Universal Patterns in Color-Emotion Associations Are Further Shaped by Linguistic and Geographic Proximity.

Many of us "see red," "feel blue," or "turn green with envy." Are such color-emotion associations fundamental to our shared cognitive architecture, or are they cultural creations learned through our languages and traditions? To answer these questions, we tested emotional associations of colors in 4,598 participants from 30 nations speaking 22 native languages. Participants associated 20 emotion concepts with 12 color terms. Pattern-similarity analyses revealed universal color-emotion associations (average similarity coefficient r = .88). However, local differences were also apparent. A machine-learning algorithm revealed that nation predicted color-emotion associations above and beyond those observed universally. Similarity was greater when nations were linguistically or geographically close. This study highlights robust universal color-emotion associations, further modulated by linguistic and geographic factors. These results pose further theoretical and empirical questions about the affective properties of color and may inform practice in applied domains, such as well-being and design.

Burnout and depressive symptoms are not primarily linked to perceived organizational problems.

In this 257-participant study (76% female; mean age: 44.84), we examined two ideas that are widespread among burnout researchers: (a) the idea that burnout is primarily related to occupational-level factors; and (b) the idea that burnout should be considered a sentinel indicator in research on negative occupational outcomes. We investigated the links between burnout and a series of generic and work-related variables, namely, depressive symptoms, neuroticism, extraversion, effort-reward imbalance in the job [ERI], social support at work (SSW), and turnover intention. Burnout was assessed with the Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure, depressive symptoms with the PHQ-9, neuroticism and extraversion with the NEO-Five Factor Inventory, ERI with the 10-item version of the Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire, SSW with the Job Content Questionnaire, and turnover intention with a dedicated 3-item measure. Correlation, multiple regression, and relative weight analyses were conducted. Burnout was not found to be more strongly linked to organizational and work-contextualized variables than to personality traits. In addition, turnover intention was not associated to a greater extent with burnout than with ERI. Burnout and depressive symptoms were highly correlated and exhibited overlapping nomological networks. Overall, our findings question the way burnout has been generally conceived.

Altered short-term plasticity within the working memory neural network: Is it neuroticism or is it depression?

In the present article, we discuss (1) the importance of assessing and statistically considering both clinical and subclinical forms of depression when examining the relationship between neuroticism and short-term plasticity within the working memory neural network, and (2) the hypothesis of an antagonism between neuroticism and conscientiousness in personality research. We suggest that (1) neuroticism and depression should be examined in a relational manner, and (2) neuroticism and conscientiousness should not be antagonized.

Emotional information processing in depression and burnout: an eye-tracking study.

Whether burnout is a form of depression is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the relevance of the burnout-depression distinction by comparing attentional processing of emotional information in burnout and depression. Eye-tracking technology was employed for assessing overt attentional deployment. The gaze of 54 human services employees was monitored as they freely viewed a series of emotional images, labeled as dysphoric, positive, anxiogenic, and neutral. Similar to depression, burnout was associated with increased attention for dysphoric stimuli and decreased attention for positive stimuli. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that burnout no longer predicted these attentional alterations when depression was controlled for and vice versa, suggesting interchangeability of the two entities in this matter. To our knowledge, this study is the first to (a) investigate emotional attention in burnout and (b) address the issue of the burnout-depression overlap at both cognitive and behavioral levels using eye movement measurement. Overall, our findings point to structural similarities between burnout and depression, thus deepening concerns regarding the singularity of the burnout phenomenon.

Is burnout separable from depression in cluster analysis? A longitudinal study.

PURPOSE: Whether burnout and depression represent distinct pathologies is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine whether burnout and depressive symptoms manifest themselves separately from each other or are so closely intertwined as to reflect the same phenomenon. METHODS: A two-wave longitudinal study involving 627 French schoolteachers (73 % female) was conducted. Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory and depression with the 9-item depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire. RESULTS: Burnout and depressive symptoms clustered both at baseline and follow-up. Cluster membership at time 1 (T1) predicted cases of burnout and depression at time 2 (T2), controlling for gender, age, length of employment, lifetime history of depression, and antidepressant intake. Changes in burnout and depressive symptoms from T1 to T2 were found to overlap. Teachers with increasing burnout experienced increases in depression and teachers with decreasing burnout experienced decreases in depression. In addition, emotional exhaustion, the core of burnout, was more strongly associated with depression than with depersonalization, the second dimension of burnout, underlining an inconsistency in the conceptualization of the burnout syndrome. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with recent findings showing qualitative and quantitative symptom overlap of burnout with depression. The close interconnection of burnout and depression questions the relevance of a nosological distinction between the two entities. Emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, the two main dimensions of burnout, may be better conceptualized as depressive responses to adverse occupational environments than as components of a separate entity.

Visual scanning behavior during processing of emotional faces in older adults with major depression.

OBJECTIVES: Although several reported studies have suggested that younger adults with depression display depression-related biases during the processing of emotional faces, there remains a lack of data concerning these biases in older adults. The aim of our study was to assess scanning behavior during the processing of emotional faces in depressed older adults. METHOD: Older adults with and without depression viewed happy, neutral or sad portraits during an eye movement recording. RESULTS: Depressed older adults spent less time with fewer fixations on emotional features than healthy older adults, but only for sad and neutral portraits, with no significant difference for happy portraits. CONCLUSION: These results suggest disengagement from sad and neutral faces in depressed older adults, which is not consistent with standard theoretical proposals on congruence biases in depression. Also, aging and associated emotional regulation change may explain the expression of depression-related biases. Our preliminary results suggest that information processing in depression consists of a more complex phenomenon than merely a general searching for mood-congruent stimuli or general disengagement from all kinds of stimuli. These findings underline that care must be used when evaluating potential variables, such as aging, which interact with depression and selectively influence the choice of relevant stimulus dimensions.

Is burnout solely job-related? A critical comment.

Within the field-dominating, multidimensional theory of burnout, burnout is viewed as a work-specific condition. As a consequence, the burnout syndrome cannot be investigated outside of the occupational domain. In the present paper, this restrictive view of burnout's scope is criticized and a rationale to decide between a work-specific and a generic approach to burnout is presented. First, the idea that a multidimensional conception of burnout implies a work-restricted scope is deconstructed. Second, it is shown that the burnout phenomenon cannot be confined to work because chronic, unresolvable stress - the putative cause of burnout - is not limited to work. In support of an integrative view of health, it is concluded that the field-dominating, multidimensional theory of burnout should abandon as groundless the idea that burnout is a specifically job-related phenomenon and define burnout as a multi-domain syndrome. The shift from a work-specific to a generic approach would allow both finer analysis and wider synthesis in research on chronic stress and burnout.

A comparative analysis of colour-emotion associations in 16-88-year-old adults from 31 countries.

As people age, they tend to spend more time indoors, and the colours in their surroundings may significantly impact their mood and overall well-being. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence to provide informed guidance on colour choices, irrespective of age group. To work towards informed choices, we investigated whether the associations between colours and emotions observed in younger individuals also apply to older adults. We recruited 7393 participants, aged between 16 and 88 years and coming from 31 countries. Each participant associated 12 colour terms with 20 emotion concepts and rated the intensity of each associated emotion. Different age groups exhibited highly similar patterns of colour-emotion associations (average similarity coefficient of .97), with subtle yet meaningful age-related differences. Adolescents associated the greatest number but the least positively biased emotions with colours. Older participants associated a smaller number but more intense and more positive emotions with all colour terms, displaying a positivity effect. Age also predicted arousal and power biases, varying by colour. Findings suggest parallels in colour-emotion associations between younger and older adults, with subtle but significant age-related variations. Future studies should next assess whether colour-emotion associations reflect what people actually feel when exposed to colour.

Depressive symptoms and affordance perception: The case of perceived reachability boundary.

According to the ecological approach to perception, affordances (i.e., action possibilities) are perceived directly in the environment and body-scaled. Previous theoretical work has suggested that the perception of action possibilities is influenced by depression (which has sometimes been conceived as an action-related disorder). However, thus far the relationship between affordance and depression has never been investigated in an experimental study. The goal of this study was to assess the relationships between reachability perception and depressive symptoms. Participants estimated their maximum ability to reach a target with their hand (without moving). Actual motor reachability capacities were then assessed. To determine the critical point, both measures were related to the participant's arm length and converted into an intrinsic body-scaled measurement. Participants were allocated to either the healthy group or the group with depressive symptoms according to their Beck Depression Inventory-Fast Screen (BDI-FS) scores. Results showed that participants with depressive symptoms were more conservative in their estimations than healthy participants. Depressive symptoms were associated with the perception of decreased motor action possibilities in comparison with what was observed when no symptoms were reported. These data are discussed in relation to theoretical models of depression and affordance.

Individual differences in self-reported lie detection abilities.

Previous literature on lie detection abilities bears an interesting paradox. On the group level, people detect others' lies at guessing level. However, when asked to evaluate their own abilities, people report being able to detect lies (i.e., self-reported lie detection). Understanding this paradox is important because decisions which rely on credibility assessment and deception detection can have serious implications (e.g., trust in others, legal issues). In two online studies, we tested whether individual differences account for variance in self-reported lie detection abilities. We assessed personality traits (Big-Six personality traits, Dark Triad), empathy, emotional intelligence, cultural values, trust level, social desirability, and belief in one's own lie detection abilities. In both studies, mean self-reported lie detection abilities were above chance level. Then, lower out-group trust and higher social desirability levels predicted higher self-reported lie detection abilities. These results suggest that social trust and norms shape our beliefs about our own lie detection abilities.

Mood Influences the Perception of the Sitting Affordance.

This study tested the influence of mood on the perception of the sitting affordance in two experiments. The objective of Experiment 1 was to evaluate participants' perception of the sitting affordance, without mood induction. Forty-three participants assessed their maximum sitting height (SHmax) from different seat heights (perceptual SHmax) before performing the action (motor SHmax). They accurately perceived the sitting affordance, in body-scaled intrinsic units. Indeed, participants all perceived they could sit as long as the seat height did not exceed 82% (perceptual πc) of their total leg length (L), while the actual value of this intrinsic relationship was 83% (motor πc). In Experiment 2, forty participants were subjected to a mood induction procedure before performing the task employed in Experiment 1. Neutral participants accurately perceived the sitting affordance, as their perceptual πc was equivalent to their motor πc. However, both joyful and sad participants had their perceptual πc significantly lower than their motor πc. These differences between mood groups were not explained by a variation in maximal effective action capabilities. Indeed, participants had equivalent motor πc, whatever their mood. Two interpretations are offered to explain how joyful and sad moods could influence the accuracy of affordance perception. The first is based on their potential effect on organism's energy level. The second is related to the disruption of participants' attunement to optical variables relevant for action guidance and/or to perceptual-motor calibration.

Burnout-Depression Overlap: Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling Bifactor Analysis and Network Analysis.

Burnout has been viewed as a work-induced condition combining exhaustion, cynicism, and professional inefficacy. Using correlational analyses, an exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis, structural regression analyses, and a network analysis, we examined the claim that burnout should not be mistaken for a depressive syndrome. The study involved 1,258 educational staff members. Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey and depression with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Illegitimate work tasks and work-nonwork interferences were additionally measured. We notably found that (a) on average, exhaustion, cynicism, and professional inefficacy correlated less strongly with each other than with depression; (b) exhaustion-burnout's core-was more strongly associated with depression than with either cynicism or professional inefficacy; (c) the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 did not correlate more strongly with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale than with exhaustion; (d) exhaustion and depression loaded primarily on a general distress/dysphoria factor in the exploratory structural equation modeling bifactor analysis; (e) on average, burnout and depression were related to job stressors in a similar manner; (f) work-nonwork interferences were strongly linked to distress/dysphoria. Overall, burnout showed no syndromal unity and lacked discriminant validity. Clinicians should systematically assess depressive symptoms in individuals presenting with a complaint of "burnout."