Christopher Peterson’s research while affiliated with University of Michigan and other places

The psychological syndrome of learned helplessness is a uniquely modern phenomenon, deeply rooted in cultural concepts of personal power and security. This timely and valuable work examines learned helplessness with reference to the salient emphases in contemporary culture of individuality and personal control. An indispensable reference of interest to a broad spectrum of researchers in psychology.

The concept of perceived spiritual support (PSS) centers on an internalized resource derived from perception of an intimate relationship with a higher power, be it God, Jesus, a cosmic force, ancestral spirits, or a psychologically functional equivalent. The literature has indicated the increasing importance of spiritual support in crises and medical care, but previous assessments tended to focus on mainstream religions with inadequate validation. To meet the gap and based on related scientific theories, three crises-based studies were conducted to develop and validate a 12-item scale of perceived spiritual support (the PSSS) for assessing the spiritual resource of individuals with diverse belief systems. This endeavor was also a response to a long-standing call for measuring consciousness-related faith experience and to an assessment problem—the use of simple frequency measures in large-scale epidemiological or sociological surveys. Participants in the three studies reflect varied makeups of age, gender, generation, race, belief systems, and cultural backgrounds. The findings provide the adequate psychometric information for the PSSS and its predictive value for various outcomes. Multivariate analyses demonstrated the indirect mediating or pathway effect of the PSSS, simultaneously evaluated the effects of other established factors, and tested an explanatory mechanism underlying its predictive value. The results suggest that the PSSS, as a short and easy to use tool, can be used to predict important outcomes in crises and across different populations. More cross-cultural studies are warranted for further validation.

Prayer is an important experience in the lives of many people. We introduce the Using Private Prayer for Coping (UPPC) scale, based on William James’s (1902/1958) concept of personal religious experiences as “a study of human nature” (p. 350) and prayer as an “inward communion or conversation with the power recognized as divine” (p. 352). The UPPC is a consciousness-based scale to assess the use of private prayer for coping in crisis or distress, involving: (a) belief in its importance, (b) faith in its efficacy based on previous experiences, and (c) intention to use this as a means to cope with distress. Three studies in samples with diverse demographic characteristics, belief patterns, and crisis contexts were used to establish the satisfactory psychometric properties of the UPPC, including its association with or predictive value for hedonic and eudaemonic wellbeing following traumatic events or collective disasters.

Download Now Gratitude Letter 10 minutes | Gratitude How do I do it? Write a letter to a person who has influenced you life in a positive way. This could be a teacher, relative, mentor, or coach. If you can, read your letter aloud to the person you chose. How does it work? Gratitude letters help you focus on the positive influence of another person in your life. This reminds you that someone cares about you, and that you matter. In addition, reading the letter to your chosen person can be a powerful experience for you and the recipient—more than you originally expected.

How do I do it?In this daily reflection, you list three things that went well for you, and why they went well. How does it work?This brief exercise helps you reflect on the many things that happen every day. Over time, you begin to look for things in your day to add to your list!

The prediction of election outcomes is of widespread interest. Election outcomes are influenced by a variety of factors, but largely unexamined in past research is how psychological characteristics of the electorate influence the results of actual elections. The present study investigated whether the optimism of an electorate predicted the outcomes of the 2010 US House of Representatives elections (N = 435) from measures ascertained in 2009 for congressional districts, controlling for an incumbent’s years of service and his or her political party, as well as 2009 median household income in these districts. As expected for midterm election, Republicans and longer-serving incumbents were more likely to win re-election. Districts with higher median household incomes were also more likely to re-elect incumbents. The optimism of a congressional district additionally predicted election outcomes. Districts where people evaluated their own lives in more hopeful terms were more likely to re-elect incumbents.

Positive psychology is the scientific study of a healthy and flourishing life. The goal of positive psychology is to complement and extend the traditional problem-focused psychology that has proliferated in recent decades. Positive psychology is concerned with positive psychological states (eg, happiness), positive psychological traits (eg, talents, interests, strengths of character), positive relationships, and positive institutions. We describe evidences of how topics of positive psychology apply to physical health. Research has shown that psychological health assets (eg, positive emotions, life satisfaction, optimism, life purpose, social support) are prospectively associated with good health measured in a variety of ways. Not yet known is whether positive psychology interventions improve physical health. Future directions for the application of positive psychology to health are discussed. We conclude that the application of positive psychology to health is promising, although much work remains to be done.

Background: Accidents are one of the leading causes of death among U.S. active-duty Army soldiers. Evidence-based approaches to injury prevention could be strengthened by adding person level characteristics (e.g., demographics) to risk models tested on diverse soldier samples studied over time. Purpose: To identify person-level risk indicators of accident deaths in Regular Army soldiers during a time frame of intense military operations, and to discriminate risk of not-line-of-duty from line-of-duty accident deaths. Methods: Administrative data acquired from multiple Army/Department of Defense sources for active duty Army soldiers during 2004-�2009 were analyzed in 2013. Logistic regression modeling was used to identify person-level sociodemographic, service-related, occupational, and mental health predictors of accident deaths. Results: Delayed rank progression or demotion and being male, unmarried, in a combat arms specialty, and of low rank/service length increased odds of accident death for enlisted soldiers. Unique to officers was high risk associated with aviation specialties. Accident death risk decreased over time for currently deployed, enlisted soldiers and increased for those never deployed. Mental health diagnosis was associated with risk only for previous and never-deployed, enlisted soldiers. Models did not discriminate not-line-of-duty from line of-duty accident deaths. Conclusions: Adding more refined person-level and situational risk indicators to current models could enhance understanding of accident death risk specific to soldier rank and deployment status. Stable predictors could help identify high risk of accident deaths in future cohorts of Regular Army soldiers.

We have lived in an age of ever-increasing connection this past decade. Although technology and online social networking may not have increased psychological closeness, as some researchers suggest, it may have increased the perceived availability of other people in our social networks. The current study measures changes in comfort with closeness (attachment avoidance) and perceived availability of others (attachment anxiety) in a large Internet sample (N = 123,554) from 2002 to 2012. Attachment anxiety decreased from 2002 to 2012 and attachment avoidance exhibited no changes over the same time period. Further, these decreases were primarily driven by younger adults, presumably due to their heavy technology use. Attachment anxiety was negatively associated with mobile phone subscription rates and the number of Facebook users over this time period. Results from the current study suggest that the perceived availability of others has been increasing over time—perhaps because technology has increased the accessibility of close others.