The everyday dynamics of rumination and worry: precipitant events and affective consequences

ABSTRACT

Rumination and worry are two perseverative, negatively valenced thought processes that characterise depressive and anxiety disorders. Despite significant research interest, little is known about the everyday precipitants and consequences of rumination and worry. Using an experience sampling methodology, we examined and compared rumination and worry with respect to their relations to daily events and affective experience. Participants diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), co-occurring MDD–GAD, or no diagnosis carried an electronic device for one week and reported on rumination, worry, significant events, positive affect (PA), and negative affect (NA). Across the clinical groups, occurrences of everyday events predicted subsequent increases in rumination, but not worry. Further, higher momentary levels of rumination, but not worry, predicted subsequent decreases in PA and increases in NA. Thus, in these clinical groups, rumination was more susceptible to daily events and produced stronger affective changes over time. We discuss implications for theory and clinical intervention.     

The March from Selma to Montgomery and the Nonviolent Movement in Analysis

From January 18, 1965 to March 25, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his civil rights lieutenants conducted a series of marches in Selma, Alabama, which ultimately won African Americans the right to vote. These marches would become the tipping point in the civil rights movement, leading to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Selma marches provide a glimpse into the American psyche and the development of consciousness in culture through the implementation of nonviolence. Utilizing the Eightfold Path of Nonviolence, which combines Mahatma Gandhi’s two foundational principles of satyagraha and ahimsa, along with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s six tenets of nonviolence, the civil rights movement briefly closed the psychic split of racism in America. The archetypal experience of nonviolence confronts, mediates, and breaks apart violence, providing a path for peace, or psychological wholeness, in the individual or culture. Following three nodal points in the marches, the reader will begin to understand how the tenets of nonviolence are utilized in analysis as a powerful paradigm of the analytic stance.     

Impulsive choice and pre‐exposure to delays: iv. effects of delay‐ and immediacy‐exposure training relative to maturational changes in impulsivity

Impulsive choice describes preference for smaller, sooner rewards over larger, later rewards. Excessive delay discounting (i.e., rapid devaluation of delayed rewards) underlies some impulsive choices, and is observed in many maladaptive behaviors (e.g., substance abuse, gambling). Interventions designed to reduce delay discounting may provide therapeutic gains. One such intervention provides rats with extended training with delayed reinforcers. When compared to a group given extended training with immediate reinforcers, delay‐exposed rats make significantly fewer impulsive choices. To what extent is this difference due to delay‐exposure training shifting preference toward self‐control or immediacy‐exposure training (the putative control group) shifting preference toward impulsivity? The current study compared the effects of delay‐ and immediacy‐exposure training to a no‐training control group and evaluated within‐subject changes in impulsive choice across 51 male Wistar rats. Delay‐exposed rats made significantly fewer impulsive choices than immediacy‐exposed and control rats. Between‐group differences in impulsive choice were not observed in the latter two groups. While delay‐exposed rats showed large, significant pre‐ to posttraining reductions in impulsive choice, immediacy‐exposed and control rats showed small reductions in impulsive choice. These results suggest that extended training with delayed reinforcers reduces impulsive choice, and that extended training with immediate reinforcers does not increase impulsive choice.     

Individuation training with other‐race faces reduces preschoolers’ implicit racial bias: a link between perceptual and social representation of faces in children

The present study examined whether perceptual individuation training with other‐race faces could reduce preschool children's implicit racial bias. We used an ‘angry = outgroup’ paradigm to measure Chinese children's implicit racial bias against African individuals before and after training. In Experiment 1, children between 4 and 6 years were presented with angry or happy racially ambiguous faces that were morphed between Chinese and African faces. Initially, Chinese children demonstrated implicit racial bias: they categorized happy racially ambiguous faces as own‐race (Chinese) and angry racially ambiguous faces as other‐race (African). Then, the children participated in a training session where they learned to individuate African faces. Children's implicit racial bias was significantly reduced after training relative to that before training. Experiment 2 used the same procedure as Experiment 1, except that Chinese children were trained with own‐race Chinese faces. These children did not display a significant reduction in implicit racial bias. Our results demonstrate that early implicit racial bias can be reduced by presenting children with other‐race face individuation training, and support a linkage between perceptual and social representations of face information in children.     

The Relationship between Individualism—Collectivism and Job Satisfaction

On a exploré dans trois recherches la relation entre la satisfaction professionnelle et les mentalités individualiste ou communautaire. Dans la première, une étude de niveau écologique, nous avons trouvé des corrélations à la limite de seuil de signification entre l'indice d'individualisme de Hofstede et des attitudes défavorables envers la communication et les relations professionnelles; toutes deux relèvent des aspects inter-individuels du travail. Pour la deuxième recherche, c'est un échantillon d'employés chinois de Hong Kong qui ont fourni les données. Les employés présentant un sentiment communautaire se montraient plus satisfaits de leur travail, de leur salaire, de leur promotion, de leur encadrement et de leurs collègues que leurs homologues individualistes. La troisième étude a retrouvé les résultats de la deuxième avec un échantillon d'employés d'un niveau plus modeste.
The relationship between individualism-collectivism and job satisfaction was explored in three studies. In the first, ecological-level, study, we found marginally significant correlations between Hofstede's individualism index and unfavourable attitudes towards working relationships and communication, both being interpersonal aspects of work. In the second study, data were collected from a sample of Chinese employees in Hong Kong. Collectivist employees reported higher satisfaction with their work, pay, promotion, supervision, and coworker than their individualist counterparts. Study 3 replicated findings of Study 2, with a sample of employees at a lower rank.