Learning the rules of the game: The role of generic "you" and "we" in shaping children's interpretations of norms.

A critical skill of childhood is learning social norms. We examine whether the generic pronouns "you" and "we," which frame information as applying to people in general rather than to a specific individual, facilitate this process. In one pre-registered experiment conducted online between 2020 and 2021, children 4- to 9-year-old primarily living in the midwestern U.S. (N = 146, 75 girls, 71 boys, Mage  = 7.14, SD = 1.69, 82% White) interpreted actions described with generic pronouns (vs. "I") as normatively correct and selected the speaker who used generic pronouns as the rule-follower, particularly when generic pronouns were presented first. There were no significant effects of age. These results illustrate how generic pronouns influence how children discern unfamiliar norms and form interpersonal judgments.

"You" speaks to me: Effects of generic-you in creating resonance between people and ideas.

Creating resonance between people and ideas is a central goal of communication. Historically, attempts to understand the factors that promote resonance have focused on altering the content of a message. Here we identify an additional route to evoking resonance that is embedded in the structure of language: the generic use of the word "you" (e.g., "You can't understand someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes"). Using crowd-sourced data from the Amazon Kindle application, we demonstrate that passages that people highlighted-collectively, over a quarter of a million times-were substantially more likely to contain generic-you compared to yoked passages that they did not highlight. We also demonstrate in four experiments (n = 1,900) that ideas expressed with generic-you increased resonance. These findings illustrate how a subtle shift in language establishes a powerful sense of connection between people and ideas.

Frontal-Brainstem Pathways Mediating Placebo Effects on Social Rejection.

Placebo treatments can strongly affect clinical outcomes, but research on how they shape other life experiences and emotional well-being is in its infancy. We used fMRI in humans to examine placebo effects on a particularly impactful life experience, social pain elicited by a recent romantic rejection. We compared these effects with placebo effects on physical (heat) pain, which are thought to depend on pathways connecting prefrontal cortex and periaqueductal gray (PAG). Placebo treatment, compared with control, reduced both social and physical pain, and increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in both modalities. Placebo further altered the relationship between affect and both dlPFC and PAG activity during social pain, and effects on behavior were mediated by a pathway connecting dlPFC to the PAG, building on recent work implicating opioidergic PAG activity in the regulation of social pain. These findings suggest that placebo treatments reduce emotional distress by altering affective representations in frontal-brainstem systems.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Placebo effects are improvements due to expectations and the socio-medical context in which treatment takes place. Whereas they have been extensively studied in the context of somatic conditions such as pain, much less is known of how treatment expectations shape the emotional experience of other important stressors and life events. Here, we use brain imaging to show that placebo treatment reduces the painful feelings associated with a recent romantic rejection by recruiting a prefrontal-brainstem network and by shifting the relationship between brain activity and affect. Our findings suggest that this brain network may be important for nonspecific treatment effects across a wide range of therapeutic approaches and mental health conditions.

That's how "you" do it: Generic you expresses norms during early childhood.

Prior research indicates that children construe norms as general and construe preferences as individual. The current studies tested whether this expectation is built into how children interpret and use language. We focused on the pronoun you, which is ambiguous between a canonical interpretation (referring to the addressee) and a generic interpretation (referring to people in general). In Study 1, children (N=132, ages 3-10years) were asked a series of questions containing "you," referring to either descriptive norms (e.g., "What do you do with bikes?") or preferences (e.g., "What do you like to do with bikes?"). In Study 2, parents conversed with their children (N=28, ages 2-4years) about prescriptive norms (e.g., "What should you do with books?") and preferences (e.g., "What do you like about books?"). In both studies, children's choice of pronoun in their answer revealed whether they interpreted you in the questions as generic or canonical. Results indicated that children more often interpreted you as generic in the normative contexts (i.e., responded with generic you, e.g., "You read them") and as canonical in the preference contexts (i.e., responded with I, e.g., "I read them"). This pattern emerged by early preschool, providing the first evidence that the distinction between norms and preferences directs young children's interpretation and use of everyday language.

Out of the Mouths of Babes: Links Between Linguistic Structure of Loss Narratives and Psychosocial Functioning in Parentally Bereaved Children.

This study examined links between the language bereaved children use to describe the death of their caregiver and children's psychological/behavioral functioning and coping strategies. Participants included 44 children (54.5% male) aged 7 to 12 (M = 9.05) years who were bereaved by the death of a caregiver. Children were assessed via self- and caregiver-report measures and an in-person interview regarding the loss of their caregiver. Children's loss narratives gathered through in-person interviews were transcribed and subjected to textual analysis. Linguistic categories included pronouns and verb tense. Drawing from linguistic and self-distancing theories, we hypothesized that children's use of language reflecting self-distancing (third-person pronouns and past tense) or social connectedness (first-person plural pronouns) would be negatively associated with psychological/behavioral distress and avoidant coping. Similarly, we expected that children's use of self-focused language (first-person singular pronouns and present tense) would be positively associated with psychological/behavioral distress and avoidant coping. As hypothesized, preliminary findings suggest that children who employed more self-distancing language and used more social connectedness words reported less avoidant coping, rs = .40-.42. Also as hypothesized, children who employed more self-focused language had higher levels of self-reported posttraumatic stress symptoms, r = .54, and avoidant coping, r = .54, and higher parent-reported psychological/behavioral distress, r = .43. Implications for theory-building, risk screening, and directions for future research with bereaved youth are discussed.

Stable long-range interhemispheric coordination is supported by direct anatomical projections.

The functional interaction between the brain's two hemispheres includes a unique set of connections between corresponding regions in opposite hemispheres (i.e., homotopic regions) that are consistently reported to be exceptionally strong compared with other interhemispheric (i.e., heterotopic) connections. The strength of homotopic functional connectivity (FC) is thought to be mediated by the regions' shared functional roles and their structural connectivity. Recently, homotopic FC was reported to be stable over time despite the presence of dynamic FC across both intrahemispheric and heterotopic connections. Here we build on this work by considering whether homotopic FC is also stable across conditions. We additionally test the hypothesis that strong and stable homotopic FC is supported by the underlying structural connectivity. Consistent with previous findings, interhemispheric FC between homotopic regions were significantly stronger in both humans and macaques. Across conditions, homotopic FC was most resistant to change and therefore was more stable than heterotopic or intrahemispheric connections. Across time, homotopic FC had significantly greater temporal stability than other types of connections. Temporal stability of homotopic FC was facilitated by direct anatomical projections. Importantly, temporal stability varied with the change in conductive properties of callosal axons along the anterior-posterior axis. Taken together, these findings suggest a notable role for the corpus callosum in maintaining stable functional communication between hemispheres.

A Preliminary Study of Central Nervous System Arousal and Sleep Quality in Bipolar Disorder.

Sleep disturbances are commonly reported in patients with bipolar I disorder (BPI) and are risk factors for mood episodes. In other populations, central nervous system (CNS) hyperarousal is associated with sleep initiation and maintenance problems, and CNS hypoarousal is associated with increased sleep drive. However, it is unclear whether CNS arousal levels are a useful index of sleep disruption in BPI. This study aimed to investigate daytime CNS arousal levels in relation to perceived sleep quality in BPI. Resting EEG, mood state, and self-reported sleep quality data were collected from 34 individuals with BPI. CNS hyperarousal was associated with pervasive poor subjective sleep quality including increased sleep disturbances, increased sleep latency, and reduced global sleep quality. CNS hypoarousal was associated with greater daytime sleepiness, indicating reduced arousal. These preliminary findings suggest that CNS arousal may be a useful index for identifying individuals at high risk for relapse into a mood episode. A limitation of this study is the use of self-report instruments for sleep quality assessment. Future research should investigate the temporal relationship of CNS arousal to sleep disturbances using objective measurements of sleep quality such as polysomnography. If these findings are replicated, measures of CNS arousals may allow for identification of high-risk patients with BPI.

The "Batman Effect": Improving Perseverance in Young Children.

This study investigated the benefits of self-distancing (i.e., taking an outsider's view of one's own situation) on young children's perseverance. Four- and 6-year-old children (N = 180) were asked to complete a repetitive task for 10 min while having the option to take breaks by playing an extremely attractive video game. Six-year-olds persevered longer than 4-year-olds. Nonetheless, across both ages, children who impersonated an exemplar other-in this case a character, such as Batman-spent the most time working, followed by children who took a third-person perspective on the self, or finally, a first-person perspective. Alternative explanations, implications, and future research directions are discussed.

An fMRI-based neurologic signature of physical pain.

BACKGROUND: Persistent pain is measured by means of self-report, the sole reliance on which hampers diagnosis and treatment. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) holds promise for identifying objective measures of pain, but brain measures that are sensitive and specific to physical pain have not yet been identified. METHODS: In four studies involving a total of 114 participants, we developed an fMRI-based measure that predicts pain intensity at the level of the individual person. In study 1, we used machine-learning analyses to identify a pattern of fMRI activity across brain regions--a neurologic signature--that was associated with heat-induced pain. The pattern included the thalamus, the posterior and anterior insulae, the secondary somatosensory cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the periaqueductal gray matter, and other regions. In study 2, we tested the sensitivity and specificity of the signature to pain versus warmth in a new sample. In study 3, we assessed specificity relative to social pain, which activates many of the same brain regions as physical pain. In study 4, we assessed the responsiveness of the measure to the analgesic agent remifentanil. RESULTS: In study 1, the neurologic signature showed sensitivity and specificity of 94% or more (95% confidence interval [CI], 89 to 98) in discriminating painful heat from nonpainful warmth, pain anticipation, and pain recall. In study 2, the signature discriminated between painful heat and nonpainful warmth with 93% sensitivity and specificity (95% CI, 84 to 100). In study 3, it discriminated between physical pain and social pain with 85% sensitivity (95% CI, 76 to 94) and 73% specificity (95% CI, 61 to 84) and with 95% sensitivity and specificity in a forced-choice test of which of two conditions was more painful. In study 4, the strength of the signature response was substantially reduced when remifentanil was administered. CONCLUSIONS: It is possible to use fMRI to assess pain elicited by noxious heat in healthy persons. Future studies are needed to assess whether the signature predicts clinical pain. (Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and others.).

Spontaneous Self-Distancing and Adaptive Self-Reflection Across Adolescence.

Experiments performed primarily with adults show that self-distancing facilitates adaptive self-reflection. However, no research has investigated whether adolescents spontaneously engage in this process or whether doing so is linked to adaptive outcomes. In this study, 226 African American adolescents, aged 11-20, reflected on an anger-related interpersonal experience. As expected, spontaneous self-distancing during reflection predicted lower levels of emotional reactivity by leading adolescents to reconstrue (rather than recount) their experience and blame their partner less. Moreover, the inverse relation between self-distancing and emotional reactivity strengthened with age. These findings highlight the role that self-distancing plays in fostering adaptive self-reflection in adolescence, and begin to elucidate the role that development plays in enhancing the benefits of engaging in this process.

Does resting-state connectivity reflect depressive rumination? A tale of two analyses.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is characterized by rumination. Prior research suggests that resting-state brain activation reflects rumination when depressed individuals are not task engaged. However, no study has directly tested this. Here we investigated whether resting-state epochs differ from induced ruminative states for healthy and depressed individuals. Most previous research on resting-state networks comes from seed-based analyses with the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). By contrast, we examined resting state connectivity by using the complete multivariate connectivity profile (i.e., connections across all brain nodes) and by comparing these results to seeded analyses. We find that unconstrained resting-state intervals differ from active rumination states in strength of connectivity and that overall connectivity was higher for healthy vs. depressed individuals. Relationships between connectivity and subjective mood (i.e., behavior) were strongly observed during induced rumination epochs. Furthermore, connectivity patterns that related to subjective mood were strikingly different for MDD and healthy control (HC) groups suggesting different mood regulation mechanisms.

Exploring Solomon's paradox: self-distancing eliminates the self-other asymmetry in wise reasoning about close relationships in younger and older adults.

Are people wiser when reflecting on other people's problems compared with their own? If so, does self-distancing eliminate this asymmetry in wise reasoning? In three experiments (N = 693), participants displayed wiser reasoning (i.e., recognizing the limits of their knowledge and the importance of compromise and future change, considering other people's perspectives) about another person's problems compared with their own. Across Studies 2 and 3, instructing individuals to self-distance (rather than self-immerse) eliminated this asymmetry. Study 3 demonstrated that each of these effects was comparable for younger (20-40 years) and older (60-80 years) adults. Thus, contrary to the adage "with age comes wisdom," our findings suggest that there are no age differences in wise reasoning about personal conflicts, and that the effects of self-distancing generalize across age cohorts. These findings highlight the role that self-distancing plays in allowing people to overcome a pervasive asymmetry that characterizes wise reasoning.

Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain.

How similar are the experiences of social rejection and physical pain? Extant research suggests that a network of brain regions that support the affective but not the sensory components of physical pain underlie both experiences. Here we demonstrate that when rejection is powerfully elicited--by having people who recently experienced an unwanted break-up view a photograph of their ex-partner as they think about being rejected--areas that support the sensory components of physical pain (secondary somatosensory cortex; dorsal posterior insula) become active. We demonstrate the overlap between social rejection and physical pain in these areas by comparing both conditions in the same individuals using functional MRI. We further demonstrate the specificity of the secondary somatosensory cortex and dorsal posterior insula activity to physical pain by comparing activated locations in our study with a database of over 500 published studies. Activation in these regions was highly diagnostic of physical pain, with positive predictive values up to 88%. These results give new meaning to the idea that rejection "hurts." They demonstrate that rejection and physical pain are similar not only in that they are both distressing--they share a common somatosensory representation as well.

Writing about the future self to shift drinking identity: An experimental investigation.

College student drinking is prevalent and costly to public and personal health, leading to calls to identify and target novel mechanisms of behavior change. We aimed to manipulate drinking identity (a cognitive risk factor for hazardous drinking) via three sessions of narrative writing about a future self. We tested whether writing could shift drinking identity and would be accompanied by changes in alcohol consumption and problems. Participants were college students meeting hazardous drinking criteria (N = 328; Mage = 20.15; 59% women, 40% men, 1% gender-diverse; 60% white; 23% Asian; 12% multiple races; 2% other racial groups; 8% identified as Hispanic/Latino/a/x). The study had a 2 [narrative writing topic: low-risk drinker vs. reduced smartphone use] × 2 [writing perspective: first person vs. non-first-person] × 2 [social network instruction: instructed to include vs. not] factorial design. Outcomes were drinking identity, drinking refusal self-efficacy, alcohol consumption, alcohol-related problems, and craving. Participants completed three writing sessions and online follow-up assessments at 2, 4, and 12 weeks. The study is a registered clinical trial; hypotheses and analyses were preregistered (https://osf.io/vy2ep/). Contrary to predictions, narrative writing about a future self as a low-risk drinker did not significantly impact outcomes. Null results extended to expected interactions with writing perspective and social network instructions. The narrative writing task did not shift drinking or alcohol-related outcomes. Future experimental work may benefit from greater flexibility in conceptualizing a future self, recruiting individuals interested in behavior change, and more sensitive measures of drinking identity.

Investigating cognitive and motivational proximal outcomes in a randomized clinical trial of writing about the future self to reduce drinking.

BACKGROUND: Drinking identity (the extent to which one links the self with drinking alcohol) is a unique risk factor for college students' hazardous drinking that is not directly targeted by existing interventions. We conducted a study that aimed to decrease drinking identity among college students with hazardous drinking. We adapted a writing task about the future self and tested whether three writing sessions could decrease drinking identity and change drinking. We also investigated whether two additional factors (writing perspective and inclusion of participants' social networks) would enhance task impact. The present study evaluated whether posited proximal cognitive and motivational outcomes (drinking identity, self-efficacy, readiness to change, and drinking intentions) changed immediately after each writing session. METHOD: The study is a randomized clinical trial in which hypotheses and analyses were pre-registered. Participants were 328 college students who met hazardous drinking criteria. The study had a 2 (narrative writing topic: low-risk drinker vs. reduced smartphone use) × 2 (writing perspective: first-person vs. non-first-person) × 2 (social network instruction: instructed to include vs. not) factorial design. Proximal outcomes were drinking identity, self-efficacy, readiness to change, and drinking intentions. The clinical outcome was alcohol consumption. Participants completed three laboratory sessions at weekly intervals that included the writing task and pre- and post-task assessments. RESULTS: Results were largely null, except that readiness to reduce drinking was higher in the low-risk drinker condition and increased over the lab sessions. Time effects indicated that reductions in drinking identity, drinking intentions, and alcohol consumption, and increases in self-efficacy were observed but did not change above and beyond control conditions. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate the need to strengthen the writing task and select a more appropriate control task to target proposed proximal outcomes. Future studies might try personalizing the task, evaluating its efficacy with individuals motivated to change their drinking, and using a control task that does not involve imagining a future self.

Prefrontal-striatal pathway underlies cognitive regulation of craving.

The ability to control craving for substances that offer immediate rewards but whose long-term consumption may pose serious risks lies at the root of substance use disorders and is critical for mental and physical health. Despite its importance, the neural systems supporting this ability remain unclear. Here, we investigated this issue using functional imaging to examine neural activity in cigarette smokers, the most prevalent substance-dependent population in the United States, as they used cognitive strategies to regulate craving for cigarettes and food. We found that the cognitive down-regulation of craving was associated with (i) activity in regions previously associated with regulating emotion in particular and cognitive control in general, including dorsomedial, dorsolateral, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, and (ii) decreased activity in regions previously associated with craving, including the ventral striatum, subgenual cingulate, amygdala, and ventral tegmental area. Decreases in craving correlated with decreases in ventral striatum activity and increases in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity, with ventral striatal activity fully mediating the relationship between lateral prefrontal cortex and reported craving. These results provide insight into the mechanisms that enable cognitive strategies to effectively regulate craving, suggesting that it involves neural dynamics parallel to those involved in regulating other emotions. In so doing, this study provides a methodological tool and conceptual foundation for studying this ability across substance using populations and developing more effective treatments for substance use disorders.

Sensory emotion regulation.

Decades of evidence reveal intimate links between sensation and emotion. Yet, discussion of sensory experiences as tools that promote emotion regulation is largely absent from current theorizing on this topic. Here, we address this gap by integrating evidence from social-personality, clinical, cognitive-neuroscience, and animal research to highlight the role of sensation as a tool that can be harnessed to up- or downregulate emotion. Further, we review evidence implicating sensation as a rapid and relatively effortless emotion regulation modality and highlight future research directions. Notably, we emphasize the need to examine the duration of sensory emotion regulation effects, the moderating role of individual and cultural differences, and how sensory strategies interact with other strategies.

Maturing Out: Between- and Within-Persons Changes in Social-Network Drinking, Drinking Identity, and Hazardous Drinking Following College Graduation.

Many college students reduce hazardous drinking (HD) following graduation without treatment. Identifying cognitive mechanisms facilitating this "natural" reduction in HD during this transition is crucial. We evaluated drinking identity as a potential mechanism and tested whether within-person changes in one's social network's drinking were linked to within-person changes in drinking identity and subsequent within-person changes in HD. A sample of 422 undergraduates reporting HD was followed from six months before until two years after graduation. Their drinking, drinking identity, and social networks were assessed online. Within-person changes in drinking identity did not mediate the relationship between within-person changes in social network drinking and personal HD, though significant positive between-person associations among all constructs were found. Instead, there was some evidence that within-person changes in drinking identity followed changes in HD, suggesting that drinking identity may function as a marker versus mechanism of "natural" HD reduction during transition out of college.

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.

Distanced self-talk increases rational self-interest.

Does stepping back to evaluate a situation from a distanced perspective lead us to be selfish or fair? This question has been of philosophical interest for centuries, and, more recently, the focus of extensive empirical inquiry. Yet, extant research reveals a puzzle: some studies suggest that adopting a distanced perspective will produce more rationally self-interested behavior, whereas others suggest that it will produce more impartial behavior. Here we adjudicate between these perspectives by testing the effects of adopting a third-person perspective on decision making in a task that pits rational self-interest against impartiality: the dictator game. Aggregating across three experiments (N = 774), participants who used third-person (i.e., distanced) vs. first-person (i.e., immersed) self-talk during the dictator game kept more money for themselves. We discuss these results in light of prior research showing that psychological distance can promote cooperation and fairmindedness and how the effect of psychological distance on moral decision-making may be sensitive to social context.