Comment on Hogan and Foster:The Future is Here

This response to Hogan and Foster’s (2016) rethinking of personality refutes their claim that both neuroticism and personality psychology are meaningless. Paradoxically, they also argue that traits are meaningful if they predict outcomes, which in particular the neuroticism personality trait does best of all, as outlined in our comment. Moreover, their defeatist perspective on personality psychology is contrasted with several promising developments, including support for the five factors outside of their lexical roots, and alternative theories to explain personality trait covariance without latent trait factors. In this short literature overview personality psychology is presented as a highly diverse and progressive field, which we believe to have a meaningful future ahead

Higher Anxiety Is Associated with Lower Cardiovascular Autonomic Function in Female Twins

Anxiety symptoms co-occur with cardiovascular health problems, with increasing evidence suggesting the role of autonomic dysfunction. Yet, there is limited behavior genetic research on underlying mechanisms. In this twin study, we investigated the phenotypic, genetic and environmental associations between a latent anxiety factor and three cardiovascular autonomic function factors: interbeat interval (IBI, time between heart beats), heart rate variability (HRV, overall fluctuation of heart-beat intervals) and baroreflex sensitivity (BRS, efficiency in regulating blood pressure [BP]). Multivariate twin models were fit using data of female twins (N = 250) of the Twin Interdisciplinary Neuroticism Study (TWINS). A significant negative association was identified between latent anxiety and BRS factors (r = -.24, 95% CI [-.40, -.07]). Findings suggest that this relationship was mostly explained by correlated shared environmental influences, and there was no evidence for pleiotropic genetic or unique environmental effects. We also identified negative relationships between anxiety symptoms and HRV (r = -.17, 95% CI [-.34, .00]) and IBI factors (r = -.13, 95% CI [-.29, .04]), though these associations did not reach statistical significance. Findings implicate that higher anxiety scores are associated with decreased efficiency in short-term BP regulation, providing support for autonomic dysfunction with anxiety symptomatology. The baroreflex system may be a key mechanism underlying the anxiety-cardiovascular health relationship

Don't Miss the Moment:A Systematic Review of Ecological Momentary Assessment in Suicide Research

Suicide and suicide-related behaviors are prevalent yet notoriously difficult to predict. Specifically, short-term predictors and correlates of suicide risk remain largely unknown. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) may be used to assess how suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) unfold in real-world contexts. We conducted a systematic literature review of EMA studies in suicide research to assess (1) how EMA has been utilized in the study of STBs (i.e., methodology, findings), and (2) the feasibility, validity and safety of EMA in the study of STBs. We identified 45 articles, detailing 23 studies. Studies mainly focused on examining how known longitudinal predictors of suicidal ideation perform within shorter (hourly, daily) time frames. Recent studies have explored the prospects of digital phenotyping of individuals with suicidal ideation. The results indicate that suicidal ideation fluctuates substantially over time (hours, days), and that individuals with higher mean ideation also have more fluctuations. Higher suicidal ideation instability may represent a phenotypic indicator for increased suicide risk. Few studies succeeded in establishing prospective predictors of suicidal ideation beyond prior ideation itself. Some studies show negative affect, hopelessness and burdensomeness to predict increased ideation within-day, and sleep characteristics to impact next-day ideation. The feasibility of EMA is encouraging: agreement to participate in EMA research was moderate to high (median = 77%), and compliance rates similar to those in other clinical samples (median response rate = 70%). More individuals reported suicidal ideation through EMA than traditional (retrospective) self-report measures. Regarding safety, no evidence was found of systematic reactivity of mood or suicidal ideation to repeated assessments of STBs. In conclusion, suicidal ideation can fluctuate substantially over short periods of time, and EMA is a suitable method for capturing these fluctuations. Some specific predictors of subsequent ideation have been identified, but these findings warrant further replication. While repeated EMA assessments do not appear to result in systematic reactivity in STBs, participant burden and safety remains a consideration when studying high-risk populations. Considerations for designing and reporting on EMA studies in suicide research are discussed

Temporal associations between salivary cortisol and emotions in clinically depressed individuals and matched controls:A dynamic time warp analysis

Depression can be understood as a complex dynamic system where depressive symptoms interact with one another. Cortisol is suggested to play a major role in the pathophysiology of depression, but knowledge on the temporal interplay between cortisol and depressive symptoms is scarce. We aimed to analyze the temporal connectivity between salivary cortisol and momentary affective states in depressed individuals and controls. Thirty pair-matched depressed and non-depressed participants completed questionnaires on momentary positive (PA) and negative (NA) affect and collected saliva three times a day for 30 days. The association between cortisol and affect was analyzed by dynamic time warp (DTW) analyses. These analyses involved lag-1 backward to lag-1 forward undirected analyses and lag-0 and lag-1 forward directed analyses. Large inter- and intra-individual variability in the networks were found. At the group level, with undirected analysis PA and NA were connected in the networks in depressed individuals and in controls. Directed analyses indicated that increases in cortisol preceded specific NA items in controls, but tended to follow upon specific affect items increase in depressed individuals. To conclude, at group level, changes in cortisol levels in individuals diagnosed with a depression may be a result of changes in affect, rather than a cause.</p

ESMvis:a tool for visualizing individual Experience Sampling Method (ESM) data

PURPOSE: The experience sampling method (ESM) is used for intensive longitudinal time-series data collection during normal daily life. ESM data give information on momentary affect, activities and (social) context of, for example, patients suffering from mental disorders, and allows for person-specific feedback reports. However, current personalized feedback reports only display a selection of measured variables, and typically involve only summary statistics, thus not reflecting the dynamic fluctuations in affect and its influencing factors. To address this shortcoming, we developed a tool for dynamically visualizing ESM data. METHODS: We introduce a new framework, ESMvis, for giving descriptive feedback, focusing on direct visualization of the dynamic nature of raw data. In this ESM feedback approach, raw ESM data are visualized using R software. We applied ESMvis to data collected for over 52 weeks on a patient diagnosed with an obsessive-compulsive disorder with comorbid depression. RESULTS: We provided personalized feedback, in which both the overall trajectory and specific time moments were captured in a movie format. Two relapses during the study period could be visually determined, and subsequently confirmed by the therapist. The therapist and patient evaluated ESMvis as an insightful add-on tool to care-as-usual. CONCLUSION: ESMvis is a showcase on providing personalized feedback by dynamic visualization of ESM time-series data. Our tool is freely available and adjustable, making it widely applicable. In addition to potential applications in clinical practice, ESMvis can work as an exploratory tool that can lead to new hypotheses and inform more complex statistical techniques

Predictors of persistence of anxiety disorders across the lifespan:a systematic review

Despite the substantial disease burden of anxiety disorders, physicians have a poor understanding of factors that predict their typical persistent course. This systematic review of predictors of persistent anxiety disorders covered 48 studies with 29 690 patients diagnosed with an anxiety disorder that were published in PubMed, PsycINFO, and Web of Science between Jan 1, 1980 (introduction of DSM-III), and Dec 1, 2019. We also compared predictors between children, adolescents, adults, and older adults (ie, ≥55 years). A persistent course was primarily predicted by clinical and psychological characteristics, including having panic attacks, co-occurring personality disorders, treatment seeking, poor clinical status after treatment, higher severity and longer duration of avoidance behaviour, low extraversion, higher anxiety sensitivity, and higher behavioural inhibition. Unlike disorder onset, sociodemographic characteristics did not predict persistence. Our results outline a profile of patients with specific clinical and psychological characteristics who are particularly vulnerable to anxiety disorder persistence. Clinically, these patients probably deserve additional or more intensive treatment to prevent development of chronicity