The stories we tell: how age, gender, and forgiveness affect the emotional content of autobiographical narratives.

OBJECTIVES: Researchers have been attempting to understand the variables that predict differences in autobiographical narratives, given that these differences often reveal important information about the psychological characteristics of the person providing the narrative. METHOD: A sample of young adults (n = 80) and older adults (n = 80) completed a battery of self-report measures in addition to an autobiographical narrative task in which they described a negative emotional experience. These narratives were transcribed and entered into a text analysis program. RESULTS: Results indicated a significant three-way interaction (age × gender × forgiveness) for negative emotion words. Results also indicated two significant two-way interactions (age × forgiveness and gender × forgiveness) and one significant main effect for anger words. There were no significant findings related to anxiety or sad words. DISCUSSION: Results are discussed in the context of Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, which asserts that social and emotional goals shift throughout the lifespan such that older adults are more motivated to regulate their emotions than young adults. Clinical applications and future directions are discussed.

Physiological reactivity during autobiographical narratives in older adults: the roles of depression and anxiety.

OBJECTIVES: Physiological reactivity (PR) describes the change in physiological functioning (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, pulse pressure) that occurs after the induction of a stressful task. This study aims to understand the influence of mental health symptoms on patterns of PR during autobiographical narratives in an older adult sample. METHOD: Eighty older adults completed self-report measures regarding their symptoms of depression and anxiety. Next, their blood pressure was recorded while they completed two verbal autobiographical narratives. RESULTS: During the positive narrative, anxiety was positively associated with increased PR while depression was negatively associated with PR. During the negative narrative, a significant interaction occurred whereby anxiety was significantly positively associated with PR for those participants low in depression. DISCUSSION: The above results are explained in the context of the Tripartite Model of Depression and Anxiety, which predicts different patterns of PR as a function of mental health symptoms. Limitations and future directions are also discussed.

Gratitude and social support mediate the association between mindfulness and mood: A cross-cultural replication study.

Swickert and colleagues surveyed young adults in the United States and found that gratitude and social support mediated the association between mindfulness and mood (both positive and negative affect). This study attempted to replicate Swickert et al.'s mediational findings using a young adult Hungarian sample. Results indicated that with one exception, the mediational findings were replicated. The exception was that for the Hungarians, gratitude did not mediate the association between mindfulness and negative affect. Overall, these findings indicate that the mediational effects of gratitude and social support are quite similar for individuals living in the United States and Hungary.

Social support coping mediates the relationship between gender and posttraumatic growth.

Females tend to report greater levels of posttraumatic growth following trauma than males. Little is known about why such an association exists. This study examined whether social support coping might mediate the relationship between gender and posttraumatic growth. College students and community residing adults ( N = 221) recalled a stressful or traumatic event that they had recently experienced and responded to measures of posttraumatic growth and coping while keeping this event in mind. Gender was significantly associated with both social support coping and growth while social support coping was a partial mediator of the relationship between gender and posttraumatic growth.

Sensation seeking and alcohol use: a meta-analytic review.

A meta-analysis was conducted to investigate the association between sensation seeking and alcohol use. Analysis of 61 studies revealed a small to moderate size, heterogeneous effect (mean weighted r=.263) between alcohol use and sensation seeking total scale scores. Analysis of the four sensation seeking components indicated that disinhibition was most strongly correlated with alcohol use (mean weighted r=.368). Categorical moderator analyses revealed that studies that did, versus did not, analyze covariates yielded smaller effect sizes. Continuous moderator analyses indicated that earlier published studies and higher percentages of male and white Caucasian participants were associated with stronger effect sizes between sensation seeking and alcohol use. Novel statistical methodologies for analyzing the association between sensation seeking and alcohol use were proposed and recommendations for future research were suggested.

College students with previous exposure to crime report more PTSD after 9-11-2001.

A sample of 415 university students (52 Crime Victims, 363 Nonvictims) who experienced indirectly the 9/11/01 disaster through media exposure, were administered the Davidson Trauma Scale. Crime victims had significantly more PTSD symptoms related to 9/11 exposure.

Responses to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: experience of an indirect traumatic event and its relationship with perceived benefits.

Little is known about how people might benefit from an indirectly experienced traumatic event. The authors examined the relationship between perception of benefit and trauma symptoms in response to a relatively severe, but indirectly experienced, traumatic event. The authors sampled from 2 colleges located in the southeastern United States (N = 136). Individuals responded to questionnaires that assessed perceived benefits and trauma symptoms 1-2 weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and again approximately 10 weeks later. Participants did perceive benefits from witnessing this event, although their perception of benefit declined over time. Level of trauma symptoms correlated positively with perception of benefit, and experiencing a previous trauma also correlated positively with perceived benefits. Additional analysis indicated that level of trauma symptoms mediated the relationship between previous trauma and perception of benefit. These findings help to elucidate understanding of the development of perceived benefits in response to indirectly experienced events.

Sensation seeking indirectly affects perceptions of risk for co-occurrent substance use.

High sensation seekers engage in more frequent substance use and perceive a host of potentially dangerous activities as less risky than do low sensation seekers. However, despite a plethora of research on these topics, no study has examined the extent to which personal substance use mediates the association between sensation seeking and perceived risk of substance use. To address this question, we recruited a sample of 79 young adults (mean age=19.1 years, standard deviation=1.4). Participants completed questionnaire measures of sensation seeking, substance use, and perceived risk of co-occurrent substance use. Results from path-analytic modeling indicated that both alcohol use and marijuana use mediated the influence of sensation seeking on perceptions of risk for moderately risky, but not highly risky, pairs of substances. Strengths and limitations of the present study were discussed and directions for future research were suggested.