Physical activity: the relative associations with cognitive and affective risk beliefs

Abstract

Objective: The role of affectively oriented risk beliefs in explaining health behaviors has not been examined in the context of physical activity or in diverse study populations. We evaluated whether affective risk beliefs account for unique variance in physical activity intentions and behavior above and beyond that accounted for by cognitive risk beliefs.

Design: A cross-sectional survey of socio-demographically diverse US residents (N?=?835; 46.4% no college training; 46.7% minority racial/ethnic ancestry; 42.6% men).

Main outcome measures: Physical activity intentions and behavior.

Results: Hierarchical linear regressions showed that affective risk beliefs accounted for variance in physical activity intentions beyond that predicted by socio-demographics and cognitive risk beliefs (F-change ps<.001). Specifically, intentions were higher among people with higher anticipated regret (ps<.001) and with higher absolute feelings of risk (ps<.05) or worry (ps<.05). There was an indirect relationship between perceived absolute likelihood and intentions through anticipated regret and feelings of risk. Neither cognitive nor affective risk beliefs accounted for variance in physical activity behavior (F-change ps>.05), but unsurprisingly, behavior was positively associated with physical activity intentions (p<.001).

Conclusion: Future interventions could target affective risk beliefs—particularly anticipated regret—to increase intentions, and then add other intervention components to bridge the intention–behavior gap.     

Understanding anhedonia in schizophrenia through lexical analysis of natural speech

Anhedonia is a negative prognostic indicator in schizophrenia. However, the underlying nature of this emotional deficit is unclear. Laboratory studies examining patients’ emotional reactions under controlled circumstances have failed to find evidence for a diminished hedonic response, instead finding that patients’ reactions to laboratory stimuli are characterised by high levels of negative emotion. The present study employed lexical analysis of natural speech in 52 patients and 49 non-patient controls while they discussed separate neutral, pleasant and unpleasant autobiographical memories. Patients with clinically rated anhedonia, versus other patients and controls, showed a dramatic increase in negative emotion expression when discussing pleasurable memories, but they showed no corresponding decrease in positive emotion. These findings provide further evidence that “anhedonia” is more reflective of negative emotional states than the absence of positive ones. These findings also raise questions about how positive and negative emotions can be simultaneously co-activated in patients with schizophrenia.     

Who am I?: The influence of affect on the working self-concept

Two experiments investigated the impact of affect on the working self-concept. Following an affect induction, participants completed the Twenty Statements Test (TST) to assess their working self-concepts. Participants in predominantly happy and angry states used more abstract statements to describe themselves than did participants in predominantly sad and fearful states. Evaluations of the statements that participants generated (Experiment 2) demonstrate that these effects are not the result of (1) participants describing positively and negatively valenced information at different levels of abstraction, or (2) valence-based affective priming. Further, half of the participants in Experiment 2 were led to attribute their affect to the manipulation prior to completing the TST. This manipulation eliminated the influence of affect on the working self-concept. Taken together, these results are consistent with theory and research on the informative functions of affect.     

An inkblot for sexual preference: A semantic variant of the Affect Misattribution Procedure

A newly developed Semantic Misattribution Procedure (SMP), a semantic variant of the Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP), was used in three studies as an indirect measure of sexual interest. Using a known-group approach, homosexual men (Studies 1 and 2), heterosexual men (Studies 1 to 3) and heterosexual women (Study 3) were asked to guess the meaning of briefly presented Chinese ideographs as “sexual” or “not sexual”. The ideographs were preceded by briefly presented primes depicting male and female individuals of varying sexual maturity. As hypothesised, the frequency of “sexual” responses increased after priming with pictures of individuals of the preferred sex and increasing sexual maturation. The SMP showed satisfactory reliability and convergent validity as indicated by correlations with direct and two indirect measures of sexual interest. In two further studies, the hypothesised pattern was replicated whereas a standard AMP with the identical prime stimuli did not produce this result. The potential usefulness of semantic variants of the AMP is discussed.     

Associations between components of rumination and autobiographical memory specificity as measured by a Minimal Instructions Autobiographical Memory Test

Clinical studies have shown that rumination functions as a mediator between overgeneral memory—the tendency to retrieve autobiographical memories in a non-specific format—and depression. Recently, rumination has been dismantled into two distinct subcomponents: reflection, which is more adaptive, and brooding, which is more maladaptive. In the present study we examined the differential relationships of these two rumination subcomponents with autobiographical memory specificity and their mediational role for the relationship between reduced memory specificity and depression in a non-clinical sample. In addition, we investigated the usefulness of a “minimal instructions” version of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) to measure memory specificity in non-clinical populations. Results indicated that the use of minimal instructions can increase the AMT's sensitivity to detect reduced autobiographical memory specificity in non-clinical individuals. Further it was found that brooding, and not reflection, is significantly associated with reduced autobiographical memory specificity and functions as a mediator between reduced memory specificity and depression.     

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity affects general distress through poor social support

ABSTRACT

Sharing specific autobiographical events is likely to influence the support people give us; a person who shares little detail of their lives may be unlikely to attract social support and this may in turn contribute towards anxious and depressive symptoms. Participants (N?=?142) reported memories evoked by negative and positive cue words and these memories were coded for whether or not they referred to a specific event lasting less than 24?h. At this time (T1) and one year later (T2), participants also completed the UCLA Life Stress Interview (LSI), which includes a measure of social support, and measures of depression and anxiety comprising a general distress latent construct. The tendency to recall fewer specific memories was associated with lower social support given by friends and romantic partners and this was in turn associated with elevated general distress at T2, even when accounting for T1 social support and general distress. Our findings contribute to the literature regarding the social function of memory and suggest another route via which reduced specificity contributes to emotional disorders.     

Effects of working memory load on long‐term word priming

Three experiments assessed the role of verbal and visuo‐spatial working memory in supporting long‐term repetition priming for written words. In Experiment 1, two priming tasks (word stem completion and category‐exemplar production) were included with three levels of load on working memory: (1) without memory load, (2) memory load that involved storing a string of six digits, and (3) memory load that involved storing a graphic shape. Experiments 2 and 3 compared the effects of a verbal (Experiment 2) or a visual (Experiment 3) working memory load at encoding on both an implicit (word stem completion) and an explicit test (cued recall). The results show no effect of memory load in any of the implicit memory tests, suggesting that priming does not rely on working memory resources. By contrast, loading working memory at encoding causes a significant disruptive effect on the explicit memory test for words when the load is verbal but not visual.     

Effects of spatial cues on locating emotional targets

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to slower responding to a visual target appearing at a previously cued versus uncued location. In three experiments, we asked whether IOR would be affected by the emotional content of target stimuli. Participants reported the location of negative (spiders, angry faces) or neutral (objects, neutral faces) targets as quickly and accurately as possible after a valid or invalid location cue (a simple circle). IOR was significantly smaller when detecting negative versus neutral targets, but only after repeated exposures to these stimuli (i.e., with blocked presentations). This effect was eliminated when target type was randomized within blocks. By presenting negative versus neutral targets in short alternating blocks and examining IOR on the first trial of each new block, we show that the emotional modulation of IOR stems from the affective context in place before visual orienting is initiated, not by perceptual processing of the target after cue offset.     

The Executive Manager and His or Her Organisation

Thoughts based on an inquiry and on experiences from my practice as a consultant, manager and company executive.     

Four-quadrant investigation of job-related affects and behaviours

Emphasizing differences in activation as well as valence, six studies across a range of situations examined relations between types of job-related core affect and 13 self-reported work behaviours. A theory-based measure of affect was developed, and its four-quadrant structure was found to be supported across studies. Also consistent with hypotheses, high-activation pleasant affect was more strongly correlated with positive behaviours than were low-activation pleasant feelings, and those associations tended to be greatest for discretionary behaviours in contrast to routine task proficiency. Additionally as predicted, unpleasant job-related affects that had low rather than high activation were more strongly linked to the negative work behaviours examined. Theory and practice would benefit from greater differentiation between affects and between behaviours.