Depression, negative emotionality, and self-referential language: A multi-lab, multi-measure, and multi-language-task research synthesis.

Depressive symptomatology is manifested in greater first-person singular pronoun use (i.e., I-talk), but when and for whom this effect is most apparent, and the extent to which it is specific to depression or part of a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk, remains unclear. Using pooled data from N = 4,754 participants from 6 labs across 2 countries, we examined, in a preregistered analysis, how the depression-I-talk effect varied by (a) first-person singular pronoun type (i.e., subjective, objective, and possessive), (b) the communication context in which language was generated (i.e., personal, momentary thought, identity-related, and impersonal), and (c) gender. Overall, there was a small but reliable positive correlation between depression and I-talk (r = .10, 95% CI [.07, .13]). The effect was present for all first-person singular pronouns except the possessive type, in all communication contexts except the impersonal one, and for both females and males with little evidence of gender differences. Importantly, a similar pattern of results emerged for negative emotionality. Further, the depression-I-talk effect was substantially reduced when controlled for negative emotionality but this was not the case when the negative emotionality-I-talk effect was controlled for depression. These results suggest that the robust empirical link between depression and I-talk largely reflects a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk. Self-referential language using first-person singular pronouns may therefore be better construed as a linguistic marker of general distress proneness or negative emotionality rather than as a specific marker of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Objectively Measured Social Integration Is Associated With an Immune Risk Phenotype Following Marital Separation.

Background: Close relationships play an integral role in human development, and robust evidence links marital separation and divorce to poor health outcomes. Social integration may play a key role in this association. In many ways, the study of marital separation and divorce provides an ideal model system for a more complete understanding of the association between life stress and physical health. Purpose: The current study investigated associations among objectively measured social integration, psychological distress, and biomarkers of immune health in recently separated adults (N = 49). Methods: We collected four measures of immune functioning-interleukin-6, C-reactive protein, and antibody titers to latent cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus-that were combined to yield a viral-Immune Risk Profile. To assess how variability in social integration is associated with immunological correlates following the end of a marriage, we incorporated observational ecological momentary assessment data using a novel methodology (the Electronically Activated Recorder). Results: We found that objectively measured social behaviors are associated with concurrent viral-Immune Risk Profile scores over and above the effects of psychological distress and that psychological distress may be linked to biomarkers of immune health through social integration. Conclusions: This research expands current knowledge of biomarkers of immune health after divorce and separation and includes a new methodology for objective measures of social engagement.

Maladaptive repetitive thought as a transdiagnostic phenomenon and treatment target: An integrative review.

OBJECTIVE: Maladaptive repetitive thought (RT), the frequent and repetitive revisiting of thoughts or internal experiences, is associated with a range of psychopathological processes and disorders. We present a synthesis of prior research on maladaptive RT and develop a framework for elucidating and distinguishing between five forms of maladaptive RT. METHOD: In addition to the previously studied maladaptive RT (worry, rumination, and obsession), this framework is used to identify two additional forms of maladaptive RT (yearning and interoceptive RT). We then present a review of extant psychotherapy intervention research targeting maladaptive RT, focusing both on specific empirically based treatment strategies, and also constructs within treatments that impact maladaptive RT. CONCLUSION: The paper concludes with recommendations for future basic and intervention research on maladaptive RT and related psychopathologies.

Narcissism and the use of personal pronouns revisited.

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 109(3) of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (see record 2015-37773-002). The authors erroneously reported the overall correlation, first stated in the abstract, between Narcissism and total first-person-singular use as .02 (.017) instead of .01 (.010). The misreporting of the overall correlation between Narcissism and total use of first-person singular does not change the results or interpretation in any way (i.e., the near-zero association between Narcissism and I-talk). The online version of this article has been corrected.] Among both laypersons and researchers, extensive use of first-person singular pronouns (i.e., I-talk) is considered a face-valid linguistic marker of narcissism. However, the assumed relation between narcissism and I-talk has yet to be subjected to a strong empirical test. Accordingly, we conducted a large-scale (N = 4,811), multisite (5 labs), multimeasure (5 narcissism measures) and dual-language (English and German) investigation to quantify how strongly narcissism is related to using more first-person singular pronouns across different theoretically relevant communication contexts (identity-related, personal, impersonal, private, public, and stream-of-consciousness tasks). Overall (r = .02, 95% CI [-.02, .04]) and within the sampled contexts, narcissism was unrelated to use of first-person singular pronouns (total, subjective, objective, and possessive). This consistent near-zero effect has important implications for making inferences about narcissism from pronoun use and prompts questions about why I-talk tends to be strongly perceived as an indicator of narcissism in the absence of an underlying actual association between the 2 variables. (PsycINFO Database Record