The Relationship between Mindfulness and Subjective Well-Being: Examining the Indirect Effects of Self-Connection and Meaning in Life

Over the past decade, support for the relationship between mindfulness and happiness has increased dramatically. The consensus is that people who are mindful also experience greater happiness. However, little is still known about how and why greater mindfulness leads one to be happier. The current research calls on recent theorizing to help understand the process by which this occurs. In particular, we studied the indirect effects of both self-connection and meaning in life on the relationship between mindfulness and subjective well-being. To this end, we compiled data collected in our lab over the past 3 years. A total of 2,929 participants provided cross-sectional data while 465 participated in longitudinal studies. Across both samples, the data supported our proposed model. Self-connection and meaning in life combined to mediate the relationship between mindfulness and the various aspects of subjective well-being. In all, it is clear that, although mindfulness is important, self-connection and meaning in life play key roles in one’s subjective well-being. This suggests that more research and interventions should focus on ways to increase self-connection and meaning in life as ways to help people experience greater happiness.

     

The Sign of Unity and the Bond of Charity: On the Eucharist as a “Taskmaster” in the Context of Global Migration

What does the Eucharist—seen as the source and summit of Christian life and the “meeting‐point on which all the issues of theology converge” (Y.Brilioth) have to do with migrants and refugees? Regardless of how we celebrate the Eucharist, we all have to negotiate ways of living together within the interdependent destiny of globalization. Precisely within this global conviviality, the sacramental and mystical radicalism of unity and love that Martin Luther advocated in his eucharistic theology invites serious consideration but also equally serious contextualization.     

“Heaven and Hell on Earth” A critical discourse analysis of religious terms in Norwegian autobiographies describing personal experience of mental health problems

This article explores the use of religious terms in six Norwegian autobiographies written between 1925 and 2005 by people who themselves have been patients in the mental health services. Through a critical discourse analysis, we discuss the functions of religious discourse in the texts and its position in contrast to the medical discourse predominant in today's mental health services. It was found that religious (predominantly Christian) terms were used to varying degrees in all autobiographies as a means to capture the immensity and inherent ambivalence characteristic of mental health problems. Despite the “medical turn” in professional mental health discourse, there is no clear evidence of a decrease in the use of religious terms from the oldest to the most recent text. We propose that professional mental health workers to a larger extent take into account the religious dimension in therapy, and reflect on its larger historical and sociocultural context.     

Adult Age Differences in Conscious and Unconscious Influences on Memory for Novel Associations

Forty-eight younger and 48 older adults generated sentences under self-paced conditions for semantically unrelated word pairs. Then they completed word + word stem pairs under inclusion and exclusion instructions for items that appeared in the same or different context relative to study. Performance on the inclusion and exclusion tasks was transformed into estimates of conscious and unconscious influences on memory by a series of equations as specified by Jacoby's (1991) Process Dissociation Procedure (PDP). Three notable findings were obtained. First, younger and older adults displayed a context effect when conscious, but not unconscious, influences on memory were considered. Second, age invariance in the strength of unconscious influences on memory was observed when data analysis was performed on the entire subject sample. In contrast, the estimated strength of unconscious contributions to memory was stronger for younger than older adults when data analysis was restricted to participants who made errors on the exclusion task. Third, conscious influences on memory were stronger for younger than older adults regardless of which method of data analysis was used. Taken together, these findings shed light on previous research which has examined the complex relationship between age, test awareness, and the implicit retention of novel verbal associations. They also highlight some of the methodological issues regarding the use of the PDP to measure age-related differences in the strength of unconscious memory processes.     

Short-Term Violent Video Game Play by Adolescents Alters Prefrontal Activity During Cognitive Inhibition

Prior research has indicated an association between exposure to violent media and aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior, potentially as a result of effects on inhibitory mechanisms. However, the role of violence in video games in modulating subsequent neural activity related to cognitive inhibition has received little attention. To examine short-term effects of playing a violent video game, 45 adolescents were randomly assigned to play either a violent or a nonviolent video game for 30 minutes immediately prior to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). During the fMRI procedure, participants performed a go/no-go task that required them to press a button for each target stimulus and withhold the response for non-target stimuli. Participants who played the violent game demonstrated a lower BOLD response in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) when responses were appropriately inhibited. The DLPFC is involved with executive functioning, including suppression of unwanted thoughts and behaviors. In addition, responses in the DLPFC demonstrated stronger inverse connectivity with precuneus in the nonviolent game players. These results provide evidence that playing a violent video game can modulate prefrontal activity during cognitive inhibition.     

A constructivist connectionist model of transitions on false-belief tasks

How do children come to understand that others have mental representations, e.g., of an object’s location? Preschoolers go through two transitions on verbal false-belief tasks, in which they have to predict where an agent will search for an object that was moved in her absence. First, while three-and-a-half-year-olds usually fail at approach tasks, in which the agent wants to find the object, children just under four succeed. Second, only after four do children succeed at tasks in which the agent wants to avoid the object. We present a constructivist connectionist model that autonomously reproduces the two transitions and suggests that the transitions are due to increases in general processing abilities enabling children to (1) overcome a default true-belief attribution by distinguishing false- from true-belief situations, and to (2) predict search in avoidance situations, where there is often more than one correct, empty search location. Constructivist connectionist models are rigorous, flexible and powerful tools that can be analyzed before and after transitions to uncover novel and emergent mechanisms of cognitive development.     

Evaluating a Brief Scale Measuring Psychological Climate for Sexual Harassment

We evaluated the measurement properties of the psychological climate for sexual harassment (PCSH) questionnaire with data from women officers (n?=?311) in the Swedish Armed Forces. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that a two-factor solution assessing risks and seriousness/actions associated with sexual harassment episodes described the underlying pattern of correlations among items. Correlational and regression analyses showed that ratings of perceived intolerance for sexual harassment were associated with high ratings of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and (positive) mental health; and decreased ratings of psychological distress. We discuss the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of our findings for future research.     

Unit Cohesion,Resilience, and Mental Health of Soldiers in Basic Combat Training

Military unit cohesion has been shown to correlate with physical and psychological outcomes. However, little is known about the development of cohesion in the early days of military service during Basic Combat Training (BCT) and how it relates to positive support and the negative stressors of training. The current study assessed the development of unit cohesion across the 10-week BCT period (N = 1,939), and the relation of cohesion to stress, resilience, mental health measures, and BCT outcomes (graduation, passing the Army Physical Fitness Test, and final Basic Rifle Marksmanship scores). The sample was primarily male (62%), under age 25 (88%), and unmarried (88%). All putative mediators showed significant change over time. Unit cohesion increased over time (slope 0.22; p < .001), and these increases were associated with decreases in psychological distress (p < .001), sleep problems (p < .001), and tolerance of BCT stressors (p < .001), as well as increases in resilience (p < .001), confidence managing stress reactions (p < .001), and positive states of mind (p < .001). Unit cohesion was indirectly associated with successful graduation and passing the Army Physical Fitness Test through cohesion-related improvement in psychological distress, resilience, and confidence managing reactions to stress. Sleep problems also mediated BCT graduation. Cohesion effects on the Basic Rifle Marksmanship scores were mediated by psychological distress and tolerance of BCT stressors only. These results suggest that unit cohesion may play a key role in the development of psychological health among new soldiers.     

Selective deficit in spatial location memory in extremely low birth weight children at age six: The PETIT Study

Spatial location memory has rarely been assessed in young children due to a scarcity of developmentally appropriate tests. This study sought to compare nonverbal learning and recall in children born extremely low birth weight (ELBW; <1000 g) and less than 33 gestational weeks (GW) with term-born children at early school age using a recently developed and adapted test. We administered a modification of the Hopkins Board to 210 children at age six; 84 born ELBW (35 born < 26 GW; 49 born 26–33 GW) and 126 term-born. Six measures were obtained: naming, trials-to-criterion, errors-to-criterion, delayed item recall, delayed location recall, and percent retention. After age correction, ELBW children had worse general cognition, item naming, delayed item recall, delayed location recall, and percent retention than term-born children. Delayed item recall and percent retention performances of ELBW children remained worse after correction for general cognition. ELBW groups (< 26 GW and 26–33 GW) groups performed worse than term-born children in naming and delayed item recall with chronological age as covariate. Those born before 26 GW, but not 26–33 GW, performed worse than term-born children in delayed location recall and percent retention. Differences remained significant after controlling for gender, maternal education, and delivery type. All three groups' performance declined from final learning trial to delayed location recall, with a decline greater for less than 26 GW than term-born children. Extreme prematurity (< 26 GW) and ELBW are significant risk factors for spatial location memory deficit. The modified Hopkins Board discriminated high-risk preterm and term-born children at early school age and appears to be a useful test to measure this rarely studied cognitive capacity.     

Prenatal SSRI exposure: Effects on later child development

The aim of this review is to integrate research on the pharmacological mechanisms of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and the following effects on fetal brain development and child cognitive function seen in children with prenatal exposure to SSRIs. As antidepressants are transferred from the mother to the fetus through the placenta, the fetus is vulnerable to alterations in neurotransmission and possibly altered neural functioning. Because of this risk, pregnant women suffering from depression are often advised to discontinue their use of antidepressants during pregnancy. Though, maternal untreated depression may also have negative consequences for the fetus and child after birth. In the present review, we find a distinction between studies of early versus late development. Studies on early cognitive development indicate no negative effects, while studies on later development report some cognitive difficulties and behavioral problems, indicating latent effects of exposure. However, the reviewed studies are not all converging, and it is not clear whether and to what extent prenatal SSRI exposure affects cognitive development.