Randomised trial of expressive writing for distressed metastatic breast cancer patients

Women with metastatic breast cancer and significant psychological distress (N?=?87) were assigned randomly to engage in four home-based sessions of expressive writing or neutral writing. Women in the expressive writing group wrote about their deepest thoughts and feelings regarding their cancer, whereas women in the neutral writing group wrote about their daily activities in a factual manner. No statistically significant group differences in existential and psychological well-being, fatigue and sleep quality were found at 8-weeks post-writing. However, the expressive writing group reported significantly greater use of mental health services during the study than the neutral writing group (55% vs. 26%, respectively; p?<?0.05). Findings suggest that expressive writing may improve the uptake of mental health services among distressed cancer patients, but is not broadly effective as a psychotherapeutic intervention.     

The Modulation of Visual and Task Characteristics of a Writing System on Hemispheric Lateralization in Visual Word Recognition—A Computational Exploration

Through computational modeling, here we examine whether visual and task characteristics of writing systems alone can account for lateralization differences in visual word recognition between different languages without assuming influence from left hemisphere (LH) lateralized language processes. We apply a hemispheric processing model of face recognition to visual word recognition; the model implements a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception that posits low spatial frequency biases in the right hemisphere and high spatial frequency (HSF) biases in the LH. We show two factors that can influence lateralization: (a) Visual similarity among words: The more similar the words in the lexicon look visually, the more HSF/LH processing is required to distinguish them, and (b) Requirement to decompose words into graphemes for grapheme‐phoneme mapping: Alphabetic reading (involving grapheme‐phoneme conversion) requires more HSF/LH processing than logographic reading (no grapheme‐phoneme mapping). These factors may explain the difference in lateralization between English and Chinese orthographic processing.     

Body dissatisfaction, maternal appraisal, and depressive symptoms in Hong Kong adolescents

Body dissatisfaction, its risk factors and association with depressed mood have been well investigated in the West. However, more studies are needed to examine further the relation between body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms and the factors influencing body dissatisfaction in non-Western cultures. The present study examined in a sample of Hong Kong Chinese adolescents the relation between body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms, and the relation of maternal appraisal of their adolescent's figure to the adolescent's body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms. We obtained information from 379 boys and 254 girls about their body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms. Their mothers provided information about their appraisal of their adolescent's body shape and size compared to ideal. Body dissatisfaction was related to depressive symptoms in girls (B = 2.58, p <.01), but not in boys (B = -0.08, p >.10). Negative maternal appraisal did not have direct effects on adolescents' depressive symptoms (B = 0.14, p =.75), but the association between negative maternal appraisal and body dissatisfaction was significantly stronger in adolescents whose ideal was smaller than they perceived themselves to be (B = 0.32, p <.01) than those whose ideal was larger than their own perception (B = 0.14, p < .01). Our findings suggest that maternal appraisal had indirect effects on mood, acting through adolescents' body dissatisfaction, and that body dissatisfaction may be a sex-specific risk factor for depression. This study points to the need for testing and adapting programs to reduce body dissatisfaction particularly in girls at risk for depression, and to raise mothers' awareness of the link between their negative appraisals and their adolescents' body dissatisfaction and depressive symptoms.     

Worldviews and individual vulnerability to suicide: The role of social axioms

Research investigating the role of generalized beliefs about the world or worldviews is relatively scarce in the suicide literature. Two studies, using Hong Kong Chinese samples, examined how worldviews, as assessed by the Social Axioms Survey (SAS), were linked with individual vulnerability to suicide. In Study 1, we investigated the relationships of social axioms with various suicide indicators in cognitive, emotional and interpersonal domains, viz., suicidal ideation, negative self‐esteem, psychache, burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness. Results from canonical correlation analysis showed that beliefs along the axiom dimensions of social cynicism, reward for application, and social complexity were linked to these suicide indicators. In Study 2, we tested the interplay of worldviews and personality traits in the prediction of suicidal thoughts. Hierarchical regression results demonstrated the predictive power of social axioms over and above that provided by the Big Five personality dimensions. Moreover, a significant interaction was observed between belief in reward for application and negative life events in predicting suicidal ideation, showing that reward for application buffered the effect of negative life events on suicidal ideation. Based on these results, we discussed the significance of worldviews as a consideration in suicide research and their implications for clinical assessment and intervention. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How shared preferences in music create bonds between people: values as the missing link

How can shared music preferences create social bonds between people? A process model is developed in which music preferences as value-expressive attitudes create social bonds via conveyed value similarity. The musical bonding model links two research streams: (a) music preferences as indicators of similarity in value orientations and (b) similarity in value orientations leading to social attraction. Two laboratory experiments and one dyadic field study demonstrated that music can create interpersonal bonds between young people because music preferences can be cues for similar or dissimilar value orientations, with similarity in values then contributing to social attraction. One study tested and ruled out an alternative explanation (via personality similarity), illuminating the differential impact of perceived value similarity versus personality similarity on social attraction. Value similarity is the missing link in explaining the musical bonding phenomenon, which seems to hold for Western and non-Western samples and in experimental and natural settings.     

Personal Spiritual Values and Quality of Life: Evidence from Chinese College Students

Values are guiding principles in our life. While some studies found spiritual values to be “healthier,” Sagiv and Schwartz (Eur J Soc Psychol 30:177–198, 2000) showed that people holding non-spiritual values were higher on affective well-being. We examined the predictive power of these two types of values with a longitudinal data set collected from Chinese students mainly in Hong Kong. Structural equation modeling revealed that spiritual values (as well as family income) positively predicted quality of life a year later. Non-spiritual, self-enhancement values, did not show any association. Results suggest that developing spiritual values may promote well-being through enabling individuals to find meaning and purpose in life.     

A comparison of personality function among patients with seasonal depression, nonseasonal depression, and nonclinical participants

Although a large body of research has accumulated concerning the relationship between nonseasonal depression and personality, comparatively few studies have examined the relationship between seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and personality. This study compared dimensional aspects of personality in patients diagnosed with SAD (N = 60), nonseasonal depression (N = 273), and nonclinical controls (N = 297) using the Dimensional Assessment of Personality Pathology (DAPP-BQ; Livesley & Jackson, in press). Analysis by ANCOVA indicated that significant between-group differences occurred in several of the 18 DAPP-BQ dimensions, with patients with SAD exhibiting personality psychopathology that was intermediate between the nonclinical sample and patients with nonseasonal depression. The results demonstrated that the traits associated with seasonal and nonseasonal depression differ in degree, not kind.     

Retributive justice and social categorizations: the perceived fairness of punishment depends on intergroup status

In the current research, the authors investigate the influence of intergroup status and social categorizations on retributive justice judgments, that is, the extent to which observers perceive punishment as fair. Building on social identity theory and the model of subjective group dynamics, it is predicted that when the ingroup has higher status than the outgroup, people are relatively less concerned about punishment of an outgroup offender than when the ingroup has lower status than the outgroup. Two experiments revealed that participants are more punitive towards an ingroup than an outgroup offender when ingroup status is high but not when ingroup status is low. Furthermore, in correspondence with our line of reasoning, this finding emerged because participants were less punitive towards outgroup offenders when ingroup status is high than when ingroup status was low. It is concluded that the perceived fairness of punishment depends on the offender's social categorization and intergroup status. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cultural differences in gender role attitudes between Chinese and American students

A total of 665 Chinese college students in Taiwan and Caucasian college students in eastern North Carolina were administered several sex role attitude scales developed by Spence et al. (1978, 1980). The scales were translated into Chinese for Chinese subjects. Results indicated cultural differences in attitudes toward Marital Roles, Expressivity, Social Interaction, and Preference for males. In both cultures, females were found to be significantly more liberal, as shown in Attitudes Toward Women, Marital Roles, and Social Interaction. These results are consistent with previous research. Cultural differences were also as expected, with Chinese holding more conservative views.An earlier version of this paper was presented in part at the 63rd Annual Convention of the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, Massachusetts, April 3, 1992.     

The relationship between daily stress and health: Replicating and extending previous findings

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of daily stress, or hassles, on the physical and psychological health status of 112 adolescents over 10 consecutive days. Measures of hassles, daily somatic symptoms and mood, overall health status, and perceived social support were taken. A principal components analysis of the newly designed Secondary School Students' Hassles Scale generated four factors of which “management of time and work” accounted for 41 percent of the variance. Results supported previous findings that hassles levels were related inversely to daily health, daily mood, and overall health status. Perceived social support was found to be associated with general health but not with daily health and mood, and results from partial correlation analyses challenged the buffering role of social support between hassles and adaptational outcomes. The cross-cultural applicability of the hassles concept was discussed.