Informer sans nuire : effets des nouvelles médiatiques positives sur la réactivité au stress, la mémoire et les affects de jeunes adultes

Nous lisons, voyons et entendons des nouvelles provenant de diverses sources médiatiques quotidiennement. Des études ont montré que la majorité de ces nouvelles étaient négatives et pouvaient avoir des conséquences néfastes sur la santé. Le journalisme constructif est né en réaction à la surabondance de nouvelles négatives et vise à créer des nouvelles plus positives et engageantes. Basé sur une étude de notre laboratoire ayant montré que les nouvelles négatives augmentaient la réactivité au stress et la mémoire, le présent projet de recherche a évalué de façon expérimentale les effets de nouvelles positives sur la réactivité au stress, la mémoire et les affects. De jeunes adultes ont été exposés à des nouvelles positives ou neutres, puis à un stresseur psychosocial en laboratoire. Nous avons mesuré leurs affects à trois reprises et avons collecté des échantillons de salive (intervalles de 10 minutes) pour mesurer le cortisol, une hormone de stress. Vingt-quatre heures plus tard, nous avons testé leur rappel des nouvelles. Les résultats n’ont révélé aucun effet des nouvelles positives ou neutres sur les hormones de stress, la mémoire ou les affects des participants. Ainsi, contrairement aux effets des nouvelles négatives rapportés dans les études précédentes, les nouvelles positives et neutres ne semblent pas associées à une augmentation de la réactivité au stress, de la mémoire et des affects négatifs. Des mécanismes potentiels sont abordés dans l’article scientifique et élaborés plus en détail dans ce mémoire, dans le but de générer de nouvelles hypothèses pour de futures études.We read, see and hear news from various media sources on a daily basis. Studies have shown that a majority of the news is negative and can have adverse effects on physiological and psychological health. Constructive journalism was born as a reaction to the overabundance of negative news. This form of journalism aims to create more positive and engaging news. Based on a study from our laboratory that showed that exposure to negative news increased stress reactivity and memory in women, this project experimentally evaluated the effects of positive news on stress reactivity, memory, and affect. Young adults were exposed to positive or neutral news and then to a psychosocial stressor in the laboratory. We measured their affect three times and collected saliva samples (at 10-minute intervals) to measure their stress hormones. Twenty-four hours later, we tested their news recall. The results revealed no effect of positive or neutral news on participants' stress hormones, memory, or affect. Thus, in contrast to the effects of negative news reported in previous studies, positive and neutral news were not associated with increased stress reactivity, memory and negative affect. The mechanisms that might explain why positive news does not affect young adults are discussed in the scientific article and elaborated further in this thesis, with the goal of generating new hypotheses that can be tested in future studies

Effect of positive news media on stress reactivity and memory in young adults

The objective of this study is to determine if exposure to positive news segments impacts stress reactivity and memory in young adult participants

Parental Threat Perception and Hyper-Parenting as Potential Risk Factors for Adolescents’ Test Anxiety

Parents who perceive their social environment as threatening may transmit these anxieties to their adolescents through their parenting, by shaping the skills and beliefs that adolescents adopt to interact with their own environment. The present study explores the role of hyper-parenting and two potential psychological mechanisms (i.e., youth emotional regulation and perfectionism) in the association between parental threat perception and adolescents’ test anxiety. Two styles of hyper-parenting are investigated: child-centrism, which refers to over-protective behaviors, and tiger, which describes over-involved behaviors regarding children’s achievements. The proposed theoretical model was tested among 439 dyads of parents (Mage = 44.5, SD = 5.8, 24% fathers) and adolescents (40.4% boys, 46.9% public school, 54% sixth graders) in the context of test anxiety. Results from path analyses showed that parental threat perception was positively associated with both styles of hyper-parenting. However, solely tiger hyper-parenting (and not child-centrism) was associated with greater adolescent test anxiety through youth perfectionism. Surprisingly, emotion regulation strategies did not mediate the relation between hyper-parenting and test anxiety. Finally, the proposed model was invariant across adolescent or parent gender and school type or level. Findings from this study have practical implications as they reveal that test anxiety in adolescents is not only rooted in individual factors or parental behaviors but may also reflect parental threat perception of the social environment

Staying informed without a cost: No effect of positive news media on stress reactivity, memory and affect in young adults

We read, see and hear news from various media sources every day. A large majority of these news are negative. A previous study from our laboratory showed that reading negative news is associated with both increased stress reactivity (measured via the stress hormone cortisol) and recall of these negative news segments in women. The present study investigated the effects of positive news on cortisol stress reactivity, memory and affect employing a methodology highly similar to the one used previously by our team using negative news. Sixty-two healthy participants aged between 18 and 35 years (81% women) were randomly exposed to either positive or neutral news segments, followed by a laboratory stressor. We assessed participants’ affect three times during the procedure and measured cortisol in saliva eight times (at 10-minute intervals). Twenty-four hours later, participants were contacted by phone to assess their recall of the news segments. Results showed that exposure to positive news, relative to neutral news, did not modulate participants’ cortisol levels in response to the laboratory stressor. Positive news had no impact on memory recall of the news and did not change participants' positive or negative affect. Bayes factors suggested that these nonsignificant results are not attributable to low statistical power. Contrary to negative news, positive and neutral news do not modulate stress reactivity, memory and affect. These results suggest that people can stay informed without physiological and psychological costs when the news to which they are exposed adopt a positive or neutral approach

Neurotensin Analogues Containing Cyclic Surrogates of Tyrosine at Position 11 Improve NTS2 Selectivity Leading to Analgesia without Hypotension and Hypothermia

International audienc

What Triggers Students’ State Anxiety in Schools: Using Latent Profile Analyses to Uncover the Combined Role of Anxiety Sensitivity and Test Anxiety

Background: Studies report a growing tendency for students to experience state anxiety in schools. However, the combination of individual susceptibilities likely to trigger students’ anxious states remains unclear. Aims: This study examined whether distinct profiles of students emerge regarding their susceptibility to anxiety sensitivity and/or test anxiety and evaluated whether students’ profile predicted anxious states. We also verified whether susceptibility profiles varied across gender, school level, and school type. Sample and Methods: In total, 1404 Canadian students in Grades 5 and 10 (589 boys) from 13 public and private schools completed self-reported measures of state/trait anxiety, anxiety sensitivity and test anxiety. Results: Latent profile analyses identified four susceptibility profiles: (1) Double-susceptibility – highest anxiety sensitivity and test anxiety scores; (2) Unique-susceptibility to test anxiety – high test anxiety score and low anxiety scores score; (3) Unique-susceptibility to anxiety sensitivity – high anxiety sensitivity score and low test anxiety score; (4) No-susceptibility – lowest anxiety sensitivity and test anxiety scores. The profiles comprised 12%, 9%, 6%, and 73% of the sample, respectively, and their membership varied across gender and school type, but not across school levels. A linear mixed-effect model showed that state anxiety varied significantly between profiles, where the Double-susceptibility profile predicted the highest state anxiety scores, followed by the two Unique-susceptibility profiles (indifferently), and the No-susceptibility profile. Conclusions: Beyond their theoretical contribution to the state-trait anxiety literature, these findings suggest that selective interventions designed more specifically for students with the Double-susceptibility profile may be worthwhile. Results also highlight the high proportion of students with the No-susceptibility profile and shed light on the reassuring portrait regarding students’ anxiety