Effects of optimism on recovery and mental health after a tornado outbreak

Objective: Dispositional optimism, a stable expectation that good things will happen, has been shown to improve health outcomes in a wide range of contexts, but very little research has explored the impact of optimism on post-disaster health and well-being.

Design: Data for this study come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public health systems and mental health community recovery (PHSMHCR) Survey. Participants included 3216 individuals living in counties affected by the April 2011 tornado outbreak in Mississippi and Alabama.

Main outcome measures: This study assesses the effect of dispositional optimism on post-disaster recovery and mental health.

Results: Dispositional optimism was found to have a positive effect on personal recovery and mental health after the disaster. Furthermore, it moderated the relationship between level of home damage and personal recovery as well as the relationship between home damage and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with stronger effects for those with increased levels of home damage.

Conclusions: The utility of screening for optimism is discussed, along with the potential for interventions to increase optimism as a means of mitigating adverse mental health effects and improving the recovery of individuals affected by disasters and other traumatic events.     

The traumatic memory debate: A failure in scientific communication and cooperation

Perhaps no other topic in recent history has generated such emotionality as the ongoing traumatic memory debate involving alleged reports of physical and sexual abuse. The literature on this topic is replete with reliance on anecdotal statements, unwarranted and grossly overstated generalizations, emotionally laden conclusions, attacks and counterattacks. This state of affairs has resulted in creating a polarization between cognitive memory researchers and clinical researchers who are attempting to resolve the debate through scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, the databases on both sides of the issue are weak. The purpose of this article is to highlight the key issues at the center of this debate in an attempt to move the debate forward. It is argued that resolution of this debate can only be achieved by conducting appropriately designed clinical research with a population of traumatically abused subjects. To achieve this objective, both sides need to suppress their emotional rhetoric, open lines of communication, and engage in cooperative research efforts. This issue is too important for both the field of psychology and society as a whole to remain polarized and unresolved.     

Mindful attention predicts greater recovery from negative emotions,but not reduced reactivity

This study investigated the role of dispositional mindful attention in immediate reactivity to, and subsequent recovery from, laboratory-induced negative emotion. One hundred and fourteen undergraduates viewed blocks of negative pictures followed by neutral pictures. Participants’ emotional responses to negative pictures and subsequent neutral pictures were assessed via self-reported ratings. Participants’ emotional response to negative pictures was used to index level of emotional reactivity to unpleasant stimuli; emotional response to neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures was used to index level of emotional recovery from pre-induced negative emotion (residual negativity). Results indicated that mindful attention was not associated with the emotional response to negative pictures, but it was associated with reduced negative emotion in response to the neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures, suggesting better recovery as opposed to reduced reactivity. This effect was especially pronounced in later experimental blocks when the accumulation of negative stimuli produced greater negative emotion from which participants had to recover. The current study extends previous findings on the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and reduced negative emotion by demonstrating that mindful attention may facilitate better recovery from negative emotion, possibly through more effective disengagement from previous stimuli.     

破解“通勤悖论”:通勤时间如何影响幸福感

本文从社会过渡带和心理过渡带两个方面对"通勤悖论"进行解析,构建了通勤时间影响幸福感的理论模型。通过对广州市白领的追踪调查和多项式回归分析,结果发现:(1)婚姻状态(社会过渡带)具有调节作用,未婚员工通勤时间负向影响生活满意度,已婚员工通勤时间对生活满意度和快乐度有曲线影响;(2)恢复体验(心理过渡带)具有交互效应,心理解脱调节了未婚员工通勤时间与通勤效用的关系,放松体验调节了未婚员工通勤时间与快乐度的关系;(3)已婚员工通勤时间与通勤效用和快乐度的关系受放松体验调节,与生活满意度的关系受心理解脱调节;(4)通勤时间对生活满意度和快乐度的影响,以及婚姻状态和恢复体验的交互效应,以通勤效用为中介;(5)员工在"通勤时间陷阱"(1.75~2.75小时)的效用均衡。结论有助于分析"通勤悖论"的深层原因,对城市管理、企业管理和个人都具有积极启示。     

Job stressors, emotional exhaustion, and need for recovery: A multi-source study on the benefits of psychological detachment

This paper examines psychological detachment (i.e., mentally “switching off”) from work during non-work time as a partial mediator between job stressors and low work-home boundaries on the one hand and strain reactions (emotional exhaustion, need for recovery) on the other hand. Survey data were collected from a sample of protestant pastors (N = 136) and their spouses (N = 97). Analyses showed that high workload, emotional dissonance, and low spatial work-home boundaries were related to poor psychological detachment from work during non-work time. Poor psychological detachment in turn predicted high levels of emotional exhaustion and need for recovery. Psychological detachment was a partial mediator between job stressors and strain reactions. This study avoids same-source bias and demonstrates the importance of psychological detachment in the stressor–strain relationship.     

Spatial reasoning with external visualizations: what matters is what you see, not whether you interact

Three experiments examined the effects of interactive visualizations and spatial abilities on a task requiring participants to infer and draw cross sections of a three-dimensional (3D) object. The experiments manipulated whether participants could interactively control a virtual 3D visualization of the object while performing the task, and compared participants who were allowed interactive control of the visualization to those who were not allowed control. In Experiment 1, interactivity produced better performance than passive viewing, but the advantage of interactivity disappeared in Experiment 2 when visual input for the two conditions in a yoked design was equalized. In Experiments 2 and 3, differences in how interactive participants manipulated the visualization were large and related to performance. In Experiment 3, non-interactive participants who watched optimal movements of the display performed as well as interactive participants who manipulated the visualization effectively and better than interactive participants who manipulated the visualization ineffectively. Spatial ability made an independent contribution to performance on the spatial reasoning task, but did not predict patterns of interactive behavior. These experiments indicate that providing participants with active control of a computer visualization does not necessarily enhance task performance, whereas seeing the most task-relevant information does, and this is true regardless of whether the task-relevant information is obtained actively or passively.     

中国县级地区被动吸烟暴露现状分析

采用三阶段随机抽样,对六县级地区被动吸烟状况进行研究,结果发现：六县市被动吸烟率为59．1％,男女被动吸烟率为61．3％和58．0％。在被动吸烟人群中,约50％以上每天遭受危害;家庭、室内工作场所仍是主要暴露地点。建议尽快颁布并有效执行禁烟规定,普及被动吸烟危害知识。     

剥夺左眼和单眼学习与雏鸡脑内Jun样蛋白表达的相关性研究

利用免疫组化技术,观察并比较剥夺一侧视觉及单眼一次性味觉厌恶回避学习后Ｊｕｎ样蛋白在雏鸡ＨＶ和ＬＰＯ的表达,结果表明正常雏鸡ＨＶ、ＬＰＯＪｕｎ表达几乎没有,剥夺左眼和单眼视觉学习后均可使Ｊｕｎ样蛋白增高。根据阳性神经元记数结果表明：１．视剥夺２．５、４、２４小时后可使Ｊｕｎ样蛋白的表达逐渐增高,而且它们之间的差异显著;２．剥夺左眼２小时和２４小时后训练,并分别于１０分钟、７０分钟记忆保持测验后可看到Ｊｕｎ样蛋白表达继续增多;３。无论单纯视剥夺组还是单眼视觉学习组,各组ＬＰＯＪｕｎ样蛋白的表达均明显高于ＨＶ的Ｊｕｎ样蛋白表达,它们之间差异显著。     

Neuropsychological course after surgery for intracranial aneurysms. A prospective study and a critical review

Previously, only three studies with representative samples of patients with ruptured intracranial aneurysms have provided detailed results of prospective, repeated, neuropsychological assessments after surgery. These studies apparently disagree with regard to occurrence of cognitive deficits and to degree of improvement between early and delayed follow-ups. The present paper attempts to analyze the conditions underlying these differences in results. As a first step in this analysis we present a comprehensive, prospective, neuropsychological investigation of a consecutive sample of 41 patients with rupture of a supratentorial aneurysm, assessed 4 and 12 months after surgery. It is concluded that a prorated course of improvement of a wide specter of psychological functions may be revealed, but that sensitive tests and large samples are needed to establish the range of deficits and improvements with time. Differences in patient selection with respect to severity of the acute clinical state and delayed deterioration apparently contribute importantly to the discrepance in previously reported outcome.     

Gender differences in acute and chronic stress in Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats

While females are considered more susceptible to depressive behavior, this assertion is not strongly supported by the experimental literature. Since stress contributes to depressive behavior, male and female Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats were exposed to either one session (acute stress) or 5 sessions (chronic stress) of restraint plus cold in order to study depressive behavior in male and female rats. After their respective treatment exposure, rats were tested in the open field test (OFT) and for retention of a passive-avoidance (P-A) task. One stress session resulted in significant immobility in the OFT for males, whereas 5 sessions were required to produce similar immobility in female rats. Acute stress interfered with the retention of the P-A response for males, while both acute and chronic stress produced poor P-A responses in female rats. Food consumption decresed, progressively, as a function of stress sessions, in female rats, whereas feeding in males returned to control levels after five stress days. Both acute and chronic stress exacerbated the stress ulcer response in male rats, but not in female rats. Chronic, but not acute, stress resulted in an increase in serotonin transporter mRNA levels in the dorsal raphe nucleus of both male and, female rats. The general consensus from these data suggested that female rats were more vulnerable to chronic stress and consequently supported the notion that females may be more susceptible to stress induced behavioral depression.