Marital History and Current Marital Satisfaction in Chronic Depression

Marital functioning is an important consideration in the treatment of depression. Although there are several studies of the marriages of depressed individuals, there is little data on the marital lives of those with chronic depression. In this article, we compare the marital history and marital satisfaction in a sample of carefully diagnosed outpatients with chronic depression compared to those with nonchronic depression. The groups were similar in terms of a history of divorce and for the percentage who had ever been married. However, the chronic group had significantly lower levels of marital satisfaction. Increased attention to marital functioning in this group may be beneficial during treatment.     

Burial and the Crossing of Boundaries

This article discusses portrayals of the underworld in classical and contemporary poetry, exploring connections between darkness and light, the underworld, and growth in the natural world. It links them together with the idea of beauty, and especially beauty in writing poetry. It gives examples of how contemporary poets can use innovative and radical forms to suggest the world of the darkness that is the underworld.     

Trade-offs, individual differences, and misunderstandings about evolutionary psychology

Replies to comments on Evolutionary psychology: Controversies, questions, prospects, and limitations (see record 2010-02208-001) by Confer et al. The purpose of which was to clarify the logic of evolutionary psychology and clear up some of the more common misunderstandings about it. In this response, we address the key points raised by the commentators.     

Superheroes for change: Physical safety promotes socially (but not economically) progressive attitudes among conservatives

Across two studies, we find evidence for our prediction that experimentally increasing feelings of physical safety increases conservatives' socially progressive attitudes. Specifically, Republican and conservative participants who imagined being endowed with a superpower that made them invulnerable to physical harm (vs. the ability to fly) were more socially (but not economically) liberal (Study 1) and less resistant to social change (Study 2). Results suggest that socially (but not economically) conservative attitudes are driven, at least in part, by needs for safety and security.     

Functional Neural Correlates of Anosognosia in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer’s Disease: a Systematic Review

Neuropsychology Review - Functional neuroimaging techniques (i.e. single photon emission computed tomography, positron emission tomography, and functional magnetic resonance imaging) have been used...     

Bullying,Cyberbullying, Student Life Satisfaction and the Community of Chilean Adolescents

Feeling support from the community is a vital aspect of adolescents’ quality of life. Negative experiences at school, such as bullying and cyberbullying can have an adverse impact on adolescents’ life satisfaction that can expand to different domains of their lives including community variables. The goal of the present study was to examine the association between peer victimization, life satisfaction and community support among Chilean adolescents. We used a sample of 497 youths enrolled in grades 9 to 12 of public and private schools in different Chilean districts. Results indicate a negative association between bullying and cyberbullying behavior on community support through life satisfaction. Peer victimization can have negative consequences for youths at a personal level on their assessments of life satisfaction, which can expand to feeling less support from the community. Feeling less support from the community can be detrimental to healthy youth development and adolescents’ quality of life. Community prevention efforts can thus provide emotional support for youth victims of bullying and cyberbullying.

     

What triggers prosocial effort? A positive feedback loop between positive activities,kindness, and well-being

Across two studies, we found evidence supporting a positive feedback loop between positive activities, kindness and well-being. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to one of four distinct positive activities (versus a neutral writing activity) before spending three weeks engaging in kind acts. We found that the positive activities served as triggers – that is, they predicted greater prosocial effort, which in turn predicted greater well-being immediately following the intervention and at a two-week follow-up. In Study 2, we explored the specific effects of a gratitude trigger, and extended the intervention period to six weeks. Although, we did not replicate the direct effect of the gratitude trigger on prosocial effort, people who wrote gratitude letters (versus writing about their week) reported relatively greater elevation, which predicted greater prosocial effort during the six weeks. In turn, replicating Study 1, greater effort predicted higher well-being immediately following the study.     

Younger and older adults’ collaborative recall of shared and unshared emotional pictures

Although a group of people working together recalls more items than any one individual, they recall fewer unique items than the same number of people working apart whose responses are combined. This is known as collaborative inhibition, and it is a robust effect that occurs for both younger and older adults. However, almost all previous studies documenting collaborative inhibition have used stimuli that were neutral in emotional valence, low in arousal, and studied by all group members. In the current experiments, we tested the impact of picture-stimuli valence, picture-stimuli arousal, and information distribution in modulating the magnitude of collaborative inhibition. We included both younger and older adults because there are age differences in how people remember emotional pictures that could modulate any effects of emotion on collaborative inhibition. Results revealed that when information was shared (i.e., studied by all group members), there were robust collaborative inhibition effects for both neutral and emotional stimuli for both younger and older adults. However, when information was unshared (i.e., studied by only a single group member), these effects were attenuated. Together, these results provide mixed support for the retrieval strategy disruption account of collaborative inhibition. Supporting the retrieval strategy disruption account, unshared study information was less susceptible to collaborative inhibition than shared study information. Contradicting the retrieval strategy disruption account, emotional valence and arousal did not modulate the magnitude of collaborative inhibition despite the fact that participants clustered the emotional, but not neutral, information together in memory.