Cognitive reappraisal attenuates the association between depressive symptoms and emotional response to stress during adolescence

Depression is associated with increased emotional response to stress. This is especially the case during the developmental period of adolescence. Cognitive reappraisal is an effective emotion regulation strategy that has been shown to reduce the impact of emotional response on psychopathology. However, less is known about whether cognitive reappraisal impacts the relationship between depressive symptoms and emotional responses, and whether its effects are specific to emotional reactivity or emotional recovery. The current study examined whether cognitive reappraisal moderated the relationship between depressive symptoms and trait or state measures of emotional reactivity and recovery. A community sample of 127 adolescents (M-age?=?15.28; 49% female, 47% Caucasian), at an age of risk for depression, completed self-report measures of trait emotional responding and depressive symptoms. In addition, they completed an in vivo social stress task and were assessed on state emotional reactivity and recovery from the stressor. Findings suggested that cognitive reappraisal was associated with an attenuated impact of depressive symptoms on trait and state emotional recovery. These results provide evidence that cognitive reappraisal may be an effective strategy for improving some aspects of emotional responding in relation to depressive symptoms among adolescents.     

Maternal experience of their infants’ crying in the context of war trauma: Determinants and consequences

We examined, first, how prenatal maternal mental health and war trauma predicted mothers’ experience of their infant crying, indicated by emotions, cognitions, and behavior; and second, how these experiences influenced the mother–infant interaction and infant development. Participants were 511 Palestinian mothers from the Gaza Strip, reporting their war trauma, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and perceived stress during pregnancy (Time 1). They reported experiences of infant crying at 4 months (Time 2), and the mother–infant interaction and infant sensorimotor and language development at 12 months of infants’ age (Time 3). Results revealed that maternal mental health problems, but not war trauma, were important to experiences of infant crying. A high level of PTSD symptoms predicted negative emotions evoked by infant crying, and high depressive symptoms predicted low active and positive responses to crying. Unexpectedly, high prenatal perceived stress predicted high active and positive responsiveness. Concerning the consequences, mothers’ sensitive interpretation of infant crying predicted optimal infant sensorimotor development, and mothers’ active and positive responses predicted high emotional availability in mother–infant interaction. Crying is the first communication tool for infants, and mothers’ sensitive responses to crying contribute to infant well-being. Therefore, reinforcing mother's optimal responses is important when helping war-affected dyads.     

Identification of everyday objects on the basis of fragmented outline versions

Although Attneave (1954 Psychological Review 61 183 193) and Biederman (1987 Psychological Review 94 115-147) have argued that curved contour segments are most important in shape perception, Kennedy and Domander (1985 Perception 14 367-370) showed that fragmented object contours are better identifiable when straight segments are shown. We used the set of line drawings published by Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 6 174-215), to make outline versions that could be used to investigate this issue with a larger and more heterogeneous stimulus set. Fragments were placed either around the 'salient' points or around the midpoints (points midway between two salient points), creating curved versus relatively straight fragments when the original outline was fragmented (experiment 1), or angular and straight fragments when straight-line versions were fragmented (experiment 2). We manipulated fragment length in each experiment except the last one, in which we presented only selected points (experiment 3). While fragmented versions were on average more identifiable when straight fragments were shown, certain objects were more identifiable when the curved segments or the angles were shown. A tentative explanation of these results is presented in terms of an advantage for straight segments during grouping processes for outlines with high part salience, and an advantage for curved segments during matching processes for outlines with low part salience.     

The awakening of Attneave's sleeping cat: identification of everyday objects on the basis of straight-line versions of outlines

Attneave (1954 Psychological Review 61 183-193) demonstrated that a line drawing of a sleeping cat can still be identified when the smoothly curved contours are replaced by straight-line segments connecting the positive maxima and negative minima of contour curvature. Using the set of line drawings by Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory 6 174-215) we made outline versions (with known curvature values along the contour) that can still be identified and that can be used to test Attneave's demonstration more systematically and more thoroughly. In five experiments (with 444 subjects in total), we tested identifiability of straight-line versions of 184 stimuli with different selections of points to be connected (using 24 to 28 subjects per stimulus per condition). Straight-line versions connecting curvature extrema were easier to identify than those based on inflections (where curvature changes sign), and those connecting salient points (determined by 161 independent subjects) were easier than those connecting midpoints. However, identification varied considerably between objects: some were almost always identifiable and others almost never, regardless of the selection criterion, whereas identifiability depended on the specific shape attributes preserved in the straight-line version of the outline in other objects. Results are discussed in relation to Attneave's original hypotheses as well as in the light of more recent theories on shape perception and object identification.     

What Prevents Adolescents from Seeking Help After a Suicide Education Program?

Perceived barriers to help-seeking among adolescents attending a suicide education program were examined. A total of 854 high school students in Colorado completed one of two questionnaires, measuring barriers to help-seeking for self or friend. The most prominent barriers for self were: inability to discuss problems with adults, self-overconfidence, fear of hospitalization, and lack of closeness to school adults. The most prominent barriers for troubled friends were: friendship concerns, unapproachability of school adults, fear of friend's hospitalization, and underestimating friend's problems. Results reveal multiple constraints limiting the program's utilization, supporting the need for comprehensive system approaches to suicide prevention.     

Zipf's Law and Avoidance of Excessive Synonymy

Zipf's law states that if words of language are ranked in the order of decreasing frequency in texts, the frequency of a word is inversely proportional to its rank. It is very reliably observed in the data, but to date it escaped satisfactory theoretical explanation. This article suggests that Zipf's law may result from a hierarchical organization of word meanings over the semantic space, which in turn is generated by the evolution of word semantics dominated by expansion of meanings and competition of synonyms. A study of the frequency of partial synonyms in Russian provides experimental evidence for the hypothesis that word frequency is determined by semantics.     

Doing unto future selves as you would do unto others: psychological distance and decision making

Four experiments showed that the decisions people make for future selves and other people are similar to each other and different from their decisions for present selves. Experiments involved decisions to drink a disgusting liquid for scientific purposes (Experiment 1), tutor peers during exam week (Experiment 2), receive e-mails for charity (Experiment 3), and defer a lottery prize for a larger one (Experiment 4). These findings seemed to be at least partially rooted in the tendency for decisions regarding the ongoing, present self to be uniquely influenced by internal subjective experience. Specifically, these effects emerged for real, but not hypothetical, decisions. Also, they were mitigated by manipulations that altered participants' attention to present or future subjective experience. In addition, when participants' subjective experience primarily involved empathy for others (Experiment 3), their decisions on behalf of present selves were more generous than their decisions for future selves and others. Applications are discussed.     

Correlates of Academic Procrastination and Students’ Grade Goals

This study examined correlates of academic procrastination and students’ grade goals in a sample of 226 undergraduates from Singapore. Findings indicated that self-efficacy for self-regulated learning was significantly and negatively related to procrastination. High self-efficacy for self-regulated learning also predicted students’ expectations of doing well and low self-efficacy for self-regulated learning predicted students’ expectations of not doing well academically. Additionally, help-seeking predicted students’ expectations of doing well academically while academic stress predicted students’ expectations of not doing well academically. Implications for education and educational practice were discussed. This project was partially supported by the Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) program from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.     

Unconscious auditory information can prime visual word processing: a process-dissociation procedure study

Whether information perceived without awareness can affect overt performance, and whether such effects can cross sensory modalities, remains a matter of debate. Whereas influence of unconscious visual information on auditory perception has been documented, the reverse influence has not been reported. In addition, previous reports of unconscious cross-modal priming relied on procedures in which contamination of conscious processes could not be ruled out. We present the first report of unconscious cross-modal priming when the unaware prime is auditory and the test stimulus is visual. We used the process-dissociation procedure [Debner, J. A., & Jacoby, L. L. (1994). Unconscious perception: Attention, awareness and control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 304-317] which allowed us to assess the separate contributions of conscious and unconscious perception of a degraded prime (either seen or heard) to performance on a visual fragment-completion task. Unconscious cross-modal priming (auditory prime, visual fragment) was significant and of a magnitude similar to that of unconscious within-modality priming (visual prime, visual fragment). We conclude that cross-modal integration, at least between visual and auditory information, is more symmetrical than previously shown, and does not require conscious mediation.     

Influence of African American elders' age stereotypes on their cardiovascular response to stress

Although it has been shown that White elders are vulnerable to the influence of age stereotypes, it was not known whether this effect applied to African American elders. In the present study, African American elders were randomly assigned to negative or positive implicit-age-stereotype groups. Compared to participants in the positive age-stereotype group, those in the negative age-stereotype group demonstrated significantly more elevated cardiovascular response to stress, as measured by blood pressure and heart rate following mental challenges. These results suggest that negative age stereotypes generate a susceptibility to stress among African American elders, whereas positive age may provide them with a defense against this stress.