Nearly half of U.S. children have experienced trauma, according to a study by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Researchers examined data from more than 95,000 children from birth to age 17 and found that 48 percent had encountered at least one of nine types of adverse experiences, including physical or emotional abuse or neglect, deprivation, substance abuse problems or exposure to violence. One in five had two or more such experiences. These children were more than twice as likely to have chronic health conditions and were more than two-and-a-half times more likely to have repeated a grade in school. The researchers also found that children who learned resiliency skills — such as the capacity to stay calm and in control when faced with a challenge — had mitigated negative effects, including being much more likely to be engaged in school (Health Affairs, December).
"Walking workstations" may improve well-being, according to research conducted by Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis scientists. The researchers evaluated 180 adults for boredom, task satisfaction, stress, arousal and performance while completing work-related computer tasks across four randomly assigned workstations: seated, standing, cycling or walking. Researchers found that participants at walking workstations reported greater satisfaction and arousal and less boredom and stress than standing and sitting workstation participants. Participants at cycling stations, however, experienced less satisfaction and performance compared with the rest of the participants (Journal of Occupational Health Psychologyopens in new window, January).
Older Latinos who live in the United States and perceive their neighborhoods as safer and more walkable appear less likely to develop severe depressive symptoms, finds a study led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The scientists examined links between the onset of depressive symptoms in 570 older Latino adults and the characteristics of the Greater Los Angeles neighborhoods they lived in, including crime, the availability and quality of sidewalks, traffic safety and aesthetics. At the study's start, 351 participants had low levels of depression, and when they were rescreened 12 and 24 months later, 19 of them showed elevated symptoms. However, people who saw their neighborhoods as low in criminal activity and more walkable were less likely to develop severe depression (Journal of Aging and Healthopens in new window, online Oct. 16).
People with mental illness are more likely to have been tested for HIV than those without mental health disorders, according to a study by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They assessed nationally representative data from 21,785 adults who responded to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey. The researchers found that 15 percent of respondents reported a psychiatric disorder. Among people who reported at least one mental illness, more than 48 percent had been tested for HIV, compared with 35 percent among those without mental illness. The most seriously ill — those with schizophrenia and bzaipolar disease — had the highest rate of HIV testing (AIDS Patient Care and STDs, December).
Attending religious services with a parent in late childhood may foster greater psychological well-being as children age, finds research conducted at Ball State University. Scientists examined data on 5,739 adolescents over age 15 and found that even though attending services with parents did not always reflect a youth's own religious beliefs, it was associated with adolescents feeling greater connectedness to both their parents and the larger religious community (Journal of Family Psychologyopens in new window, December).
Teens who have been prescribed anti-anxiety or sleep medications may be 12 times more likely to abuse those drugs than teens who have never received a prescription, according to research conducted at the University of Michigan. Looking at data over three years from more than 2,700 high school and middle school students, researchers found that almost 9 percent of the students had been prescribed a potentially addictive benzodiazepine for treating anxiety or sleep problems at some time in their lives. Just over 3 percent of students had a current prescription during the study, and those students were 10 times more likely than students who never had a prescription to obtain anti-anxiety or sleep medications for nonmedical reasons, such as experimenting or getting high. Students who were prescribed anti-anxiety medications before the three-year study but no longer had a prescription were 12 times more likely to use someone else's anti-anxiety medication than students who had never received a prescription. Researchers also found that white students were twice as likely as black students to use the medications without a prescription (Psychology of Addictive Behaviorsopens in new window, online Nov. 24).
Threatening to punish kids for lying doesn't work, according to a study with 372 children ages 4 to 8. Before leaving each child alone in a room for one minute, McGill University researchers told the children that there was a toy on a table behind them but they should not look at it during their absence. When the researchers returned, they asked the child whether he or she had peeked at the toy. Footage from a hidden camera showed that nearly 68 percent of the children had peeked, and about 67 percent of the peekers lied about it. As their age increased, they were both more likely to tell lies and more adept at maintaining their lies. The researchers also found that children were more likely to lie if they were afraid of being punished (Journal of Experimental Child Psychologyopens in new window, February).
Entitlement, in small doses, may boost creativity, according to Vanderbilt University researchers. The scientists stimulated entitlement in half of the study participants through a short exercise in which the participants were encouraged to write sentences about why they deserved various positive outcomes. Participants then took part in creativity tasks, including imagining different uses for a paper clip, drawing a space alien and participating in a word association exercise. Findings showed that participants who were given a boost in feelings of entitlement outdid the non-entitled on every test and by significant margins (Journal of Experimental Social Psychologyopens in new window, January).
Text messages can prevent patients from forgetting to take their prescribed medicines, according to research with 303 patients led by scientists at Queen Mary University of London. Researchers randomly divided participants, all of whom had been prescribed blood pressure and/or cholesterol lowering medication, into a "text-message" group and a "no-text" group. The text-message group received texts every day for two weeks, alternate days for two weeks and then weekly for six months, asking if they had taken their medication that day. Patients who had not, or did not reply, were called and offered help. Researchers found that by the end of the trial, 25 percent of patients in the no-text group stopped their medication completely or took less than four-fifths of their prescribed treatment, compared with only 9 percent in the text-message group (PLOS ONEopens in new window, Dec. 5).
Older couples in bad marriages — particularly female spouses — appear to have a higher risk for heart disease than those in good marriages, according to work by Michigan State University scientists. They analyzed five years of data from 1,200 married men and women ages 57 to 85. The researchers found that negative marital quality in which one spouse criticizes or is demanding is associated with greater risk for cardiovascular disease in the other spouse and that the effect marital quality has on cardiovascular risk becomes stronger as couples age. In addition, marital quality appears to have a larger effect on women's cardiovascular health than on men's, possibly because women have a greater tendency to internalize negative feelings (Journal of Health and Social Behavior, December).
Checking email less frequently reduces stress, according to psychologists at the University of British Columbia. They instructed half of the study's 124 adults, including students, financial analysts and medical professionals, to limit checking their email to three times daily for a week, while telling the other half to check email as often as they did before the study. Then the researchers reversed the instructions for the two groups during a subsequent week. The researchers found that participants felt less stressed when they checked their email less often (Computers in Human Behavioropens in new window, February).
Improving attitudes toward mental health treatment may boost one's willingness to seek care and decrease disparities in care for trauma-exposed adults, suggests a study by California State University, Long Beach, researchers. Scientists asked 135 inner-city adults with lifetime histories of traumatic stress to complete a questionnaire about their experiences with and willingness to seek mental health services. The researchers found that approximately 20 percent of participants were receiving mental health services, primarily at outpatient mental health clinics. The participants' responses also indicated that those receiving services tended to have social support, to have positive attitudes toward treatment and to be unable to work because of a disability (Psychological Servicesopens in new window, November).
Many U.S. workers are sacrificing sleep for work and long commutes, finds a study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania. Researchers analyzed responses from more than 124,000 Americans age 15 or older who completed the American Time Use Survey from 2003 to 2011. They found that paid work is the primary waking activity exchanged for sleep across nearly all socioeconomic categories. Compared with normal sleepers, short sleepers reported sleeping six hours or less and worked 1.55 more hours on weekdays and 1.86 more hours on weekends or holidays. They started working earlier in the morning and stopped working later at night. Short sleepers also traveled more, started traveling earlier in the morning and stopped later in the evening than normal sleepers. The highest odds of being a short sleeper were found among adults working multiple jobs, who were 61 percent more likely than others to report sleeping six hours or less on weekdays. Respondents who were unemployed, retired or absent from the labor force also slept more and were less likely to be short sleepers (Sleep, December).
Contrary to conventional wisdom that men drive a harder bargain in financial affairs, women appear to outperform men in some negotiations, according to a meta-analysis of 51 studies from several countries. Researchers at Germany's University of Münster examined data on a total of 10,888 participants, including those working in business as well as graduate and undergraduate students. All of the research compared final outcomes achieved by women and men in actual economic negotiations, such as negotiating for a salary increase or on a financial interest of a client, friend or organization. The researchers found that when women negotiated on behalf of another person, and when they knew about the bargaining range in the negotiations and had experience in negotiating, they were better at bargaining than men (Psychological Bulletinopens in new window, online Nov. 24).
Offering small financial incentives doubles smoking-cessation rates among socioeconomically disadvantaged smokers, according to research at the University of Texas Health Science Center. The study's 146 participants were randomly assigned to either usual clinic care or an intervention group, which included usual care and the opportunity to earn $20 in gift cards for abstinence on the quit date. These rewards increased by $5 each week a participant continued abstinence up to $40, allowing participants to earn up to a total of $150 in gift cards. The researchers found that 49 percent of participants in the intervention group remained abstinent four weeks after the quit date, compared with 25 percent of usual care participants. After 12 weeks, 33 percent of the financial incentives group were abstinent versus 14 percent in the usual care group (American Journal of Public Healthopens in new window, online Nov. 13).
Gifted men and women define success differently, according to a study by Vanderbilt University scientists. They followed more than 1,600 mathematically talented adolescents for 40 years and found that women earned less money, were less present in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields and worked fewer hours than their male counterparts, yet they expressed a high level of personal satisfaction and sense of achievement, defining success more broadly than men to include family and community service. (Psychological Scienceopens in new window, December).
— Amy Novotney
