Context and Attention Drive Personality

At times, almost everyone is inclined to frame an important issue according to a status quo concept. That certainly is true regarding the notion of personality.  For instance, in 2016, approximately 75 percent of published personality-oriented articles either made reference to or focused exclusively on the Big Five (BF) theory of personality.  I, too, have mentioned the Big Five frequently in this blog (see, for instance, Personality Change in Adulthood), doing so because of the theory’s dominance in professional research and literature.  But that does not mean that the BF is beyond reproach.

Let’s briefly consider another intriguing and useful way to interpret personality: the Context-Appropriate Balanced Attention Model (CABA).  First I will paraphrase the theory's explanation as discussed by Michael D. Collins, Chris J. Jackson, Benjamin R. Walker, Peter J. O’Connor, and Elliroma Gardiner (2016).  Then I will infer how the relatively novel approach might have relevance to our understanding of physical and mental health.

The BF provides a relatively simple and straightforward system from which to explain differences between people.  Most of us readily accept the notion that individuals usually can be classified reliably as extroverted or introverted, open or closed to experience, conscientious, on non-conscientious, agreeable or disagreeable, and neurotic or emotionally stable.  But the BF is of limited utility in describing the factors within a person that determine why they are as they are, or that cause them to be more or less personality-consistent over times and circumstances.  For instance, the BF does not explain why someone would be more introverted as they age or when they are in the presence of the opposite sex.

By contrast, the CABA applies mostly to how individuals adjust their behavior over times and circumstances.  As the name implies, the Context-Appropriate Balanced Attention Model operates via the allocation of attention within a given context.  It posits that we have only a limited supply of attention upon which to draw to activate adaptive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and/or to inhibit maladaptive ones.  In any given situation, when adaptive processes are dominant, we naturally attend to that which is adaptive and when maladaptive processes are dominant, we naturally attend to that which is maladaptive.  Therefore, to change the situation-specific dominant mode from adaptive to maladaptive or vice versa, we must be able to redirect our attentional resources to the new focus.  That, of course, presumes that we are aware of the need to shift attention and capable of exerting the effort necessary to do so.  Michael Collins and his colleagues relate the CABA model and the CABA processes to their neurological substrates, but discussing that would take this blog too far afield.

For us, CABA helps underscore the role of attention, effort, and situation in determining our lifestyles.  Suppose you are an overeater and seek to overcome that condition.  According to the CABA model, your dominant mode involves attending maladaptively to food stimuli, and therefore eating too much, too often in one or more specific situations.  To reverse the condition, you must learn to redirect your attention in those specific overeating situations.  Your dominant mood needs to become one in which you attend to non-food stimuli with adequate power to maintain your non-food focus.   Obviously, you will not be able to reallocate your attentional resources if you remain unaware when your attention is drawn excessively to food.  And anything that depletes your attentional resources (e.g., fatigue or alcohol) will make your desired change less likely to occur.

When you seek a lifestyle change then, know the contexts most likely both to promote and to inhibit the new desired behavior.  With that knowledge as your guide, plan how you can regulate your contexts and attention adaptively toward the desired and away from the undesired stimuli.  I can frame this important issue according to a status quo concept familiar to all and advise you to be "mindful" of what your want to do, what you want to avoid, the contexts that promote each, and how you control your attention.       

     

Reference:

Collins, M., Jackson, C., Walker, B., O’Connor, P. & Gardiner, E.  (2016). Integrating the Context-Appropriate Balanced Attention Model and Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory: Towards a Domain-General Personality Process Model.  Psychological Bulletin, November 28. No Pagination Specified. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000082

Whom Do You Trust ?

Whenever we are advised to perform some health-affecting practice we face a question: Is this a worthwhile endeavor?  Always a difficult question to answer, it is especially challenging in this age of information overload.  That is not to say that each decision is equally momentous.  When told that chicken soup will cure your cold, you need not expend much cash, energy, or effort to comply with the advice, and you risk little whether you do or do not follow through.  On the other hand, you readily find Internet printed material and verbal advice to do such things as take or not take a prophylactic aspirin to protect your cardiovascular system. The "correct" answer is not always obvious or uncomplicated.  And depending on your decision, you could enjoy significant health benefits or experience significant health risks.

If the health-oriented information recommended to you is ambiguous, conflicting, or consequential, a number of factors are important to consider.  Let's focus on two central ones framed as a polarity: You can look within yourself to reach a conclusion that seems proper for you, or you can look to trusted other people to determine what they believe is proper.  (Of course, there is no reason that you cannot take your self-generated and others-generated information, compare it, and then decide.)

If you rely primarily on own, self-generated information, whether you act on your decision will be influenced powerfully by your level of self-confidence.  In that case, the research of Richard E. Petty suggests that confidence depends in large part on your sense of personal power.  As all thoughts, decision-relevant thoughts have an affective charge associated with them from the outset.  Those thoughts, in turn, are magnified by one's confidence level, making the positive thoughts more positive and the negative ones more negative.

If you rely primarily on others-generated information, whether you act on your own decision will be influenced powerfully by your faith in their opinions.  Here, the research of Noah J Goldstein, Steve J Martin, Robert Cialdini (2008) is worth considering.  According to them, when faced with information at odds with their own preconception, many people abandon their own view, moving instead toward what they regard as the middle value of their social reference group.  So, having initially believed that she should exercise for one hour per day 5 days per week, if most of those with whom she spoke favored 30 minutes, 2 days per week, she might very well settle on 45 minutes, 3 days per week.

Deciding to begin or to modify a health practice then, can cause us to sift through a welter of information.  And it exposes us to the advantages and disadvantages of relying on own own opinion, the opinions of others, or an amalgam of both.  So, the more you know about your strengths and weaknesses and your reference groups' strengths and weaknesses, the better.  Given those provisos, be mindful that the extent of your self confidence must be balanced against the extent to which you trust yourself and/or your associates in the very health area under consideration.  While there is nothing inherently wrong with choosing based on any of the self, others, or amalgam options, each choice has its own advantages and disadvantages, and each choice is rooted in your own unique personality predilections.

References:

N.J. Goldstein, S.J. Martin, & R. Cialdini (2008). Yes!: 50 scientifically proven ways to be persuasive.  New York: Simon and Schuster.  

R. E. Petty and J. T. Cacioppo (1996).  Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches.  New York: Westview Press.

  

Healthful Decisions

In common parlance, to say that you are making a decision implies that you are consciously deliberating. So I ask: Are most of your health-oriented practices the results of your conscious deliberations?

Some health decisions certainly are decisions in the deliberative sense.  This is particularly true for “big” decisions.  Most of us think deeply about whether to have a knee replacement or tooth implantation.  But such decisions are few and far between.  “Little” day-to-day health “decisions” most often occur automatically and unconsciously.  We usually do not deliberate about whether to have a second piece of cake.  Despite the fact that eating the cake is an enacted decision, we rarely think of it as a decision at all.  Over situations and over time, however, the automatically, unconscious enacted decisions determine our health no less than do the truly deliberative ones.  To be healthy then, we must understand both our consciously directed and unconsciously directed health-oriented choices.

According to our definitions, let’s think about one aspect of big decision making and one aspect of little decision making.

Big decisions depend largely on how we perceive our future selves.  Odd as it may seem, we often are indifferent to the person that we might become.  Derek Parfit (1971) suggested that the alienation of our current from our future self can be so extreme that we perceive future selves as if they were strangers.  In that case, when a knee replacement or tooth implantation decision does not seem pressing we might not think about how it would affect us in the future at all.  Daniel M. Bartels and Lance J. Rips (2010) make the obvious inference that alienation from the stranger who will become our future self can lead to major later-life negative consequences as a result of our failure to make even minor current-life sacrifices.  For instance, one might avoid causing the future self to endure a knee replacement by gradually losing weight now, or avoid a future tooth implantation by assiduously implementing enhanced dental hygiene starting today.  However, to make the lifestyle changes necessary the current self would need be a deliberative decision maker.

Little decisions can be affected by how we perceive our future self, but they also are very reactive to moment by moment present experiences.  Therefore, you must mindfully focus on how to handle the current setting and what you are thinking and feeling in the here-and-now.  The future self is relevant when you can anticipate a near-term health-oriented opportunity or challenge.  If you are going to a buffet tonight and typically spend far too much time at the dessert table, you can imagine your future self enacting counter-strategies, such as filling up on salad and water before approaching the cakes.  That deliberative decision, of course, means nothing if you fail to enact the strategy at the buffet itself.  Thus, your deliberation must prepare you to control your environment (to seat yourself far from the dessert table and not to linger near it), thoughts (I can have the orange instead), and feelings (If I eat the cake, I’ll feel guilty all night) so that the deliberated decision becomes the enacted health-enhancing decision.

References:

Bartels D. M., & Rips, L. J. (2010). Psychological connectedness and intertemporal choice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 49–69. 

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0018062

Parfit, D. (1971).  Personal identity.  Philosophical Review, 80, 3-27.

 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2184309

It’s Not So Crazy to Think That Sometime You Might Act Crazy

The human psyche, fortunately and necessarily, is oriented toward self-preservation.  If not, our species never would have survived.  Since we are the most physically dependent and the most social animal, our survival has demanded that we relate adaptively to those within our “tribe.”  Accordingly, humans developed extraordinary skill in understanding themselves and those around them.   Moreover, the two skills have been inextricably related—we understand ourselves by contrasting our behavior with that of our contemporaries and vice versa. 

Almost every day we observe someone doing something that we consider “crazy.”   Those crazy behaviors could include anything, from running away from home to never leaving the house.  Given our penchant for “social comparison,” we often imagine that we never could behave so maladaptively.  And, because of our “fundamental attribution error” predilection, we ascribe other people’s oddities to their enduring personalities while excusing ours as due to transient, external influences.  Moreover, to justify our perceptions about our odd neighbor, we can search through scores of mental illnesses enumerated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5) to find one that seems just right.

Our weird neighbor is the exception of course.  There’s never anything strange about us.  After all, mental illness is rare.  Isn’t it?

The conventional view had been that mental illness was uncommon.  However, over the last decade several studies suggested otherwise.  For instance, the National Institute of Mental Health reported that 18 percent of American adults suffered from mental illness in 2014 (www.nimh.nih.gov), and Kessler et al. (2005) suggested that about 50 percent of us will evidence a diagnosable mental illness during our lifetime.     

If you think those statistics are ominous, consider the even more startling conclusions reached by Jonathan D. Schaefer and his colleagues (2015) who believed that previous reports most commonly employed three data collection methods that produced spurious low results.  First, national registries, they said, included mostly or exclusively persons who received treatment in psychiatric facilities, missing those treated in other settings or those not treated at all.  Second, retrospective studies primarily were limited to persons diagnosed with Axis I mental illnesses (e.g., Schizophrenia) and, therefore, missed Axis II and other serious problems (e.g., Psychopathic personality). The final inadequate data collection method employed prospective cohort studies.  Although prospective cohort studies (that follow persons of similar age over time) often are considered excellent, the problem for Schaefer was that the ones he uncovered also assessed only Axis I.  Despite that limitation, however, the prospective research did disclose a mental illness rate ranging from 61 to 85 percent, significantly higher than the other methods.

To remedy the perceived research inadequacies, the Schaefer group examined data from the Dunedin (New Zealand) cohort, a group that had been studied meticulously from their births until middle-age.  The entire cohort was scrutinized – not just those with diagnosed mental illness - and all diagnoses – not just Axis I - were considered.  Given that comprehensive, all-inclusive criterion, an astounding 83 percent of the study’s subjects suffered a diagnosable mental condition sometime during their lives.  Also surprising was that those who did escape all mental illness were not especially intelligent, physically healthy, or from a financially privileged family.  Rather, the emotionally sound 17 percent tended to be ones who had managed to maintain high-quality interpersonal relationships, to be more satisfied with their lives, and to have achieved greater educational and occupational success.

Before you conclude that we are doomed because almost everyone is going out of their minds, recall that Schaefer employed a very broad definition of mental illness.  There are so many mental diagnostic categories that virtually any imaginable problem can be labeled.  Moreover, the study did not adequately report  the severity or diagnostic distribution of the illnesses that were found.  There is a world of difference between an “Adjustment disorder with depressed mood” and “Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type.”  The Dunedin study can, in fact, be of comfort to you.  If emotional problems are so ubiquitous, then many, virtually by definition, are everyday problems of living.  So, when anxious, depressed or otherwise afflicted, remember that you probably are no more deviant than the weird neighbor mentioned earlier.  Do not let your emotions overwhelm you.  Keep moving forward, and as I implied in the subtitle of my Don’t Rest in Peace book, do your best to maintain an activity-oriented, physically and mentally integrated lifestyle.

References:

Kessler, R., et al. (2005)  Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM–IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication.  Archives of General Psychiatry, 62, 593– 602. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/ archpsyc.62.6.593

Schaefer, J., et al. (2016)  Enduring mental health: Prevalence and prediction.  Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Dec, No Pagination Specified.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/abn0000232

Can I Take a Pill for That?

There’s a pill for almost any lifestyle problem extant in 21st Century America, from smoking and dieting to sleeping and loving.  The question is: Do the lifestyle pills work, and, if so, for how long?  The drug industry certainly is paying attention; they spend billions of dollars annually including placebos in their studies to “prove” to the United States government that any positive change after taking their medication is attributable to the medicine and any negative change must be due to some non-medication influence.

Today, let’s address depression and anti-depressant pills.  Tofranil, one of the first anti-depressants in America, was approved for sale in 1959.  So, medication for depression has been available to the public for almost 60 years.  Anti-depressants certainly should have proven their worth by now.  But despite drug companies efforts to prove otherwise, many scientists believe that many anti-depressant and other pharmaceutical lifestyle “cures” amount to little more than transitory placebo effects.

To underscore the questionable utility of anti-depressants, consider this:  The explanatory power of placebos has been increasing over the years.   In fact, the placebo response for anti-depressants was twice as strong in 2005 than it was in 1980 (Rief, 2009).  Moreover, that “placebo drift” had been found for other types of medications as well (Captchuk & Miller, 2015).

No one has been more outspoken in cautioning about anti-depressants than Irving Kirsch (2014).  He noted: 1) that all anti-depressants are said to benefit patients via their influences on neurotransmitters and 2) that all anti-depressants are fairly similar in their efficacy.   Wondering why the similar effectiveness, he investigated the serotonin neurotransmitter and found that some anti-depressants decreased the chemical, some increased it, and some had no effect on it whatsoever.  On the other hand, the placebo effect was obvious and similar for all of the anti-depressants.  Since a properly structured drug study requires that subjects not know whether they have been given the investigational drug or the placebo, he was surprised to discover that 89% of patients getting the drug guessed correctly that they were not given the placebo (Rabkin et al., 1986).  And that fact certainly undermined those studies' scientific integrity and validity 

After enumerating a host of potential side effects of anti-depressants, including but not limited to sexual dysfunction, long-term weight gain, insomnia, nausea, diarrhea, withdrawal symptoms, suicidal ideation, stroke, and death, Kirsch concluded: “When different treatments are equally effective, choice should be based on risk and harm, and of all of these treatments, antidepressant drugs are the riskiest and most harmful. If they are to be used at all, it should be as a last resort, when depression is extremely severe and all other treatment alternatives have been tried and failed.”

Please understand that I am not saying anti-depressants never should be used.  I basically agree with Kirsch, however, that the pills are an option of last resort.  Depression usually can be ameliorated or even cured by lifestyle changes involving some combination of the health-promoting factors that I emphasized in my book: changes in the approach to one's cognitive-emotional perspective, interpersonal relationships, physical activity, diet, work, and relaxation-recreation practices.

References:

Kaptchuk, T. & Miller, F. (2015).  Placebo effects in medicine.  New England Journal of Medicine,  373:8-9. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1504023

Kirsch, I. (2015).   Antidepressants and the placebo effect.  Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 222, 3, 128-134.  doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000176

Rabkin, J., et al., (1986).  How blind is blind? Assessment of patient and doctor medication guesses in a placebo-controlled trial of imipramine and phenelzine. Psychiatry Research, 19, 75–86

Rief, W., et al. (2009).  Meta-analysis of the placebo response in antidepressant trials.  Journal of Affective Disorders, 118, 1-2, 1-8.   DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2009.01.029

Personality Change in Adulthood

Does personality change as we age?  That’s a big question that has been debated for many years by many people.  In the past, the issue often defied resolution because much personality research was theory-driven and theoretical dimensions of personality varied widely and incomparably.  Today, by contrast, personality research is mostly atheoretical and thus readily amenable to statistical analysis.  Moreover, because the Big-Five personality dimensions—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism—are determined numerically and widely accepted as valid and reliable, most psychologists believe that data derived using the system are worthy of serious consideration.   Accordingly, in this post I report the work of Petar Milojev and Chris Sibley (2016) who examined personality stability versus change over the 19 to 74 year life span by using the Big Five.

Given the multi-dimensional nature of personality, even when restricted to the Big-Five, you probably will not be surprised to learn that Milojev and Sibley found both change and stability over time.  As people aged, they were said to become less extraverted, with the greatest decreases in young adulthood and again in old age. Similarly, agreeableness also decreased in young adulthood, but then it remained relatively stable.  On the other hand, conscientiousness increased in young adulthood, with no appreciable  subsequent change.  As the years progressed, they tended toward less openness to experience but also less neuroticism.  Finally, from earliest adulthood through life, honesty-humility increased regularly with increasing age. 

Interpreted broadly then, the results suggest that aging promotes introversion, conscientiousness, a more closed attitude toward experience, disagreeableness (in young adulthood only), less anxiety, and no major effect on honesty or humility.  These, of course, are only generalities, not necessarily applicable to you.  As a point of comparison, however, imagine the hypothetically average aging person as someone such as follows:  Although he used to be reasonably social, over the past several years 39 year-old John has become less and less inclined to leave the house.  He mostly spends his time watching television and surfing the Internet.  In the past, John had been keenly interested in and inclined toward everything new, from gadgets to restaurants.  But now he prefers sticking with the familiar.  He is more accepting of “things” in general and less adventuresome.  On the other hand, John not only is more laid back and reasonably content but also more conscientious, honest, and humble.

Obviously, some features of aging as depicted above can be health supporting.  Decreased anxiety means less physical and mental strain.  Other features might be construed as relatively neutral or even negative.  On the one hand, for instance, decreased openness to experience reduces your opportunities while on the other it also minimizes your need to make energy-absorbing adjustments.

All of this is to say that you would do well to consider ageing's effects on you.  Ask how your lifestyle has evolved over the last several years or decade. Did that course follow Milojev and Sibley's allegedly "average" trajectory?  Why or why not?  More important, are your changes acceptable and reasonable to you?  If not, can you do something to minimize or even totally reverse them?  All the changes are relative.  For instance, you might be willing to accept becoming more "introverted" in your relationships with former or current friends, but resolve to reverse your withdrawal tendency regarding family members whom you rarely see any more.  Irrespective of your age, you can make healthful personality alterations by following the principles explained in my Don't Rest in Peace book.

Reference:

Milojev, P. & Sibley, C. (2016) Normative Personality Trait Development in Adulthood: A 6-Year Cohort-Sequential Growth Model.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Nov 10, 2016, No Pagination Specified.    http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000121

Honey, I know how you feel

When thinking about lifestyle, think about your relationships.  What you believe, feel, and do almost always has a direct or indirect social component.  Interpersonal relationships are so fundamental that the psychiatrist and theorist Harry Stack Sullivan (1953) defined personality as “the relatively enduring pattern of recurrent interpersonal situations which characterize a human life.”  He believed that virtually everything significant about you is related to your social milieu.

Even those resistant to Sullivan’s interpersonal definition of personality would have to concede that our intimate relationships powerfully influence our mental health.  The more constructively we interact with our intimates especially, the better we feel.  And, as I have written previously, research (Gottman, et al., 2006) suggests that healthful intimacy requires us to maintain a positive to negative interaction ratio, a so-called “magic ratio,” of five to one with those whom we love.  We must know how we are coming across emotionally to our relationship partners then, if we are to relate amicably with them and to sustain the five to one.

Margaret Clark and her colleagues (2016) investigated important features of intimate emotionality: how accurately we interpret a loved one’s recent emotional event and whether our own feelings color that interpretation.  To be specific, two studies were conducted.  The first included only married couples and the second, married and “romantically involved” couples.”  Each member of each study reported their own recent emotional experience, whether they had communicated about the emotions to their mate, and the way that they perceived their mate’s recent emotional experience.  First the investigators determined how accurately the partners perceived the mate’s emotions, and the extent to which their own emotions colored how they had interpreted the mate’s emotions.  They then looked at: 1) whether having heard the mate’s explanation of their given emotional experience enabled the partner to better perceive that emotion in future situations and 2) whether having heard the mate’s explanation of their given emotional experience enabled the partner to better refrain from projecting their own emotions into the mate’s emotional experiences.

As most of us would expect, the study indicated that intimate partners were generally accurate in perceiving their mate’s emotions.  That was true for happiness, sadness, guilt, and fear in study 1, and for happiness, sadness, guilt, compassion, anxiety, hurt anger/irritability, and gratitude in study 2.  The only emotion not accurately perceived by partners was “disgust,” but that likely was a statistical quirk due to the low occurrence of disgust.  

The projection of emotion portion of the study partially confirmed the investigators' expectations.  That is, the study's partners often did project their own personal experiences of emotion when interpreting the emotional experiences of their mates.  Not as confidently anticipated, however, was that partners who had frequently experienced a personal emotion tended to overestimate the extent of their mate's experience of that same emotion, and vice verse. (Namely, that partners who had infrequently experienced a personal emotion also tended to underestimate the extent of their mate's experience of that same emotion).  Noteworthy was the fact that partners were least inclined to project their own experiences of fear, anxiety, and sadness in a way that would distort how they understood those emotions in their mates  Finally, the Margaret Clark group was surprised to find only slight support for their expectation that verbalizing to each other about their recent emotional experiences would improve partners' preexisting abilities to read their mate's future emotions.

If you accept the studies' findings then, you can be encouraged to know that you stand a reasonable chance of accurately recognizing your mate's emotions.  That is, provided you are not overly confident that the intensity of your mate's emotions is necessarily the same as the intensity of yours.. For instance, she/ he might be more or less willing to forgive a given indiscretion than you would be.  So, when you confidently believe that you share a mate's feeling, you must inquire about the intensity they are experiencing.  Only then can you decide how to proceed to offer your support.   Don't make the mistake of presuming that just because you know how your mate feels, you also know the depth of the feeling.  Proper support is support that acknowledges not just the emotion, but the depth, and that is something that only the mate can tell you.  Handled properly, supporting your mate will be good for your mental health as well as for theirs.     

References

Clark, M., et al. (2016).  Accuracy and projection in perceptions of partners’ recent emotional experiences: Both minds matter. Emotion, November, No Pagination Specified. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000173.

Gottman, J., Schwartz Gottman, J., & DeClaire, J. (2006). 10 lessons to transform your marriage.  New York, NY: Crown Publishers

Sullivan, H.,S. (1953).The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. Norton: New York, NY: 1953.

   

Thanks. Now, What Should I Do?

Positive emotions are called “positive” because they benefit both the individual and the society.  Among the positives are serenity, joy, and cheerfulness.  Gratitude also is one and it is the focus of today’s blog post.  Barbara L. Frederickson (2004) specifically notes that, as all positive emotions, gratitude facilitates in the grateful person a broaden and build orientation.  By that she means that when experiencing gratitude the individual opens up to the surrounding environment, feels well, and is better able to entertain new ideas.

Accepting the prosocial value of gratitude - gratitude that prompts us to do for others, rather than for ourselves - as a foregone conclusion, Jomel Ng and his colleagues (2016) wondered whether there is more to the gratitude virtue.  Specifically, they explored whether gratefulness not only increases discrete prosocial actions, but also incites us to follow social norms in general.  The group proceeded to explore general social norms via two experiments. In the first, subjects were induced to feel grateful by having them write in vivid detail about an authentic personal gratefulness experience.  Shortly thereafter they began what they were told was a color discrimination task, requiring them to decide whether an ambiguous sample was mostly red, green, or blue. In the midst of performing the discrimination, the subjects were further informed that other participants reported that the sample was blue when it truly was green. Subsequently, subjects who had been induced into gratefulness proved significantly more likely to conclude that the sample was indeed blue than were those not induced into gratefulness. That is, the grateful subjects were more inclined to follow the social norm as they understood it.

The second experiment continued to assess the subjects' tendencies to follow general social norms.  In that case, the experimenters wanted to determine whether inducing joy within subjects would cause the same proclivity for following social norms as inducing gratefulness did. Thus, they sought to ensure that those induced into gratefulness were acceding to social norms because of the gratefulness experience per se, rather than because they simply were in a positive emotional state.  

The joy induction procedure was identical to the gratefulness induction procedure except that the subjects were told to write about an authentic personal joyfulness experience. For the second experiment then, there was both a gratefulness induction group and a joy induction group. Following each induction, subjects of each group were shown two handheld computer tablets of different brands and the marketing performance of each brand, since providing the marketing performance would indicate each brands' popularity.  After analyzing the data, Ng determined that those within the gratefulness condition were more likely to prefer the socially popular tablet than were those within the joy condition.

Accepted at face value, the aforementioned study suggests that gratefulness is a discrete experience with discrete consequences.  It is not merely that grateful people are in a generally good mood, but that gratefulness itself facilitates specific subsequent thoughts and behaviors.  Namely, those who feel grateful are predisposed both to helping others and to following social conventions.  

So, what does all this have to do with a healthful lifestyle?  Much. As Frederickson and many others have suggested, positive emotions, as gratefulness,contributes to lowering our stress and to raising our spirits,  In addition, when gratefulness prompts us to assist others - the prosocial function - it promotes an environment conducive to group physical and mental health, making healthy behavior "the thing to do."

Although I do not believe that there is anything inherently healthful about gratitude's encouraging us to follow the crowd - the social norms function - if one selects her/his crowds with an eye toward health-positive social affiliations, then judiciously following such crowds can be a very good idea.                  

References

Frederickson, B. L. (2004).  Gratitude, Like Other Emotions, Broadens and Builds.  In: The psychology of gratitude (Series in Affective Science).  Robert A. Emmons, New York: Oxford University Press.

Ng, J,, et al. (2016).  Gratitude Facilitates Private Conformity: A Test of the Social Alignment Hypothesis.  Emotion, Oct 31 , 2016, No Pagination Specified,  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000249.

Should I Take a Risk?

Your health is directly or indirectly affected by your risk-taking propensity.  For instance, those who ride a motorcycle without a helmet risk physical impairment and those who fail to save for retirement risk financial impairment that undermines their ability to afford adequate health care and illness prevention.  Moreover, all risks and their unhealthful consequences are potentially stressful. 

Because risks are critically important for physical and mental health then, Xiao-Tian Wang and his co-workers (2016) investigated several types of risk to determine how they relate to each other, and to explore the roles of genetic and environmental factors in risk-taking.  More specifically, they scrutinized the following risk-relevant areas:

Safety:                               For instance, failing to use sunscreen in the summer

Reproduction:                    For instance,deliberately waiting past age 35 to give birth to a child

Natural and physical risk:   For instance,swimming when riptides are strong

Moral risk:                          For instance,lying to achieve an employment advantage

Financial risk:                     For instance,investing a high percentage of one's wealth in a start-up business

Gambling:                          For instance,betting more than one can afford to lose during a game of chance

Regarding the interrelationships,the Wang group discovered some interesting preliminary correlations.  For one, it was found that persons inclined toward financial risks also tended toward moral, natural, and physical risks; the researchers proffered that the correlation was associated with certain personality traits, namely neuroticism (trait anxiety) and agreeableness (a strong desire to get along and not to "rock the boat").

For most risk proclivities, genetic factors generally played a minimal explanatory role, and environmental factors played a moderate role. Of note, however, was that while genes played a very substantive role in addictive gambling (57%)  environmental factors were dominant in non-addictive gambling (68%)  The Wang results also found a proactive-reactive distinction for risk-taking. In this context, a proactive condition is one in which an action is taken in anticipation of some future risk, (taking public transportation rather than driving on a icy day) whereas a reactive condition is one in which an action is taken during a risky situation (reducing speed while driving on an icy day). Proactive risk-taking was shown to be much more dependent upon environmental factors than was reactive risk-taking.

The aforementioned study implies, then, that people are not born either to be especially risk-prone or risk-averse.  Rather, their risky behaviors are mostly environmentally determined.  However, persons who find themselves taking risks in one sphere should be alert to the likelihood that they are vulnerable to other risky behaviors as well.  For instance, individuals who take excessive risks with their money might also take excessive risks with their physical safety. 

One caveat is in order: risk-taking is not inevitably a pejorative.  Reasonable, prudent risk-taking is not inconsistent with a healthful lifestyle. Marathon running is risky.  But training for a marathon and/or living life like a marathoner requires one to behave consistently in ways that promote outstanding physical and mental health.  

We all must take some risks.  The trick is to be mindful of how you handle them and of your risk-taking pattern. Weigh the pros and cons carefully and err on the side of risks that have health-enhancing potential.

Reference

Wang, X. T., et al. (2016).  Not all risks are created equal: A twin study and meta-analyses of risk taking across seven domains.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145,11,1548-1560 . http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000225

Objective Health and Subjective Well-being

In psychology, the phrase "subjective well-being" (SWB) refers to one’s overall sense of how well their life is proceeding.  The topic is of intense interest to both the professional and lay communities, since it addresses fundamental features regarding quality of life and, by extension, of society.  And because no one has studied the issues longer and more fruitfully than Ed Diener of the University of Illinois, I begin this blog by abstracting from his work and that of his colleagues.  More specifically, I summarize their literature review of October, 2016 as it pertains to SWB and health.

The reviewers point out that SWB is a multi-faceted concept that, among other things, includes not only life satisfaction in general but the relative frequency and balance of positive versus negative emotional experiences.  They remind us too that SWB is not only the result of how we live but also a cause of what we do.  For instance, all else being equal, persons of normal weight tend to be more satisfied than are obese persons, and being satisfied or unsatisfied with their weight often directly or indirectly prompts them to continue the behaviors that caused their positive or negative weight condition in the first place.  Similar to most important human conditions, SWB is described as varying in some ways across cultures.  Thus, the Diener group notes that although the homeless in India have far less material resources than the American homeless, they tend to have greater SWB.

Not surprisingly, for the average woman or man, higher SWB is associated with better health and longevity; they characteristically enjoy more effective immune systems, better cardiovascular status, less sleep disturbances, and reduced physiological markers of stress (e.g., cortisol).  Moreover, persons with high SWB are quicker to rebound physically from a stressor, such as by having their blood pressure return faster to their baseline after an upsetting experience.  Non-physiological benefits are present as well.  Persons satisfied with their well-being usually evidence increased work productivity, constructive social relationships, and are more responsible citizens.

To their credit, Diener and colleagues acknowledge that high SWB is no guarantee of a perfect existence.  They cite research suggesting that one can have a too high sense of SWB.  Persons so "afflicted" at times have been found to be lower achievers than are those of moderate SWB,  And extremely high SWB can cause an individual to be overly intense and otherwise overly stimulated, actually undermining health.

The Diener et al. review offers useful information, but no review is ever complete or above reproach. Although technically a theory of motivation, Edward L. Deci and Richard Ryan's self-determination theory (1985) is relevant to our present discussion.  It proposes that we all should strive toward achieving personal competence, autonomy, and relatedness.  And managing to operate those ways undoubtedly produces SWB within us and all the benefits appertaining.

In order to be healthy then, you do not need to be perfectly satisfied.  You do not need to attain a very high level of SWB.  Rather, I believe, that being content, but not complacent, facilitates physical and mental health.  A relatively straightforward, simple strategy for that outcome can involve deliberate actions toward attaining competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

References:

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behaviour. New York: Plenum.

Diener, E. et. al., (2016).  Findings All Psychologists Should Know From the New Science on Subjective Well-Being.  Canadian Psychology, October 6.   No Pagination Specified. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cap0000063.

You'll Be Sorry

Negative emotion not only is uncomfortable by definition, but also restricts the range of thought, causing us to become preoccupied with that which is upsetting.  Moreover, the negative emotion exacts a significant stress-inducing toll on our physical and emotional well-being.  No one wants to be anxious or angry.  Nothing good can come from such dysphoric experiences.  Or can it?

The fact is that negative emotions exist because they have provided an evolutionary survival advantage.  For instance, becoming anxious can prompt us to be safety conscious and becoming angry can mobilize us literally to fight for our lives.  When it comes to everyday health too, at least some negative emotion can be salutary.

Let’s consider “regret.”  If we regret having behaved unhealthfully, we might use that experience of negative emotion to deter similar future unhealthful behavior.  Anticipatory regret--imagining regret that would follow an untoward behavior--also can be good for our health.  Noel Brewer, Jessica DeFrank, and Melissa Gilkey (2016) evaluated the available research to more precisely determine the potential benefits.

The investigators found that persons high in anticipatory regret expressed both greater pro-health intentions and pro-health behavior than did those low in the regret.  And anticipatory regret was a more potent predictor than were other negative emotions, such as disappointment.   The nature of the regret also was relevant.  Although both anticipated action regret (imagining regretting doing something unhealthful) and anticipated inaction regret (imagining regretting not doing something healthful) promoted health, when compared with anticipated action regret, anticipated inaction regret was a slightly more powerful promoter of some types of healthful behaviors.  For instance, it might be more effective to imagine regretting that you did not exercise than to imagine regretting that you did watch television all day long.

The last mentioned finding proved a bit surprising to me, since most people intuitively guess that we are more regretful of what we did wrong rather than what we did not do right.  I believe more research should be devoted to the issue.  However, that surprising finding does not minimize the more powerful conclusion.  Anticipated regret—whether of action, inaction, what we did wrong, or what we failed to do right—is a fundamental “negative” human emotion that can have very “positive” effects.

The bottom line is that you should not summarily shrug off your health regrets at the moment you experience them.  Instead, you would do well to pay close attention to and reflect upon those very regrets.  The attention and processing that you do devote to the regrets, however, must be followed by well-conceived corrective strategies that enable you to avoid the unhealthful behaviors that precipitated the instigating regrets in the first place.

Reference

Brewer, N., DeFrank, J., & Gilkey, M. (2016).  Anticipated regret and health behavior: A meta-analysis.  Health Psychology, 35, 11, November, 1264-1275. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hea0000294. 

I Feel So Much Better at Walmart

If you are depressed, you might decide to buy yourself “something nice” in an attempt to feel better.  That folk-wisdom-inspired strategy is common in Western countries where materialism often reigns supreme.  And sometimes, at least in the short run, making a purchase does buoy the spirits.  When and why?

Grant E. Donnelly and his co-investigators (2016) considered pre-existing relevant research to be confusing and conflicting, so they set about to answer that question for themselves.  They ultimately decided to test the hypothesis that materialism provides an antidote for discontent by enabling highly materialistic people to turn attention from internal dissatisfaction to something external, concrete, and non-distressing.  To do so, the investigators employed Roy Baumeister’s “escape from the self” model (1991) that posits six personality factors that contribute to using materialism in an attempt to preserve self-concept: 

1.  Falling short of high standards

2.  A self blaming attitude

3.  Especially high self awareness

4.  Negative emotion and distress

5.  Cognitive deconstruction, meaning such tendencies as toward rigidity of thought,

     myopic focus on the immediate present, and preference for emotional numbness

     or apathy rather than recognizing the true emotional distress

6.  Destructed states, meaning states of impulsivity and/or disinhibition

The Donnelly group concluded that of the six factors, the three that  commanded the most empirical support were: falling short of high standards, especially high self-awareness, and negative emotion and distress.  And the other three were regarded as worthy of further study.

As explained at the outset, the aforementioned investigation concerned persons relatively high in materialism, so they may not apply wholesale to you.  However, the information is worth processing to determine the extent to which it can be personally useful.  For one thing, it illustrates the value of thinking about excessive shopping in a more differentiated way than merely as a brief distraction from feeling "a little depressed."  You might wonder, for instance, whether you are struggling with an injury to your self-esteem. Perhaps you have set one or more unattainably high or impatient goals.  Or maybe you are being besieged by any variety of particularly troubling emotional stressors rather than mild depression.  Anxiety, loneliness, physical pain, and a host of others could be the culprit. There are innumerable upsetting internal stimuli that can prompt anyone to desire to “escape from the self.”

One other psychological concept needs to be introduced into my presentation: the hedonic treadmill which is our innate tendency to become satiated with something that previously brought pleasure.  You buy a new car and it is your crown jewel.  The automobile is shiny, sleek, and chock full of the latest and greatest gadgets; it is all you think about for a week, a fortnight, or a month.  But soon the dings accumulate, the glow dims, and the gem decomposes into mere transportation.  Soon you will covet another radiant bauble to set your soul afire.  That is just how the hedonic treadmill keeps us running.

The best way to feel better is not to visit Walmart, Macy's, or Selfridges.  Instead, visit yourself.  Or, more correctly, revisit your lifestyle.  Look carefully into how you are spending your time.  Determine what makes you physically and mentally healthier, and set out to invest your time and energy in making the lasting changes that enrich virtually every aspect of your life and whose values persist over time.

References

Brickman, P., & Campbell, D. T. (1971). Hedonic relativism and planning the good society. In M. H. Appley (Ed.), Adaptation level theory: A symposium (pp. 287–302). New York: Academic Press.

Donnelly, G., et al. (2016).   Buying to blunt negative feelings:  Materialistic escape from the self. Review of General Psychology, 20, 3, 272-316. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000078.

Feeling Well and Performing Well

In Conversation: Striving, Surviving, and Thriving, I wrote at length about emotional valance which refers to positive (e.g., happy) versus negative (e.g., sad) emotions. Then as now I asserted that people naturally and mostly unconsciously ascribe a positive or a negative label to that which they perceive whether that perception involves a person (e.g., a presidential candidate) or thing (e.g., an abstract painting).  More important, I suggested that the label powerfully colors what we think and do relative to that which was labeled.

Yen-Ping Chang and his co-researchers (2016) investigated a particular feature of valance: how valence influences agency with “agency” meaning one’s intention to act and/or to actually perform the act.  Thus, a person with strong agency feels relatively capable to complete a challenging task whereas one with weak agency feels relatively incapable to do so.

The Chang group performed five experiments in attempting to more precisely understand the valence-agency link.  Their experimental subjects rated their own current behavior, their past recalled experiences, characters in hypothetical morally-relevant situations, positively- acting and negatively-acting fictional characters, and personified emotions (e.g., “If anger were a person, how would he/she handle being late for a meeting?).

The study’s results were clear and convincing.  Persons experiencing a positive emotional state most often regarded themselves as being more capable of achieving an outcome than those experiencing a neutral or negative emotional state.  Feeling good seemed to promote a feeling of competence.  That intrapersonal consequence of valence-agency was confidently anticipated.  On the other hand, not expected was the interpersonal consequence of valence-agency.  The study found that others who observed subjects that they believed to be in a positive emotional state also considered them to be more capable.  And, conversely, others who believed observed subjects to be in a negative emotional state also considered them less capable.

Emotional valence of course is related to well-being.  Persons in a positive emotional state not only feel good but they also are more likely to be in a more relaxed condition.  And, by definition, relaxed persons are less assailed by stress hormones.  Now add the agency effect.  Since feeling positively tends to be accompanied by feeling more capable, such positive times offer the best chance for you to initiate and to sustain healthful lifestyle behavior.  Moreover, your positive state probably will be perceived by observing others who will consciously and/or unconsciously presume that you are more capable of achieving your healthful goals and, therefore, be more deliberately or inadvertently supportive of you in those endeavors. 

Therefore, the more you can cultivate within yourself positive emotional valence, the more agency you will experience, and the more empowered you will be to become healthier in body as well as mind.  

Chang, Y-P., et al., (2016)  Affective Valence Signals Agency Within and Between Individuals.  Emotion, September 19, No Pagination Specified.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000229

Health Minimizers and Maximizers

Since antiquity, philosophers, such as Aristotle, extolled the wisdom of behavior according to the “golden mean” principle (not to be confused with the mathematical “golden ratio,” a totally different notion).  In brief, the golden mean posited that most adaptive behavior and situations tend to be middling rather than extreme.  Psychological experiments have supported the value of the golden mean.  For instance, as early as 1908, Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson showed that mice learned discrimination tasks best when they were moderately aroused.  When under-aroused (given a mild electrical shock) the mice did not adequately exert themselves and when over-aroused (given an intense shock) they failed to focus on the to-be-learned task.  

Common sense and popular culture are on board with the golden mean as well.  Almost everyone realizes that those who never exercise risk serious health problems and that those who exercise excessively risk serious injury.

The value of exercise has been so widely and relentlessly advertised that one would have to be a total denier to discount its value.  However, knowing about healthful behavior and healthful resources is one thing and acting upon that knowledge is quite another.  It is what you do that counts so much more than what you know.  So, persons charged with community health are very interested in determining who does and does not act to promote physical and mental well-being.

Laura D. Scherer and her colleagues (2016) chose to focus on one feature of action toward health by asking whether or not there is a global personality-oriented inclination to use available health care resources versus a disinclination to do so.  The investigation proceeded by having subjects rate their agreement or disagreement with 27 health care utilization statements.  Of the 27, ten proved most relevant.  Those ten mostly concerned the rater's beliefs regarding how medical treatment affects issues regarding survival, the quality of life, the timing and thoroughness of a health-enhancing intervention, and the degree of a subject's heath advocacy for loved ones.

After analyzing the data, the Scherer group tentatively concluded that people can be dichotomized into health care maximizers and health care mimimizers.  That is, some individuals seemed to believe that more health care is better than less and others believed the opposite.  Most critically, the actions of both groups  (i.e., health care utilization) were consistent with their beliefs.

Now, you may feel that the study results are mere common sense, but research repeatedly has demonstrated that common sense often is erroneous.  Moreover, the study in question had as a primary purpose the creation of a questionnaire to guide clinical practice.

My purpose, on the other hand, is to have you consider whether you might be a health care maximizer or minimizer.  Do you seek a pill at the first sniffle, or do you avoid going to a doctor for months after the crusty mole on your neck has turned black?  What are your beliefs regarding how your lifestyle affects your survival, the quality of your life, the timing and thoroughness of your health-enhancing interventions, and the degree of your heath advocacy for loved ones? 

Hopefully, you will subscribe to the golden mean as it applies to your health-relevant actions, being neither too quick nor too slow to act.  But, in order to follow the golden mean, you must educate yourself about what counts health-wise.  If you are confident about your knowledge, you need to act accordingly.  If you are not confident, you need to find a health professional whom you trust.

References:

Yerkes R. M. & Dodson J.D. (1908).  The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation. Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology 18, 459–482.

Scherer, L., et al. (2016).  Development of the Medical Maximizer-Minimizer Scale.  Health Psychology, September, No Pagination Specified.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/hea0000417.