Romantic attachment in individuals with physical disabilities.

Objective: To examine the relationship between adult attachment style and physical disability in intimate romantic relationships. Method: Participants were 50 individuals with adult-onset spinal cord injuries (SCI) and 50 individuals with congenital disabilities (CON) living in the community. The main outcome measures were adult attachment style and dyadic relationship adjustment. Results: Participants with SCI and CON did not differ in rates of secure versus insecure attachment, and the rates of neither group differed significantly from rates reported for persons without disability. Dyadic adjustment was clearly predicted by attachment variables and differed between the participants with SCI and those with CON; individuals with SCI reported greater total dyadic adjustment. Avoidance showed a strong negative association with dyadic satisfaction, but no association was found with dyadic cohesion. Social participation variables were associated with dyadic adjustment. For instance, mobility was positively associated with dyadic satisfaction. Conclusions: Dyadic adjustment in people with disabilities, as in other groups, is affected by attachment style, but disability and social participation variables may also affect dyadic adjustment. Clinicians should consider differences in attachment styles among persons with disabilities and their implications for intimate close relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clearing the mind: A working memory model of distraction from negative mood.

The present research examined whether and how loading working memory can attenuate negative mood. In three experiments, participants were exposed to neutral, weakly negative, or strongly negative pictures followed by a task and a mood scale. Working memory demands were varied by manipulating task presence (Study 1), complexity (Study 2), and predictability (Study 3). Participants in all three experiments reported less negative moods in negative trials with high compared to low working memory demand. Working memory demands did not affect mood in the neutral trials. When working memory demands were high, participants no longer reported more negative moods in response to strongly negative pictures than to weakly negative pictures. These findings suggest that loading working memory prevents mood-congruent processing, and thereby promotes distraction from negative moods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of sad mood on cognition.

Neuroimaging has identified an overlapping network of brain regions whose activity is modulated by mood and cognition. Studies of depressed individuals have shown changes in perception, attention, memory, and executive functions. This suggests that mood has a pervasive effect on cognition. Direct evidence of the effect of sad mood on cognition is surprisingly limited, however. Published studies have generally addressed a single cognitive ability per study because the fleeting nature of laboratory-induced mood precludes extended testing, and robust findings are limited to mood effects on memory for emotional stimuli. In this study, sad mood was induced and prolonged, enabling the effects of mood to be assessed for an array of abilities, including those that share neural substrates with sad mood and those affected by depression. Sad mood affected memory for emotional words and facial emotion recognition, but not the other processes measured, with a significant nonuniformity of effect over tasks. These results are consistent with circumscribed effects of sad mood on certain emotion-related cognitive processes, but not on cognition more generally. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nighttime waking in children with asthma: An exploratory study of daily fluctuations in family climate.

Children with asthma are at increased risk for waking in the night, and there is the potential for the entire household to feel the effects. The authors conducted a telephone-based diary study to examine whether daily fluctuations in parent mood, parenting hassles, and family routines would distinguish nights in which waking occurred from nights in which they did not. Forty-seven families with a child with asthma were contacted 4 times a week every 3 months over a period of 1 year, resulting in 500 daily observations. Parent negative mood, perceived parenting hassles, and disruptions in bedtime routines were associated with increased odds that the child would wake in the middle of the night. Results underscore the importance of considering family climate in children's disturbed sleep. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Longitudinal associations between hostility in adolescents' family relationships and friendships and hostility in their romantic relationships.

This study examined longitudinal predictors of hostility in adolescents' romantic relationships. The sample included 110 adolescents and their parents from 72 families. Observational measures of parents' marital hostility and parent-child hostility and self-reports of hostility in close friendships were collected when adolescents ranged from 14 to 16 years old. Three years later, when they were 17 to 19 years old, adolescents reported on the hostility in their romantic relationships. Results indicated that hostility in parents' marital relationships and in adolescents' friendships accounted for independent variance in hostility in adolescents' later romantic relationships. Results highlight the importance of both family relationships and friendships for predicting hostility in adolescents' romantic relationships over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Naltrexone alteration of the nicotine-induced EEG and mood activation response in tobacco-deprived cigarette smokers.

The neural mechanisms contributing to the arousal-eliciting actions of smoking and nicotine involve multiple neurotransmitter systems. The current study examined the role of opioid neurotransmission in modulating the neuroelectric- and mood-activating response to acute nicotine administration in overnight tobacco-deprived smokers. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design involving 18 (10 male, 8 female) overnight tobacco-abstinent smokers, spectrally analyzed electroencephalographic (EEG) activity and subjective reports of mood, euphoria, and smoking withdrawal were assessed in response to nicotine gum (4 mg) after pretreatment with placebo or with 50 mg of the opioid antagonist naltrexone. In addition to reducing withdrawal symptoms and increasing euphoria ratings, as well as subjective alertness in male participants, nicotine induced an EEG arousal response consisting of diffuse slow wave (delta, theta) amplitude reductions, frontal fast alpha wave amplitude increments, and elevations in beta wave amplitude, which were greater in female than in male smokers. Naltrexone attenuated the alerting and euphoric actions of nicotine but did not affect nicotine's ameliorating effects on withdrawal symptoms. Nicotine-induced frontal reductions in delta and global reductions in theta were prevented by naltrexone pretreatment, as were increases in anterior recordings of relative fast alpha. These findings suggest that the opioid system is involved in nicotine-induced subjective and neuroelectric arousal and implicate opioid-cholinergic interactions in the elicitation of these arousal responses to nicotine. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Romantic partners' individual coping strategies and dyadic coping: Implications for relationship functioning.

Individual coping strategies and dyadic coping independently predict partner well-being and relationship functioning; however, it is unclear whether the coping processes are inter-related and whether they uniquely contribute to romantic relationship functioning. One hundred heterosexual dating couples rated the individual coping strategy of negative mood regulation as well as positive and negative dyadic coping. Relationship functioning was assessed via partners' reports of relationship satisfaction and observers' ratings of negative interaction in conflict. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (APIMs; Cook & Kenny, 2005; Kashy & Kenny, 2000) revealed associations between individual coping and dyadic coping in the predicted directions. APIMs also indicated the unique contributions of positive and negative dyadic coping to relationship functioning, above and beyond contributions of individual coping strategies. Implications of dyadic coping as a target of efforts to prevent or treat partner and/or relational distress are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Navigating personal and relational concerns: The quest for equilibrium.

The authors' personal-relational equilibrium model suggests that people come to seek equilibrium in their dedication to personal and relational concerns in that these 2 important needs cannot always be gratified simultaneously. The authors proposed that the experience of personal-relational disequilibrium motivates attempts to restore equilibrium and that achieving equilibrium promotes life satisfaction. Four studies revealed good support for the model. In Study 1, a manipulation of anticipated future disequilibrium (vs. equilibrium) as a result of overdedication to either the personal or relational domain caused reduced motivation to address concerns in that domain and increased motivation toward the complementary domain. In Study 2, narratives describing disequilibrium experiences (vs. equilibrium experiences) exhibited increased motivation to restore equilibrium and reduced life satisfaction. In Study 3, diary reports of everyday disequilibrium were associated with increased same-day motivation to restore equilibrium, reduced same-day life satisfaction, and increased next-day dedication of effort to the complementary domain. In Study 4, experiences of disequilibrium predicted reduced well-being 6 months later. Collectively, these findings extend knowledge of how people regulate themselves toward equilibrium in pursuing 2 fundamental human concerns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examinations of chronic pain and affect relationships: Applications of a dynamic model of affect.

Two studies of the relationship between pain and negative affect are presented in this article: a study of weekly fluctuations in pain and negative affect among those with arthritis and a study of daily fluctuations in pain and negative affect for participants with fibromyalgia. The roles of positive affect and mood clarity (or the ability to distinguish between different emotions) in modifying the size of the relationship between pain and negative affect were examined in both studies as a means of testing the predictions of a dynamic model of affect regulation. In both studies, the presence of positive affect reduced the size of the relationship between pain and negative affect. Also, for arthritis participants with greater mood clarity, there was less overlap in ratings of negative and positive affective states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why We Sing the Blues: The Relation Between Self-Reflective Rumination, Mood, and Creativity.

Past research has shown that creative behavior is associated with a higher risk for depression. The authors hypothesized that a 3rd underlying factor, namely, self-reflective rumination, may explain the connection. This hypothesis was examined in a sample of 99 undergraduate college students, using path analysis. The authors found that self-reported past depressive symptomatology was linked to increased self-reflective rumination. Rumination, in turn, was related to current symptomatology and to self-rated creative interests and objectively measured creative fluency, originality, and elaboration. No direct link existed between currently depressed mood and either creative interest or creative behavior. These results suggest that the association between depression and creativity is solely the result of rumination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)