Quality of life after quitting smoking and initiating aerobic exercise

Quitting smoking and aerobic exercise each improve health. Although smokers may be concerned that quitting smoking will reduce their quality of life (QOL), recent research has shown that cessation is associated with QOL benefits. Elements of smoking cessation interventions, such as exercise, may contribute to changes in QOL. However, it is unknown whether initiating exercise in the context of smoking cessation is associated with greater or different effects on QOL than smoking cessation alone. The current study is a secondary analysis of data from a randomized trial (n = 61) of an exercise intervention for smoking cessation. We hypothesized that smoking abstinence and engagement in exercise would have positive, additive effects on QOL at end-of-treatment, 6- and, 12-month follow-ups. Sedentary adult smokers were randomized to the exercise intervention or a health education control (HEC) group. Additionally, all participants received smoking cessation counseling and nicotine patches. Data were analyzed using actual engagement in exercise, rather than group assignment as a proxy for exercise engagement, because some HEC participants also began exercising. Abstinence was positively associated with higher total and physical health QOL at follow-up. Exercise was not associated with total QOL and only marginally associated with physical health QOL, but was positively related to overall sense of well-being. Emphasizing that smoking cessation is associated with higher QOL may help motivate smokers to initiate quit attempts.     

Balance Performance During Perturbed Standing Is Not Associated With Muscle Strength and Power in Young Adults

The authors investigate the ways in which varied postural responses to translating platform perturbations are associated with the variables of strength and power. Twenty-four physically active and 27 sedentary young adults were exposed to a set of postural perturbations at varied velocities (10 and 20 cm/s) and the respective accelerations (6.4 and 6.9 m/s²), constant distance (6 cm), and 4 directions of platform motion (forward, backward, left-lateral, and right-lateral). They also performed maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVC) and chair rising/chair jumping tests. The analysis of variance revealed significant interaction effect for peak center of pressure displacement, direction by velocity: F_3,129 = 24.43, p = .002; and direction by acceleration: F_3,129 = 34.18, p = .001. There were no significant correlations between peak center of pressure displacements and peak force and peak rate of force development measured during MVC in either standing (r = .27–57) or sitting positions (r = .12–51) and peak power during chair jumping (r = .47–.59) in all participants. As such, only a small proportion of variance was explained (9–39%, 3–23%, and 23–41%, respectively). In conclusion, interaction effects indicate that the composition of stimuli strongly influences compensatory responses and this effect is more pronounced in sedentary than in physically active young adults. Nevertheless, the dynamic balance is not associated with muscle strength and power in either group.     

Affective incoherence: when affective concepts and embodied reactions clash

In five studies, the authors examined the effects on cognitive performance of coherence and incoherence between conceptual and experiential sources of affective information. The studies crossed the priming of happy and sad concepts with affective experiences. In different experiments, these included approach or avoidance actions, happy or sad feelings, and happy or sad expressive behaviors. In all studies, coherence between affective concepts and affective experiences led to better recall of a story than did affective incoherence. The authors suggest that the experience of such experiential affective cues serves as evidence of the appropriateness of affective concepts that come to mind. The results suggest that affective coherence has epistemic benefits and that incoherence is costly in terms of cognitive performance.     

Trust amply recompensed: psychological research at Weyburn, Saskatchewan, 1957-1961

During the 1950s and 1960s professionals intensely debated the prospect of changes in the mental health system, largely as a result of the introduction of new therapies, revised theories of mental disorder, and shifting policies governing mental health accommodation. As well as giving rise to new subspecialties within medicine, psychiatrists in some jurisdictions at this time worked closely with psychologists in an attempt to offer a more comprehensive set of options that merged theory with practice. In Saskatchewan, mental health professionals worked closely with government officials and bureaucrats and produced a variety of innovative strategies that addressed changing priorities in this system. This article examines the role played by psychologists in Saskatchewan during this period as they worked cooperatively with psychiatrists and bureaucrats to merge medical, psychological, and political perspectives in a system aimed at accommodating mental illness in the wake of new theories and treatments that questioned the efficacy of care in institutionalized settings in the wake of growing suggestions for care in the community.     

Upper-left gaze bias reveals competing search strategies in a reverse Stroop task

Three experiments with a total of 87 human observers revealed an upper-left spatial bias in the initial movement of gaze during visual search. The bias was present whether or not the explicit control of gaze was required for the task. This bias may be part of a search strategy that competed with the fixed-gaze parallel search strategy hypothesized by Durgin [Durgin, F. H. (2003). Translation and competition among internal representations in a reverse Stroop effect. Perception &Psychophysics, 65, 367-378.] for this task. When the spatial probabilities of the search target were manipulated either in accord with or in opposition to the existing upper-left bias, two orthogonal factors of interference in the latency data were differentially affected. The two factors corresponded to two different forms of representation and search. Target probabilities consistent with the gaze bias encouraged opportunistic serial search (including gaze shifts), while symmetrically opposing target probabilities produced latency patterns more consistent with parallel search based on a sensory code.     

Working memory and inhibition across the adult life-span

Research has shown that age-related changes in cognitive performance are due mostly to the decline of general factors such as working memory and inhibition. The present study is aimed at investigating age-related changes in these mechanisms across the adult life-span from 20 to 86 years of age. Results indicate a linear relationship between each working memory measure and age, independently of the nature of the task, and a quadratic relationship between the single inhibitory measures and age. Moreover, hierarchical regression analyses show that inhibition accounts for a significant, but modest, part of the age-related variance in working memory. Taken together, these results suggest that inhibition is not as crucial a contributor of age-related changes in the functional capacity of working memory across the adult life-span as previously thought.     

Effects of alcohol sensitivity on P3 event-related potential reactivity to alcohol cues.

Although alcoholics and individuals at risk for alcoholism often show smaller amplitude of the P3 event-related brain potential (ERP), recent data (K. Namkoong, E. Lee, C. H. Lee, B. O. Lee, & S. K. An, 2004) indicate that alcohol-related cues elicit larger P3 amplitude in alcoholics than in controls. Little is known concerning the ERP profiles or alcohol cue reactivity of social drinkers at risk for alcoholism due to low sensitivity to alcohol's effects. Participants differing in alcohol sensitivity viewed images of alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages while ERPs were recorded and provided information about their alcohol use patterns at baseline and 4 months later. Compared to high-sensitivity participants, those low in sensitivity showed larger P3s to alcohol cues, even when recent alcohol use was statistically controlled for. Moreover, the P3 elicited by alcohol cues predicted alcohol use at follow-up, a finding supporting the idea that P3 amplitude reflects the motivational significance of substance-related cues. These findings point to risk status, not consumption history, as an important predictor of cue reactivity effects.     

Prospective associations of co-rumination with friendship and emotional adjustment: considering the socioemotional trade-offs of co-rumination

Co-ruminating, or excessively discussing problems, with friends is proposed to have adjustment tradeoffs. Co-rumination is hypothesized to contribute both to positive friendship adjustment and to problematic emotional adjustment. Previous single-assessment research was consistent with this hypothesis, but whether co-rumination is an antecedent of adjustment changes was unknown. A 6-month longitudinal study with middle childhood to midadolescent youths examined whether co-rumination is simultaneously a risk factor (for depression and anxiety) and a protective factor (for friendship problems). For girls, a reciprocal relationship was found in which co-rumination predicted increased depressive and anxiety symptoms and increased positive friendship quality over time, which, in turn, contributed to greater co-rumination. For boys, having depressive and anxiety symptoms and high-quality friendships also predicted increased co-rumination. However, for boys, co-rumination predicted only increasing positive friendship quality and not increasing depression and anxiety. An implication of this research is that some girls at risk for developing internalizing problems may go undetected because they have seemingly supportive friendships.     

The Impact of Contextual Self‐Ratings and Observer Ratings of Personality on the Personality–Performance Relationship1

This study examined 2 possible ways of increasing the predictive validity of personality measures: using observer (i.e., supervisor and coworker) ratings and work‐specific self‐ratings of Big Five personality factors. Results indicated that among general self‐ratings of Big Five personality dimensions, Conscientiousness was the best predictor of in‐role performance, and Agreeableness and Emotional Stability were the best predictors of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Observer ratings of personality accounted for incremental variance in job performance (in‐role performance and OCB) beyond that accounted for by general self‐ratings. However, contrary to our expectations, work‐specific (i.e., contextual) self‐ratings of personality generally did not account for incremental variance in job performance beyond that accounted for by general self‐ratings.     

Pubertal development and behavior: Hormonal activation of social and motivational tendencies

Adolescence is a time of dramatic changes including rapid physical growth, the onset of sexual maturation, the activation of new drives and motivations, and a wide array of social and affective changes and challenges. This review focuses on behavioral changes in this interval and is organized by the claim that a key set of these adolescent changes are part of a more general re-orientation of social behavior. More specifically we hypothesize that pubertal maturation is associated with the activation of social and motivational tendencies, which in turn influence behavior and emotion in adolescence depending upon interactions with social context. We focus on evidence for two examples of these motivational changes: (1) increases in sensation-seeking (motivational tendency to want to experience high-intensity, exciting experiences) and (2) stronger natural interest in—and pursuit of—contact with peers and potential romantic partners. We consider how these motivational changes contribute to the broader social re-orientation of adolescence, including exploration of social experiences, development of skills and knowledge relevant to taking on adult social roles, individuation from family, and establishment of an individual identity, all of which represent core developmental tasks during this period in the life span ( 9, 16 and 62). The paper also emphasizes the importance of investigating and understanding the direct influences of puberty on behavior and disentangling these from the broader set of changes during adolescent development.