In brief

Workdays Are Not for Play

Fathers who spend time in their workdays doing child-care-related tasks, such as feeding and bathing their children—rather than simply playing with them—develop stronger attachments with their kids, suggests a study in the Journal of Family Psychology. Researchers observed 80 U.S. fathers and their 3-year-old children for 90 minutes in their homes to assess attachment security. They also interviewed the fathers about when and how they interacted with their children. They found that children of fathers who devoted time on non-workdays to fun, child-centered activities such as playing games or visits to the park had the highest attachment security. On workdays, however, father involvement in caregiving was related to greater attachment security, while father involvement in play was related to less attachment security. The researchers hypothesize that children view fathers who engage in child care during workdays as trustworthy sources of emotional support, and that the fathers’ partners appreciate the co-parenting support. But on non-workdays, when there is more time, play promotes attachment security. DOI: 10.1037/fam0000472opens in new window

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Emotion motivation

How people want to feel determines whether others can influence their emotions, suggests a study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Across three lab experiments, researchers examined the negative emotions of 107 participants (U.S. university students) in response to politically charged events and images. They found that when participants indicated that they wanted to stay calm, they were three times more likely to be influenced by others with weaker rather than stronger reactions. Alternatively, when participants were motivated to feel angry, they were more influenced by people with stronger reactions. When participants had no specific motivation, their emotions remained stable. The researchers also analyzed 19 million tweets in response to the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, an event that aroused motivations for strong responses. They found that Twitter users’ messages were more influenced by people in their network who expressed stronger emotions than those expressing weaker emotions. DOI: 10.1037/xge0000625opens in new window

Weight shaming

Sexual- and gender-minority youth who are teased or bullied about their weight face increased risk of substance use and poorer emotional well-being, according to a study in Health Psychology. Researchers surveyed 9,838 LGBTQ adolescents in the United States and found that those who were teased or bullied about their weight by family members or peers had increased risk of alcohol use, binge drinking, marijuana use and cigarette use, as well as poorer self-rated health, more depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem. These findings held whether or not the adolescents were also bullied because of their sexual or gender identity and persisted after controlling for the adolescents’ demographic characteristics, body weight, sexual identity and gender identity. DOI: 10.1037/hea0000758opens in new window

Schizophrenia in the brain

A study in Molecular Psychiatry points to changes in the brain related to the onset of schizophrenia. Genetic evidence has suggested that schizophrenia may be related to abnormalities of chromosome 22, known as 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. However, only about 30% of people with the syndrome ever develop psychotic symptoms. To determine who goes on to develop symptoms, researchers followed 140 people in Switzerland, ages 6 to 35, with deletion syndrome—including 53 with moderate to severe psychotic symptoms—and 135 age- and sex-matched control participants for 18 years. The researchers used MRI to assess brain development in all participants every three years. They found that the hippocampus in the deletion syndrome participants was generally smaller than in the control participants, but it followed the same developmental trajectory. But around ages 17 to 18—which is when psychotic symptoms usually first appear—the hippocampus underwent a further decrease in volume in deletion syndrome patients who developed psychotic symptoms. The researchers hypothesize that this volume decrease is spurred by factors such as stress or neuronal inflammation and that preventing it could reduce the chance that psychotic symptoms will emerge. DOI: 10.1038/s41380-019-0443-zopens in new window

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Distrust of authority

In recent years, U.S. high school seniors’ trust in law enforcement has significantly declined, and their confidence in the justice system has remained consistently low, according to a study in Developmental Psychology. Researchers analyzed surveys taken between 2006 and 2017 by more than 10,000 high school seniors regarding their attitudes about four authority institutions. They found that across those 11 years, the students tended to have the most confidence in religious institutions, followed by public schools, then law enforcement, and then the justice system. From 2015 to 2017, however, the level of students’ confidence in law enforcement declined to that for the justice system. Black students reported the lowest confidence in law enforcement and the justice system, followed by Latinx students, then white students. However, across the 11 years, black students also reported significantly higher levels of trust in school and religious organizations than white students did. DOI: 10.1037/dev0000760opens in new window

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Gut emotions

Infants with a diverse gut microbiome show less fear and negative emotion, suggests a study in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Previous studies had found an association between microbiome composition and temperament in toddlers. To examine that association in younger children, researchers took stool samples from 301 infants in Finland at 2.5 months old and had their mothers fill out questionnaires about their children’s temperament at 6 months old. The researchers found that greater diversity in gut bacteria was correlated with less negative emotionality and fear reactivity. They also found that higher levels of some specific bacteria genera were associated with positive emotionality. DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2019年05月03日5opens in new window

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Typecast relationships

When it comes to romantic partners, most people do have a "type," personality-wise, suggests a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers analyzed data from a nine-year longitudinal study of 322 German men and women that included interviews with primary survey participants and their romantic partners. (If a primary participant changed partners, the new partner was also interviewed.) The researchers found consistency in the personalities of participants’ romantic partners. For example, participants who dated conscientious or neurotic people in the past likely went on to date similar types of people. The researchers found that this consistency in partner personality was weaker, though still present, for participants who scored high on extroversion and openness to new experiences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1902937116opens in new window

Connectivity and conduct

Teenage girls with conduct disorder show reduced brain activity and lower connectivity between brain regions involved in emotion regulation, suggests a study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. Researchers asked 59 participants, ages 15 to 18, to actively regulate their emotions, using cognitive reappraisal, while their brain activity was measured with fMRI. Thirty of the participants had previously been diagnosed with a conduct disorder, while the other 29 showed typical social development for their age. While engaged in emotion regulation, the participants with conduct disorder showed less activity in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and angular gyrus, as well as lower connectivity of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with several other brain regions. DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.201905003opens in new window

Shifting morals

When it comes to making moral decisions, both avoiding guilt and seeking a fair outcome can be motivating factors. People may switch which factor dominates their decision-making depending on the circumstances, and this switch is accompanied by activation of different neural networks, finds a study in Nature Communications. Researchers used fMRI to scan the brains of 57 young adult participants in the Netherlands while they played a reciprocal trust game meant to gauge moral decision­making. The researchers found different patterns of neural activity for the strategies of "guilt aversion" and "inequity aversion," even under conditions where the two strategies produced the same choices. They also identified a new strategy, "moral opportunism," in which participants switched between guilt aversion and inequity aversion in order to maximize the benefit to themselves, with corresponding shifts observed in their neural activity patterns. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09161-6opens in new window

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Naps help older kids too

Elementary-school-age children who nap at midday are happier, perform better academically and have fewer behavioral problems, suggests a study in Sleep. Researchers collected data about napping frequency from 2,928 elementary school children in grades 4 to 6 in China, where midday napping is often a part of children’s daily lives. The researchers also collected behavioral and academic achievement evaluations from the children’s teachers; self-reported measures from the children about their grit, self-control and happiness; body mass index and fasting glucose levels; and, from a subset of the children, intelligence test results. They found that napping was significantly associated with higher levels of happiness, grit and self-control, as well as reduced internalizing behavior problems, higher verbal IQ and better academic achievement. No associations were found between naps and performance IQ or metabolic measures. DOI: 10.1093/sleep/zsz126opens in new window

A zero-sum game

People who feel financially disadvantaged are more likely to believe in a zero-sum world, suggests a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Researchers analyzed responses to a survey about financial security taken by 191,648 participants in 90 countries, in six waves between 1981 and 2014. The survey also measured participants’ belief that success is a zero-sum proposition: Success for one person must come at the expense of another. They found that the most financially vulnerable participants held the strongest views that success is zero-sum. To test how this relationship might apply to negotiations, the researchers conducted four experiments with more than 1,000 undergraduates in the United States, and they found that students with greater financial vulnerability, or those who were reminded of a time they were financially vulnerable, were less likely to use cooperative strategies in a negotiation scenario. DOI: 10.1037/apl0000427opens in new window

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Naming emotions averts depression

Teenagers who can describe their negative emotions in more precise ways can stave off depression, suggests a study in Emotion. Researchers asked 193 teenagers in the United States, who had an average age of about 16, to report their emotions four times daily for seven days. One and a half years later, the researchers conducted follow-up interviews to gauge depressive symptoms and exposure to stressful life events. They found that the adolescents who expressed greater differentiation among negative emotions—for example, saying "I feel annoyed" or "I feel frustrated" rather than simply "I feel bad"—were also better at managing their moods and had a lower likelihood of experiencing depression after stressful events. Conversely, those who differentiated less among their negative emotions were more susceptible to depressive symptoms following stressful life events. DOI: 10.1037/emo0000630opens in new window

Information addiction

Information acts on the brain’s dopamine-producing reward system in the same way as money, food or drugs, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers scanned the brains of 37 participants in the United States while they were presented with a series of lotteries in which they needed to decide how much they were willing to pay to find out more about the odds of winning before placing a bet. The researchers found that participants paid to acquire information whether it was valuable—for example, when a high-stakes, long-shot bet was revealed to be sure thing—and even when it wasn’t worth much, such as when little was at stake. Analyzing participants’ fMRI scans, the researchers found that information about the games’ odds activated the striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dopamine-producing brain regions also activated by the prospect of money, food or drugs. They also found that participants used the same neural signals to encode both the monetary value of objects and the value of information. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1820145116opens in new window

Preemie playlist

Exposure to music may enhance the connectivity of brain networks involved in sensory and higher-order cognitive functions in premature newborns, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers used fMRI to scan the brains of 29 premature newborns in Switzerland. About half the infants heard soothing music through headphones for eight minutes five times per week for an average of seven weeks, while a control group heard environmental sounds piped in from the hospital. At the end of the study, the brain networks of the infants exposed to the music showed greater connectivity compared with the control group and were more similar to the networks of full-term infants. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1817536116opens in new window

Teen suicide on the rise

Youth suicide rates in the United States have been increasing since 2007, especially in younger girls, finds a study in JAMA Network Open. Researchers examined 85,051 U.S. suicide deaths in youth ages 10 to 19 from 1975 to 2016. During this time, boys accounted for approximately 80% of the deaths. However, starting in 2007, female suicide rates in 15- to 19-year-olds increased by almost 8% per year, while suicide rates in their male counterparts increased by 3.5% per year. Additionally, suicide rates for girls ages 10 to 14 increased annually by about 13%, compared with about 7% for boys of the same ages. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.3886opens in new window

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Part-time benefits

Having a job can boost mental well-being, but for many people it takes no more than one day of work per week to reap those rewards, according to a study in Social Science & Medicine. Researchers surveyed 71,113 adults ages 16 to 64 in the United Kingdom between 2009 and 2018 and found that when people moved from unemployment or stay-at-home caregiving into paid work, their risk of mental health problems decreased by about 30%. But, on average, it took only eight hours of work or less per week to see that benefit. For most groups of workers there was little difference in well-being between those working between one and eight hours per week and those working between 44 and 48 hours per week. The results held across age, marital status, number of children, long-standing illness and household income. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.201906006opens in new window

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Fatty foods drive depression

A high-fat diet may increase the risk of depression, suggests a mouse study in Translational Psychiatry. Researchers exposed mice to a high-fat diet for three to eight weeks. They found an increase in depression-­like behaviors in these mice, compared with mice on a normal diet, at both the three- and eight-week points. The researchers further found that more fatty acids had accumulated in the hypothalamus of mice exposed to the fatty food, and that this accumulation, in turn, suppressed the protein kinase A (PKA) signaling pathway in the hypothalamus, which has been linked to the development of depressive behaviors. The researchers hypothesize that identifying molecules that restore normal functioning in the hypothalamus could lead to new types of antidepressant medications specifically for overweight individuals. DOI: 10.1038/s41398-019-0470-1opens in new window

Words tell the story

A machine learning algorithm analyzing language patterns can identify factors that predict which people at risk for psychosis will progress to full psychosis within two years, according to a study in npj Schizophrenia. Researchers used machine learning to analyze speech transcripts from 30 young adult participants in the United States who were at risk of developing psychosis, and they found that the language of those who progressed to psychosis had lower semantic density (less meaning conveyed in their sentences) and used more words related to sounds and voices compared with samples from a large database of normal language. A system incorporating these factors predicted with 93% accuracy which of 10 other participants at risk of schizophrenia would eventually develop psychosis. DOI: 10.1038/s41537-019-0077-9opens in new window

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Inattentive kids earn less as adults

Inattention and aggression in kindergarten may be associated with lower earnings in adulthood, according to a study in JAMA Psychiatry. In a longitudinal study conducted in Quebec, Canada, researchers compared kindergarten teachers’ behavioral ratings of 2,850 children ages 5 and 6 with government tax returns of those same individuals 28 to 30 years later. After accounting for IQ and family adversity, the researchers found that inattention in kindergarten was associated with lower earnings for both boys and girls later in life, while ratings of aggression and oppositional behaviors, such as disobeying, refusing to share, and blaming others, were associated with lower earnings for boys only. DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.1326opens in new window