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Emotion regulation across the lifespan: Age differences in intrapersonal and interpersonal strategies for the adjustment to the COVID-19 pandemic in four countries
Abstract
Objectives
Studies have shown age differences in adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic. The processes explaining these age differences remain unclear. Intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation play an important role in psycho-social adjustment and develop across the lifespan. This study investigated whether differences in COVID-19-related adjustment disorder symptoms can be explained by age-differences in rumination in a multi-national sample. Furthermore, linguistic indicators of ruminative processing were examined with reference to age.
Methods
N = 1401 participants (from USA, UK, Switzerland, Germany, aged 18–88) completed an online survey and a writing task. Measures included brooding, co-brooding, adjustment disorder symptoms, and language indicators of negative self- and communal-focus .
Results
Older participants reported less adjustment disorder symptoms which was mediated by less (co-)brooding. Participants reporting more (co-)brooding wrote about COVID-19 more negatively. While in younger adults more self-focus was associated with higher ruminative brooding, in older adults it was associated with less brooding.
Conclusion
These findings contribute to a better understanding of regulatory mechanisms that help explain age differences in mental health. They warrant further research considering age-related differences, as our results suggest not only more adaptive emotion regulation as resilience factor in older individuals but also different qualities of self-focus while processing stressful events.
... To better understand the importance of IER, it is vital to identify its added value. Accordingly, recent studies have focused on specific interpersonal aspects of emotion regulation during the pandemic [10,31,32]. However, these studies investigated specific strategies only and did not integrate various adaptive and maladaptive IER strategies by simultaneously considering their predictive effects on affective symptoms. ...
... During the pandemic, social factors played a prominent role [32]. Multiple studiesincluding ours-report results showing how social sharing may not always be adaptive [10] but might be associated with negative effects on mental health and relationship quality if sharing is rigid and negative, as is co-brooding, for example. On the other hand, studies on post-traumatic growth have shown the positive potential of deliberately sharing negative content [22] as opposed to rigidly and repetitively sharing negative content without being open to new perspectives. ...
While experiencing the unpredictable events of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are likely to turn to people in order to regulate our emotions. In this research, we investigate how this interpersonal emotion regulation is connected to affective symptoms, above and beyond intrapersonal emotion regulation. Furthermore, we explore whether perceived psychosocial resources moderate these associations, i.e., if individuals reporting healthier social connections benefit differently from interpersonal emotion regulation. N = 1401 participants from the USA, UK, Germany, and Switzerland completed an online survey that included text samples. Affective symptoms (depression, adjustment disorder, fear of COVID-19) were examined based on self-reported as well as language-based indicators. As psychosocial resources, we examined social support, loneliness, attachment style, and trust. We defined latent variables for adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal emotion regulation and analyzed how they were associated with affective symptoms controlling for intrapersonal emotion regulation. Further, we analyzed how they interacted with psychosocial resources. Maladaptive interpersonal emotion regulation strategies were associated with affective symptoms. With lower psychosocial resources, the associations between interpersonal emotion regulation and depressive symptoms were more pronounced. The results highlight that maladaptive interpersonal emotion regulation is associated with worse mental health. These effects are not buffered by more psychosocial resources and are stronger for people with low psychosocial resources.
... As survivors of the Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) pandemic in 2003 in Hong Kong and experienced more adversities than younger people, they thus had more experiences and confidence in coping with adversities. Older people reported a more optimistic outlook, better adaption, and better mental health during the pandemic [39,40]. They might show less maladaptive intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation strategies, such as paying more attention to positive emotions and less brooding rumination on negative emotions [40]. ...
... Older people reported a more optimistic outlook, better adaption, and better mental health during the pandemic [39,40]. They might show less maladaptive intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation strategies, such as paying more attention to positive emotions and less brooding rumination on negative emotions [40]. Inconsistently, older people reported slightly lower CD-RISC2 scores before the pandemic [19]. ...
Background
Adversity coping capability (ACC) is important amid the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the associations of ACC as measured by our one-item ACC scale (ACC-1) with mental health, family well-being and validity of ACC-1 in Hong Kong.
Methods
A cross-sectional survey was conducted on Hong Kong Chinese adults aged ≥ 18 years by landline, mobile phone, and online survey from February to March 2021, when the fourth wave of COVID-19 was under control. ACC-1 consisted of the question: “How do you rate your capability to cope with adversities?” with higher scores (0–10) indicating stronger ACC. The associations of ACC with socioeconomic characteristics, resilience, mental health, and family wellbeing were examined by linear regression coefficients ( β s). Data were weighted by sex, age, and education of the general population.
Results
Of 7441 respondents, after weighing, 52.2% were female and 79.1% were aged 18 to 64 years. ACC-1 showed good construct validity, with higher ACC being associated with higher levels of resilience (adjusted β = 0.29), personal happiness (0.55), family happiness (0.42), family wellbeing (0.41), and family communication quality (0.41), and lower levels of depressive symptoms (-0.30), anxiety (-0.30), loneliness (-0.15); incremental validity with additional contributions of ACC to mental health and family wellbeing; and known-group validity with older age and favorable socioeconomic characteristics showing higher ACC (all P < 0.02). Females (mean ± standard deviation: 6.04 ± 1.82 vs 6.15 ± 1.96 [male]) and unemployed respondents (5.30 ± 1.99 vs 6.11 ± 2.03 [in paid employment]) had lower ACC (all P ≤ 0.02).
Conclusions
We have first shown that stronger ACC was associated with better mental health and family wellbeing, and the results support ACC-1 as a simple and valid measure of ACC.
... Specifically, older adults may have derived more support from their social network during the pandemic, with one study reporting that the association between age and increased positive emotional experiences could be partially explained by older adults reporting a greater closeness to friends (Cavallini et al., 2021). Furthermore, during the pandemic, older adults were more likely than younger adults to report using problem-focused and proactive coping strategies, and less likely to report counterproductive coping strategies such as ruminating about stressors (Dworakowski et al., 2021;Pearman et al., 2021;Young et al., 2021). Potentially, younger adults learned to apply these strategies as the COVID-19 pandemic went on, leading to the observed decrease in younger adults' psychological distress following an initial peak. ...
In March 2020, COVID-19 brought illness, lockdowns, and economic turmoil worldwide. Studies from March–April 2020 reported increased psychological distress, especially among younger (vs. older) adults. Here, we examine whether age differences persisted in a 29-wave longitudinal survey conducted with an American national life-span sample over the first 16 months of the pandemic. Socio-emotional selectivity theory (SST) predicts that older age will be consistently associated with lower psychological distress due to life-span changes in motivation, while the strength and vulnerability integration model (SAVI) posits that age differences in psychological distress will diminish under prolonged stress. We find that younger adults consistently reported more psychological distress than older adults, though age differences did decrease over time. Prior diagnosis with anxiety or depression additionally predicted greater psychological distress throughout the study, but did not moderate age differences. We discuss implications for psychological theories of aging and interventions to reduce psychological distress.
... The items were translated by the original author and then re-translated by a native speaker. Subscales of the questionnaire have been used in couple and individual studies (Dworakowski et al., 2021;Horn et al., 2019;Horn & Maercker, 2016;Horn & Maercker, 2015). Reliability test for each subscale were conducted on a sample N =1401 adults (M age =48.1 years, SD = 16.2, ...
The Interpersonal Emotion Regulation in Close Relationship (IER-CR) questionnaire measures habitual interpersonal emotion regulation strategies in seven subscales. It refers to habitual everyday emotion regulation behavior in close relationships. Interpersonal Emotion Regulation is here defined as emotion regulation that happens in social interaction (Horn & Maercker, 2015; Dworakowski et al., 2021). A transactional nature of interpersonal emotion regulation is proposed; the systemic nature of interpersonal processes suggests interpersonal emotion regulation as influencing both, one’s own and the interaction partner’s affective state and outcomes. Moreover, from a relationship science perspective it is supposed to be related to relationship quality and psychological intimacy as relational outcomes. Accordingly, as interactive emotion regulation affects not only the mental and but also the social realities of the regulating individual, it is supposed to be particularly broad in its effects. The IER-CR is addressed at assessing interpersonal strategies for regulating own affective states (sometimes referred to as intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation). There is also a couple version available that measures self - and partner perception of these strategies. Most strategies in this questionnaire are the interpersonal manifestations of established intrapersonal emotion regulation strategies. Beside interpersonal emotion regulation realized in verbal communication -co-reappraisal, co-brooding, positive and negative humor (Samson & Gross, 2012)-, the questionnaire addresses the relationship as a resource for distraction (co-distraction) and reaching out for responsive touch transmitting physical affection (Debrot et al. 2012, 2013) as a non-verbal safety and proximity signal with regulatory effects (physical affection).
Background and Objectives
Advanced age is generally associated with improved emotional well-being, but the COVID-19 pandemic unleashed a global stressor that gravely threatened the physical well-being and ostensibly challenged the emotional well-being of older adults disproportionately. The current study investigated differences in emotional experiences and coping strategies between younger and older adults during the pandemic, and whether these differences were accounted for by age differences in appraisal of the pandemic.
Research Design and Methods
We asked younger (n = 181) and older adult (n = 176) participants to report their stress, appraisals the pandemic, emotions, and the ways in which they were coping with the pandemic.
Results
Results indicated that older adults experienced less stress and less negative affect and used greater problem-focused coping and less avoidant coping in response to the pandemic than younger adults. Further, age differences in affect and coping were partially accounted for by age differences in appraisals of the pandemic.
Discussion and Implications
Despite their objectively higher risk of illness and death due to the pandemic, older adults experienced less negative affect and used more agentic coping strategies than younger adults.
Objectives:
To determine whether there are age differences in positive and negative repetitive thought (i.e., rumination).
Method:
Young adults (ages 19-39; N = 114) and Older Adults (ages 60-85; N = 88) completed measures of negative and positive rumination. Bayesian analyses were used to determine whether age differences were present for both negative (young > old) and positive (old > young) rumination.
Results:
There was extremely strong evidence for age differences in negative rumination, with lower scores in older adults. In contrast, the evidence was in favor of the null hypothesis for positive rumination.
Discussion:
Age-related positivity is better characterized as decreased dwelling on the meaning of negative moods, rather than increased attention to positive ones.
In this manual, we introduce a new version of the German adaptation of the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), called the DE-LIWC2015. The aim of the present work was to develop an update to the previous version of the German LIWC adaptation (Wolf et al., 2008) that corresponds to the LIWC2015 properties. The overall goal was to enable automated word count analysis that accurately captures the most frequently used words in the German language context, converting them into psychologically meaningful metrics for use in research.
Background: Coping flexibility, defined as a wide range of coping strategies, may be a promising construct in determining coping effectiveness, especially in conjunction with a person-centered approach. However, no studies have focused on these issues. The study aimed to identify the distinct, multidimensional patterns of strategies for coping with chronic health conditions and their association with changes in physical and psychological health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among older adults over a one month period.
Methods: Coping strategies (brooding, reflection, co-rumination, and positive reappraisal) and HRQoL psychological and physical domains were assessed twice (at the baseline and one month later) among 210 older adults (age 76.12 ± 9.09 years, 66% women).
Findings: The parallel process analysis demonstrated the sample heterogeneity regarding coping. In multidimensional latent class growth analysis (MLCGA), four coping classes of overall strategies were identified: consistently low (46%), medium and decreasing (18%), medium and increasing (20%), and consistently high (16%). The last two can be considered the coping flexibility. Participants in the medium and increasing subgroup reported enhancement in HRQoL psychological domain, whereas members of the consistently high subgroup indicated its decrease. The favorable effects were related to an increase in co-rumination.
Discussion: The findings shed light on the longitudinal patterns of coping in older adults, showing that coping flexibility is more adaptive when it relies on modifying coping efforts rather than coping complexity. Co-rumination played a key role, compensated by the effect of maladaptive strategies.
Background
Adult emotion regulation is not only occurring within the person but includes strategies that happen in social interactions and that are framed as co-regulating. The current study investigates the role of the interpersonal emotion regulation strategies of co-reappraisal and co-brooding in couples for adjustment disorder symptoms as the disorder will be outlined in the International Classification of Diseases-11 (ICD-11). Methods
Couples registered together in an online questionnaire study reporting whether or not they are adjusting to a major stressor that is psychologically challenging to them. In total, one hundred and forty-six participants (N = 73 male; N = 73 female) reported having experienced a major stressor in the last 12 months and were thus be identified as at risk for adjustment disorder. Those individuals at risk were assessed for adjustment disorder and depressive symptoms; intra- and interpersonal emotion regulation (co-/brooding, co-/reappraisal) were assessed not only in the individual at risk but also in the romantic partner. ResultsRegression-based dyadic analyses revealed that above and beyond intrapersonal emotion regulation, interpersonal co-brooding and for the female participants also co-reappraisal were significantly associated with symptoms of adjustment disorder and depression, standardized betas varied between .24 and .36, suggesting medium effect sizes. An association with the female partner’s tendency to reappraise with fewer symptoms in the male partner at risk for adjustment disorder could also be observed. Conclusions
Co-brooding and co-reappraisal represent emotion regulation strategies that happen in social interaction and seem to play a relevant role in the context of adjustment disorders above and beyond the commonly assessed intrapersonal emotion regulation strategies.
Country effects on outcomes for individuals are often analysed using multilevel (hierarchical) models applied to harmonized
multi-country data sets such as ESS, EU-SILC, EVS, ISSP, and SHARE. We point out problems with the assessment of country effects
that appear not to be widely appreciated, and develop our arguments using Monte Carlo simulation analysis of multilevel linear
and logit models. With large sample sizes of individuals within each country but only a small number of countries, analysts
can reliably estimate individual-level effects but estimates of parameters summarizing country effects are likely to be unreliable.
Multilevel modelling methods are no panacea.
propose a model of the intimacy process
the process begins when one person expresses personally revealing feelings of information to another
it continues when the listener responds supportively and empathically
for an interaction to become intimate the discloser must feel understood, validated, and cared for
psychodynamic building blocks / building blocks from communication and exchange research / lay and psychometric conceptions of intimacy (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Far more attention has been paid to emotion regulation in childhood than in adulthood and old age. However, a growing body of empirical research suggests that the emotion domain is largely spared from deleterious processes associated with aging and points instead to developmental gains in later life. By applying tenets from socioemotional selectivity theory, we attempt to explain the observed gains in terms of motivation. We argue that age is associated with increasing motivation to derive emotional meaning from life and decreasing motivation to expand one's horizons. These changes lead to age differences in social and environmental choices (consistent with antecedent emotion regulation), coping (consistent with response-focused regulation), and cognitive processing of positive and negative information (consistent with goal-directed attention and memory). Broader implications for life-span development are discussed.
In an attempt to eliminate similar item content as an alternative explanation for the relation between depression and rumination, a secondary analysis was conducted using the data from S. Nolen-Hoeksema, J. Larson, and C. Grayson (1999). After constructing a measure of rumination unconfounded with depression content, support for a two factor model of rumination was found. These analyses indicate that the 2 components, reflective pondering and brooding, differentially relate to depression in terms of predictive ability and gender difference mediation. The results presented here support the general premise of Nolen-Hoeksema's Response Styles Theory (S. Nolen-Hoeksema 1987) that rumination can contribute to more depressive symptoms and to the gender difference in depression, but suggest important refinements of the theory. Such refinements include the need to differentiate between the reflective pondering component of rumination and the brooding component in rumination research. Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44342/1/10608_2004_Article_464752.pdf
Background
The potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on population mental health is of increasing global concern. We examine changes in adult mental health in the UK population before and during the lockdown.
Methods
In this secondary analysis of a national, longitudinal cohort study, households that took part in Waves 8 or 9 of the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) panel, including all members aged 16 or older in April, 2020, were invited to complete the COVID-19 web survey on April 23–30, 2020. Participants who were unable to make an informed decision as a result of incapacity, or who had unknown postal addresses or addresses abroad were excluded. Mental health was assessed using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Repeated cross-sectional analyses were done to examine temporal trends. Fixed-effects regression models were fitted to identify within-person change compared with preceding trends.
Findings
Waves 6–9 of the UKHLS had 53 351 participants. Eligible participants for the COVID-19 web survey were from households that took part in Waves 8 or 9, and 17 452 (41·2%) of 42 330 eligible people participated in the web survey. Population prevalence of clinically significant levels of mental distress rose from 18·9% (95% CI 17·8–20·0) in 2018–19 to 27·3% (26·3–28·2) in April, 2020, one month into UK lockdown. Mean GHQ-12 score also increased over this time, from 11·5 (95% CI 11·3–11·6) in 2018–19, to 12·6 (12·5–12·8) in April, 2020. This was 0·48 (95% CI 0·07–0·90) points higher than expected when accounting for previous upward trends between 2014 and 2018. Comparing GHQ-12 scores within individuals, adjusting for time trends and significant predictors of change, increases were greatest in 18–24-year-olds (2·69 points, 95% CI 1·89–3·48), 25–34-year-olds (1·57, 0·96–2·18), women (0·92, 0·50–1·35), and people living with young children (1·45, 0·79–2·12). People employed before the pandemic also averaged a notable increase in GHQ-12 score (0·63, 95% CI 0·20–1·06).
Interpretation
By late April, 2020, mental health in the UK had deteriorated compared with pre-COVID-19 trends. Policies emphasising the needs of women, young people, and those with preschool aged children are likely to play an important part in preventing future mental illness.
Funding
None.
Zusammenfassung
Einleitung Studien aus dem internationalen Raum weisen auf eine erhöhte psychische Belastung des Klinikpersonals während der Corona Pandemie (COVID-19) hin. Dies ist die erste Studie, die psychische Belastung, i. e. Anpassungsstörung, Depression, Stresssymptome und Corona bezogene Sorgen, sowie Bewältigungsstrategien in dieser Personengruppe im deutschen Sprachraum untersuchte.
Material und Methoden Es wurden 100 Personen, die derzeit in einer Klinik beschäftigt sind, im April 2020 befragt. Erhoben wurden Anpassungsstörung (ADNM-20), Depression (PHQ-9), Stresssymptome und Bewältigungsstrategien (SCI). Vorliegend wurde der Querschnitt ausgewertet, die Datenerhebung läuft derzeit noch, es werden Längsschnittdaten über 15 Monate hinweg entstehen.
Ergebnisse Die Häufigkeit von Anpassungsstörung beträgt 8% und diejenige von Depression 15%. Ein Modell zur Vorhersage beider Störungen durch Vorbelastungen und aktuelle Belastungen fand eine geringfügig verbesserte bessere Vorhersageleistung für Anpassungsstörung (41% Varianzaufklärung) als für Depression (35%). Die Ansteckungssorge für die eigene Person fiel geringer aus als diejenige für die Familie. Personen aus der Pflege, Personen mit Vorbelastungen und Frauen sind am meisten belastet. Personen mit direktem vs. ohne direktem Kontakt mit COVID-19 Patient/innen unterschieden sich nicht.
Diskussion Das Klinikpersonal ist derzeit psychisch belastet. Das hinsichtlich Epidemie erfahrene China hat bereits im Januar 2020 erste Prinzipien für psychiatrische Interventionen herausgegeben. Solche dürften für die Schweiz ebenfalls sinnvoll sein. Es bedarf spezifischer psychotherapeutischer Interventionen, insbesondere auf kognitive Umstrukturierung fokussierend und für den Umgang mit Alkohol und Zigaretten sensibilisierend, um diese vulnerable und im Rahmen der Pandemie besonders wichtige Personengruppe zu schützen.
Interdependence is a hallmark of romantic relationships, and first-person plural pronoun use (“we-talk”) can indicate interdependence between self and other. We-talk often positively, but sometimes negatively, relates to relationship and personal functioning. A meta-analysis of 30 studies supported a positive association overall between one’s own and partners’ we-talk and relationship and personal functioning, as well as each of five indicators (relationship outcomes, relationship behaviors, mental and physical health, and health behaviors) for individuals in romantic relationships. Partner use of we-talk was generally more strongly related to relationship functioning than own use. Females’ and spouses’ use of we-talk was related more to males’ and patients’ functioning, respectively. In general, our results revealed that we-talk was most strongly associated with relationship functioning and that partner effects tended to be stronger than actor effects. Both patterns of meta-analytic findings support the notion that we-talk reflects interdependence between romantic partners.
The aim of this study was to investigate daily positive humor in couples as an interpersonal emotion regulation strategy. Associated changes in psychological intimacy were tested as a possible socio-affective pathway of emotion regulation that mediates the effects of couple humor on changes in individual momentary affect. Within a dyadic ambulatory assessment framework, 102 couples reported on their production of positive humor as an attempt to regulate their partner’s mood, psychological intimacy, and momentary affect four times a day for 1 week. An actor–partner interdependence mediation model revealed actor and partner effects of humor on changes in daily affect. Furthermore, the indirect effect of own humor via changes in the partner’s feelings of psychological intimacy (socio-affective pathway) on the partner’s affect was significant. Results support the assumption that daily positive humor experienced with one’s romantic partner serves as an interpersonal emotion regulation strategy in daily life as reflected in direct effects on one’s own and one’s partner’s momentary affect. The partner’s changes in affect were partially mediated by changes in their feelings of psychological intimacy. This speaks in favor of an indirect socio-affective mechanism of interpersonal emotion regulation associated with positive humor expressed toward the partner.
In line with ICD-11 new conceptualization of Adjustment disorder (AjD), a self-report Adjustment Disorder-New Module (ADNM) was developed and validated. Nevertheless, the ADNM-20 is a long research tool and potentially problematic in the use in epidemiological and clinical studies. The present study introduces the brief ADNM-8 and the ultra-brief ADNM-4, examines their validity and establishes cut-off scores for their clinical use. The study used a representative national sample of 1003 Israelis who reported on the ICD-11 stress spectrum ranging from AjD, PTSD, complex PTSD and complicated grief. Construct validity was assessed via confirmatory factor analysis and cut-off scores were established through ROC analysis. The original and brief instruments were highly correlated (r > 0.918 or better). Cronbach's Alpha for the Brief ADNM-8 and the Ultra-Brief ADNM-4 were above 0.800. Correlations with stress related conditions indicated a good convergent and construct validity for both instruments as well. The ultra-brief ADNM-4 was found to have a very good fit with the data. These findings indicate that the brief ADNM-8 and the ultra-brief ADNM-4 can serve as a brief screening tools for assessing AjD symptoms according to the ICD-11 definition.
Objectives:
Although there is evidence that evaluative subjective well-being (e.g., life satisfaction) shows a U-shaped pattern with highest satisfaction in the youngest and oldest years and lowest in the middle years of adulthood, much less is known about experiential well-being. We explore a negative indicator of experiential well-being (perceived stress), examine its association with age, and explore possible determinants of the age pattern.
Methods:
Using Gallup-Healthways survey data of over 1.5 million U.S. respondents, we analyzed a question asking about stress yesterday and demographic determinants of the pattern. To confirm this pattern, data on stress was analyzed from the American Time Use Survey and data on distress was analyzed from the Health and Retirement Survey.
Results:
We show that ratings of daily, perceived stressfulness yield a paradox, with high levels from the 20's through about age 50, followed by a precipitous decline through the 70's. Data from the other two surveys confirmed the age pattern for stress. Regressions with the Gallup-Healthways data statistically controlled several third-variables, yet none substantially altered the pattern.
Conclusion:
We argue that this new experiential well-being pattern informs us about aging in the US and the "paradox" calls out for explanation.
Maladaptive reactions on stressful experiences justifying a diagnosis of adjustment disorder have high prevalence. Little is known about the possible risk for clinically significant maladaptation that results from the social context. The literature on the effects of depression on communication and altered support conditions in couples is suggesting this. Aim of this study was to investigate whether clinically significant depression in the romantic partner is a risk factor for adjustment disorder following a concept of stress-response disorder. Furthermore, from a dimensional point of view a possible positive association between depressive symptoms in the partner and own adjustment symptom was studied. Thereby, own depressive symptoms were controlled for in order to exclude mere depressive contagion and isolate stress-related responses. In an online-couple-study N=294 participants (N=147 couples) reported whether or not they had experienced a stressful event that is still bothering them. N=152 participants reported such an event. N=28 of this group reached the threshold of a possible diagnosis with the screening questionnaire "Adjustment disorder New Module". N=14 romantic partners reported depressive symptoms above the cut-off of the CES-D. The risk for an adjustment disorder is elevated if the female partner reports a clinically significant level of depressive symptoms (OR 7.13). This was only true when female partners were depressed, the depression of male partners did not show any significant associations. Accordingly, dimensionally there is a positive association between depressive symptoms of the female partner and adjustment symptoms of preoccupation (stressor-related repetitive negative thoughts). Depression of the romantic partner seems to be a significant risk factor for maladaptive reactions on a stressful event. This was particularly true for male participants of the study. To sum up, results encourage taking up an interpersonal perspective in research and clinical interventions.
© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.
Older age is normatively associated with losses in physical, cognitive, and social domains. Despite these losses, older adults often report higher levels of well-being than do younger adults. How can we explain this enhancement of well-being? In this article, we consider one possible explanation, namely, that older adults show enhanced emotion regulation. Specifically, we propose that older adults achieve well-being by selecting and optimizing particular emotion regulation processes to compensate for changes in internal and external resources. With this framework in mind, we suggest several directions for future research.
Maxwell, Cole, and Mitchell (2011) extended the work of Maxwell and Cole (2007)12.
Maxwell , S. E. and Cole , D. A. 2007 . Bias in cross-sectional analyses of longitudinal mediation . Psychological Methods , 12 : 23 – 44 . [CrossRef], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®]View all references, which raised important questions about whether mediation analyses based on cross-sectional data can shed light on longitudinal mediation process. The latest article considers longitudinal processes that can only be partially explained by an intervening variable, and Maxwell et al. showed that the same general conclusions are obtained, namely that analyses of cross-sectional data will not reveal the longitudinal mediation process. While applauding the advances of the target article, this comment encourages the detailed exploration of alternate causal models in psychology beyond the autoregressive model considered by Maxwell et al. When inferences based on cross-sectional analyses are compared to alternate models, different patterns of bias are likely to be observed. I illustrate how different models of the causal process can be derived using examples from research on psychopathology.
Current theory and research on emotion and aging suggests that (1) older adults report more positive affective experience (more happiness) than younger adults; (2) older adults attend to and remember emotionally-valenced stimuli differently than younger adults (i.e., they show age-related positivity effects in attention and memory); and (3) the reason that older adults have more positive affective experience is because the positivity effects they display serve as emotion regulatory strategies. It is suggested that age differences in cognitive processes therefore lead to the outcome of positive affective experience. In this paper, we critically review the literature on age differences in positive affective experience and on age-related positivity effects in attention and memory. Furthermore, we question the extent to which existing evidence supports a link between age-related positivity effects and positive affective outcomes. We then provide a framework for formally testing process-outcome links that might explain affective outcomes across adulthood. It may be that older adults (and others) do sometimes use their cognition as a regulatory tool to help them feel good, but that can only be demonstrated by specifically linking cognitive processes, such as age-related positivity effects, with affective outcomes. These concepts have implications for cognition-emotion links at any age.
The response styles theory (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991) was proposed to explain the insidious relationship between rumination and depression. We review the aspects of the response styles theory that have been well-supported, including evidence that rumination exacerbates depression, enhances negative thinking, impairs problem solving, interferes with instrumental behavior, and erodes social support. Next, we address contradictory and new findings. Specifically, rumination appears to more consistently predict the onset of depression rather than the duration, but rumination interacts with negative cognitive styles to predict the duration of depressive symptoms. Contrary to original predictions, the use of positive distractions has not consistently been correlated with lower levels of depressive symptoms in correlational studies, although dozens of experimental studies show positive distractions relieve depressed mood. Further, evidence now suggests that rumination is associated with psychopathologies in addition to depression, including anxiety, binge eating, binge drinking, and self-harm. We discuss the relationships between rumination and worry and between rumination and other coping or emotion-regulation strategies. Finally, we highlight recent research on the distinction between rumination and more adaptive forms of self-reflection, on basic cognitive deficits or biases in rumination, on its neural and genetic correlates, and on possible interventions to combat rumination.
© 2008 Association for Psychological Science.
The manner in which individuals recall negative life events has important affective consequences. The present experiment investigated the effects of emotion regulation strategies on anger experience. One hundred and twenty-one undergraduates recalled an anger-inducing memory and were instructed to engage in either analytical rumination, cognitive reappraisal, or distraction for 20 minutes. In the remaining (control) condition, participants were instructed to write about their thoughts but were not given any emotion regulation instructions. Rumination maintained anger, whereas participants in the remaining conditions reported decreased anger following the writing task. Our results suggest that reappraisal facilitates adaptive processing of anger-inducing memories and distraction facilitates rapid reductions in anger experience. These findings have implications for the management of clinical populations that commonly experience difficulty with anger regulation.
We examined the relationships between six emotion-regulation strategies (acceptance, avoidance, problem solving, reappraisal, rumination, and suppression) and symptoms of four psychopathologies (anxiety, depression, eating, and substance-related disorders). We combined 241 effect sizes from 114 studies that examined the relationships between dispositional emotion regulation and psychopathology. We focused on dispositional emotion regulation in order to assess patterns of responding to emotion over time. First, we examined the relationship between each regulatory strategy and psychopathology across the four disorders. We found a large effect size for rumination, medium to large for avoidance, problem solving, and suppression, and small to medium for reappraisal and acceptance. These results are surprising, given the prominence of reappraisal and acceptance in treatment models, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy and acceptance-based treatments, respectively. Second, we examined the relationship between each regulatory strategy and each of the four psychopathology groups. We found that internalizing disorders were more consistently associated with regulatory strategies than externalizing disorders. Lastly, many of our analyses showed that whether the sample came from a clinical or normative population significantly moderated the relationships. This finding underscores the importance of adopting a multi-sample approach to the study of psychopathology.
This research addresses a new construct, co-rumination. Co-rumination refers to extensively discussing and revisiting problems, speculating about problems, and focusing on negative feelings. Friendship research indicates that self-disclosure leads to close relationships; however, coping research indicates that dwelling on negative topics leads to emotional difficulties. Co-rumination is a single construct that integrates both perspectives and is proposed to be related both to positive friendship adjustment and problematic emotional adjustment. Third-, fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-grade participants (N = 608) responded to questionnaires, including a new measure of co-rumination. Co-rumination was related to high-quality, close friendships and aspects of depression and anxiety. Girls reported co-ruminating more than did boys, which helped to account for girls' more positive friendship adjustment and greater internalizing symptoms. Other analyses addressed whether co-rumination and the related constructs of self-disclosure and rumination had different relations with friendship and emotional adjustment.
Ruminative self-focus on mood, problems and other aspects of self-experience can have both mal adaptive consequences, perpetuating depression, and, adaptive consequences, promoting recovery from upsetting events. Increasing evidence suggests that these contrasting effects may be explained by distinct varieties of ruminative self-focus, each with distinct functional properties. This study tested the prediction (Emotional processing, three modes of mind and the prevention of relapse in depression. Behav. Res. Therapy, 37 (1999) S53) that an experiential mode of self-focused attention would facilitate recovery from an upsetting event in comparison to a conceptual-evaluative mode of self-focused attention. To test these contrasting effects experimentally, 69 participants wrote about an induced failure experience in either a conceptual-evaluative condition (e.g. "Why did you feel this way?"), or an experiential condition ("How did you feel moment-by-moment?"). Consistent with the hypothesis, higher levels of trait disposition to ruminate were associated with relatively greater increases in negative mood 12 h after the failure in the conceptual-evaluative condition compared to the experiential condition. Furthermore, the conceptual-evaluative condition resulted in more intrusions about the failure than the experiential condition. These results support the differentiation of rumination into distinct modes of self-focused attention with distinct functional effects; a conceptual-evaluative mode that is maladaptive and an experiential mode that is adaptive.
How to use the psych package for mediation/moderation/regression analysis. The Personality Project
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