Moderators of the relationship between exercise and mood changes: gender,exertion level,and workout duration

Although the role of exercise in improving mood is well established, less is known about moderators of this effect, particularly outside of the laboratory. The current study examined the effect of gender, type of exercise, level of exertion, and duration of workout on the exercise–mood relationship in a naturalistic setting. One hundred and thirty five participants (64 females) either engaged in weight training (n = 52) or cardiovascular (n = 83) exercise. Pre- and post-exercise assessments of mood were collected and changes in two types of mood, negative mood and exhaustion, were examined. Overall, participants reported improved mood after exercise in both domains. Workout duration and level of exertion significantly moderated the relationship of exercise to mood improvement (i.e., an increase in either corresponded to greater improved mood, ps<0.05). Overall, women showed more improved mood than men in the domain of exhaustion (p = 0.001).     

Marital role strain,illness intrusiveness,and their impact on marital and individual adjustment in end-stage renal disease

Abstract

A marital role theory approach was used to investigate individual psychosocial well-being and marital adjustment in 89 end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients and their spouses. Four different patient groups were selected according to a continuum of clinical milestones in the treatment of ESRD, including pre-dialysis (n=17), incenter dialysis (n=18), home dialysis (n=19), and posttransplant patients (n=17). A nephrology clinic control group (n=18) was also included. Standardized instruments were employed to investigate marital role strain (Marital Role Questionnaire, KDS-15), marital adjustment (Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Test), subjective well-being (Affect Balance Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory), and psychopathology (Symptom Checklist 90-R). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses provided strong and consistent support for the major hypotheses relating elevated marital role strain to compromised marital adjustment and individual well-being. Further analyses demonstrated that increased perceived intrusiveness of ESRD was significantly related to greater marital role strain, poorer marital adjustment, and decreased individual well-being. This is consistent with the idea that perceived intrusiveness may be an important mediator of marital role strain and of coping with chronic illness. “Objective” intrusiveness, defined in terms of patient group, was not significantly related to marital or individual well-being. These findings support a dyadic approach to the psychosocial study of chronic illness.     

The use of multiple reference points in risky decision making

Among psychologists and economists, prospect theory continues to be one of the most popular models of decision making. The theory's key property is reference dependence; specifically, how an individual's perception of loss or gain is dependent upon their starting point (i.e., the status quo). Although prospect theory is widely accepted, other authors have sought the inclusion of reference points besides the status quo. Initially these extensions focused on the importance of single reference points such as goals. More recently, authors have explained choice data by including multiple reference points within the value function. Multiple‐reference‐point theories generally assume that many choice situations possess an implicit or explicit goal, or point an individual will strive to obtain, and/or a minimum requirement (i.e., a “lower bound”) above which an individual will strive to stay. In two experiments, we present evidence that individuals can utilize the minimum requirement, status quo, and goal within a single risky decision task. Participants most often chose to maximize their chance of reaching reference points even when that decision was riskier, resulted in lower expected value, resulted in lower expected utility, or ran contrary to the predictions of prospect theory. Furthermore, salience and uncertainty moderated the use of goals and minimum requirements as reference points. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attention to faces and gaze-following in social anxiety: preliminary evidence from a naturalistic eye-tracking investigation

Social attentional biases are a core component of social anxiety disorder, but research has not yet determined their direction due to methodological limitations. Here we present preliminary findings from a novel, dynamic eye-tracking paradigm allowing spatial–temporal measurement of attention and gaze-following, a mechanism previously unexplored in social anxiety. 105 participants took part, with those high (N?=?27) and low (N?=?25) in social anxiety traits (HSA and LSA respectively) entered into the analyses. Participants watched a video of an emotionally-neutral social scene, where two actors periodically shifted their gaze towards the periphery. HSA participants looked more at the actors’ faces during the initial 2s than the LSA group but there were no group differences in proportion of first fixations to the face or latency to first fixate the face, although HSA individuals’ first fixations to the face were shorter. No further differences in eye movements were found, nor in gaze-following behaviour, although these null effects could potentially result from the relatively small sample. Findings suggest attention is biased towards faces in HSA individuals during initial scene inspection, but that overt gaze-following may be impervious to individual differences in social anxiety. Future research should seek to replicate these effects.     

Experts, amateurs, and refrigerators: Comparing expert and amateur negotiators in a novel task

Recently a controversy has arisen among behavioral decision theory researchers concerning the generalizability of research based upon student subject samples to the behavior of expert decision makers. This study compared the influence of framing and performance constraints (goals or limits) on the ability of expert and amateur negotiators to reach integrative agreements in a negotiation task novel to both. The results suggested that while experts did outperform amateurs on comparable competitive market simulations, the patterns of their performance as influenced by framing and performance constraints were consistent.     

Assessment of dysfunctional beliefs in borderline personality disorder

This study had two aims: to test the hypothesis that borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients hold numerous dysfunctional beliefs associated with a variety of Axis II disorders, and to construct a BPD belief scale which captures these beliefs. Beliefs were measured using the Personality Belief Questionnaire (PBQ) which is designed to assess beliefs associated with various personality disorders, although not specifically BPD. Eighty-four BPD patients and 204 patients with other personality disorders (OPD) were randomly split into two study samples. Fourteen PBQ items were found to discriminate BPD from OPD patients in both samples. These items came from the PBQ Dependent, Paranoid, Avoidant, and Histrionic scales and reflect themes of dependency, helplessness, distrust, fears of rejection/abandonment/losing emotional control, and extreme attention-seeking behavior. A BPD beliefs scale constructed from these items showed good internal consistency and diagnostic validity among the 288 study patients. The scale may be used to assist in diagnosis and cognitive therapy of BPD.     

Television Situation Comedies: Male Weight,Negative References,and Audience Reactions

In a content analysis of 27 different prime-time television situation comedies, we examined the body weights of 75 central male characters (97% White, 3% Black), the negative references these male characters received about their body shape/weight from female characters, the negative references male characters made about themselves, and the audience reactions (e.g., laughter) to the negative references. It was found that (a) above-average weight males were underrepresented in the programs compared to the general population; (b) the heavier the male character, the more negative references he made about his own body shape/weight; and (c) his negative comments about himself were significantly associated with audience reactions. No relationship was found between the body weight of male characters and negative references from female characters. These findings are contrasted with previous research that examined these variables associated with female characters.     

The effects of extinction,noncontingent reinforcement and differential reinforcement of other behavior as control procedures

Several techniques have been used in applied research as controls for the introduction of a reinforcement contingency, including extinction, noncontingent reinforcement (NCR), and differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO). Little research, however, has examined the relative strengths and limitations of these "reversal" controls. We compared the effects of extinction with those of NCR and DRO in both multi-element and reversal designs, with respect to (a) rate and amount of response decrement, (b) rate of response recovery following reintroduction of reinforcement, and (c) any positive or negative side effects associated with transitions. Results indicated that extinction generally produced the most consistent and rapid reversal effects, with few observed negative side effects.     

Prosody in Infant-Directed Speech Is Similar Across Western and Traditional Cultures

When speaking to infants, adults typically alter the acoustic properties of their speech in a variety of ways compared with how they speak to other adults; for example, they use higher pitch, increased pitch range, more pitch variability, and slower speech rate. Research shows that these vocal changes happen similarly across industrialized populations, but no studies have carefully examined basic acoustic properties of infant-directed (ID) speech in traditional societies. Moreover, some scholars have suggested that ID speech is culturally specific and does not exist in some small-scale societies. We examined fundamental frequency (F₀) production and speech rate in mothers speaking to both infants and adults in three cultures: Fijians, Kenyans, and North Americans. In all three cultures, speakers used higher F₀ when speaking to infants relative to when speaking to other adults, and they also used significantly greater F₀ variation and fewer syllables per second. Previous research has found that American mothers tend to use higher pitch than do mothers from other cultures, but when maternal education was controlled in the current study, we did not find a significant difference in average pitch across our three populations. This is the first research systematically comparing spontaneous ID and adult-directed speech prosody between Western and traditional societies, and it is consistent with a large body of evidence showing similar acoustic patterns in ID speech across industrialized populations.