The effects of rumination and negative cognitive styles on depression: a mediation analysis

Research on cognitive models of depression has identified negative cognitive styles and rumination as risk factors for depression. The present study examined the hypothesis that rumination mediates the effect of negative cognitive styles on depression. Specifically, we evaluated the differential effects of two aspects of rumination, characterized by brooding and reflection, on the relationship between negative cognitive styles and level of depressive symptoms. A total of 115 college students and 38 patients suffering from depressive disorders completed a battery of questionnaires measuring levels of depressive symptoms, brooding, reflection, and negative cognitive styles. The results support the notion that there exist two distinct dimensions of rumination and that, of the two, it is brooding and not reflection that mediates the relationship between negative cognitive styles and depression and contributes to its negative outcomes.     

Subtyping children and adolescents with loss of control eating by negative affect and dietary restraint

OBJECTIVE: Research suggests that subtyping adults with binge eating disorders by dietary restraint and negative affect predicts comorbid psychopathology, binge eating severity, and treatment outcome. Little research has explored the validity and clinical utility of subtyping youth along these dimensions. METHOD: Children (aged 8-18 years) reporting loss of control eating (n=159) were characterized based upon measures of dietary restraint and negative affect using cluster analysis, and then compared regarding disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, and parent-reported behavior problems. RESULTS: Robust subtypes characterized by dietary restraint (n=114; 71.7%) and dietary restraint/high negative affect (n=45; 28.3%) emerged. Compared to the former group, the dietary restraint/high negative affect subtype evidenced increased shape and weight concerns, more frequent binge eating episodes, and higher rates of parent-reported problems (all ps<0.05). CONCLUSION: Similar to findings from the adult literature, the presence of negative affect may mark a more severe variant of loss of control eating in youth. Future research should explore the impact of dietary restraint/negative affect subtypes on psychiatric functioning, body weight, and treatment outcome.     

World Poverty as a Problem of Justice? A Critical Comparison of Three Approaches

With regard to the problem of world poverty, libertarian theories of corrective justice emphasize negative duties and the idea of responsibility whereas utilitarian theories of help concentrate on positive duties based on the capacity of the helper. Thomas Pogge has developed a revised model of compensation that entails positive obligations that are generated by negative duties. He intends to show that the affluent are violating their negative duties to ensure that their conduct will not harm others: They are contributing to and profiting from an unjust global order. But the claim that negative duty generated positive obligations are more acceptable than positive duties is contestable. I examine whether Henry Shue’s model that is integrating negative duties and positive duties is more convincing concerning the foundation of positive duties to protect others. I defend the idea that there are positive duties of justice. This approach can integrate an allocation of positive duties via responsibility and maintain the advantage of an independent foundation of positive duties.

Apophasis and the turn of philosophy to religion: From Neoplatonic negative theology to postmodern negation of theology

This essay represents part of an effort to rewrite the history metaphysics in terms of what philosophy never said, nor could say. It works from the Neoplatonic commentary tradition on Plato’s Parmenides as the matrix for a distinctively apophatic thinking that takes the truth of metaphysical doctrines as something other than anything that can be logically articulated. It focuses on Damascius in the 5–6th century AD as the culmination of this tradition in the ancient world and emphasizes that Neoplatonism represents the crisis of Greek metaphysics on account of the inability to give a rational account of foundations for knowing and of the ultimate principle of beings. Neoplatonism discovered how all such ultimate principles were necessarily beyond the reach of reason and speech. This apophatic insight is drawn out with the help of contemporary criticism of Neoplatonic philosophy, defining also some points of divergence. The essay then discusses the motives for thinking the unsayable in postmodern times on the basis of this parallel with Neoplatonic thought. Discourse’s becoming critical of itself to the point of self-subversion animates them both. However, the tendency in postmodern thought to totally reject theology, including negative theology, is a betrayal of its own deepest motivations. This tendency is debated through an examination of the thought of Jean-Luc Nancy. While any traditional discourse can be negated, the negating and self-negating capacity of discourse itself is infinite, and this is where a perennial negative theological philosophy of the unsayable is to be located. Language, eminently the language of philosophy, as infinitely open, points in a direction which becomes equally and ineluctably theological.     

Measuring superstitious belief: why lucky charms matter

A large body of research has attempted to develop theories about the function and origin of superstitious beliefs on the basis of the psychological correlates of such beliefs. Most of this work has measured superstitious belief using the Paranormal Belief Scale (PBS). However, this scale refers solely to negative superstitions (e.g., breaking a mirror will cause bad luck) and omits items referring to positive superstitions (e.g., carrying a lucky charm will bring good luck). The two studies reported here found significant interactions between belief in negative and positive superstitions, and several individual difference measures. These findings have important implications for theory development, demonstrate that the PBS is an incomplete measure of superstitious belief, and highlight the need for future measures to include items referring to positive superstitions.     

A Social-Cognitive-Ecological Framework for Understanding the Impact of Exposure to Persistent Ethnic–Political Violence on Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment

In this article, we describe a theoretical framework for understanding how persistent and extreme exposure to ethnic–political conflict and violence interacts with cognitive, emotional, and self processes to influence children’s psychosocial adjustment. Three recent strands of theorizing guide our approach. First, we focus on how observational and social learning processes combine to influence the development of social-cognitive structures and processes that affect behavior. Second, we focus on the role of developing self and identity processes in shaping the child’s interactions with the world and the consequences of those interactions. Third, we build on the complex systems perspective on development and assume that human development can only be understood accurately by examining how the multiple contexts affecting children and the adults in their lives interact to moderate biosocial factors which predispose individuals to develop in certain directions. We review the recent empirical literature on children’s exposure to ethnic–political violence and we apply the social-cognitive-ecological framework to the empirical findings in this literature. Finally, we propose future directions for research and clinical implications derived from this framework.     

Individuals high in neuroticism are not more reactive to adverse events

Numerous studies have related neuroticism to negative emotional outcomes of adverse life events, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. However, the nature of the relationship between neuroticism and post-trauma symptoms is unclear. The purpose of this study was to prospectively examine whether individuals high in neuroticism, relative to low neuroticism individuals, show a larger increase in symptoms after an adverse event. A sample of infantry troops completed questionnaires before deployment to Iraq (n = 214) and about five months (n = 170; 76%) thereafter. The findings showed that, after controlling for an indicator of trauma severity, (a) higher neuroticism individuals reported more PTSD symptoms, depression symptoms, and somatic problems after negative events, and (b) these relationships disappeared after controlling for pre-trauma symptoms. There were no significant differences between individuals high and low in neuroticism in the increase in symptoms from pre to post-trauma. This suggests that individuals high in neuroticism are not more reactive to adverse events.     

Exploring Criterion Confounding in the Measurement of Binge Eating Symptoms and Negative Affect

Common measures of eating disorder symptoms contain affect-related items. When associations between negative affect and eating disorder symptoms are examined, criterion confounding is possible. The current study explored whether criterion confounding biases estimates of relations between symptoms of binge eating and negative affect. Data were collected from first-year university student women via 14-day web-based daily diaries. The Minnesota Eating Behavior Survey (MEBS) measured daily symptoms of binge eating, and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) measured daily negative affect. The inclusion of affect-related items in the MEBS biased mean level tests of negative affect, correlations of negative affect with symptoms of binge eating, and associations between the likelihood of reporting behavioral symptoms of binge eating and same-day negative affect. Converging results demonstrated the need to measure associated features and risk factors separately from problematic eating behavior symptoms.

Risk-factor research and prevention programs for anxiety disorders: a translational research framework

The aim of the present essay is to discuss the interconnection between risk-factor research and prevention program development for panic-spectrum psychopathology. We argue that prevention of panic-spectrum psychopathology specifically, and anxiety disorders more generally, is likely to be best advanced through active, systematic translation of basic, risk-factor research. After operationalizing key terminology, we present some exemplar risk-factor candidates for panic-spectrum psychopathology, summarize research related to their role as risk-factors for panic problems, and link this discussion to risk-factor nomenclature. We then present a translational framework for extrapolating extant knowledge on these and other potential risk-factors for panic-spectrum psychopathology with respect to the development of preventative interventions. The proposed translational framework is intended to describe a forward-feeding process by which risk-factor research could be used by clinical researchers to inform prevention programs; and reciprocally, how such prevention knowledge could be most effectively utilized to drive new, clinically focused risk-factor research.     

Negative automaintenance omission training is effective

Twelve pigeons were exposed to negative automaintenance contingencies for 17-27 sessions immediately after brief (14-16 sessions) or extended (168-237 sessions) exposure to positive automaintenance contingencies, or after 4-10 sessions of instrumental training. In all conditions, negative automaintenance contingencies virtually eliminated responding, reducing response rates to an average 1.3 responses per min. This reduction in response rate was validated by a model of transition between early and late response rates that assumed exponential transition of rates from one set of contingencies to the next. The model faithfully reproduced cumulative records, and yielded estimates of terminal rates under negative automaintenance that were close to operant level.