Gratitude,Psychopathology and Subjective Well-Being: Results from a 7.5-Month Prospective General Population Study

Gratitude is considered an important source of human strength in achieving and maintaining good mental health. Although complete mental health encompasses the absence of psychopathology and the presence of subjective well-being, no studies to date have examined relations between gratitude and both mental health dimensions together. Moreover, most studies focused on specific samples with a restricted demographic range. Our study, therefore, examined (a) demographic variability in the grateful trait, and (b) prospective associations between gratitude and both dimensions of mental health: psychopathology and subjective well-being. Using a four wave prospective survey design in a large (N = 706) sample of Dutch adults (M age = 44, SD age = 14, Range = 18–80), we measured gratitude with the SGRAT, symptoms of psychopathology with the SCL-90, and subjective well-being with the PANAS and SWLS. Gratitude was significantly associated with age, gender, education level, and employment status. Multilevel time-lagged regression analyses showed that the grateful trait did not predict symptoms of psychopathology, but was a significant albeit weak predictor of subjective well-being, when adjusting for the effects of demographic factors, and prior levels of subjective well-being and psychopathology. Our findings indicate that the grateful trait is associated with demographic factors, and shows complex connections with the presence of well-being and absence of psychopathology. These dynamics should be taken into consideration when studying the role of gratitude in mental health, and developing, applying, and evaluating gratitude interventions with the aim of enhancing subjective well-being and/or reducing psychopathology.     

Image memorability across longer time intervals

You may find some images easier to remember than others. Recent studies of visual memory have found remarkable levels of consistency for this inter-item variability across observers, suggesting that memorability can be considered an intrinsic image property. The current study replicated and extended previous results, while adopting a more traditional visual long-term memory task with retention intervals of 20 min, one day, and one week, as opposed to the previously used repeat-detection task, which typically relied on short retention intervals (5 min). Our memorability rank scores show levels of consistency across observers in line with those reported in previous research. They correlate strongly with previous quantifications and appear stable over time. Furthermore, we show that the way consistency of memorability scores increases with the number of responses per image follows the Spearman–Brown formula. Interestingly, our results also seem to show an increase in consistency with an increase in retention interval. Supported by simulated data, this effect is attributed to a decrease of extraneous influences on recognition over time. Finally, we also provide evidence for a log-linear, rather than linear, decline of the raw memorability scores over time, with more memorable images declining less strongly.     

Health as a value: methodological and theoretical considerations

The concept of value placed on health is very important in several different theoretical approaches to the study of health behavior. In practice, however, health value is generally assumed to be universally high rather than being directly measured. If this assumption is incorrect, then theories that include health value have rarely been adequately tested. This paper presents a short 4-item Likert scale designed to measure the value placed on health. Norms from the utilization of this scale in five different samples are presented. Health value is found to increase with age among girls, but the increase apparently stops by late adolescence, before full adult levels of health value are achieved. Middle-aged women place a higher value on health than do middle-aged men, although no comparable sex difference appears in a sample of undergraduates. Consistent with theoretical predictions, both health locus of control beliefs and beliefs in the efficacy of certain preventive health behaviors correlate more highly with the performance of those same behaviors 5 to 9 months later among respondents who place a high value of health relative to those who do not value health so highly. However, this interaction is found only when it can be safely assumed that health is the primary value underlying the behavior. The importance of considering a variety of values in addition to health as possible motivators of preventive health behavior is stressed.     

Criminal profiling from crime scene analysis

Since the 1970s, investigative profilers at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit (now part of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime) have been assisting local, state, and federal agencies in narrowing investigations by providing criminal personality profiles. An attempt is now being made to describe this criminal-profile-generating process. A series of five overlapping stages lead to the sixth stage, or the goal of apprehension of the offender: (1) profiling inputs, (2) decision-process models, (3) crime assessment, (4) the criminal profile, (5) investigation, and (6) apprehension. Two key feedback filters in the process are: (a) achieving congruence with the evidence, with decision models, and with investigation recommendations, and (b) the addition of new evidence.     

Blocking the Vagueness Block - A New Restricted Answer to the Special Composition Question

The vagueness objection seems to block any moderate answer to the Special Composition Question leaving us with the two extreme alternatives that there either is no composite object or that any set of things compose an object. In this technical paper I introduce the notion of causal objects and a definition of a predicate that permits the set of all parts to be divided into equivalence classes. On this view we can use equivalence classes of parts to define the notion of composite objects why vagueness is blocked. The block works in a hypothetical domain where all parts have a cause so the aim is not to suggest empirically detectable parts and composites, nor to claim any kind of existence of the things being defined, but to present a consistent account of a possible moderate answer to the Special Composition Question that avoids the vagueness objection. The underlying idea is that an object, as such, is not caused whereas its parts are. For example, if we have three caused parts A, B and C constituting the composite D, we have three things that are caused (A, B and C) whereas the composite D has no cause over and above the three causes of A, B and C.

     

Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive Deficits in Absence Epilepsy: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Cognition in absence epilepsy (AE) is generally considered undisturbed. However, reports on cognitive deficits in AE in recent years have suggested otherwise. This review...     

Ritual and Recovery: Traditions in Disaster Ritualizing

The aim of this article is partly to analyze and discuss the ritual traditions in the Norwegian context, called disaster services, which consists in ritualizing as a response to accidents and disasters. Furthermore, we find it relevant to understand these traditions in relation to two aspects of recovery: personal and social recovery. From a practical theological perspective, the new traditions are interesting for the understanding of how the churches work in situations where people have stressful experiences, and for developing an understanding of contemporary religion.