Mother–infant interaction and maternal postnatal psychological distress are associated with negative emotional reactivity among infants and toddlers— A FinnBrain Birth Cohort study

Studies have reported mixed findings regarding the effects of mother-infant interaction and maternal distress on children’s negative emotional reactivity. In the current study (N = 134 and 107), we examined the effects of maternal Emotional Availability (sensitivity, structuring, non-intrusiveness and non-hostility) and maternal psychological distress on negative reactivity among children in the FinnBrain birth cohort study. In addition, the possible moderating effect of mother-infant interaction on the associations between maternal psychological distress and children's negative reactivity was examined. We used questionnaires to asses maternal psychological distress, observations of mother-infant interaction and observations as well maternal reports of child temperament to overcome the key limitations of many studies relying on single-method assessments. Our results showed that higher maternal sensitivity and structuring at 8 months of child’s age were associated with lower mother-reported negative reactivity among children at 24 months. Higher maternal postnatal distress associated with higher parent-reported negative reactivity in children at 12 and 24 months of age when the effects of prenatal distress and the quality of mother-infant interaction were controlled for. Mother-infant interaction and maternal psychological distress did not associate with observations of child negative reactivity. We found no moderation effects of mother-infant interaction regarding the associations between maternal distress and children’s negative emotional reactivity. Our findings reflect the importance of developing interventions to reduce the maternal distress symptoms while enhancing maternal sensitivity and structuring to prevent the possible harmful effects of these on child negative reactivity.     

情绪效价可预测性对时间捆绑效应的影响

时间捆绑效应指的是主观上主动动作和动作结果的时间点相互靠近的现象。其中, 时间捆绑效应可分为动作捆绑和结果捆绑, 分别对应主动动作和动作结果的时间点变化。本研究通过一个混合设计实验考察了情绪效价可预测性对时间捆绑效应的影响。情绪效价可预测性(可预测、不可预测)为被试内因素, 刺激模态(听觉刺激、视觉刺激)为被试间因素。结果发现, 情绪效价为可预测时, 结果捆绑在主动按键后产生听觉刺激或视觉刺激都出现了增强, 而动作捆绑仅在产生视觉刺激时才出现增强。结果表明, 情绪效价为可预测时会增强时间捆绑效应, 但该作用在动作捆绑和结果捆绑中存在差异。由于时间捆绑效应是反映主动控制感的主要指标, 本研究结果对先进驾驶辅助系统的交互设计具有一定的参考意义。     

Counselor performance in treating anxiety and depressive symptoms in integrated care: A client outcomes study

Depression and anxiety are two of the most common mental disorders treated in Integrated Primary and Behavioral Healthcare programs. We investigated the within and between performance differences of mental health counselors on anxiety and depressive symptomatology in an integrated service with a sample of 1573 clients and 10 licensed professional counselors. The results of growth curves within the framework of Multilevel Modeling showed significant within and between performance differences among counselors treating anxiety and depressive symptoms. Some counselors performed better in treating anxiety symptoms while others did better treating depression. Implications for counselor education, client care, and legislation are provided.     

Modality-general benefit of eye-closure on the retrieval of intentionally learned information

The beneficial effect of eye-closure during retrieval was demonstrated in many studies addressing eyewitness memory or memory of episodic events. Fewer studies examined the effect concerning the intentional learning of verbal information. Furthermore, the question of whether the eye-closure effect is modality-specific, boosting visual memory only, or modality-general, boosting also other forms of memory (e.g., auditory memory), is still open. These issues were addressed in the present study. Participants (N = 129) were asked to study aurally and visually presented lists of unrelated nouns (within-subjects). During free recall, participants either kept their eyes open or closed their eyes (between-subjects). Eye-closure resulted in better free recall than keeping the eyes open. Importantly, this effect emerged for both visually and aurally presented word lists, suggesting that the effect of closing the eyes is rather modality-general. The results are discussed with respect to limitations of previous studies and practical implications.     

Emotional labour strategies and job burnout: A meta-analysis of Chinese employees

Emotional labour strategies have a significant impact on job burnout. However, current research results are controversial and unclear. A meta-analysis was conducted to explore the relationship between emotional labour strategies (surface acting and deep acting) and job burnout. A total of 84 empirical studies that included 28,242 participants were selected. The meta-analysis of the relationships between job burnout and surface acting and deep acting included 84 and 75 independent samples respectively. The results show that surface acting had a positive association (r = 0.25) with job burnout, whereas deep acting (r = −0.27) had a negative association with job burnout. Occupational types and measures of emotional labour strategies moderated the relationship between emotional labour strategies and job burnout, but this relationship was not moderated by measures of job burnout.     

Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—Young men's embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality

Introduction

Mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety with interlinked suicidality, are the leading cause of health-related disability among young men. Knowledge of the interaction between emotional, bodily, social and gendered mental health processes in young men is limited and therefore needed.

Aim

This study aimed to explore young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality, and to conceptualise these by integrating affective–emotional, physiological, social and gendered processes.

Methods

Semistructured individual interviews were conducted with 13 young men who had sought professional help for mental disorders and suicidality. Grounded theory (GT) was used with a social constructivist perspective.

Results

The results comprise one core category—Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—with related categories “battling with the emotional body,” “suffering in social silence” and “balancing embodied darkness and distress.” The GT illustrates how young men navigate and manage their embodied and emotional suffering in a context of “regulative” masculine and social norms alongside insufficient social support.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality can be understood as a dynamic process of internal and external “(dys)regulation and alienation.” The generated GT provides a broad tentative explanation model, contributing to theory development, and serves as a basis for gender-sensitive interventions—in both psychotherapy and physiotherapy—integrating body, mind and the social context.     

Do maternal power assertive discipline and warmth interact to influence toddlers' emotional reactivity and noncompliance?

Emotional and behavioural self-regulation emerges during infancy and toddlerhood and is heavily influenced by parenting. Parents facilitate toddlers' behavioural regulation (e.g., compliance) by using appropriate control with warmth and managing children's emotional reactivity during situational demands. In contrast, power assertive discipline may strain children's regulatory skills, for example by evoking toddlers' negative affect. However, we have more to learn about how discipline relates to toddlers' self-regulation in the moment and whether concurrent displays of parental warmth may moderate these relations. Mother–toddler dyads (N = 74, M_age = 13.30 months) from low-to-middle income Turkish families participated in a 3-min laboratory task, in which toddlers needed to delay playing with an attractive toy. Maternal discipline, warmth, toddler's emotional reactivity, and noncompliance were coded from observations. Results showed that higher power assertive discipline was associated with more frequent emotional reactivity in toddlers whose mothers' showed warmth during the <84% of the task duration. Maternal warmth was negatively associated with child noncompliance, but warmth did not interact with power assertive discipline in relation to noncompliance. Results suggest that observed power assertive discipline is meaningfully related to toddlers' emotional reactivity and higher levels of expressed maternal warmth attenuates these relations.     

PTSD Symptom Cluster Severity Predicts Momentary Emotion Dynamics During Couple Conversations

This study investigated the associations between momentary emotion dynamics and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Using a sample of 61 couples (N = 122 individuals) in which all individuals were trauma exposed and at least one partner screened positive for PTSD, we examined the intra- and interpersonal regulation of vocally encoded emotional arousal (fundamental frequency [f₀]) and how these momentary emotion regulatory patterns relate to specific PTSD symptoms during two couple conversations: one designed to elicit conflict and one to elicit intimacy. PTSD symptoms were assessed using a gold standard clinical interview. In both conversations, higher reexperiencing symptoms were associated with greater emotional inertia (i.e., more resistance to change in emotional state following deviation from one’s emotional equilibrium), and higher avoidance symptoms were associated with less emotional inertia (i.e., quicker return to emotional equilibrium). In the intimacy conversations, individuals also responded to their partners’ arousal. Furthermore, individuals whose partners exhibited higher emotional numbing symptoms exhibited more emotional inertia, suggesting that emotion regulation may be a function of both one’s own and one’s partner’s PTSD symptoms. Attending to the interpersonal context of emotion dynamics during PTSD treatment may enhance outcomes.     

Effect sizes in ANCOVA and difference-in-differences designs

It is common practice in both randomized and quasi-experiments to adjust for baseline characteristics when estimating the average effect of an intervention. The inclusion of a pre-test, for example, can reduce both the standard error of this estimate and—in non-randomized designs—its bias. At the same time, it is also standard to report the effect of an intervention in standardized effect size units, thereby making it comparable to other interventions and studies. Curiously, the estimation of this effect size, including covariate adjustment, has received little attention. In this article, we provide a framework for defining effect sizes in designs with a pre-test (e.g., difference-in-differences and analysis of covariance) and propose estimators of those effect sizes. The estimators and approximations to their sampling distributions are evaluated using a simulation study and then demonstrated using an example from published data.