Affect variability is related to immune response to an influenza vaccination and, in some cases, interacts with mean levels of affect. These oscillations in affective experiences are critical to consider in order to unpack the intricacies of how affect influences health. These findings suggest that future researchers should consider the important role of affect variability on physical health-relevant outcomes as well as examine the moderating effect of mean affect levels.
Objective: Simpatía, a term that captures the tendency to prefer and create social interactions characterized by warmth and emotional positivity while also avoiding conflict and/or overt negativity, is a cultural factor relevant to Latinos. The goal of this article was to develop a scale that measures this cultural value. Method: A self-report scale measure of simpatía was developed and administered to a combined sample of Latinos (N ϭ 296) drawn from 3 larger studies. The scale's factor structure was explored, and its internal consistency and validity were tested. Results: Exploratory factor analysis supported an 18-item scale and indicated 2 factors: simpatía-related positivity/warmth and simpatíarelated negativity/conflict avoidance. Cronbach's alphas for the overall scale and subscales showed internal consistency. Validity analyses revealed that across subscales, simpatía was positively associated with positive emotion expressivity and dispositional positive emotion. The simpatía-related positivity/ warmth subscale was also positively associated with an orientation toward Latino culture. Conclusions: The Simpatía Scale, which captures dual aspects of simpatía that emphasize the positive and avoid the negative, provides a new tool for advancing the study of Latino culture.
Public Significance StatementEthnicity is still too often used as a proxy for culture and, as such, measures are needed to help researchers avoid this limitation. To address this need, we developed and validated the "Simpatía Scale" to measure simpatía, a Latino cultural value that emphasizes warmth/positive emotion expression and avoiding conflict and negativity.
Objectives
Cancer‐related pain in children is prevalent and undermanaged. Mobile health (mHealth) applications provide a promising avenue to address the gap in pain management in children with cancer. Pain Buddy is a multicomponent mHealth application developed to manage cancer‐related pain in children. The goal of this paper is to present preliminary efficacy data of the impact of Pain Buddy on children's pain severity and frequency.
Methods
In a randomized controlled trial over 60 days, children (N = 48) reported daily pain on a tablet while receiving usual care. Those in the intervention group (N = 20) received remote symptom monitoring and skills training for pain management. Children in the attention control group (N = 28) only reported on their pain.
Results
Both groups experienced significant reductions in average daily pain over the study period (B = −0.10, z = −3.40, P = 0.001), with no group differences evident (z = −0.83, P = 0.40). However, the intervention group reported significantly fewer instances of moderate to severe pain compared with the control group, t(4125) = 2.67, P = 0.007. In addition, the intervention group reported no instances of moderate to severe pain toward the end of the study period.
Conclusion
Pain Buddy is an innovative and interactive mHealth application that aims to improve pain and symptom management among children with cancer. The findings from this pilot study suggest that Pain Buddy may aid in the reduction of pain severity in children during cancer treatment.
How people remember feeling in the past informs future decisions; however, memory for past emotion is subject to a number of biases. Previous research on choice blindness has shown that people often fail to notice when they are exposed to misinformation about their own decisions, preferences, and memories. This type of misinformation can influence how they later remember past events. In the present study, we examined the memory blindness effect in a new domain: memory for pain. Participants (N = 269) underwent a cold-pressor task and rated how much pain, distress, and positive and negative affect they had experienced. Later, participants were shown their pain ratings and asked to explain them. Some of the participants were shown lower pain ratings than they had actually made. In a second session, participants recalled how painful the task had been and how much distress and positive and negative affect they remembered experiencing. The results indicated that the majority of participants who were exposed to misinformation failed to detect the manipulation, and subsequently remembered the task as being less painful. The participants in the misinformation condition were not overall more willing to repeat the study tasks, but the participants who recalled less distress, less negative affect, and more positive affect were more willing to repeat the study tasks again in a future experiment. These results demonstrate the malleability of memory for painful experiences and that willingness to repeat aversive experiences may depend more on memory for affective reactions to the original experience than on memory for the physical pain itself.
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