Quadratic Associations Between Empathy and Depression as Moderated by Emotion Dysregulation

Empathic tendencies have been associated with interpersonal and psychological benefits, but empathy at extreme levels or in combination with certain personal characteristics may contribute to risk for depression. This study tested the moderating role of cognitive emotion regulation in depression's association with empathy using nonlinear models. Young adults (N = 304; 77% female; M = 19 years) completed measures of cognitive emotion regulation strategies, depression, and affective and cognitive empathy. Individuals with good regulation had low levels of depression overall and their depression symptoms were lowest when levels of affective empathy were average. Individuals with poor regulation had high levels of depression overall, particularly when levels of empathy were moderate to high. Extremely high and low levels of cognitive empathy were associated with elevated depression, and this association was not moderated by regulation. These findings suggest tendencies to respond empathically to others’ needs is neither an adaptive nor maladaptive characteristic but rather moderate empathy, particularly in the context of good regulation, may offer the greatest protection against depression.     

Investigating Occupational Stress,Racial Identity,and Mentoring for African American Women in Health Care

This study examined the influence of racial identity and mentoring experiences on occupational stress among African American women in health care (N = 76). The women were surveyed about their occupational stress (role stress, psychological strain, and personal resources), racial identity, demographic information, and mentoring experiences. Results indicated that racial identity was negatively related to role stress and psychological strain, and level of education was closely related to personal resources. Mentoring was not found to have a significant impact on occupational stress as hypothesized. The implications for enhancing occupational satisfaction were discussed in relation to advocacy for career development professionals.     

Cautious Thoughts on “A Social Priming Data Set With Troubling Oddities”

Pashler, Rohrer, Abramson, Wolfson, and Harris (2016/this issue) identify a number of features of the data in Chatterjee, Rose, and Sinha (2013 Chatterjee, P., Rose, R. L., &; Sinha, J. (2013). Why money meanings matter in decisions to donate time and money. Marketing Letters, 21(2), 1–10. [Google Scholar]), particularly in Study 3, that cause them to question the scientific validity of the conclusions drawn from the data. Based on the critics’ analyses and my own investigation, I concur that Study 3 data are likely unreliable. However, Pashler et al. question the scientific validity of all three studies while providing support for their skepticism only for Study 3, clearly an overgeneralization. The processes leading to the original publication and the critics’ challenge to the original work highlight some crucial questions regarding trust, loyalty, mentorship, and oversight in multiple authored articles.     

Gender differences in salivary alpha-amylase and attentional bias towards negative facial expressions following acute stress induction

This study investigated gender differences in two key processes involved in anxiety, arousal and attentional bias towards threat. Arousal was assessed using salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), a biomarker of noradrenergic arousal and attention bias using a dot-probe task. Twenty-nine women and 27 men completed the dot-probe task and provided saliva samples before and after a stress induction [cold pressor stress (CPS) test]. Women displayed a significant increase in arousal (sAA) following the stressor compared to men, who displayed a significant reduction in arousal. Reaction time data revealed a significant avoidance of threat in women at baseline, but a significant change to an attention bias towards threat following the stressor. Men did not significantly respond to the stressor in terms of attentional bias. These findings suggest that women are more reactive to a stressor than men, and display an initial avoidance response to threat, but an attentional bias towards threat following stress.     

‘Language of the past’ – Exploring past tense disruption during autobiographical narration in neurodegenerative disorders

Compromised retrieval of autobiographical memory (ABM) is well established in neurodegenerative disorders. The recounting of autobiographical events is inextricably linked to linguistic knowledge, yet no study to date has investigated whether tense use during autobiographical narration is disrupted in dementia syndromes. This study investigated the incidence of correct past tense use during ABM narration in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD, n = 10) and semantic dementia (SD, n = 10) in comparison with healthy older Controls (n = 10). Autobiographical narratives were analysed for episodic content (internal/external) and classified according to tense use (past/present). Across both patient groups, use of the past tense was significantly compromised relative to Controls, with increased levels of off‐target present tense verbs observed. Voxel‐based morphometry analyses based on structural MRI revealed differential associations between past tense use and regions of grey matter intensity in the brain. Bilateral temporal cortices were implicated in the SD group, whereas frontal, lateral, and medial temporal regions including the right hippocampus emerged in AD. This preliminary study provides the first demonstration of the disruption of specific linguistic constructs during autobiographical narration in AD and SD. Future studies are warranted to clarify at what point in the disease trajectory such deficits in tense use emerge, and whether these deficits are a product or contributing factor in memory disruption in these syndromes.     

Television,madness and community care

This paper describes the forms and contents of television representations of mental illness in the UK in 1992. The theoretical framework is provided by Moscovici's theory of social representations and some modifications are proposed for the case of madness. Quantitative and qualitative methods are used in the empirical analyses. It is shown that madness has multiple meanings on television, while at the same time violence is commonly included. It is also suggested that a partial reconfiguration of the representational field has taken place in recent years. Media stories about the responsibility of the policy of community care for scandals and tragedies are now commonplace. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.