Associations of childhood adversity with emotional well-being and educational achievement: A review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Profound negative implications of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have raised public health concern worldwide. METHOD: This systematic review and meta-analysis examined associations of three types of ACEs (abuse, neglect, and household dysfunctions) with experiential (emotional quality of momentary and everyday experiences) and reflective (judgments about life satisfaction, sense of meaning, and ability to pursue goals that can include and extend beyond the self) facets of emotional well-being (EWB) and educational achievement. The systematic review yielded 100 studies with 176 effect sizes that met criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis. RESULTS: ACEs were related particularly strongly to lower EWB, r = -0.32, p < .001; [95 % CI: -0.44 to 0.01], but also to lower educational achievement, r = -0.18, p < .001; [95 % CI: -0.21 to -0.05]. Associations were stronger for abuse and composite indicators of ACEs than for household dysfunctions. Associations of ACEs with EWB and educational achievement were stronger in childhood and adolescence than in emerging or later adulthood. Associations did not differ for males and females or for Eastern versus Western cultural groups. Analyses provided evidence for the causal role of ACEs in the development of lower EWB and academic achievement as well as their reciprocal associations. LIMITATIONS: There is no standard conceptualization of well-being and studies are not always clear about the types of ACEs examined, with limited research on educational achievement. CONCLUSION: Findings have important implications for mental health professionals, policy makers and social service agencies in developing resources and intervention services that target ACEs to protect individuals and promote well-being and academic achievement.

Mixed emotional variants of gratitude: antecedent situations, cognitive appraisals, action tendencies, and psychosocial outcomes.

This research provides an exploratory investigation of whether gift/help-receiving contexts that elicit mixed emotional variants of gratitude can be distinguished from typical gratitude-eliciting situations in their associated appraisals, action tendencies, and psychosocial effects. We examined 473 participants (159 males, 312 females, 2 others; Mage = 31.07) using a one-way four-conditions between-subjects experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to complete recall tasks describing four different gratitude-eliciting situations. Emotions, cognitive appraisals, action tendencies, and general psychosocial outcomes were assessed. Relative to a control condition involving receiving a gift or help (gift/help condition), receiving something at the expense of a benefactor (benefactor-inconvenience condition) elicited gratitude-guilt; receiving something with an expectation of return (return-favour condition) elicited gratitude-disappointment and gratitude-anger; while receiving a disliked gift or receiving assistance that made things worse (backfire condition) primarily elicited gratitude-disappointment while also eliciting gratitude-anger and gratitude-guilt. Each condition was differentiable from control in their appraisals, action tendencies, and psychosocial effects. Notably, contexts which elicited mixed emotional variants of gratitude were characterised by the co-occurrence of conflicting appraisals such as pleasantness and unpleasantness or goal-congruence and goal-incongruence. Additionally, the return-favour and backfire conditions were most dissimilar from control, and were associated with the most negative action tendencies and psychosocial outcomes.

The humble estimate: Humility predicts higher self-assessment accuracy.

Humility is thought to be associated with greater accuracy in self-assessment. However, clear evidence is lacking. Two studies tested this central proposition. In Study 1 (N = 258), participants completed a task on logical reasoning before estimating both their raw and relative performance. Study 2 (N = 214) was aimed at replicating Study 1 with a task on English fluency. Results from both studies were consistent. There was evidence of overestimation bias across each sample in which participants' estimated performance was higher than their actual performance. More importantly, humility was associated with less overestimation bias, such that the difference in estimated and actual performance was smaller or non-existent among those higher in humility. We also replicated the Dunning-Kruger effect in which participants of lower ability in these skills (i.e., lower actual scores) were most likely to overestimate their performance. Further analyses found that the negative relationship between humility and overestimation bias was not moderated by actual performances. However, the same analyses revealed that the Dunning-Kruger effect was also not moderated by humility. Hence, there is strong replicable evidence that humility is associated with less overestimation bias, supporting the view that greater accuracy in self-assessment is an attribute of humility, and that this relationship is independent of actual ability, but humility does not affect the robust Dunning-Kruger effect.

Social mindfulness predicts concern for nature and immigrants across 36 nations.

People cooperate every day in ways that range from largescale contributions that mitigate climate change to simple actions such as leaving another individual with choice - known as social mindfulness. It is not yet clear whether and how these complex and more simple forms of cooperation relate. Prior work has found that countries with individuals who made more socially mindful choices were linked to a higher country environmental performance - a proxy for complex cooperation. Here we replicated this initial finding in 41 samples around the world, demonstrating the robustness of the association between social mindfulness and environmental performance, and substantially built on it to show this relationship extended to a wide range of complex cooperative indices, tied closely to many current societal issues. We found that greater social mindfulness expressed by an individual was related to living in countries with more social capital, more community participation and reduced prejudice towards immigrants. Our findings speak to the symbiotic relationship between simple and more complex forms of cooperation in societies.

Older adults have difficulty decoding emotions from the eyes, whereas easterners have difficulty decoding emotion from the mouth.

Older adults and Easterners have worse emotion recognition (than young adults and Westerners, respectively), but the question of why remains unanswered. Older adults look less at eyes, whereas Easterners look less at mouths, raising the possibility that compelling older adults to look at eyes, and Easterners to look at mouths, might improve recognition. We did this by comparing emotion recognition in 108 young adults and 109 older adults from New Zealand and Singapore in the (a) eyes on their own (b) mouth on its own or (c) full face. Older adults were worse than young adults on 4/6 emotions with the Eyes Only stimuli, but only 1/6 emotions with the Mouth Only stimuli. In contrast, Easterners were worse than Westerners on 6/6 emotions for Mouth Only and Full Face stimuli, but were equal on all six emotions for Eyes Only stimuli. These results provide a substantial leap forward because they point to the precise difficulty for older adults and Easterners. Older adults have more consistent difficulty identifying individual emotions in the eyes compared to the mouth, likely due to declining brain functioning, whereas Easterners have more consistent difficulty identifying emotions from the mouth than the eyes, likely due to inexperience inferring mouth information.

Specificity in the Study of Mixed Emotions: A Theoretical Framework.

Research on mixed emotions is yet to consider emotion-specificity, the idea that same-valenced emotions have distinctive characteristics and functions. We review two decades of research on mixed emotions, focusing on evidence for the occurrence of mixed emotions and the effects of mixed emotions on downstream outcomes. We then propose a novel theoretical framework of mixed-emotion-specificity with three foundational tenets: (a) Mixed emotions are distinguishable from single-valenced emotions and other mixed emotions based on their emotion-appraisal relationships; (b) Mixed emotions can further be characterized by four patterns that describe relationships between simultaneous appraisals or appraisals that are unique to mixed emotions; and (c) Carryover effects occur only on outcomes that are associated with the appraisal characteristics of mixed emotion. We outline how mixed-emotion-specific effects can be predicted based on the appraisal tendency framework. Temporal dynamics, the application of mixed-emotion-specificity to individual difference research, methodological issues, and future directions are also discussed.

Perceiving societal pressure to be happy is linked to poor well-being, especially in happy nations.

Happiness is a valuable experience, and societies want their citizens to be happy. Although this societal commitment seems laudable, overly emphasizing positivity (versus negativity) may create an unattainable emotion norm that ironically compromises individual well-being. In this multi-national study (40 countries; 7443 participants), we investigate how societal pressure to be happy and not sad predicts emotional, cognitive and clinical indicators of well-being around the world, and examine how these relations differ as a function of countries' national happiness levels (collected from the World Happiness Report). Although detrimental well-being associations manifest for an average country, the strength of these relations varies across countries. People's felt societal pressure to be happy and not sad is particularly linked to poor well-being in countries with a higher World Happiness Index. Although the cross-sectional nature of our work prohibits causal conclusions, our findings highlight the correlational link between social emotion valuation and individual well-being, and suggest that high national happiness levels may have downsides for some.

"Speak of the Devil and he Shall Appear": Religiosity, Unconsciousness, and the Effects of Explicit Priming in the Misperception of Immorality.

Psychological theory and research suggest that religious individuals could have differences in the appraisal of immoral behaviours and cognitions compared to non-religious individuals. This effect could occur due to adherence to prescriptive and inviolate deontic religious-moral rules and socio-evolutionary factors, such as increased autonomic nervous system responsivity to indirect threat. The latter thesis has been used to suggest that immoral elicitors could be processed subliminally by religious individuals. In this manuscript, we employed masking to test this hypothesis. We rated and pre-selected IAPS images for moral impropriety. We presented these images masked with and without negatively manipulating a pre-image moral label. We measured detection, moral appraisal and discrimination, and physiological responses. We found that religious individuals experienced higher responsivity to masked immoral images. Bayesian and hit-versus-miss response analyses revealed that the differences in appraisal and physiological responses were reported only for consciously perceived immoral images. Our analysis showed that when a negative moral label was presented, religious individuals experienced the interval following the label as more physiologically arousing and responded with lower specificity for moral discrimination. We propose that religiosity involves higher conscious perceptual and physiological responsivity for discerning moral impropriety but also higher susceptibility for the misperception of immorality.

Income robustly predicts self-regard emotions.

There is robust evidence that higher income makes people evaluate their lives more favorably, but there is no consistent evidence on whether it makes people feel better. Analyzing data from five large surveys spanning 162 countries, we predicted and found the most comprehensive evidence to date that income reliably predicted greater positive self-regard emotions (e.g., pride) and lower negative self-regard emotions (e.g., anxiety). In contrast, its relationships with other-regard emotions (e.g., gratitude, anger) and global emotions (e.g., happiness) were weaker in magnitude and difficult to replicate. In addition, income predicted higher (lower) levels of positive (negative) self-regard emotions about 10 years later, controlling for the same self-regard emotions at baseline. Sense of control mediated the relationships between income and both positive and negative self-regard emotions. Income predicted self-regard emotions as strongly as it has been known to predict life evaluation. Hence, having more money makes people feel more proud, contented, and confident and less sad, afraid, and ashamed, but does not affect whether they feel grateful, caring, and angry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

'Look not at what is contrary to propriety': A meta-analytic exploration of the association between religiosity and sensitivity to disgust.

Previous research has suggested that disgust sensitivity contributes to moral self-regulation. The relationship between religiosity and disgust sensitivity is frequently explored as a moderator of moral-regulating ideologies, such as conservative and traditional ideologies. However, religiosity is suggested to differ from these in moral attitudes against social dominance and racial prejudice. Psychological theories, such as the societal moral intuition and the evolved hazard-perception models, have proposed that there could be reasons to support a distinct relationship between religiosity and disgust sensitivity. These reasons relate to the intuitive pursuit of spiritual purity and the non-secular transcendental emotional-reward value of moral behaviour for religious individuals. In the present manuscript, we conducted the first dedicated meta-analytic review between religiosity and disgust sensitivity. We analysed a summary of forty-seven experimental outcomes, including 48,971 participants. Our analysis revealed a significant positive association (r = .25) between religiosity and disgust sensitivity. This outcome suggests that sensitivity to disgust could have distinct spiritual purity and moral self-regulatory response value for religious individuals.

Meal-time Smartphone Use in an Obesogenic Environment: Two Longitudinal Observational Studies.

BACKGROUND: Despite a large volume of research on the impact of other digital screens (eg, televisions) on eating behavior, little is known about the nature and impact of mealtime smartphone use. OBJECTIVE: We investigated how smartphones are used in everyday meals, whether phone users differ according to mealtime phone use patterns, and whether specific phone functions (particularly food photography) would affect the amount and enjoyment of food eaten. METHODS: Across 2 studies, we used the experience sampling method to track 1780 meals in situ. In study 1, a total 137 young adults reported on their mealtime smartphone use 3 times per day over 7 consecutive days. This corresponded to each main meal, with participants recording whether they used their phones and what phone functions they engaged in while eating. In study 2, a total of 71 young adults were similarly tracked for 3 meals per day over 7 days. Across the week, participants' meals were randomized to 1 of 3 smartphone conditions: food photography while eating, nonfood photography while eating, or no phone use. As the outcome measures, participants reported on the amount and enjoyment of food they ate. RESULTS: During the week-long tracking, most participants (110/129, 85.3%) recorded at least one instance of mealtime smartphone use, with an average frequency of 1 in 3 meals where phones were used (27.1%; 95% CI 23.6-30.6). Unlike traditional digital screens, mealtime phone use encompassed a wide range of social and nonsocial activities. Further, specific forms of phone use behaviors influenced food intake in different ways. Specifically, in study 2, participants showed the typical pattern of increased food intake across the day when they engaged in nonfood photography during a meal (P<.001); however, this pattern was disrupted when they engaged in food photography (P=.73). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings underscore the prevalence and multifaceted nature of mealtime phone use, distinguishing mobile phones from traditional forms of digital screens. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03299075; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03299075 and ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03346785; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03346785.

Mixed Emotions, but Not Positive or Negative Emotions, Facilitate Legitimate Virus-Prevention Behaviors and Eudaimonic Outcomes in the Emergence of the COVID-19 Crisis.

We report four studies (N=1419) examining emotional reactions from March to April 2020, when COVID-19 exhibited exponentially increasing infections and fatalities. Specifically, we examined associations between emotions with self-reported intentions to enact virus-prevention behaviors that protect oneself from COVID-19 and eudaimonic functioning. Study 1A, 1B, and Study 2 provided naturalistic evidence that mixed emotions predicted legitimate virus-prevention behaviors and eudaimonic functioning in the USA and Singapore, and Study 2 also supported receptivity as a mediator. Finally, Study 3 provided experimental evidence that mixed emotions causally increased legitimate virus-prevention behaviors relative to neutral, positive emotion, and negative emotion conditions, whereas eudaimonic functioning was increased only relative to the neutral condition. Across all studies, positive and negative emotions were unrelated to legitimate virus-prevention behaviors, while relationships with eudaimonic functioning were inconsistent. While self-reported measures do not represent actual behaviors, the findings suggest a potential role for mixed emotions in pandemic-related outcomes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00045-x.

Gratitude facilitates obedience: New evidence for the social alignment perspective.

We report four studies that tested the hypothesis that gratitude increases obedience. Four experimental studies (N = 623) found that participants who were induced to feel gratitude obeyed to a greater extent a command to grind worms in a grinder than those feeling neutral. These novel findings demonstrate that gratitude can encourage obeying instructions to exact physical harm, violating moral principles of care. Grateful participants obeyed both benefactors and nonbenefactors. Induced happiness and admiration did not produce the same effect and we found evidence using a manipulation-of-mediator method that the need for social harmony played a mediating role. The findings suggest that gratitude can make a person more vulnerable to social influence, including obeying commands to perform an ethically questionable act. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Relation Between Official WhatsApp-Distributed COVID-19 News Exposure and Psychological Symptoms: Cross-Sectional Survey Study.

BACKGROUND: In a global pandemic, digital technology offers innovative methods to disseminate public health messages. As an example, the messenger app WhatsApp was adopted by both the World Health Organization and government agencies to provide updates on the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). During a time when rumors and excessive news threaten psychological well-being, these services allow for rapid transmission of information and may boost resilience. OBJECTIVE: In this study, we sought to accomplish the following: (1) assess well-being during the pandemic; (2) replicate prior findings linking exposure to COVID-19 news with psychological distress; and (3) examine whether subscription to an official WhatsApp channel can mitigate this risk. METHODS: Across 8 weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak (March 7 to April 21, 2020), we conducted a survey of 1145 adults in Singapore. As the primary outcome measure, participants completed the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). As predictor variables, participants also answered questions pertaining to the following: (1) their exposure to COVID-19 news; (2) their use of the Singapore government's WhatsApp channel; and (3) their demographics. RESULTS: Within the sample, 7.9% of participants had severe or extremely severe symptoms on at least one DASS-21 subscale. Depression scores were associated with increased time spent receiving COVID-19 updates, whereas use of the official WhatsApp channel emerged as a protective factor (b=-0.07, t[863]=-2.04, P=.04). Similarly, increased anxiety scores were associated with increased exposure to both updates and rumors, but this risk was mitigated by trust in the government's WhatsApp messages (b=-0.05, t[863]=-2.13, P=.03). Finally, although stress symptoms increased with the amount of time spent receiving updates, these symptoms were not significantly related to WhatsApp use. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that messenger apps may be an effective medium for disseminating pandemic-related information, allowing official agencies to reach a broad sector of the population rapidly. In turn, this use may promote public well-being amid an "infodemic." TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04305574; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04305574.

When the camera eats first: Exploring how meal-time cell phone photography affects eating behaviours.

Advances in cell phone technology have the potential to disrupt eating patterns. In this research, we focused on the camera function of a cell phone, characterizing: (i) the extent to which this function is used during meals; (ii) whether meal-time photographers show signs of pathological eating; and (iii) whether the act of taking food photographs alters the amount and enjoyment of food eaten. In the first study, we used the experience sampling method to track one week of meals from 137 young adults. Although we observed a low base rate of meal-time photography (5.44% of the 1140 meals captured), phone users who engaged in this practice had higher external eating scores than those who did not. That is, these meal-time photographers were more likely to eat in response to external cues (e.g. the sight of palatable food) than to internal cues of hunger. However, when participants were randomly assigned to take either food or non-food photographs within a lab setting (Study 2), we found no evidence that the type of photography influenced either the amount or enjoyment of food eaten. Taken together, our findings suggest a limited role for cell phone photography in an obesogenic environment.

Sadness, but not anger or fear, mediates the long-term leisure-cognition link: an emotion-specific approach.

Past research has provided some evidence of positive relationships between leisure and cognitive functioning, but questions remain regarding their mechanisms. We argue that specific negative emotions may provide promising theoretical mechanisms for the leisure-cognition link. Guided by theories of leisure and emotion-specificity, we used a large-sample, longitudinal dataset of adult participants (N = 3536; 1940 females; Mage = 56.16) to examine the leisure-cognition link over about a decade and to test whether sadness, anger, or fear would be supported as emotion-specific mediators of the leisure-cognition link. Analyses were performed using observed variable path analyses and latent variable structural equation modelling. Controlling for demographics (age, gender, education level) and baseline cognitive functioning, leisure predicted better episodic memory and executive function a decade later. Moreover, both observed variable and latent variable mediational analyses supported sadness as a mediator of the link between leisure and episodic memory as well as executive function, such that leisure predicted reduced sadness, in turn predicting improved cognitive functioning. In contrast, neither fear nor anger were supported as mediators of the leisure-cognition link. Thus, the results support long-term links between leisure and cognitive functioning and also support sadness as an emotion-specific mediator of these relationships.

Putting adversity in perspective: purpose in life moderates the link between childhood emotional abuse and neglect and adulthood depressive symptoms.

Background: Childhood emotional abuse and neglect is linked with a host of adverse outcomes later in life, including depression. However, potential psychological resources that may mitigate the adverse outcomes of childhood emotional abuse and neglect are not well-understood.Aims: Drawing from the insight that having a sense of purpose can help individuals deal with setbacks and difficulties better, we propose that purpose in life can also help sufferers of childhood maltreatment cope more effectively and reduce the onset of depressive symptoms.Methods: Participants were drawn from two large, nationally representative studies comprising a total of 3664 respondents. Purpose in life, childhood emotional abuse and neglect, and depressive symptoms were measured with validated scales.Results: We found convergent evidence that purpose in life attenuates the effect of childhood emotional abuse and neglect on subsequent depressive symptoms across a range of measures of mood and depression.Conclusions: The current study highlights the important role played by purpose in life in building resilience, coping against adverse life events, and psychological well-being.

Gratitude and Adaptive Coping Among Chinese Singaporeans During the Beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

We report results of a cross-sectional survey conducted during March-April 2020 which marked the start and escalation of the COVID-19 crisis in Singapore. Our purpose was to examine whether reported feelings of gratitude among Chinese Singaporeans (N = 371; 124 males, 247 females; M age = 22.54, SD age = 3.63, age range: 18-53 years) could be linked to adaptive responses to the pandemic. The results revealed that gratitude was associated with stronger endorsement of virus-prevention measures (ß = 0.25, p = 0.001) that are necessary for protecting the physical health of oneself and others but disruptive to daily lives. Gratitude was also positively related to the tendency to perceive meaningful benefits in the crisis (ß = 0.25, p = 0.002). Importantly, demonstrating the uniqueness and robustness of gratitude as a predictor of positive coping in response to the pandemic, these relationships remained significant when controlling for other protective psychological factors (resilience and optimism), emotions, and key demographic variables. Among the emotions measured, gratitude was also reported the most strongly. The findings support theoretical models that gratitude facilitates prosocial inclinations and openness to different ways to support the well-being of others and suggest that in a collectivistic culture, gratitude could be a key resource enabling adaptation to a crisis.

Negative emotion differentiation and long-term physical health-The moderating role of neuroticism.

OBJECTIVE: Negative emotion differentiation refers to the ability to make complex distinctions between specific negative emotions. However, little research has examined its associations with long-term physical health and its potential limitations. The present study aims to investigate whether negative emotion differentiation would predict long-term health outcomes and whether neuroticism would moderate this relationship. METHODS: Adult participants (N = 1,010; 433 men, 577 women; Mage = 55.53) were studied in the present research. Negative emotion differentiation was computed based on a daily diary procedure, whereas neuroticism was measured using a validated 4-item scale. Physical health was assessed at baseline as well as an average of 7 years later using a combination of subjective (3-item self-report scale) and objective (number of chronic conditions and number of prescription medications) measures. Demographical variables (age, gender, income, education, household size, ethnicity) were controlled for. RESULTS: Negative emotion differentiation did not uniquely predict later health (ß = .02) upon controlling for baseline health and demographical covariates. However, neuroticism significantly moderated this relationship, such that negative emotion differentiation significantly predicted better health (ß = .12) an average of 7 years later after accounting for baseline health, but only for those low on neuroticism. CONCLUSION: For individuals low on neuroticism, negative emotion differentiation is a beneficial regulatory capacity that has substantial positive associations with later health outcomes. However, these health benefits did not generalize to individuals higher on neuroticism, suggesting that there are limits to the regulatory benefits afforded by negative emotion differentiation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Teleological explanation and positive emotion serially mediate the effect of religion on well-being.

OBJECTIVE: Previous research has demonstrated a robust relationship between religion and well-being, and it has been proposed that positive emotions are important mediators of this effect. Yet the mechanism via which religion promotes positive emotions has not been widely studied. We sought to examine whether teleological explanations of daily events and resulting positive emotions serially mediated the effects of religion on well-being. METHOD: These hypotheses were tested over three studies involving full-time and part-time university students in Singapore. In Study 1, participants completed measures of religiousness and well-being, and explained and described three recent personally significant events and their resulting emotions. Studies 2 and 3 adopted an ecological momentary assessment approach to measure teleological explanations, resulting emotions, and well-being in almost real time. RESULTS: In Study 1, teleological explanations and positive emotions serially mediated the effects of religiousness on well-being. In Study 2, momentary teleological explanations of daily events mediated the positive relationship between religiousness and momentary positive emotions. In Study 3, serial mediation of the relationship between religiousness and momentary well-being by momentary teleological explanations and positive emotions was observed. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide evidence of the importance of teleological explanations of daily events in religious enhancement of well-being.