The role of social support on the disclosure of everyday unpleasant emotional events

Talking about unpleasant events has important implications for coping with distress, but the literature has not thoroughly addressed the role of social support on the decision to disclose these events. The authors hypothesized that perceptions of the availability of social support and satisfaction with support received regarding an event would be positively related to the disclosure of the event, and participants’ sex, emotional disclosure tendencies, depression symptoms, and global perceptions of support would moderate these relations. College students (N = 365) reported on 2,001 unpleasant emotional events that they personally experienced in the past week. Multilevel modeling analyses revealed that the perceived availability of support for an event predicted the degree of disclosure of that event, even while controlling for its intensity. Event disclosure predicted satisfaction with the support received for the event, controlling for event intensity and available support. This latter relation was moderated by the participants’ global perceptions of social support, such that the disclosure–satisfaction relation was stronger for individuals who perceived relatively less global social support. These findings suggest that characteristics of the social-support network ought to be considered as an important factor relevant to the decision to disclose everyday unpleasant events.     

Finding The “Self” in Self-Regulation: The Identity-Value Model

Many psychological theories suggest a link between self-regulation and identity, but, until now, a mechanistic account that suggests ways to improve self-regulation has not been put forth. The identity-value model (IVM) connects the idea from social psychology that aspects of identity such as core values and group affiliations hold positive subjective value to the process-focused account from decision making and behavioral economics that self-regulation is driven by a dynamic value integration across a range of choice attributes. Together, these ideas imply that goal-directed behaviors that are identity relevant are more likely to be enacted because they have greater subjective value than identity-irrelevant behaviors. A central hypothesis, therefore, is that interventions that increase the degree to which a target behavior is perceived as self-relevant will improve self-regulation. In addition, identity-based changes in self-regulation are expected to be mediated by changes in subjective value and its underlying neural systems. In this article we define the key constructs relevant to the IVM, explicate the model and delineate its boundary conditions, and describe how it fits with related theories. We also review disparate results in the research literature that might share identity-related value as a common underlying mechanism of action. We close by discussing questions about the model, the answers to which could advance the study of self-regulation.     

Healing and Hope in the Midst of Devastation: reflections on Katrina in the Aftermath of September 11

This article reflects on Hurricane Katrina within the background and context of 9/11. Included are other tragedies experienced in the School of Medicine when, combined with 9/11, laid the foundation for our continued working through Katrina.     

Will you still hire me when I am over 50? The effects of implicit and explicit age stereotyping on resume evaluations

Multiple studies have found that older workers may be disadvantaged in their job search due to explicit age stereotypes. However, no published research has examined the effect of both explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) negative age stereotypes against older workers on hiring decisions. The current study fills this gap by using an experimental design to simultaneously examine how both explicit and implicit age stereotypes affect the evaluation of resumes for older and younger job applicants. Participants completed measures of explicit age stereotypes via a questionnaire and implicit age stereotypes with an Implicit Association Test focused on older and younger working-age people. They then completed a resume screening task that included younger and older potential applicants. Results showed that participants’ explicit age stereotypes positively influenced the evaluation of younger applicants’ resumes but had no significant effect on the evaluation of older applicants’ resumes. Conversely, implicit age stereotypes had a negative effect on the evaluation of older applicants’ resumes but had no significant effect on the evaluation of younger applicants’ resumes. The results suggest that both implicit and explicit age stereotypes may harm older job applicants’ hireablity, but through different pathways.     

Associations of physical activity and gross motor skills with executive function in preschool children from low‐income South African settings

Executive function is foundational for cognitive development. Previous research has shown both gross motor skills and physical activity to be related to executive function. However, evidence for these relationships in the preschool years, as well as in low‐ and middle‐income countries is lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationships between components of executive function (inhibition, shifting and working memory) and gross motor skills (locomotor skills and object control skills) in a sample of preschool children from urban and rural low‐income settings in South Africa. Results revealed that inhibition and working memory, but not shifting, were associated with gross motor skills. More specifically: inhibition was associated with both locomotor [β = 0.20, p = 0.047] and object control skills [β = 0.24, p = 0.024], whereas working memory was only associated with locomotor skills [β = 0.21, p = 0.039]. Physical activity was not associated with inhibition and shifting but was negatively associated with working memory. These results elaborate a growing evidence base linking executive function and gross motor skills in the early years, and it is the first to look at specific associations of locomotor and object control skills with executive function in the South African context (a low‐ and middle‐income country).     

Epinephrine fails to enhance performance of food-deprived rats on a delayed spontaneous alternation task

Increases in blood glucose levels after epinephrine injection appear to contribute to the hormone's effects on learning and memory. The present experiment evaluated whether epinephrine-induced enhancement of spontaneous alternation performance would be attenuated in fasted rats that had blunted increases in circulating glucose levels after injections of epinephrine. Rats deprived of food for 24 h prior to injection of epinephrine exhibited significant attenuation of the increase in blood glucose levels seen in fed rats. When the rats were tested on a delayed spontaneous alternation task, epinephrine enhanced performance in fed rats but not in rats deprived of food for 24 h. These findings are consistent with the view that hyperglycemia subsequent to epinephrine injections contributes to the memory-enhancing effects of epinephrine.     

American college of epidemiology ethics guidelines: Foundations and dissemination

Epidemiology is a core science of public health, focusing on research related to the distribution and determinants of both positive and adverse health states and events and on application of knowledge gained to improve public health. The American College of Epidemiology (ACE) is a professional organization devoted to the professional practice of epidemiology. As part of that commitment, and in response to concerns for more explicit attention to core values and duties of epidemiologists in light of emerging issues and increased scrutiny of epidemiology, the College developed, adopted, and published a set of Ethics Guidelines. The structure of the ACE ethics guidelines is in four parts: (1) a brief statement of core values and duties of epidemiologists, coupled with the virtues important to professional practice; (2) concise statements of key duties and obligations; (3) exposition of the duties and obligations with more applications; and (4) a brief summary and conclusion. The Guidelines have been published on the ACE website and in the official College journal Annals of Epidemiology. The guidelines contain (and maintain) core elements that define the discipline of epidemiology and its fundamental duties, but they are also intended to be dynamic and evolving, responsive to a changing professional and social environment. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AAAS-Office of Research Integrity (ORI) meeting in Washington DC on the theme: “The Role and Activities of Scientific Societies in Promoting Research Integrity” held on April 10–11, 2000. Affiliations of co-authors: Douglas L. Weed, MD, MPH, PhD is Director of the Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program, Office of Preventive Oncology, National Cancer Institute; Jeffrey P. Kahn, PhD, MPH, is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Bioethics, UMN Twin Cities, Minneapolis; Michael A. Stoto, PhD, is Associate Director for Public Health, RAND Center for Domestic and International Health Security, Arlington, VA.     

The Moderating Effect of Depression Symptoms on the Concordance between the Experience and Verbal Disclosure of Emotion

Within-person studies of emotional disclosure have found evidence of a disclosure-discordance effect of depression, whereby the positive association between the intensity of one’s emotional experience and verbal disclosure of that experience weakens with increasing depression symptoms. Because these previous studies have exclusively been naturalistic ones, we examined the disclosure-discordance effect of depression in the lab. Participants (N?=?115) completed a measure of depression symptoms and viewed a series of emotionally evocative photographs. Emotion-expressive behavior while viewing each photograph was rated by judges, subjective emotional experience was assessed via self-report, and emotional disclosure just after the photograph was viewed was rated by different judges. Multilevel analyses indicated that depression symptoms moderated the association between the behavioral (i.e., facial) expression of emotion intensity and disclosure of emotion. Moderation was not supported in analyses with self-reported emotional intensity as a predictor. These findings partly supported the disclosure-discordance effect, and they inform methods of empirically examining the effect of depression symptoms on the verbal disclosure of emotion.