The Role of Positive Life Events on Treatment Outcome during Acute and Maintenance Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Recurrent Major Depressive Disorder

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a highly recurrent and potentially chronic disorder. While much research has focused on the role of severe life events as important risk factors for depression onset, less is known about the relationship between positive life events and MDD. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between positive life events and recovery from an acute episode of depression and maintenance of recovery in the context of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) treatment in women with recurrent MDD. One hundred thirty-one women who were enrolled in the "Maintenance Psychotherapy in Recurrent Depression" study (MH 49115 E. Frank, PI) entered into maintenance treatment and received at least one Life Events and Difficulties Schedule interview (LEDS; Brown & Harris, 1978). To simultaneously account for both positivity and threat, event ratings were divided into four mutually exclusive categories: provoking, severe, neutral, and positive. A Cox proportional hazards model with each of the four categories of life events included as time-dependent covariates was used to test the cumulative effects of life events on 1) time to remission during the acute treatment phase and 2) time to recurrence during the maintenance phase. Contrary to the hypotheses, there was no relationship between the cumulative experience of positive life events and remission from MDD during the acute treatment phase, nor was there a significant relationship between the cumulative experience of positive life events and episode recurrence. However, the cumulative experience of "neutral" life events was significantly related to episode recurrence, even when controlling for demographic and clinical variables, including personality pathology. This finding suggests that the cumulative effects of seemingly benign "neutral" events may disrupt therapy processes and trigger episode recurrence. Future work is needed to further elucidate the nature of these neutral life events and how they may be related to stress reactivity or stress generation in patients at high risk for MDD recurrence. This may help to clarify the mechanisms by which life events contribute to depression and how best to target these areas in therapy

Counting Blessings versus Neutral Events: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Athletic Performance in Volleyball

Positive psychology has related gratitude to positive outcomes for individuals. The purpose of the current study was to apply gratitude journaling to the athletic domain, specifically volleyball. It was hypothesized that participants journaling about things they were grateful for at each practice would result in heightened athletic performance, measured through vertical approach and block jump, team win/loss percentage, and satisfaction with performance, especially when compared to participants who journaled about neutral practice events. Results showed a significant difference between groups in athlete satisfaction with individual and team performance; however, participants who journaled about neutral practice events displayed higher levels of satisfaction

2009 October November Newsletter

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Queen of the Virtues? Gratitude as Human Strength

Gratitude is held in high esteem by virtually everyone, at all times, in all places. From ancient religious scriptures through modern social science research, gratitude is upheld as a desirable human characteristic with a capacity for making life better for oneself and for others. Aside from a few harsh words from a small handful of cynics, nearly every thinker has viewed gratitude as a sentiment with virtually no downside

Gender Specific Effects of Mood on Alcohol Seeking Behaviors: Preliminary Findings using Intravenous Alcohol Self-Administration

Background Although negative mood has long been implicated in differences in alcohol seeking by men and women, little research has used precise, well-controlled laboratory experiments to examine how negative mood affects alcohol-seeking behaviors. Methods A total of 34 (19 women) community-dwelling, alcohol-using adults aged 21 to 32 (mean age = 24.86, SD = 3.40, 74.3% Caucasian; Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test [AUDIT] = 10.1, SD = 3.4) completed 2 counterbalanced intravenous alcohol self-administration sessions: one under negative mood and one under neutral mood. Fourteen individuals (9 women; mean age = 25.00, SD = 2.77) participated in an alcohol “liking” experiment (i.e., free access [FA] drinking) and 20 individuals (10 women; mean age = 24.77, SD = 3.73) participated in an alcohol “wanting” experiment, in which gaining access to alcohol required progressively effortful work. There was no significant difference between men and women on the AUDIT, t(32) = −0.38, p = 0.71. Results Priming with negative mood induction caused a significant decrease in self-reported mood (mean change = −1.85, t(32) = −6.81, p < 0.001), as intended. In FA, negative mood was associated with a significantly increased peak breath alcohol concentration (BrAC; F = 9.41, p = 0.01), with a trend toward a greater effect in men than in women (F = 2.67, p = 0.13). Negative mood also had a significant effect on peak BrAC achieved in the progressive work paradigm (F = 5.28, p = 0.04), with a significantly stronger effect in men (F = 5.35, p = 0.03) than women; men also trended toward more consistent work for alcohol across both neutral and negative sessions. Conclusions These preliminary findings demonstrate a gender-specific response on how mood affects alcohol seeking and suggest gender-specific interventions to prevent mood-based alcohol consumption

The Effect of Antecedent Mood On Customer Loyalty Intentions: A Mood-By-Gender Interaction

This study suggests that induced antecedent moods may, in a systematic manner, influence subsequent levels of loyalty intention within consumer scenarios. Furthermore, this research finds that there exists differential responses to induced mood states by gender, which fall in line with research on the underlying gender differences in cognitive processing, levels of risk aversion, motivation, and the experience of emotion while shopping. Past studies in this area have shown only a mild connection between induced antecedent mood state and loyalty intentions, which may be due in part to the issue of an emotion by gender interaction. This paper reinforces previous work and extends this relationship to include gender as moderator. With a better understanding of the way in which different mood states influence customer loyalty intentions, a new approach to managing customer mood-states emerges

Adolescents’ conceptualisations of kindness and its links with well-being: a focus group study

There has been a recent surge of interest from researchers, policymakers, and the general public in how kindness can promote well-being. Even though adolescence is a key period for the development of relevant value systems and mental health, little is known about adolescents’ understanding of kindness. Six focus groups were conducted with 11- to 15-year-olds, exploring their conceptualisations of kindness. Thematic analysis revealed a multifaceted understanding, identifying ten different categories of kind behaviour that are influenced by situational antecedents as well as specific self- and other-focused goals. Crucially, participants also identified a number of moderators, including contextual and dispositional factors (e.g., features of social relationships, levels of empathy) that support and extend current theoretical frameworks. Responses from participants reinforced the idea that kindness contributes to well-being for the recipient and the giver. These findings have implications for the future design and efficacy of kindness-based well-being interventions for adolescents

Effect of Gratitude Journal on Orphaned/ Institutionalized Children and Adolescents

The aim of the study was to see whether maintaining a gratitude journal for twenty days among the orphaned/institutionalized children and adolescence would enhance their subjective well-being i.e. Life satisfaction, Subjective Happiness and increased Optimism. The chosen sample size for the study was 40 (20 children were assigned to the control group and 20 children were assigned to the experimental group). The experimental group were asked to maintain a gratitude journal for twenty days. Life satisfaction scale Scale,Subjective Happiness Scale and Life Orientation Test were the tools used by the Experimenter before and after the intervention for both the control and experimental groups. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, and Wilcoxon signed rank test. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the levels of Life Satisfaction, Subjective Happiness and Life Orientation between the Experimental and the Control group after the intervention program

Are Expectations Misled by Chance? Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Financial Analysts

We examine whether finance professionals deviate from Bayes’ theorem on the processing of nondiagnostic information when forecasting quarterly earnings. Using field data from sell-side financial analysts and employing a regression discontinuity design, we find that analysts whose forecasts have barely been met become increasingly optimistic relative to when their forecasts have barely been missed. This result is consistent with an update of analysts’ expectations after observing uninformative performance signals. Our results also suggest that this behavior leads to significantly worse forecasting accuracy in the subsequent quarter. We contribute to the literature by providing important field evidence of expectation formation under uninformative signals