Individuals differ in the degree to which they tend to habitually accept their emotions and thoughts without judging them-a process here referred to as habitual acceptance. Acceptance has been linked with greater psychological health, which we propose may be due to the role acceptance plays in negative emotional responses to stressors: acceptance helps keep individuals from reacting to-and thus exacerbating-their negative mental experiences. Over time, experiencing lower negative emotion should promote psychological health. To test these hypotheses, Study 1 (N = 1,003) verified that habitually accepting mental experiences broadly predicted psychological health (psychological well-being, life satisfaction, and depressive and anxiety symptoms), even when controlling for potentially related constructs (reappraisal, rumination, and other mindfulness facets including observing, describing, acting with awareness, and nonreactivity). Next, in a laboratory study (Study 2, N = 156), habitual acceptance predicted lower negative (but not positive) emotional responses to a standardized stressor. Finally, in a longitudinal design (Study 3, N = 222), acceptance predicted lower negative (but not positive) emotion experienced during daily stressors that, in turn, accounted for the link between acceptance and psychological health 6 months later. This link between acceptance and psychological health was unique to accepting mental experiences and was not observed for accepting situations. Additionally, we ruled out potential confounding effects of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and life stress severity. Overall, these results suggest that individuals who accept rather than judge their mental experiences may attain better psychological health, in part because acceptance helps them experience less negative emotion in response to stressors. (PsycINFO Database Record

Political action (volunteering, protesting) is central to functioning democracies, and action is often motivated by negative emotion. However, theories of emotion regulation suggest that people often strive to decrease such negative emotions. Thus, effective emotion regulation (e.g., reappraisal)-while helping people feel better-could have the unintended consequence of hindering political action. We tested this hypothesis in Clinton voters after the 2016 U.S. election (N = 1552). Studies 1a (conducted November 2016) and 1b (conducted November 2016, with a follow-up in January 2017) assessed individuals' recent use of reappraisal in managing emotions evoked by the election. Studies 2a and 2b (conducted March 2017) exposed individuals to Trump-focused news footage and assessed individuals' reappraisal during the clip and subsequent emotional responses. Studies 3a and 3b (conducted June 2017) experimentally manipulated reappraisal and measured subsequent emotional responses to Trump-focused news footage. Each study assessed recent or intended political action. In Studies 1a and 1b, we found that reappraisal predicted lower political action; in Studies 2a and 2b we observed an indirect effect such that reappraisal predicted lower negative emotion which in turn accounted for lower intentions to engage in political action; and Studies 3a and 3b provided experimental evidence for this indirect effect. These results suggest that effective emotion regulation like reappraisal may be beneficial in the short-run by helping restore emotional well-being after upsetting political events but may also be costly in the long-run by reducing the potential for productive political action. (PsycINFO Database Record

Background Characterizing the link between childhood trauma and adult neurocognitive function in psychosis is crucial for improving the fields understanding of how early environmental risk factors impact the presentation of the disorder. To date, the literature has been inconsistent: meta-analytic synthesis is lacking, and it is unclear whether specific cognitive functions are affected. Methods A meta-analysis was performed on a total of 3315 subjects with a psychotic disorder. The links between childhood trauma, overall neurocognitive function, and four cognitive subdomains (working memory, executive function, verbal/visual memory, and attention/processing speed) were examined. Relevant sample characteristics and methodological moderators were tested. The strength of the association between trauma and overall neurocognition in individuals with psychotic disorders was also compared to that of healthy controls. Results Among individuals with psychotic disorders, there was a significant association between overall cognition and childhood trauma, r = −.055; 95% CI = −0.09, −0.02, P = .002. There was also a modest, negative relationship between childhood trauma and working memory, r = −.091; 95% CI = −0.15, −0.03, P = .002. Moderators did not have a significant effect on these analyses. Further, the association between childhood trauma and neurocognition was significantly stronger in healthy controls compared to patients with a psychotic disorder. Conclusion A small negative association was found between overall cognition and childhood trauma in individuals with psychotic disorders. Results suggest the association is less strong for individuals with a psychotic disorder compared to healthy populations. Findings are informative for prominent etiological models of psychosis.

The links between low socioeconomic status and poor health are well established, yet despite adversity, some individuals with low socioeconomic status appear to avoid these negative consequences through adaptive coping. Previous research found a set of strategies, called shift-and-persist (shifting the self to stressors while persisting by finding meaning), to be particularly adaptive for individuals with low socioeconomic status, who typically face more uncontrollable stressors. This study tested (a) whether perceived social status, similar to objective socioeconomic status, would moderate the link between shift-and-persist and health, and (b) whether a specific uncontrollable stressor, unfair treatment, would similarly moderate the health correlates of shift-and-persist. A sample of 308 youth (Meanage = 13.0, range 8-17), physician diagnosed with asthma, completed measures of shift-and-persist, unfair treatment, asthma control, and quality of life in the lab, and 2 weeks of daily diaries about their asthma symptoms. Parents reported on perceived family social status. Results indicated that shift-and-persist was associated with better asthma profiles, only among youth from families with lower (vs. higher) parent-reported perceived social status. Shift-and-persist was also associated with better asthma profiles, only among youth who experienced more (vs. less) unfair treatment. These findings suggest that the adaptive values of coping strategies for youth with asthma depend on the family's perceived social status and on the stressor experienced.

Psychological stress during childhood and adolescence increases risk of health problems across the lifecourse, and inflammation is implicated as an underlying mechanism. To evaluate the viability of this hypothesis, we used meta-analysis to quantify the association between childhood/adolescent stress and inflammation over the lifecourse. Furthermore, we addressed three unresolved conceptual questions: (a) Does the strength of this association change over the lifecourse? (b) Are different types of childhood/adolescent stressors differentially associated with inflammation? (c) And which components of the inflammatory response are involved? A systematic search identified 187 articles reporting 922 associations. Meta-analyses were conducted using a three-level multilevel approach and controlled for study quality, conversion confidence, and whether effect sizes were unadjusted or adjusted (n = 662, 72%). Results indicated a small but reliable overall adjusted association (rfalse^ = .04). The magnitude of the association strengthened across the lifecourse—effect sizes were smallest in studies that measured inflammation in childhood (rfalse^ = .02) and became progressively larger in studies of adolescence (rfalse^ = .04) and adulthood (rfalse^ = .05), suggesting the impact of early stress strengthens with time. By contrast, effect sizes did not vary by adversity type (socioeconomic disadvantage, maltreatment, other interpersonal stressors, and cumulative exposure across stressors), or component of inflammation (circulating biomarkers of low-grade inflammation vs. cytokine responses to microbial stimuli). Implications and future directions are discussed.

Objective: African Americans and Latinos make up the two largest minority groups in the United States, and compared with Whites, these ethnic minority groups face disproportionate risk for certain physical health problems. However, factors that may protect these groups against early risk for poor health are not entirely understood. Familism, which emphasizes family interdependence and commitment, and is more prevalent among Latino and African American families, may be one such factor. The current study examined whether values and behaviors related to familism were differentially associated with inflammatory processes among White, African American, and Latino youth. Method: Participants were 257 youth who completed measures of familism values and behaviors and whose parents reported on their ethnicity. Participants also provided blood samples for the assessment of proinflammatory cytokine responses to bacterial challenge and of sensitivity to anti-inflammatory features of cortisol and interleukin (IL)-10. Results: Significant familism values and behaviors by ethnicity interactions were observed. For Latino and African American youth but not for White youth, more familism values were associated with greater sensitivity to IL-10. Additionally, for African American youth, more familism behaviors were associated with decreased cytokine responses to bacterial challenge and greater sensitivity to cortisol and IL-10. By contrast, familism behaviors were associated with lower sensitivity to cortisol in White youth and were not associated with any inflammatory outcomes in Latino youth. Conclusion: This pattern of findings suggests that for African American youth and to some extent for Latino youth, familism values and behaviors may be protective against the elevated risk for poor health they face.

No abstract

While numerous studies exist on the benefits of social support (both receiving and giving), little research exists on how the balance between the support that individuals regularly give versus that which they receive from others relates to physical health. In a US national sample of 6,325 adults from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, participants were assessed at baseline on hours of social support given and received on a monthly basis, with all-cause mortality data collected from the National Death Index over a 23-y follow-up period. Participants who were relatively balanced in the support they gave compared to what they received had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who either disproportionately received support from others (e.g., received more hours of support than they gave each month) or disproportionately gave support to others (e.g., gave many more hours of support a month than they received). These findings applied to instrumental social support (e.g., help with transportation, childcare). Additionally, participants who gave a moderate amount of instrumental social support had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who either gave very little support or those who gave a lot of support to others. Associations were evident over and above demographic, medical, mental health, and health behavior covariates. Although results are correlational, one interpretation is that promoting a balance, in terms of the support that individuals regularly give relative to what they receive in their social relationships, may not only help to strengthen the social fabric of society but may also have potential physical health benefits.