Examining rumination, devaluation of positivity, and depressive symptoms via community‐based network analysis

Objective: Components of rumination, including brooding and reflection, as well as devaluating prospective positivity, may help maintain depressive symptoms. We examined these components together for the first time using network analysis. Methods: We examined the robustness of rumination communities of closely related items in one network and then examined the interrelationships between rumination communities, devaluation of positivity, and depression, in a second network. Results: Three rumination communities emerged, replicating findings of Bernstein et al. (2019). Within a dense network, nodes representing brooding, reflective pondering, and difficulty trusting positive feelings were most influential. In addition, the node representing the depressive symptom negative self‐views shared strong edges with nodes representing devaluation of positivity and brooding. Conclusion: Brooding, reflective pondering, and elements of devaluing positivity are influential to depressive symptoms and may be important future experimental and therapeutic targets. Depressed individuals with negative self‐views may engage in brooding and devalue their experience of positivity

Assessing Prevalence of Eating Disorders Among College Students

Eating disorders have become a subject of concern for college-aged young adults in recent years. Risk factors like social media use are contributing to an increase in affected students, and research suggests that gender along with other variables plays a significant role. This thesis examined the current research on eating disorders and risk factors associated with their development. Through an online survey, information from freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, and graduate students at The University of Southern Mississippi regarding their current eating behaviors, feelings toward food and body, and demographic information was collected. Data collected indicated the student population’s level of disordered eating, which was compared with the findings of previous research

Generation OnlyFans: Examining the Effects of Raunch Culture on Depression via Social Media Use and Social Comparisons

Raunch culture is a term describing the promotion of overtly sexual representations of women. This concept may provide people opportunities to engage in positive social comparisons, but also negative social comparisons. As such, this concept could also relate to the phenomenology of depression in women. In an attempt to further investigate the effects of raunch culture, this study examined relationships between raunch culture, depression, and social media use in undergraduate students. Participants (N = 199) from a moderately-sized university in the Midwest completed measures of raunch culture, depression, social comparison, and social media use via an online platform. Primary hypotheses centered around the impact of raunch culture on depressive symptoms, as well as other variables such as social comparison and social media behaviors and their involvement regarding the relationship between endorsement of raunch culture and depression. Findings suggest that students with greater depressive symptoms were more likely to be accepting of behaviors associated with raunch culture, and that this effect may be more prominent in women. Results also indicate that raunch culture may be associated with an unfolding pathway, wherein endorsement of these features is associated with more intense consumption of social media, which in turn can lead to higher rates of social comparison and ultimately affect depressive symptoms. Future research may benefit from examining raunch culture and social media involvement in the context of other important psychosocial variables

Bosonization and Cluster Updating of Lattice Fermions

A lattice fermion model is formulated in Fock space using the Jordan-Wigner representation for the fermion creation and annihilation operators. The resulting path integral is a sum over configurations of lattice site occupation numbers $n(x,t) = 0,1$ which may be viewed as bosonic Ising-like variables. However, as a remnant of Fermi statistics a nonlocal sign factor arises for each configuration. When this factor is included in measured observables the bosonic occupation numbers interact locally, and one can use efficient cluster algorithms to update the bosonized variables.Comment: 7 pages Latex, no figure

(Never) Mind your p's and q's: Von Neumann versus Jordan on the Foundations of Quantum Theory

In two papers entitled "On a new foundation [Neue Begr\"undung] of quantum mechanics," Pascual Jordan (1927b,g) presented his version of what came to be known as the Dirac-Jordan statistical transformation theory. As an alternative that avoids the mathematical difficulties facing the approach of Jordan and Paul A. M. Dirac (1927), John von Neumann (1927a) developed the modern Hilbert space formalism of quantum mechanics. In this paper, we focus on Jordan and von Neumann. Central to the formalisms of both are expressions for conditional probabilities of finding some value for one quantity given the value of another. Beyond that Jordan and von Neumann had very different views about the appropriate formulation of problems in quantum mechanics. For Jordan, unable to let go of the analogy to classical mechanics, the solution of such problems required the identication of sets of canonically conjugate variables, i.e., p's and q's. For von Neumann, not constrained by the analogy to classical mechanics, it required only the identication of a maximal set of commuting operators with simultaneous eigenstates. He had no need for p's and q's. Jordan and von Neumann also stated the characteristic new rules for probabilities in quantum mechanics somewhat differently. Jordan (1927b) was the first to state those rules in full generality. Von Neumann (1927a) rephrased them and, in a subsequent paper (von Neumann, 1927b), sought to derive them from more basic considerations. In this paper we reconstruct the central arguments of these 1927 papers by Jordan and von Neumann and of a paper on Jordan's approach by Hilbert, von Neumann, and Nordheim (1928). We highlight those elements in these papers that bring out the gradual loosening of the ties between the new quantum formalism and classical mechanics.Comment: New version. The main difference with the old version is that the introduction has been rewritten. Sec. 1 (pp. 2-12) in the old version has been replaced by Secs. 1.1-1.4 (pp. 2-31) in the new version. The paper has been accepted for publication in European Physical Journal

Understanding the Contribution of Direct Use of Gas to New Zealand’s Future Energy Efficiency Objectives

A report produced for the Gas Association of New Zealand. Includes 2008 Addendu

Using Theory to Guide Exploratory Network Analyses

The use of exploratory network analysis has increased in psychopathology research over the past decade. A benefit of exploratory network analysis is the wealth of information it can provide; however, a single analysis may generate more inferences than what can be discussed in one manuscript (e.g., centrality indices of each node). This necessitates that authors choose which results to discuss in further detail and which to omit. Without a guide for this process, the likelihood of a biased interpretation is high. We propose that the integration of theory throughout the research process makes the interpretation of exploratory networks more manageable for the researcher and more likely to result in an interpretation that advances science. The goals of this paper are to differentiate between exploratory and confirmatory network analyses, discuss the utility of exploratory work, and provide a practical framework that uses theory as a guide to interpret exploratory network analyses

Combination interventions for Hepatitis C and Cirrhosis reduction among people who inject drugs: An agent-based, networked population simulation experiment

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is endemic in people who inject drugs (PWID), with prevalence estimates above 60 percent for PWID in the United States. Previous modeling studies suggest that direct acting antiviral (DAA) treatment can lower overall prevalence in this population, but treatment is often delayed until the onset of advanced liver disease (fibrosis stage 3 or later) due to cost. Lower cost interventions featuring syringe access (SA) and medically assisted treatment (MAT) for addiction are known to be less costly, but have shown mixed results in lowering HCV rates below current levels. Little is known about the potential synergistic effects of combining DAA and MAT treatment, and large-scale tests of combined interventions are rare. While simulation experiments can reveal likely long-term effects, most prior simulations have been performed on closed populations of model agents--a scenario quite different from the open, mobile populations known to most health agencies. This paper uses data from the Centers for Disease Control's National HIV Behavioral Surveillance project, IDU round 3, collected in New York City in 2012 by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to parameterize simulations of open populations. Our results show that, in an open population, SA/MAT by itself has only small effects on HCV prevalence, while DAA treatment by itself can significantly lower both HCV and HCV-related advanced liver disease prevalence. More importantly, the simulation experiments suggest that cost effective synergistic combinations of the two strategies can dramatically reduce HCV incidence. We conclude that adopting SA/MAT implementations alongside DAA interventions can play a critical role in reducing the long-term consequences of ongoing infection

A Network Approach to Understanding Narcissistic Grandiosity via the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

The narcissistic admiration and rivalry concept (NARC) model of grandiose narcissism posits that striving for uniqueness, grandiose fantasies, and charmingness define narcissistic admiration, whereas striving for supremacy, devaluation, and aggressiveness define narcissistic rivalry. Given these complex interrelationships, we explored the structure of grandiose narcissism using the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ) and Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) via network analysis in four separate samples which allowed us to assess the extent to which these networks replicated across these samples (total N = 3,868). Overall, grandiose cognitions from the NARQ emerged as a highly central node in each network, providing compound evidence for its replicability and generalizability as an important feature of grandiose narcissism within the NARC model. Charmingness from the NARQ emerged as a central node throughout Samples 1, 2, and 3, with strong connections to features of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry (e.g., grandiose fantasies and aggressiveness), but was less central in Sample 4. To our knowledge, this is the first research to examine the replicability of the network structure of grandiose narcissism across various samples. These findings add to an increasingly important dialogue regarding replicability in psychological network science