The contribution of role satisfaction,meaning in life and work–home conflict to explaining well-being among working grandparents

Background and objectives: The study aimed to examine the relationship of satisfaction with occupied roles as well as the sense of meaning in life and experience of work–home conflict to well-being among working grandparents in Israel.

Design and methods: The research sample consisted of 316 employed grandparents aged 50–80 (153 grandfathers and 163 grandmothers), who were employed in various types of organizations. Data were collected using structured questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

Results: The research findings indicate that the sense of meaning in life mediated the relationship between role satisfaction and the two types of work–home conflict. A significant relationship was found between “work interferes with family” conflict and negative affect. Higher personal resources were associated with higher meaning in life. Gender was not related to the experience of work–home conflict or to any of the outcome variables.

Conclusions: The centrality of meaning in life in the model that explains the experience of work–home conflict and its outcomes among working grandparents, derives from its mediating role in the relationship between the experience of role satisfaction and both types of role conflict, as well as from its direct impact on positive and negative affect.     

The role of stress mindset in shaping cognitive,emotional, and physiological responses to challenging and threatening stress

Background and objectives: Prior research suggests that altering situation-specific evaluations of stress as challenging versus threatening can improve responses to stress. The aim of the current study was to explore whether cognitive, physiological and affective stress responses can be altered independent of situation-specific evaluations by changing individuals’ mindsets about the nature of stress in general.

Design: Using a 2?×?2 design, we experimentally manipulated stress mindset using multi-media film clips orienting participants (N?=?113) to either the enhancing or debilitating nature of stress. We also manipulated challenge and threat evaluations by providing positive or negative feedback to participants during a social stress test.

Results: Results revealed that under both threat and challenge stress evaluations, a stress-is-enhancing mindset produced sharper increases in anabolic (“growth”) hormones relative to a stress-is-debilitating mindset. Furthermore, when the stress was evaluated as a challenge, a stress-is-enhancing mindset produced sharper increases in positive affect, heightened attentional bias towards positive stimuli, and greater cognitive flexibility, whereas a stress-is-debilitating mindset produced worse cognitive and affective outcomes.

Conclusions: These findings advance stress management theory and practice by demonstrating that a short manipulation designed to generate a stress-is-enhancing mindset can improve responses to both challenging and threatening stress.     

建议采纳的情绪机制

建议采纳过程中的情绪研究主要以向决策者提供与其情绪特征相适应的建议为思路,从情绪效价发展到对具体情绪的探索,从情绪影响认知加工策略拓展到对情绪认知评估特征的分析。文章结合对过往实证研究的分析,以情绪渗透理论、情绪社会信息理论、评估倾向框架为依据,对建议采纳中决策者的情绪来源、情绪影响建议采纳的过程机制进行分析与阐述,构建建议采纳的情绪机制模型,并以近年来的研究热点--愤怒情绪做示例分析。未来研究可进一步探讨情绪对建议采纳的直接作用、先前情绪与整合情绪的关系与作用,以及结合新兴情绪理论丰富建议采纳领域的研究。     

西方婚姻沟通研究进展述评

目前西方婚姻研究领域的主流—— 婚姻沟通研究表现出三大进展：从个体研究视角转向互动视角; 从单一维度划分沟通类型转向功能性的划分; 从人格影响因素的探索转向权力结构的探索。该领域未来的研究趋势应集中在关注积极互动、扩展研究范式、探索调节或中介机制、探讨夫妻权力的不同层面以及重新评价人格因素的影响等方面。     

我国当代青少年情感素质现状调查

本研究在青少年情感素质理论和发展的情感分类思想指导下, 在理论构想与实践探索相结合的基础上, 编制了富有原创性的内含6个分问卷、可测查青少年2层次6大类29种情感发展状况的调查工具——《青少年情感素质问卷》, 并以此对我国3类地区9大城市及其郊县的117所学校的25485名青少年学生进行首次大规模情感素质测查。结果发现: 我国青少年情感素质整体上处于积极正向状态, 但亟待提高; 男女生情感素质主要存在结构性差异; 情感素质未随学段升高而提高, 反有下降趋势, 其中乐学感和自信感下降达显著水平; 情感素质与学习成绩的自我评价、父母受教育程度呈正相关; 师生关系良好、教师有情施教对青少年学生各方面情感素质发展具有重要而直接的促进作用。     

An intervention study of the effects of the coping strategy of "finding positive meaning" on positive affect and health

Previous research has shown that positive affect (PA) is associated with the coping strategies of "searching for and finding positive meaning." The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the coping strategy of "finding positive meaning" and PA using an intervention method. Additionally, inasmuch as previous research has revealed that PA is associated with physical and mental health status, the current study measured health status in order to carry out a preliminary test as to whether PA increased by the intervention can also improve health. Participants in the intervention group (Japanese graduate students; 13 men and 16 women) reported the most stressful event during the past 3 days and its positive meaning, while those in the control group (13 men and 15 women) reported the most stressful event alone. Both groups reported twice a week for 5 successive weeks using e-mails. Three questionnaires, the Japanese version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule scales for measuring positive and negative affects (NA), the situational version of the General Coping Questionnaire for coping strategies, and the Japanese version of the General Health Questionnaire for health status, were administered to all participants just before the start of the intervention, after the conclusion of the intervention, and at the 5-week follow-up session. Results revealed that the "finding positive meaning" coping strategy and PA were enhanced by the intervention in the follow-up for men and women with no changes in NA. For the health scales of the General Health Questionnaire, no significant group-related effects were observed. Thus, the intervention had no significant influence on NA or health status. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed along with a few limitations in this study.     

The embodied mind

Abstract :  This paper considers Fonagy et al's concept of mentalization and contrasts aspects of this with aspects of Bion's model of the mind. The author argues that although mentalization adds to our understanding of mind it has limitations; that it may tend to over-emphasize certain types of external interaction between infant and carer and under-emphasize internal psychobiological processes. What is at issue here is the way in which an infant's carers facilitate the development of meaning out of experience. Bion's concept supposes a relatively 'interior' model in which, in important ways, the carer enables the infant to derive the meaning of his or her experience, whilst on the other hand Fonagy et al tend to talk more in terms of the ways in which the carer endows the infant's experience with meaning. Reference is made to Fordham's concept of states of 'Identity'. Fordham has pointed out that Freud's model is one in which mind is conceived of as evolving out of an infant's complex identifications with his or her carer(s); Jung's model envisages developmentally early states of identity as the means by which inherent capacities are realized.     

The Structure of Anxiety and Depression in a Normative Sample of Younger and Older Australian Adolescents

It has been reported that depression and anxiety have overlapping symptoms and are conceptually interrelated. One of the most prominent theoretical developments that explain this association is Clark and Watson’s tripartite model (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100:316–336, 1991) that posits these two disorders and negative emotions share a latent component of negative affect (NA). The current study had two aims, (a) to compare a tripartite factor structure against competing models by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21) (Lovibond and Lovibond 1995), and (b) explore the psychometric properties of the DASS-21. The DASS-21 was completed by a representative sample of 4039 young Australians, aged 12–18 years, as part of the South Australian Youth Mental Health Survey (SAYMHS), South Australia, Australia. The best fitting model for the data consisted of anhedonic depression, physiological hyperarousal, and general NA. The psychometric properties of the DASS-21 were excellent with a stable and interpretable factor structure and good internal consistency. The results of the current study suggest that the theoretical tripartite structure of depression and anxiety is robust and applicable among Australian youth. The diagnostic, clinical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.