Evaluating Bidirectional Predictive Pathways between Dietary Restraint and Food Addiction in Adolescents.

The relationship between food addiction, an important emerging construct of excessive eating pathology, and dietary restraint has yet to be fully understood. Eating disorder models commonly posit that dietary restraint exacerbates loss of control eating (e.g., binge episodes) and may also play a causal role in the development of food addiction. However, dietary restraint as a reaction to consequences of food addiction (e.g., uncontrollable eating or weight gain) represents another plausible pathway. Existing studies indicate that the association between food addiction and dietary restraint may be more significant during adolescence than adulthood, but are limited by cross-sectional study designs. A longitudinal study using an adolescent sample is ideal for investigating potential pathways underlying links between food addiction and dietary restraint. This study examined temporal pathways between food addiction and dietary restraint in a sample of one hundred twenty-seven adolescents (M = 14.8, SD = 1.1) at three timepoints spanning two years. This is the first study to examine longitudinal cross-lagged panel associations between food addiction and dietary restraint. In this adolescent sample, food addiction significantly predicted future dietary restraint (b = 0.25, SE = 0.06, p < 0.001), but dietary restraint did not significantly predict future food addiction (b = 0.06, SE = 0.05, p > 0.05). These findings support the theory that dietary restraint may be a reaction to deleterious effects of food addiction during adolescence.

Adherence to emotion norms is greater in individualist cultures than in collectivist cultures.

It is generally assumed that there is greater pressure to conform to social norms in collectivist cultures than in individualist cultures. However, most research on cultural differences in social norms has examined norms for behaviors. Here, we examine cultural differences in norms for emotions. Relative to members of collectivist cultures, members of individualist cultures are more attuned to internal states and value them more. Therefore, we predicted that adherence to emotion norms would be greater in individualist than in collectivist cultures. In four studies with 119 samples from 69 distinct countries and over 200,000 participants, we estimated adherence to emotion norms in different cultures, and how deviation from emotion norms is associated with life satisfaction. As predicted, in countries higher in individualism, emotional experiences of individuals were more homogenous and more concordant with the emotions of others in their culture. Furthermore, in more individualist countries, deviation from the mean emotional experience was linked to lower life satisfaction. We discuss two complementary mechanisms that may underlie such differences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

An event-related potential investigation of distanced self-talk: Replication and comparison to detached reappraisal.

Emotion regulation is critical for managing stress, but many regulatory strategies consume high levels of cognitive resources to implement, which are depleted under stress. This raises a conundrum: the tools we have to feel better may be ineffective when they are most needed. Recent event-related potential (ERP) research indicates that distanced self-talk (i.e., reflecting on one's experiences using non-first-person singular pronouns and one's name) reduces negative emotional reactivity without overtaxing cognitive resources. Here, we report the first direct replication of this work and extend it by examining how distanced self-talk compares to detached reappraisal, one of the most frequently studied regulatory techniques. Sixty-seven participants were randomly assigned to an emotion regulation picture task and instructed to reflect on the feelings they experienced in response to viewing negative emotional images using distanced self-talk or detached reappraisal while ERPs were measured. Directly replicating past findings, distanced self-talk led to a reduction in an affective arousal ERP, the late positive potential (LPP), without increasing stimulus preceding negativity (SPN), an ERP that reflects anticipatory and preparatory processing. These results further bolster support for distanced self-talk as a relatively effortless emotion regulation strategy. On the other hand, detached reappraisal was neither associated with the modulation of the LPP nor the SPN. Due to the failed replication of the reappraisal effect, a direct comparison between emotion regulation strategies was not conducted. Methodological limitations that may have contributed to the reappraisal failure and future directions for comparisons between emotion regulation strategies are discussed.

What we would (but shouldn't) do for those we love: Universalism versus partiality in responding to others' moral transgressions.

Recent work indicates that people are more likely to protect a close (vs. distant) other who commits a crime. But do people think it is morally right to treat close others differently? On the one hand, universalist moral principles dictate that people should be treated equally. On the other hand, close relationships are the source of special moral obligations, which may lead people to believe they ought to preferentially protect close others. Here we attempt to adjudicate between these competing considerations by examining what people think they would and should do when a close (vs. distant) other behaves immorally. Across four experiments (N = 2002), we show that people believe they morally should protect close others more than distant others. However, we also document a striking discrepancy: participants reported that they would protect close others far more than they should protect them. These findings demonstrate that people believe close relationships influence what they morally ought to do-but also that moral decisions about close others may be a context in which people are particularly likely to fail to do what they think is morally right.

Racial residential segregation and economic disparity jointly exacerbate COVID-19 fatality in large American cities.

The disproportionately high rates of both infections and deaths among racial and ethnic minorities (especially Blacks and Hispanics) in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic are consistent with the conclusion that structural inequality can produce lethal consequences. However, the nature of this structural inequality in relation to COVID-19 is poorly understood. Here, we hypothesized that two structural features, racial residential segregation and income inequality, of metropolitan areas in the United States have contributed to health-compromising conditions, which, in turn, have increased COVID-19 fatalities; moreover, that these two features, when combined, may be particularly lethal. To test this hypothesis, we examined the growth rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in an early 30-day period of the outbreak in the counties located in each of the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. The growth curves for cases and deaths were steeper in counties located in metropolitan areas where Blacks and Hispanics are residentially segregated from Whites. Moreover, the effect of racial residential segregation was augmented by income inequality within each county. These data strongly suggest that racial and economic disparities have caused a greater death toll during the current pandemic. We draw policy implications for making virus-resilient cities free from such consequences.

Relational Mobility Predicts Faster Spread of COVID-19: A 39-Country Study.

It has become increasingly clear that COVID-19 is transmitted between individuals. It stands to reason that the spread of the virus depends on sociocultural ecologies that facilitate or inhibit social contact. In particular, the community-level tendency to engage with strangers and freely choose friends, called relational mobility, creates increased opportunities to interact with a larger and more variable range of other people. It may therefore be associated with a faster spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. Here, we tested this possibility by analyzing growth curves of confirmed cases of and deaths due to COVID-19 in the first 30 days of the outbreaks in 39 countries. We found that growth was significantly accelerated as a function of a country-wise measure of relational mobility. This relationship was robust either with or without a set of control variables, including demographic variables, reporting bias, testing availability, and cultural dimensions of individualism, tightness, and government efficiency. Policy implications are also discussed.

Mandated Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination predicts flattened curves for the spread of COVID-19.

Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination may reduce the risk of a range of infectious diseases, and if so, it could protect against coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Here, we compared countries that mandated BCG vaccination until at least 2000 with countries that did not. To minimize any systematic effects of reporting biases, we analyzed the rate of the day-by-day increase in both confirmed cases (134 countries) and deaths (135 countries) in the first 30-day period of country-wise outbreaks. The 30-day window was adjusted to begin at the country-wise onset of the pandemic. Linear mixed models revealed a significant effect of mandated BCG policies on the growth rate of both cases and deaths after controlling for median age, gross domestic product per capita, population density, population size, net migration rate, and various cultural dimensions (e.g., individualism). Our analysis suggests that mandated BCG vaccination can be effective in the fight against COVID-19.

Culture and well-being in late adulthood: Theory and evidence.

Aging happens to everyone everywhere. At present, however, little is known about whether life-span adult development-and particularly development in late adulthood-is pancultural or culture-bound. Here, we propose that in Western cultural contexts, individuals are encouraged to maintain the active, positive, and independent self. This cultural expectation continues even in late adulthood, thus leading to a mismatch between aspirations to live up to the cultural expectation and the reality of aging. This mismatch is potentially alienating. In contrast, in Asian cultural contexts, a critical task throughout life is to achieve attunement with age-graded social roles. This ideal may be more attainable even in late adulthood. Our review of existent evidence lends support to this analysis. Specifically, in late adulthood, Americans showed a robust psychological bias toward high-arousal positive (vs. negative) emotions. This positivity, however, concealed a somber aspect of aging that manifested itself in more demanding realms of life. Thus, Americans in late adulthood also showed marked declines in certain desirable personality traits (e.g., extraversion and conscientiousness) and some aspects of the meaning in life (e.g., personal growth and purpose in life). None of these effects were apparent among East Asians. The current work underscores a need to extend research on life-span development beyond Western populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Punish or Protect? How Close Relationships Shape Responses to Moral Violations.

People have fundamental tendencies to punish immoral actors and treat close others altruistically. What happens when these tendencies collide-do people punish or protect close others who behave immorally? Across 10 studies (N = 2,847), we show that people consistently anticipate protecting close others who commit moral infractions, particularly highly severe acts of theft and sexual harassment. This tendency emerged regardless of gender, political orientation, moral foundations, and disgust sensitivity and was driven by concerns about self-interest, loyalty, and harm. We further find that people justify this tendency by planning to discipline close others on their own. We also identify a psychological mechanism that mitigates the tendency to protect close others who have committed severe (but not mild) moral infractions: self-distancing. These findings highlight the role that relational closeness plays in shaping people's responses to moral violations, underscoring the need to consider relational closeness in future moral psychology work.

The role of substance use coping in the relation between childhood sexual abuse and depression among methamphetamine users in South Africa.

OBJECTIVE: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a critical global health issue associated with poor psychosocial outcomes. Individuals with CSA histories are at risk for drug use, which is a growing problem in the Western Cape of South Africa. The present study of methamphetamine users in this region examined whether substance use coping, a contextually relevant type of avoidance-based coping, mediates the relation between CSA and depressive symptoms. METHOD: Participants included 161 men and 108 women seeking treatment for methamphetamine use. Participants completed a computer-assisted survey and a face-to-face interview with clinic staff to evaluate history of CSA, current substance use severity and coping, and current depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Nearly a third of participants reported a history of CSA, and the average methamphetamine use severity score exceeded the threshold of high risk. A history of CSA was significantly associated with higher substance use coping and more depression symptoms. Substance use coping was a significant mediator of the association between CSA and depression symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: In this study of high-risk methamphetamine users, substance use coping emerged as a common means of managing stress, especially for those with a history of CSA, which was further linked to depressive symptoms. These findings underscore the potential benefit of integrating coping interventions and mental health treatment into substance abuse treatment programs, particularly for those with a history of childhood abuse and violence. (PsycINFO Database Record