Voluntary temporary abstinence from alcohol during “Dry January” and subsequent alcohol use

Objective: Temporary abstinence from alcohol may convey physiological benefits and enhance well-being. The aim of this study was to address a lack of information about: (1) correlates of successful completion of a planned period of abstinence, and (2) how success or failure in planned abstinence affects subsequent alcohol consumption. Methods: 857 British adults (249 men, 608 women) participating in the “Dry January” alcohol abstinence challenge completed a baseline questionnaire, a one-month follow-up questionnaire, and a 6-month follow-up questionnaire. Key variables assessed at baseline included measures of alcohol consumption and drink refusal self-efficacy (DRSE). Results: In bivariate analysis, success during Dry January was predicted by measures of more moderate alcohol consumption and greater social DRSE. Multivariate analyses revealed that success during Dry January was best predicted by a lower frequency of drunkenness in the month prior to Dry January. Structural Equation Modelling revealed that participation in Dry January was related to reductions in alcohol consumption and increases in DRSE among all respondents at 6-month follow-up, regardless of success, but these changes were more likely among people who successfully completed the challenge. Conclusions: The findings suggest that participation in abstinence challenges such as “Dry January” may be associated with changes toward healthier drinking and greater DRSE, and is unlikely to result in undesirable “rebound effects”: very few people reported increased alcohol consumption following a period of voluntary abstinence

What makes a voice masculine: physiological and acoustical correlates of women's ratings of men's vocal masculinity

Men's voices contain acoustic cues to body size and hormonal status, which have been found to affect women's ratings of speaker size, masculinity and attractiveness. However, the extent to which these voice parameters mediate the relationship between speakers' fitness-related features and listener's judgments of their masculinity has not yet been investigated. We audio-recorded 37 adult heterosexual males performing a range of speech tasks and asked 20 adult heterosexual female listeners to rate speakers' masculinity on the basis of their voices only. We then used a two-level (speaker within listener) path analysis to examine the relationships between the physiological (testosterone, height), acoustic (fundamental frequency or F0, and resonances or ΔF) and perceptual dimensions (listeners' ratings) of speakers' masculinity. Overall, results revealed that male speakers who were taller and had higher salivary testosterone levels also had lower F0 and ΔF, and were in turn rated as more masculine. The relationship between testosterone and perceived masculinity was essentially mediated by F0, while that of height and perceived masculinity was partially mediated by both F0 and ΔF. These observations confirm that women listeners attend to sexually dimorphic voice cues to assess the masculinity of unseen male speakers. In turn, variation in these voice features correlate with speakers' variation in stature and hormonal status, highlighting the interdependence of these physiological, acoustic and perceptual dimensions

'I just feel so guilty': the role of introjected regulation in linking appearance goals for exercise with women’s body image

Appearance goals for exercise are consistently associated with negative body image, but research has yet to consider the processes that link these two variables. Self-determination theory offers one such process: introjected (guilt-based) regulation of exercise behavior. Study 1 investigated these relationships within a cross-sectional sample of female UK students (n = 215, 17-30 years). Appearance goals were indirectly, negatively associated with body image due to links with introjected regulation. Study 2 experimentally tested this pathway, manipulating guilt relating to exercise and appearance goals independently and assessing post-test guilt and body anxiety (n = 165, 18-27 years). The guilt manipulation significantly increased post-test feelings of guilt, and these increases were associated with increased post-test body anxiety, but only for participants in the guilt condition. The implications of these findings for self-determination theory and the importance of guilt for the body image literature are discussed

Shifts in subjective well-being of different status groups: a longitudinal case-study during declining income inequality

Theory holds that as income distribution becomes more equal, the well-being of those of low socioeconomic standing increases, since their relative status is improved. In this study we measure changes in individual subjective well-being (SWB) over a three year period of declining income inequality in Iceland. Using growth mixture modelling, we identified two groups whose well-being trajectories differ. One group (n = 540) whose SWB was initially high but then declined slightly, and a second group (n = 110) whose SWB was initially low, but improved over time. This second group had lower socio-economic status and stronger materialistic values. These differing shifts in SWB coincide with diminishing income inequality and class division and the results are consistent with the status anxiety explanation of the income inequality hypothesis. Our findings suggest the need to examine separate trajectories of distinct socioeconomic groups in societies generally regarded as egalitarian, and examine the role of a materialistic value orientation further

Human roars communicate upper-body strength more effectively than do screams or aggressive and distressed speech

Despite widespread evidence that nonverbal components of human speech (e.g., voice pitch) communicate information about physical attributes of vocalizers and that listeners can judge traits such as strength and body size from speech, few studies have examined the communicative functions of human nonverbal vocalizations (such as roars, screams, grunts and laughs). Critically, no previous study has yet to examine the acoustic correlates of strength in nonverbal vocalisations, including roars, nor identified reliable vocal cues to strength in human speech. In addition to being less acoustically constrained than articulated speech, agonistic nonverbal vocalizations function primarily to express motivation and emotion, such as threat, and may therefore communicate strength and body size more effectively than speech. Here, we investigated acoustic cues to strength and size in roars compared to screams and speech sentences produced in both aggressive and distress contexts. Using playback experiments, we then tested whether listeners can reliably infer a vocalizer’s actual strength and height from roars, screams, and valenced speech equivalents, and which acoustic features predicted listeners’ judgments. While there were no consistent acoustic cues to strength in any vocal stimuli, listeners accurately judged inter-individual differences in strength, and did so most effectively from aggressive voice stimuli (roars and aggressive speech). In addition, listeners more accurately judged strength from roars than from aggressive speech. In contrast, listeners’ judgments of height were most accurate for speech stimuli. These results support the prediction that vocalizers maximize impressions of physical strength in aggressive compared to distress contexts, and that inter-individual variation in strength may only be honestly communicated in vocalizations that function to communicate threat, particularly roars. Thus, in continuity with nonhuman mammals, the acoustic structure of human aggressive roars may have been selected to communicate, and to some extent exaggerate, functional cues to physical formidability

Individual differences in spontaneous self-affirmation and mental health: relationships with self-esteem, dispositional optimism and coping

In two online studies, we test whether spontaneous self-affirmation (measured by the Spontaneous Self-Affirmation Measure, SSAM) predicts better mental health and coping and the role that self-esteem and dispositional optimism play in these relationships. Study 1 (N = 110) was cross-sectional. In study 2 (N = 192) we collected the mental health measures one month post-baseline. Consistent with pre-registered hypotheses, the SSAM predicted less anxiety, depression and avoidant coping, and greater wellbeing and non-avoidant coping; however, relationships involving self-esteem and optimism varied with the reported source of self-affirmation measured by the SSAM (strengths, values, social relations). Overall, the findings are generally consistent with the hypothesis that spontaneous self-affirmation tends to function as a resource that fosters positive coping with threats

Individual differences in self-affirmation: distinguishing self-affirmation from positive self-regard

Research into self-affirmation has almost exclusively employed experimental manipulations. In this paper we address individual differences in the tendency to respond to threats with self-affirming cognitions and distinguish this from two overlapping constructs: habitual positive self-thought and trait self-esteem. Items we designed to measure self-affirmation were represented by three first-order factors and loaded on a higher-order factor, creating the Spontaneous Self-Affirmation Measure (SSAM). The SSAM correlated moderately with self-esteem and habitual positive self-thought. In competitive analyses, the SSAM was an independent predictor of a large number of outcomes. The studies provide evidence about the correlates of individual differences in reported spontaneous self-affirmation in response to threat and the contribution made to this response by habitual positive self-thought and trait self-esteem

Impact of intranasal oxytocin on interoceptive accuracy in alcohol users: An attentional mechanism?

Interoception, i.e. the perception and appraisal of internal bodily signals, is related to the phenomenon of craving, and is reportedly disrupted in alcohol use disorders. The hormone oxytocin influences afferent transmission of bodily signals and, through its potential modulation of craving, is proposed as a possible treatment for alcohol use disorders. However, oxytocin’s impact on interoception in alcohol users remains unknown. Healthy alcohol users (N=32) attended two laboratory sessions to perform tests of interoceptive ability (heartbeat tracking: attending to internal signals and, heartbeat discrimination: integrating internal and external signals) after intranasal administration of oxytocin or placebo. Effects of interoceptive accuracy, oxytocin administration and alcohol intake, were tested using mixed-effects models. On the tracking task, oxytocin reduced interoceptive accuracy, but did not interact with alcohol consumption. On the discrimination task, we found an interaction between oxytocin administration and alcohol intake: Oxytocin, compared to placebo, increased interoceptive accuracy in heavy drinkers, but not in light social drinkers. Our study does not suggest a pure interoceptive impairment in alcohol users but instead potentially highlights reduced flexibility of internal and external attentional resource allocation. Importantly, this impairment seems to be mitigated by oxytocin. This attentional hypothesis needs to be explicitly tested in future research

Impact of intranasal oxytocin on interoceptive accuracy in alcohol users: An attentional mechanism?

Interoception, i.e. the perception and appraisal of internal bodily signals, is related to the phenomenon of craving, and is reportedly disrupted in alcohol use disorders. The hormone oxytocin influences afferent transmission of bodily signals and, through its potential modulation of craving, is proposed as a possible treatment for alcohol use disorders. However, oxytocin’s impact on interoception in alcohol users remains unknown. Healthy alcohol users (N=32) attended two laboratory sessions to perform tests of interoceptive ability (heartbeat tracking: attending to internal signals and, heartbeat discrimination: integrating internal and external signals) after intranasal administration of oxytocin or placebo. Effects of interoceptive accuracy, oxytocin administration and alcohol intake, were tested using mixed-effects models. On the tracking task, oxytocin reduced interoceptive accuracy, but did not interact with alcohol consumption. On the discrimination task, we found an interaction between oxytocin administration and alcohol intake: Oxytocin, compared to placebo, increased interoceptive accuracy in heavy drinkers, but not in light social drinkers. Our study does not suggest a pure interoceptive impairment in alcohol users but instead potentially highlights reduced flexibility of internal and external attentional resource allocation. Importantly, this impairment seems to be mitigated by oxytocin. This attentional hypothesis needs to be explicitly tested in future research