Stomaching rejection: Self-compassion and self-esteem moderate the impact of daily social rejection on restrictive eating behaviours among college women

Objective: The present study examined whether having high self-esteem or a self-compassionate perspective help mitigate the impact of daily social rejection on negative affect and restrictive eating behaviours.

Design: Following a baseline survey assessing self-esteem and self-compassion, 121 college women completed online daily diaries for one week.

Main Outcome Measures: Negative affect and restrictive eating behaviours.

Results: On days when women reported more rejection, they also reported higher restrictive eating behaviours and greater negative affect. Effects were moderated by self-esteem and self-compassion, such that the lower participants were in self-esteem or self-compassion, the stronger the positive relation between rejection and negative affect and restrictive eating. However, only the common humanity/isolation dimension of self-compassion significantly moderated daily effects of rejection when controlling for self-esteem. Mediated moderation results reveal different mechanisms by which self-esteem and self-compassion buffer against rejections’ effects on affect and restrictive eating.

Conclusion: Self-compassion and self-esteem influence the complex impact that social rejection has on affect and restrictive eating. More than other dimensions of self-compassion or self-esteem, remembering one’s common humanity can result in a healthier response to social rejection.     

Narcissism,self-esteem,and the phenomenology of autobiographical memories

Across two studies, we investigated the influence of narcissism and self-esteem along with gender on phenomenological ratings across the four subscales of the Autobiographical Memory Questionnaire (AMQ; impact, recollection, rehearsal, and belief). Memory cues varied in valence (positive vs. negative) and agency (agentic vs. communal). In Study 2, we used different memory cues reflecting these four Valence by Agency conditions and additionally investigated retrieval times for the autobiographical memories (AMs). Results were consistent with the agency model of narcissism [Campbell, W. K., Brunell, A. B., & Finkel, E. J. (2006). Narcissism, interpersonal self-regulation, and romantic relationships: An agency model approach. In E. J. Finkel & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Self and relationships: Connecting intrapersonal and interpersonal processes. New York, NY: Guilford], which characterises narcissists as being more concerned with agentic (self-focused) rather than communal (other-focused) positive self-relevant information. Narcissism predicted greater phenomenology across the four subscales for the positive-agentic memories (Study 1: clever; Study 2: attractive, talented) as well as faster memory retrieval times. Narcissism also predicted greater recollection and faster retrieval times for the negative-communal AMs (Study 1: rude; Study 2: annoying, dishonest). In contrast, self-esteem predicted greater phenomenology and faster retrieval times for the positive-communal AMs (Study 1: cooperative; Study 2: romantic, sympathetic). In both studies, results of LIWC analyses further differentiated between narcissism and self-esteem in the content (word usage) of the AMs.     

What's Context Got to Do with It? Comparative Difficulty of Test Questions Influences Metacognition and Corrected Scores for Formula‐scored Exams

Summary: On formula‐scored exams students receive points and penalties for correct and incorrect answers, respectively, but they can avoid the penalty by withholding incorrect answers. However, test‐takers have difficulty strategically regulating their accuracy and often set an overly conservative metacognitive response bias (e.g., Higham, 2007). The current experiments extended these findings by exploring whether the comparative difficulty of surrounding test questions (i.e., easy vs. hard)—a factor unrelated to the knowledge being tested—impacts metacognitive response bias for medium‐difficulty test questions. Comparative difficulty had no significant influence on participants' ability to choose correct answers for medium questions, but it did affect willingness to report answers and confidence ratings. This difference carried over to corrected scores (scores after penalties are applied) when comparative difficulty was manipulated within‐subjects: Scores were higher in the hard condition. Results are discussed in terms of implications for interpreting formula‐scored tests and underlying mechanisms of performance.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parents’ Reports of Children’s Internalizing Symptoms: Associations with Parents’ Mental Health Symptoms and Substance Use Disorder

This brief report examined the unique associations between parents’ ratings of child internalizing symptoms and their own depression and anxiety in families with parental substance use disorder (SUD). Further, we examined whether parental SUD (father only, mother only, both parents) was related to discrepancy in mothers’ and fathers’ reports of children’s internalizing symptoms. Participants were 97 triads (fathers, mothers) in which one or both parents met criteria for SUD. Polynomial regression analyses were conducted to examine whether father-mother reports of child internalizing symptoms had unique associations with parents’ own symptoms of depression and anxiety while controlling for child gender, child age, and SUD diagnoses. Controlling for fathers’ symptoms and other covariates, mothers experiencing more depression and anxiety symptoms reported more symptoms of child internalizing symptoms than did fathers. Mothers’ and fathers’ SUD was associated with higher anxiety symptoms among mothers after controlling for other variables. A second set of polynomial regressions examined whether father-mother reports of child internalizing symptoms had unique associations with parents’ SUD diagnoses while controlling for child gender and child age. After controlling for mothers’ symptoms and other covariates, parents’ reports of children’s internalizing symptoms were not significantly associated with either parent’s SUD or parental SUD interactions (i.e., both parents have SUD diagnoses). Taken together, mothers’ ratings of children’s internalizing symptoms may be accounted for, in part, by her reports of depression and anxiety symptoms.     

Moral transgression during the Vietnam War: a path analysis of the psychological impact of veterans’ involvement in wartime atrocities

Background and Objectives: Involvement in wartime combat often conveys a number of deleterious outcomes, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, hostility, aggression, and suicidal ideation. Less studied is the effect of engagement in wartime atrocities, including witnessing and perpetrating abusive violence.

Design and Methods: This study employed path analysis to examine the direct effects of involvement in wartime atrocities on hostility, aggression, depression, and suicidal ideation independent of combat exposure, as well as the indirect effects via guilt and PTSD symptom severity among 603 help-seeking male Vietnam War veterans.

Results: Involvement in wartime atrocities was predictive of increased guilt, PTSD severity, hostility, aggression, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation after controlling for overall combat exposure. Combat-related guilt played a minor role in mediating the effect of atrocity involvement on depression and suicidal ideation. PTSD severity had a larger mediational effect. However, it still accounted for less than half of the total effect of involvement in wartime atrocities on hostility, aggression, and suicidal ideation.

Conclusions: These findings highlight the heightened risk conveyed by involvement in wartime atrocities and suggest that the psychological sequelae experienced following atrocity involvement may extend well beyond guilt and PTSD.     

Shock and awe: Distinct effects of taboo words on lexical decision and free recall

Taboo stimuli are highly arousing, but it has been suggested that they also have inherent taboo-specific properties such as tabooness, offensiveness, or shock value. Prior studies have shown that taboo words have slower response times in lexical decision and higher recall probabilities in free recall; however, taboo words often differ from other words on more than just arousal and taboo properties. Here, we replicated both of these findings and conducted detailed item analyses to determine which word properties drive these behavioural effects. We found that lexical-decision performance was best explained by measures of lexical accessibility (e.g., word frequency) and tabooness, rather than arousal, valence, or offensiveness. However, free-recall performance was primarily driven by emotional word properties, and tabooness was the most important emotional word property for model fit. Our results suggest that the processing of taboo words is influenced by distinct sets of factors and by an intrinsic taboo-specific property.     

Developmental trajectories to heroin dependence: Theoretical and clinical issues

We have built up a great deal of insight into the early developmental trajectories that lead to heroin use. These cluster under five domains: social disadvantage, parental drug use/psychopathology, childhood abuse and neglect, early onset psychopathology and antisocial behaviors, and a developmental sequence of drug onsets. While not all heroin users have these risk factors, the broad clinical picture shows these early correlates to be the predominant presentation. We discuss each of the early psychosocial correlates of heroin dependence, as well as possible early interventions. Given the chronicity of heroin dependence, interventions to prevent heroin use emerging would reduce the considerable burden of disease associated with the disorder.     

Skills training in the long-term management of stress and occupational burnout

The current managed healthcare environment stresses brief and effective short-term therapy. However, often this short-term treatment does not lead to long-term behavioral changes and clients return to therapy many times for help with the same dysfunctional behavioral patterns. The main problem with these traditional forms of treatment is the assumption that clients have the basic skills to change their ineffective behaviors. Yet, many people lack the basic skills to manage our highly stressful society, and may take years to master new behavioral management skills. Examining the relationship between stress and coping, this study explored both short-and long-term approaches to behavioral change relative to occupational burnout, and focused upon the teaching of skills to manage stress. Subjects who participated in a 6-week stressmanagement program reported only temporary decreases in burnout, while those subjects who received 1-hour coping “refresher” sessions at 5 months, 11 months, and 17 months showed consistent decreases in burnout throughout a 2 1/2 year period. These results suggest that psychologists can be much more effective behavioral change agents through long-term approaches that emphasize teaching new skills to manage chronic behavioral problems. Given the changes in the health insurance industry and the way therapeutic services are provided, the field may need to rethink approaches that are grounded in personality theory and abnormal psychology to approaches that emphasize principles of learning theory.     

Mathematics of forgiveness

This study was aimed at determining the integration rule--summation or averaging--underlying the forgiveness schema. The main reason for distinguishing between these structures is that they have very different practical implications regarding the influence of various factors specific to each case on the propensity to forgive. In a summative model, the impact of the different factors and the direction of the effects are constant. For example, the presence of apologies always is a positive element even when these apologies assume a very weak form. By contrast, in an averaging model, the apologies can be a positive or a negative element depending on the current level of propensity to forgive and the form of the apologies. Two experiments were conducted using the functional theory of cognition framework. Experiment 1 applied the missing information test. Experiment 2 applied the credibility of information test. In both experiments, clear evidence favored a summative rule for judging willingness to forgive from circumstantial information such as presence or absence of intent, presence of absence of apologies, and degree of cancellation of consequences.