Meaning in life and adjustment to daily stressors

People perceive their life as meaningful when they find coherence in the environment. Given that meaning of life is tied to making sense of life events, people who lack meaning would be more threatened by stressful life events than those with a strong sense of meaning in life. Four studies demonstrated links between perceptions of life’s meaningfulness and perceived levels of stress. In Study 1, participants with lower levels of meaning in life reported greater stress than those who reported higher meaning in life. In Study 2 and Study 3, participants whose meaning in life had been threatened experienced greater stress than those whose meaning in life had been left intact. In Study 4, anticipation of future stress caused participants to rate themselves higher on the quest for meaning in life. These findings suggest that perceiving life as meaningful functions as a buffer against stressors.     

Working mechanisms of a web-based self-management intervention for cancer survivors: a randomised controlled trial

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether problem-solving skills and perceived personal control over cancer recovery mediated the intervention effects on depression and fatigue of a web-based computer-tailored intervention for cancer survivors – the Kanker Nazorg Wijzer (Cancer Aftercare Guide).

Design: Patients were recruited through 21 Dutch hospitals (November 2013–June 2014). The mediation model was tested in a randomised controlled trial with an intervention group (n = 231) and a waiting list control group (n = 231).

Main outcome measures: Hypothesised mediators problem-solving skills (SPSI-R) and personal control (IPQ-R) were measured at baseline and 3 months from baseline. Outcomes depression (HADS) and fatigue (CIS) were measured at baseline and 6 months from baseline.

Results: The intervention effects in decreasing depression and fatigue were mediated by personal control. Problem-solving skills did not mediate the intervention effects on depression and fatigue.

Conclusion: While personal control in the control group decreased in the first three months after baseline, levels of personal control within the intervention group were maintained. This effect partially explained the intervention effects on depression and fatigue. The results provide evidence for the relevance of addressing personal control in web-based interventions in order to improve psychosocial well-being in early cancer survivors.     

Buddhist idealism and the problem of other minds

This essay is concerned with Indian Yogācāra philosophers’ treatment of the problem of other minds in the face of a threatened collapse into solipsism suggested by Vasubandhu’s epistemological argument for idealism. I discuss the attempts of Dharmakīrti and Ratnakīrti to address this issue, concluding that Dharmakīrti is best seen as addressing the epistemological problem of other minds and Ratnakīrti as addressing the conceptual problem of other minds.     

We See in the Dark

Do we need light to see? I argue that the black experience of a man in a perfectly dark cave is a representation of an absence of light, not an absence of representation. There is certainly a difference between his perceptual knowledge and that of his blind companion. Only the sighted man can tell whether the cave is dark just by looking. But perhaps he is merely inferring darkness from his failure to see. To get an unambiguous answer, I switch the focus from perceptual knowledge to non‐epistemic seeing. My conclusion is that we see even in the limiting case of absolute darkness – regardless of whether we believe we are seeing. We see little of pratical interest. But in terms of basic information, we see about as much as we do when the lights are on. Depending on what has gone before and after, we may even see ordinary objects.     

A LABORATORY ANALOGUE FOR THE STUDY OF PEER SEXUAL HARASSMENT

The purpose of this study was to develop a laboratory analogue for the study of peer sexual harassment, and to examine person and situational factors associated with male on female peer sexual harassment. One hundred twenty-two male participants were given the opportunity to tell jokes to a female confederate from a joke list that included sexually offensive jokes, as well as other types of jokes. Participants were exposed to either a sexist laboratory environment or a neutral laboratory environment during the study. Eighty percent of participants told at least one sexually offensive joke to a female confederate. Higher scores on a measure of adversarial sexual beliefs were associated with telling a greater number of sexually offensive jokes. The results suggest that the joke-telling analogue may be a useful means for laboratory explorations of person and situational factors associated with peer sexual harassment.     

Adolescent Violence: The Protective Effects of Youth Assets

The authors explored adolescent physical fighting and weapon carrying, using in‐home interviews with 1,098 middle/high school students and their parents. Logistic regression analyses examined the relationship between youth assets and the risk behaviors while controlling for demographic information. Both demographic factors and assets were associated with no physical fighting, and 6 of 9 assets were linked to not carrying a weapon. These findings indicate that certain assets may protect youth from physical fighting and carrying a weapon.     

Power,Leadership, and Self‐Regulation

Power has been linked to both self‐regulatory success and failure. Power typically aids self‐regulation of task performance by making people motivated and goal‐oriented. However, because people’s self‐regulatory resources are limited, as powerful people exert effort on their focal tasks, they may fail to self‐regulate in other domains. This type of goal myopia may lead to detriments in impulse control. Wielding power, by making decisions and leading subordinates, can deplete people’s self‐regulatory resources, making subsequent acts of self‐control more difficult.     

The relative role of nicotine dependence and smoking-related cognitions in adolescents' process of smoking cessation

The present study evaluates the role of distinct components of nicotine dependence (craving, withdrawal, behavioural dependence) in comparison to smoking-related cognitions (attitudes, perceived social approval, self-efficacy) in adolescent smoking cessation. In the process towards smoking cessation, we distinguish between distinct behavioural transitions, respectively, short-term abstinence, reduction in smoking behaviour and prolonged cessation, to evaluate differences in cessation-related antecedents as a function of varying behavioural outcomes. A total of 850 adolescent smokers (age 14-16) participated in the present study. Smoking behaviour was assessed 1 year after baseline. Results showed that all dependence components had a distinct role in the prediction of behavioural change towards cessation. Furthermore, each behavioural transition was predicted by a distinct set of variables, indicating that contributions of cessation-related factors vary across the course towards cessation. Overall, our findings suggest that smoking-related cognitions are particularly relevant in the initiation of behavioural change, such as short-term abstinence, whereas nicotine dependence, craving in particular, becomes increasingly important in the prediction of maintained behavioural change, such as prolonged cessation. Implications encompass enhanced attention to the multidimensional nature of nicotine dependence and the value of comparing different behavioural outcomes in a comprehensive understanding of cessation-related factors.     

Automatic emotion regulation after social exclusion: tuning to positivity

Nine experiments tested competing hypotheses regarding nonconscious affective responses to acute social exclusion and how such responses may relate to positive mental health. The results strongly and consistently indicated that acute social exclusion increased nonconscious positive affect. Compared to nonexcluded participants, excluded participants recalled more positive memories from childhood than did accepted participants (Experiment 1), gave greater weight to positive emotion in their judgments of word similarity (Experiments 2 and 3), and completed more ambiguous word stems with happy words (Experiments 4a and 4b). This process was apparently automatic, as participants asked to imagine exclusion overestimated explicit distress and underestimated implicit positivity (Experiment 3). Four final experiments showed that this automatic emotion regulation process was found among participants low (but not high) in depressive symptoms (Experiments 5 and 6) and among participants high (but not low) in self-esteem (Experiments 7 and 8). These findings suggest that acute exclusion sets in motion an automatic emotion regulation process in which positive emotions become highly accessible, which relates to positive mental health.