I fear your envy, I rejoice in your coveting: on the ambivalent experience of being envied by others

We present 2 studies on being envied. Study 1 used an emotional narrative methodology. We asked 44 Spanish (23 women, 21 men) and 48 European American (36 women, 12 men) participants to tell us about a recent experience in which others envied them. We classified the antecedents, relationship context, markers of envy, coping strategies, and positive and negative implications of being envied. In Study 2, 174 Spanish (88 women, 86 men) and 205 European American (106 women, 99 men) participants responded to a situation in which they had something someone else wanted. We manipulated the object of desire (academic achievement or having "a better life"). We measured individual differences in orientation to achievement (i.e., vertical individualism), cooperation and interpersonal harmony (i.e., horizontal collectivism), a zero-sum view of success, beliefs that success begets hostile coveting, fear of success, and dispositional envy. We also measured participants' appraisals, positive and negative emotions, and coping strategies. The findings from both studies indicate that being envied has both positive (e.g., increased self-confidence) and negative consequences (e.g., fear of ill will from others). Being envied had more positive and more negative psychological and relational consequences among those participants who were achievement oriented (European Americans) than among participants who were oriented to cooperation and interpersonal harmony (Spanish).     

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND WOMEN'S MENTAL HEALTH IN CHILE

Domestic violence against women is a pervasive, global health problem. This study investigates the correlates and psychological outcomes of domestic abuse among women in a semi-industrial country. The participants included 215 mothers residing in working-class communities located on the outskirts of Santiago, Chile. We utilized structural equation modeling to test the hypothesis that poverty and other structural inequalities would be related to incidents of domestic abuse in Chile, as they are in the United States. Our results suggest that lower socioeconomic status, even within poor communities, and stressful life events have a direct relationship to domestic conflict. Domestic abuse was, in turn, associated with women's mental health such that greater domestic conflict was related to higher reports of depressive affect and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. The importance of identifying similarities and differences in the occurrence of domestic violence in developing countries as compared to industrialized countries is discussed.     

Quality of Life (QoL) in a Brazilian Sample of Older Adults: The Role of Sociodemographic Variables and Depression Symptoms

The aim of the present study was to identify relevant variables associated with Quality of Life (QoL) in older adults. Older adults, up to 60 years old, were interviewed. Subjects were recruited through convenience sampling. 339 paticipants, who were stratified by gender, age, and subjective perception of health and illness, answered questions on sociodemographic issues, QoL (WHOQOL-100) and depressive symptomathology (Beck Depression Inventory—BDI). The multiple linear regression analysis showed associations of overall perception of QoL with depression levels, subjective perception of health status and gender. The individual analysis of each domain concluded that depression levels are correlated to all QoL domains, while health status was associated with physical, psychological, independence level and social relationship domains. Other variables were also assessed. The assessment of older adults concerning their QoL perceptions is associated with gender, age, marital status, social class, literacy rate, perception of health, and more substantially associated with depressive symptoms levels. Nevertheless, some limitations of this study and further ones are suggested.     

What about the “ups and downs” in our daily life? The influence of affective instability on mental health

Although affective instability is considered to be a crucial factor for mental disorders, research on affective instability and mental health is still rare. The aim of the present study was to investigate affective instability and mental health operationalized by the degree of psychological distress and life satisfaction. Using ecological momentary assessment, we investigated affective intensity and instability in a general population sample (n = 218). Psychological distress and life satisfaction were examined cross-sectionally and longitudinally. In general, we found that positive affect was more variable than negative affect. When we accounted for the overlap between variables, our findings demonstrated that besides the effects of intensity in negative affect and positive affect, higher positive affective instability was related to better concurrent mental health. Longitudinally, negative affective intensity was a decisive factor in the development of mental health. In sum, our findings revealed that affective instability was not dysfunctional per se. In fact, instability in positive affect seems to be important to achieve mental health.     

Does input influence uptake? Links between maternal talk,processing speed and vocabulary size in Spanish‐learning children

It is well established that variation in caregivers’ speech is associated with language outcomes, yet little is known about the learning principles that mediate these effects. This longitudinal study (n = 27) explores whether Spanish‐learning children's early experiences with language predict efficiency in real‐time comprehension and vocabulary learning. Measures of mothers’ speech at 18 months were examined in relation to children's speech processing efficiency and reported vocabulary at 18 and 24 months. Children of mothers who provided more input at 18 months knew more words and were faster in word recognition at 24 months. Moreover, multiple regression analyses indicated that the influences of caregiver speech on speed of word recognition and vocabulary were largely overlapping. This study provides the first evidence that input shapes children's lexical processing efficiency and that vocabulary growth and increasing facility in spoken word comprehension work together to support the uptake of the information that rich input affords the young language learner.     

Musicians' working memory for tones, words, and pseudowords

Studies investigating factors that influence tone recognition generally use recognition tests, whereas the majority of the studies on verbal material use self-generated responses in the form of serial recall tests. In the present study we intended to investigate whether tonal and verbal materials share the same cognitive mechanisms, by presenting an experimental instrument that evaluates short-term and working memories for tones, using self-generated sung responses that may be compared to verbal tests. This paradigm was designed according to the same structure of the forward and backward digit span tests, but using digits, pseudowords, and tones as stimuli. The profile of amateur singers and professional singers in these tests was compared in forward and backward digit, pseudoword, tone, and contour spans. In addition, an absolute pitch experimental group was included, in order to observe the possible use of verbal labels in tone memorization tasks. In general, we observed that musical schooling has a slight positive influence on the recall of tones, as opposed to verbal material, which is not influenced by musical schooling. Furthermore, the ability to reproduce melodic contours (up and down patterns) is generally higher than the ability to reproduce exact tone sequences. However, backward spans were lower than forward spans for all stimuli (digits, pseudowords, tones, contour). Curiously, backward spans were disproportionately lower for tones than for verbal material-that is, the requirement to recall sequences in backward rather than forward order seems to differentially affect tonal stimuli. This difference does not vary according to musical expertise.     

Successful adaptation of gait in healthy older adults during dual-task treadmill walking

Dual-task methods have been used to demonstrate increased prioritization of walking performance over cognition in healthy aging. This is expressed as greater dual-task costs in cognitive performance than in walking. However, other research shows that older adults can prioritize cognitive performance over walking when instructed to do so. We asked whether age-related cognitive prioritization would emerge by experimentally manipulating cognitive difficulty. Young and older adults performed mental arithmetic at two levels of difficulty, alone or while walking. Electromyography and footswitches were used to measure muscle activity and stride parameters. Under high cognitive load, older adults increased their stride time, stride length, and hamstring activity, while maintaining their cognitive performance. Young adults showed negligible dual-task costs in each domain. The older adults appeared to successfully adapt their stride in response to high cognitive demands. The results have implications for neural models of gait regulation, and age differences in task emphasis.     

Diagnosenübergreifende Psychoedukation: ?Notbehelf“ oder ?Mittel der Wahl“?

Despite evidence for its efficacy, diagnosis-specific psychoeducation is not routinely applied because the patient numbers per diagnosis are often too low. In an exploratory randomized and controlled trial the efficacy of a bifocal diagnosis-independent group program was tested on inpatients of the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel (N?=?82) regarding clinical variables, readmission and compliance as well as course-relevant subjective attitudes over a follow-up period of 12 months by means of quantitative as well as qualitative methods. Significant group differences were found regarding compliance at 3 months and the suicide rate, both in favour of the intervention group. For most other outcome variables clear advantages for psychoeducation could be shown. A first analysis of qualitative data revealed a more favourable development in the psychoeducation group, which was statistically significant. The to date sole findings on diagnosis-independent psychoeduation justify its clinical application and further investigation.