused activation in middle temporal lobe areas, extending more anterior compared to the activations seen during passive listening. Instruction to attend to the vowel sounds caused an increase in activation in the superior/medial temporal lobe, with a leftward asymmetry. Instruction to attend to the words caused a leftward asymmetry, particularly in the middle and superior temporal gyri. It is concluded that attention plays a modulatory role in neuronal activation to speech sounds, producing specific activations to specific stimulus categories that may act to facilitate speech perception.     

Snapshots from therapy: exploring operationalisations and ways of studying flashbulb memories for private events

A total of 13 clients (10 women and 3 men, mean age 32.85 years, SD 10.50) were interviewed after finishing group therapy, and 7 were re-interviewed 4-5 months later. The clients recounted all the specific episodes they remembered from the therapy. The memories were classified as flashbulb memories or non-flashbulb memories according to two different criteria: consistency and phenomenological clarity. Clients had flashbulb memories from therapy according to both operationalisations. Flashbulb memories according to a phenomenology-based operationalisation referred to more unusual episodes and more often to episodes associated with insight than non-flashbulb memories. The consistency operationalisation did not differentiate between flashbulb and non-flashbulb memories with respect to characteristics of the remembered events. Number of remembered episodes was positively related to the subjective evaluation of the therapy.     

EARLY REGULATION IN CHILDREN WHO ARE LATER DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER. A LONGITUDINAL STUDY WITHIN THE DANISH NATIONAL BIRTH COHORT

Studies have shown that children later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in their first years of life might show symptoms in main developmental areas and that these signs might be sensed by the parents. The present study investigated in a large birth cohort if children later diagnosed with ASD had deviations at 6 and 18 months in areas such as the ability to self‐regulate emotions, feeding, and sleeping. The study was based on prospective information collected from 76,322 mothers who participated in the Danish National Birth Cohort. When the children reached an average age of 11 years, 973 children with ASD and a control group of 300 children with intellectual disability (IDnoASD) were identified via Danish health registries. Associations were found between short periods of breast‐feeding and the children later diagnosed with ASD and IDnoASD as well as associations at 18 months to deviations in regulation of emotions and activity. The similarities in these associations emphasize how difficult it is to distinguish between diagnoses early in life.     

Physical fitness and prior physical activity are both associated with less cortisol secretion during psychosocial stress

Background: Evidence linking fitness and decreased psychosocial stress comes from studies of athletes and typically relies upon self-report measures. Furthermore, there is little evidence regarding the impact of physical activity (PA) prior to a stressor. The aims of this study were to determine whether fitness and prior PA influence cortisol concentrations during psychosocial stress.

Methods: Seventy-five non-athletic participants took part in a submaximal walk prior to the Trier Social Stress Test for Groups (TSST-G). During the walk, fitness was assessed using heart rate (HR). A further 89 participants took part in the TSST-G without the walk. Stress responsiveness was assessed using salivary cortisol collected at 10-min intervals on seven occasions.

Results: Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that average walking HR accounted for 9% of the variance in cortisol secretion (P?=?.016), where a higher HR was associated with higher cortisol secretion. Between-subjects ANCOVA revealed that the walking group had a significantly lower cortisol secretion than the non-walking group (P?=?.009).

Conclusions: These findings indicate that fitter individuals have reduced cortisol secretion during psychosocial stress. They also indicate that prior PA can reduce cortisol concentrations during psychosocial stress and are suggestive of a role of PA in reducing the impact of stress on health.     

When Home Is Where the Harm Is: Family Betrayal and Posttraumatic Outcomes in Young Adulthood

Research on institutional betrayal has found that institutional wrongdoing that fails to prevent or respond supportively to victims of abuse adds to the burden of trauma. In this two-study investigation with young adult university students, we demonstrated parallels between institutional betrayal and ways that families can fail to prevent or respond supportively to child abuse perpetrated by a trusted other, a phenomenon we call family betrayal (FB). In Study 1, psychometric analysis of a new FB questionnaire provided evidence of its internal consistency, unidimensionality, and convergent and discriminant validity. The majority (approximately 72%) of young adults abused in childhood reported a history of FB, with an average of 4.26 FB events (SD = 4.45, range 0–14). Consistent with betrayal trauma theory, Study 2 revealed that FB was 4× more likely to occur in relation to childhood abuse by someone very close to the victim (vs. non-interpersonal victimization), with a particularly strong effect for female participants. FB history predicted significant delay to disclosure of a self-identified worst traumatic event (η_p² = .017) and significant increases in dissociation (?R² = .05) and posttraumatic stress (?R² = .07) symptoms in young adulthood. Moreover, with FB in the regression models, only FB—not child abuse nor recent interpersonal victimization—predicted dissociation and clinically significant elevations in posttraumatic stress. Findings suggest that FB is a prevalent phenomenon among young adults abused as children and that it explains unique, clinically significant variance in posttraumatic distress, warranting increased attention from trauma researchers and clinicians.