The mechanisms underlying the association between positive emotions and physical health remain a mystery. We hypothesize that an upward-spiral dynamic continually reinforces the tie between positive ...emotions and physical health and that this spiral is mediated by people's perceptions of their positive social connections. We tested this overarching hypothesis in a longitudinal field experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to an intervention group that self-generated positive emotions via loving-kindness meditation or to a waiting-list control group. Participants in the intervention group increased in positive emotions relative to those in the control group, an effect moderated by baseline vagal tone, a proxy index of physical health. Increased positive emotions, in turn, produced increases in vagal tone, an effect mediated by increased perceptions of social connections. This experimental evidence identifies one mechanism—perceptions of social connections—through which positive emotions build physical health, indexed as vagal tone. Results suggest that positive emotions, positive social connections, and physical health influence one another in a self-sustaining upward-spiral dynamic.
Open Hearts Build Lives Fredrickson, Barbara L; Cohn, Michael A; Coffey, Kimberly A ...
Journal of personality and social psychology,
11/2008, Letnik:
95, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
B. L. Fredrickson's (1998
,
2001
) broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions asserts that people's daily experiences of positive emotions compound over time to build a variety of consequential ...personal resources. The authors tested this
build hypothesis
in a field experiment with working adults (
n
= 139), half of whom were randomly-assigned to begin a practice of loving-kindness meditation. Results showed that this meditation practice produced increases over time in daily experiences of positive emotions, which, in turn, produced increases in a wide range of personal resources (e.g., increased mindfulness, purpose in life, social support, decreased illness symptoms). In turn, these increments in personal resources predicted increased life satisfaction and reduced depressive symptoms. Discussion centers on how positive emotions are the mechanism of change for the type of mind-training practice studied here and how loving-kindness meditation is an intervention strategy that produces positive emotions in a way that outpaces the
hedonic treadmill
effect.
Objective: We conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine whether IRISS (Intervention for those Recently Informed of their Seropositive Status), a positive affect skills intervention, ...improved positive emotion, psychological health, physical health, and health behaviors in people newly diagnosed with HIV. Method: One-hundred and fifty-nine participants who had received an HIV diagnosis in the past 3 months were randomized to a 5-session, in-person, individually delivered positive affect skills intervention or an attention-matched control condition. Results: For the primary outcome of past-day positive affect, the group difference in change from baseline over time did not reach statistical significance (p = .12, d = .30). Planned secondary analyses within assessment point showed that the intervention led to higher levels of past-day positive affect at 5, 10, and 15 months postdiagnosis compared with an attention control. For antidepressant use, the between group difference in change from baseline was statistically significant (p = .006, d = −.78 baseline to 15 months) and the difference in change over time for intrusive and avoidant thoughts related to HIV was also statistically significant (p = .048, d = .29). Contrary to findings for most health behavior interventions in which effects wane over the follow up period, effect sizes in IRISS seemed to increase over time for most outcomes. Conclusions: This comparatively brief positive affect skills intervention achieved modest improvements in psychological health, and may have the potential to support adjustment to a new HIV diagnosis.
What is the public health significance of this article?
The Intervention for those Recently Informed of their Seropositive Status (IRISS) is the first randomized controlled trial of a positive affect skills intervention in people newly diagnosed with HIV. The results show that the intervention is acceptable, feasible, and may hold promise as an efficacious intervention for people in the initial stages of adjustment to a serious chronic illness.
Childbirth fear is linked with lower labor pain tolerance and worse postpartum adjustment. Empirically validated childbirth preparation options are lacking for pregnant women facing this problem. ...Mindfulness approaches, now widely disseminated, can alleviate symptoms of both chronic and acute pain and improve psychological adjustment, suggesting potential benefit when applied to childbirth education.
This study, the Prenatal Education About Reducing Labor Stress (PEARLS) study, is a randomized controlled trial (RCT; n = 30) of a short, time-intensive, 2.5-day mindfulness-based childbirth preparation course offered as a weekend workshop, the Mind in Labor (MIL): Working with Pain in Childbirth, based on Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting (MBCP) education. First-time mothers in the late 3rd trimester of pregnancy were randomized to attend either the MIL course or a standard childbirth preparation course with no mind-body focus. Participants completed self-report assessments pre-intervention, post-intervention, and post-birth, and medical record data were collected.
In a demographically diverse sample, this small RCT demonstrated mindfulness-based childbirth education improved women's childbirth-related appraisals and psychological functioning in comparison to standard childbirth education. MIL program participants showed greater childbirth self-efficacy and mindful body awareness (but no changes in dispositional mindfulness), lower post-course depression symptoms that were maintained through postpartum follow-up, and a trend toward a lower rate of opioid analgesia use in labor. They did not, however, retrospectively report lower perceived labor pain or use epidural less frequently than controls.
This study suggests mindfulness training carefully tailored to address fear and pain of childbirth may lead to important maternal mental health benefits, including improvements in childbirth-related appraisals and the prevention of postpartum depression symptoms. There is also some indication that MIL participants may use mindfulness coping in lieu of systemic opioid pain medication. A large-scale RCT that captures real-time pain perceptions during labor and length of labor is warranted to provide a more definitive test of these effects.
The ClinicalTrials.gov identifier for the PEARLS study is: NCT02327559 . The study was retrospectively registered on June 23, 2014.
A number of positive psychology interventions have successfully helped people learn skills for improving mood and building personal resources (e.g., psychological resilience and social support). ...However, little is known about whether intervention activities remain effective in the long term, or whether new resources are maintained after the intervention ends. We address these issues in a 15-month follow-up survey of participants from a loving-kindness meditation intervention. Many participants continued to practice meditation, and they reported more positive emotions (PEs) than those who had stopped meditating or had never meditated. All participants maintained gains in resources made during the initial intervention, whether or not they continued meditating. Continuing meditators did not differ on resources at baseline, but they did show more PE and a more rapid PE response to the intervention. Overall, our results suggest that positive psychology interventions are not just efficacious but of significant value in participants' real lives.
The diaries of 1,084 U.S. users of an on-line journaling service were downloaded for a period of 4 months spanning the 2 months prior to and after the September 11 attacks. Linguistic analyses of the ...journal entries revealed pronounced psychological changes in response to the attacks. In the short term, participants expressed more negative emotions, were more cognitively and socially engaged, and wrote with greater psychological distance. After 2 weeks, their moods and social referencing returned to baseline, and their use of cognitive-analytic words dropped below baseline. Over the next 6 weeks, social referencing decreased, and psychological distancing remained elevated relative to baseline. Although the effects were generally stronger for individuals highly preoccupied with September 11, even participants who hardly wrote about the events showed comparable language changes. This study bypasses many of the methodological obstacles of trauma research and provides a finegrained analysis of the time line of human coping with upheaval.
Happiness Unpacked Cohn, Michael A; Fredrickson, Barbara L; Brown, Stephanie L ...
Emotion,
06/2009, Letnik:
9, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Happiness-a composite of life satisfaction, coping resources, and positive emotions-predicts desirable life outcomes in many domains. The broaden-and-build theory suggests that this is because ...positive emotions help people build lasting resources. To test this hypothesis, the authors measured emotions daily for 1 month in a sample of students (
N
= 86) and assessed life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month. Positive emotions predicted increases in both resilience and life satisfaction. Negative emotions had weak or null effects and did not interfere with the benefits of positive emotions. Positive emotions also mediated the relation between baseline and final resilience, but life satisfaction did not. This suggests that it is in-the-moment positive emotions, and not more general positive evaluations of one's life, that form the link between happiness and desirable life outcomes. Change in resilience mediated the relation between positive emotions and increased life satisfaction, suggesting that happy people become more satisfied not simply because they feel better but because they develop resources for living well.
Background
Adherence to self-guided interventions tends to be very low, especially in people with depression. Prior studies have demonstrated that enhancements may increase adherence, but little is ...known about the efficacy of various enhancements in comparison to, or in combination with, one another.
Objective
The aim of our study is to test whether 3 enhancements—facilitator contact (FC), an online discussion board, and virtual badges (VB)—alone, or in combination, improve adherence to a self-guided, web-based intervention for depression. We also examined whether age, gender, race, ethnicity, comfort with technology, or baseline depression predicted adherence or moderated the effects that each enhancement had on adherence.
Methods
Participants were recruited through web-based sources and, after completing at least 4 out of 7 daily emotion reports, were sequentially assigned to 1 of 9 conditions—the intervention alone; the intervention plus 1, 2, or all 3 enhancements; or an emotion reporting control condition. The intervention was a positive psychological program consisting of 8 skills that specifically targeted positive emotions, and it was delivered over 5 weeks in a self-guided, web-based format. We operationalized adherence as the number of skills accessed.
Results
A total of 602 participants were enrolled in this study. Participants accessed, on average, 5.61 (SD 2.76) of 8 skills. The total number of enhancements participants received (0-3) did not predict the number of skills accessed. Participants who were assigned to the VB+FC condition accessed significantly more skills than those in the intervention only conditions. Furthermore, participants in arms that received the combination of both the VB and FC enhancements (VB+FC and VB+FC+online discussion board) accessed a greater number of skills relative to the number of skills accessed by participants who received either VB or FC without the other. Moderation analyses revealed that the receipt of VB (vs no VB) predicted higher adherence among participants with moderately severe depression at baseline.
Conclusions
The results suggested that the VB+FC combination significantly increased the number of skills accessed in a self-guided, web-based intervention for elevated depression. We have provided suggestions for refinements to these enhancements, which may further improve adherence.
Trial Registration
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02861755; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02861755
Background
We conducted a randomized pilot trial to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a 5 week positive affect skills intervention (LILAC: lessons in linking affect ...and coping) for women with metastatic breast cancer. Additionally, we examined whether online delivery of the intervention would offer comparable benefits as in‐person delivery.
Methods
Women with metastatic breast cancer (N = 39) were randomized to an in‐person intervention, online intervention, or in‐person attention‐matched control. Psychological well‐being (depression Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, positive and negative affect Differential Emotions Scale, cancer‐specific quality of life Multidimensional Quality of Life Scale—Cancer Version), and positive coping (mindfulness, positive‐affect skill use, and self‐compassion Self‐Compassion Scale: Short‐Form) were assessed at baseline, 1 week post‐intervention, and 1 month post‐intervention follow‐up.
Results
The LILAC intervention showed good feasibility, acceptability, and retention. Although the study was not adequately powered to detect between‐group differences in change on preliminary efficacy outcomes, within‐group comparisons revealed that LILAC participants (in‐person and online combined) showed reductions in depression and negative affect by the 1 month follow‐up (d = −0.81). Notably, LILAC participants fell below the clinical threshold for depression (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale = 16) by the 1 month follow‐up (t17 = −2.22, P = .04, d = −0.52), whereas control participants did not differ from threshold (t9 = 0.45, P = .66, d = 0.14).
Conclusions
The LILAC intervention, regardless of delivery method, shows feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy for promoting psychological well‐being in women with metastatic breast cancer. This research provides support for a larger randomized trial to test more definitively the potential benefits of LILAC. A strength of the LILAC intervention includes its innovative focus on positive affect. The efficacy of the online delivery suggests the potential for widespread Internet dissemination.
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