Social and general cognition are uniquely associated with social connectedness in later life.

The mechanisms by which older adults maintain large, complex social networks are not well understood. Prior work has primarily focused on general cognitive ability (e.g., executive function, episodic memory), largely overlooking social cognition-the ability to process, store, and remember social information. Because social cognition plays a key role in navigating social interactions and is distinct from general cognition, we examined whether general and social cognition uniquely predicted the nature of older adults' personal social networks. Our study leveraged comprehensive measures of general cognition (executive function, episodic memory), social cognition (face memory and dynamic measures of cognitive and affective theory of mind), and a rigorous measure of personal social networks from 143 community-dwelling older adults. We found that, when modeled together and controlling for sociodemographic variables, only executive function and dynamic cognitive theory of mind positively predicted having social networks with relatively unfamiliar, loosely connected others, accounting for 17% of the unique variance in older adults' social connectedness. Interestingly, having a social network comprised primarily of close, tightly knit relationships was negatively associated with affective theory of mind performance. Findings are discussed in the context of the social-cognitive resource framework-which suggests that social cognition may be more engaged in relatively unfamiliar, versus close, interactions. Specifically, our results show that social-cognitive processes may be relatively automatic for individuals whose primary social relationships are very close but may be more strongly engaged for individuals whose interactions include at least some relatively less close relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Comparing data quality from an online and in-person lab sample on dynamic theory of mind tasks.

Nearly half the published research in psychology is conducted with online samples, but the preponderance of these studies rely primarily on self-report measures. The current study validated data quality from an online sample on a novel, dynamic task by comparing performance between an in-lab and online sample on two dynamic measures of theory of mind-the ability to infer others' mental states. Theory of mind is a cognitively complex construct that has been widely studied across multiple domains of psychology. One task was based on the show The Office®, and has been previously validated by the authors with in-lab samples. The second was a novel task based on the show Nathan for You®, which was selected to account for familiarity effects associated with The Office. Both tasks measured various dimensions of theory of mind (inferring beliefs, understanding motivations, detecting deception, identifying faux pas, and understanding emotions). The in-person lab samples (N = 144 and 177, respectively) completed the tasks between-subject, whereas the online sample (N = 347 from Prolific Academic) completed them within-subject, with order counterbalanced. The online sample's performance across both tasks was reliable (Cronbach's α = .66). For The Office, the in-person sample outperformed the online sample on some types of theory of mind, but this was driven by their greater familiarity with the show. Indeed, for the relatively unfamiliar show Nathan for You, performance did not differ between the two samples. Together, these results suggest that crowdsourcing platforms elicit reliable performance on novel, dynamic, complex tasks.

Evidence for the role of affective theory of mind in face-name associative memory.

Poor face-name recall has been associated with age-related impairments in cognitive functioning, namely declines in episodic memory and executive control. However, the role of social cognitive function - the ability to remember, process, and store information about others - has been largely overlooked in this work. Extensive work has shown that social and nonsocial cognitive processes rely on unique, albeit overlapping, mechanisms. In the current study, we explored whether social cognitive functioning - specifically the ability to infer other people's mental states (i.e., theory of mind) - facilitates better face-name learning. To do this, a sample of 289 older and young adults completed a face-name learning paradigm along with standard assessments of episodic memory and executive control alongside two theory of mind measures, one static and one dynamic. In addition to expected age differences, several key effects emerged. Age-related differences in recognition were explained by episodic memory, not social cognition. However, age effects in recall were explained by both episodic memory and social cognition, specifically affective theory of mind in the dynamic task. Altogether, we contend that face-name recall can be supported by social cognitive functioning, namely understanding emotions. While acknowledging the influence of task characteristics (i.e., lures, target ages), we interpret these findings in light of existing accounts of age differences in face-name associative memory.

Stigma Toward Substance Dependence: Causes, Consequences, and Potential Interventions.

Substance dependence is a prevalent and urgent public health problem. In 2021, 60 million Americans reported abusing alcohol within the month prior to being surveyed, and nearly 20 million Americans reported using illegal drugs (e.g., heroin) or prescription drugs (e.g., opioids) for nonmedical reasons in the year before. Drug-involved overdose rates have been steadily increasing over the past 20 years. This increase has been primarily driven by opioid and stimulant use. Despite its prevalence, drug dependence is one of the most stigmatized health conditions. Stigma has myriad negative consequences for its targets, including limiting their access to employment and housing, disrupting interpersonal relationships, harming physical and mental health, and reducing help-seeking. However, because research on stigma toward people with substance use disorders (SUDs) is relatively sparse compared with research on stigma toward other mental illnesses, the field lacks a comprehensive understanding of the causes and consequences of SUD stigma. Moreover, it remains unclear how, if at all, these factors differ from other types of mental illness stigma. The goal of this review is to take stock of the literature on SUD stigma, providing a clear set of foundational principles and a blueprint for future research and translational activity.

Contact reduces substance use stigma through bad character attributions, especially for U.S. health care professionals.

OBJECTIVE: People with substance use disorders (SUDs) are faced with pervasive stigma. Education-based interventions tend to emphasize biological causes of dependency; however, health care professionals still stigmatize people who use substances despite being more knowledgeable about biological causes. There may be an important moderating role of personal contact since health care professionals may treat people in the throes of dependency. METHOD: We tested how substance use stigma may be explained by causal attributions, working in health care, and personal contact. A nationally representative sample of the U.S. general population (N = 6,812) was collected with targeted oversampling of health care professionals (N = 788). Using a vignette paradigm, desire for social distance was measured along with causal attributions and contact. RESULTS: Health care professionals were no less stigmatizing than the general population. However, attributing substance dependency to bad character was robustly associated with stigma, but these beliefs were moderated by the interaction between working in health care and contact. Mediation decomposition confirmed that contact transmitted its effect by lowering bad character attributions, and this mediation was significantly stronger for health care professionals. CONCLUSIONS: Health care professionals and the general population may hold similar levels of stigma when accounting for attributions, and personal contact plays an important role. We discuss the implications of these results for stigma-reduction campaigns and emphasize deconstructing personal culpability narratives surrounding substance use disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Changes in stress predict worse mental health outcomes for college students than does loneliness; evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives: Although loneliness and stress have been widely implicated in worse mental health outcomes for college students, the relationship between them remains poorly understood. Participants: Data were collected from 111 undergraduates at a large Midwestern university in fall 2019 - winter 2020. A subset (N = 34) of those responded to a follow-up survey during the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020). Methods: At both time points, participants completed measures of loneliness and stress, as well as well-validated measures of depression and anxiety. Results: Prior to the pandemic, stress mediated the positive relationship between loneliness and depression. During the pandemic, mental health outcomes, stress, and loneliness all increased. Stress, but not loneliness, predicted college students' worse mental health outcomes during the pandemic. Conclusions: Stress plays a key role in college students' worsening mental health. Reducing loneliness may be a potential strategy to mitigate the negative impact of stress on college students' mental health.

Intergroup relationships with people who use drugs: A personal network approach.

Positive and meaningful intergroup contact between people who use drugs and those with the potential to provide positive social interactions has been identified as an important pathway to address the burden of drug use by reducing stigmatizing views and behaviors. Traditional approaches to intergroup contact typically rely on laboratory experiments or survey vignettes to examine the consequences of variation in contact conditions and relationships. Although seldom measured, contact occurs naturally through individuals' personal social networks. Here, we apply this latter approach to examine how the characteristics of drug use and social roles are associated with positive and meaningful intergroup contact in daily life. We leverage unique data from a state representative sample of Indiana residents aged 18 or older (n = 926) that completed a personal network interview and separately reported people they know who have a drug use problem. We first identified the respondents who nominated a person who uses drugs as a member of their core personal network and then evaluated the relationship, disease, and individual characteristics that were associated with that person's inclusion in the personal network. We find that primary relationships (e.g., having a spouse or child who uses drugs) are associated with meaningful contact with people who use drugs but that intense manifestations of disease characteristics (severe or problematic, danger to self) can limit the likelihood of contact. These findings demonstrate how the nature of intergroup contact can shape the types of relationships that have been shown to help reduce stigmatizing attitudes and the behavioral barriers to recovery, such as social isolation. Thus, core networks present a valuable approach to defining the factors that likely contribute to effective intergroup contact.

Determining Whether Older Adults Use Similar Strategies to Young Adults in Theory of Mind Tasks.

OBJECTIVES: Theory of mind-the ability to infer others' mental states-declines over the life span, potentially due to cognitive decline. However, it is unclear whether deficits emerge because older adults use the same strategies as young adults, albeit less effectively, or use different or no strategies. The current study compared the similarity of older adults' theory of mind errors to young adults' and a random model. METHODS: One hundred twenty older adults (MAge = 74.68 years; 64 female) and 111 young adults (MAge = 19.1; 61 female) completed a novel theory of mind task (clips from an episode of the sitcom The Office®), and a standard measure of cognitive function (Logical Memory II). Monte Carlo resampling estimated the likelihood that older adults' error patterns were more similar to young adults' or a random distribution. RESULTS: Age deficits emerged on the theory of mind task. Poorer performance was associated with less similarity to young adults' response patterns. Overall, older adults' response patterns were ~2.7 million times more likely to match young adults' than a random model. Critically, one fourth of older adults' errors were more similar to the random distribution. Poorer memory ability contributed to this relationship. DISCUSSION: Age deficits in theory of mind performance may be driven by a subset of older adults and be related to disparities in strategy use. A certain amount of cognitive ability may be necessary for older adults to engage similar strategies to young adults' during theory of mind.

Disclosing political partisanship polarizes first impressions of faces.

Americans' increasing levels of ideological polarization contribute to pervasive intergroup tensions based on political partisanship. Cues to partisanship may affect even the most basic aspects of perception. First impressions of faces constitute a widely-studied basic aspect of person perception relating to intergroup tensions. To understand the relation between face impressions and political polarization, two experiments were designed to test whether disclosing political partisanship affected face impressions based on perceivers' political ideology. Disclosed partisanship more strongly affected people's face impressions than actual, undisclosed, categories (Experiment 1). In a replication and extension, disclosed shared and opposing partisanship also engendered, respectively, positive and negative changes in face impressions (Experiment 2). Partisan disclosure effects on face impressions were paralleled by the extent of people's partisan threat perceptions (Experiments 1 and 2). These findings suggest that partisan biases appear in basic aspects of person perception and may emerge concomitant with perceived partisan threat.

Waiting Lists for Psychotherapy and Provider Attitudes Toward Low-Intensity Treatments as Potential Interventions: Survey Study.

BACKGROUND: Common mental disorders, including depression and anxiety, are leading causes of disability worldwide. Digital mental health interventions, such as web-based self-help and other low-intensity treatments (LITs) that are not digital (eg, bibliotherapy), have the potential to reach many individuals by circumventing common barriers present in traditional mental health care. It is unclear how often LITs are used in clinical practice, or whether providers would be interested in their use for treatment waiting lists. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to (1) describe current practices for treatment waiting lists, (2) describe providers' attitudes toward digital and nondigital LITs for patients on a waiting list, and (3) explore providers' willingness to use digital and nondigital LITs and their decisions to learn about them. METHODS: We surveyed 141 practicing mental health care providers (eg, therapists and psychologists) and provided an opportunity for them to learn about LITs. RESULTS: Most participants reported keeping a waiting list. Few participants reported currently recommending digital or nondigital LITs, though most were willing to use at least one for patients on their waiting list. Attitudes toward digital and nondigital LITs were neutral to positive. Guided digital and nondigital LITs were generally perceived to be more effective but less accessible, and unguided interventions were perceived to be less effective but more accessible. Most participants selected to access additional information on LITs, with the most popular being web-based self-help. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest providers are currently not recommending LITs for patients on treatment waiting lists but would be willing to recommend them. Future work should explore barriers and facilitators to implementing digital and nondigital LITs for patients on treatment waiting lists.

They Cannot, They Will Not, or We Are Asking the Wrong Questions: Re-examining Age-Related Decline in Social Cognition.

Social cognition is critical for successfully navigating social relationships. Current evidence suggests that older adults exhibit poorer performance in several core social-cognitive domains compared to younger adults. Neurocognitive decline is commonly discussed as one of the key arbiters of age-related decline in social-cognitive abilities. While evidence supports this notion, age effects are likely attributable to multiple factors. This paper aims to recontextualize past evidence by focusing issues of motivation, task design, and representative samples. In light of these issues, we identify directions for future research to aide our understanding of social-cognitive aging.

Addiction onset and offset characteristics and public stigma toward people with common substance dependencies: A large national survey experiment.

Drug-related overdose deaths topped 100,000 between 2020 and 2021. Opioids and stimulants are implicated as the primary drivers of this public health crisis. Stigma remains one of the primary barriers to treatment and recovery from substance use disorders. However, little is known about how stigma varies across different substance types, whether individuals are actively using or in recovery, and medical versus recreational onset. We examined these questions using data from the 2021 Shatterproof Addiction Stigma Index, the only nationally representative data available on this topic. Respondents (N = 7051) completed a vignette-based survey experiment to assess public stigma (social distance, prejudice, competence, and causal attributions) toward people with alcohol, opioid (following a prescription pain or recreational use onset), heroin, or methamphetamine dependencies. Vignette characters were described as active users or in recovery. Adjusting for covariates (e.g., race, age, gender), prejudice and desire for social distance were highest toward heroin and methamphetamine, and lowest toward alcohol dependence. The perceived onset of the dependency affected stigma. Specifically, prescription opioids with a recreational onset were more stigmatized than those with a medical onset. Moreover, individuals depicted as being in recovery were less stigmatized than those depicted as active users. Recovery status had the largest impact on prejudice and social distance toward methamphetamine, relative to other conditions. The nature and magnitude of substance dependency stigma differs across substance types and onset and offset conditions. Reducing stigma will require tailored strategies that consider the multidimensional nature of stigma toward people with addiction.

Social cognitive network neuroscience.

Over the past three decades, research from the field of social neuroscience has identified a constellation of brain regions that relate to social cognition. Although these studies have provided important insights into the specific neural regions underlying social behavior, they may overlook the broader neural context in which those regions and the interactions between them are embedded. Network neuroscience is an emerging discipline that focuses on modeling and analyzing brain networks-collections of interacting neural elements. Because human cognition requires integrating information across multiple brain regions and systems, we argue that a novel social cognitive network neuroscience approach-which leverages methods from the field of network neuroscience and graph theory-can advance our understanding of how brain systems give rise to social behavior. This review provides an overview of the field of network neuroscience, discusses studies that have leveraged this approach to advance social neuroscience research, highlights the potential contributions of social cognitive network neuroscience to understanding social behavior and provides suggested tools and resources for conducting network neuroscience research.

Social Cognitive Abilities Predict Unique Aspects of Older Adults' Personal Social Networks.

OBJECTIVES: The current study explores whether personal social network characteristics are associated with older adults' memory and/or social cognitive function (e.g., ability to infer other's mental states-theory of mind). METHOD: 120 older adults completed a social network interview, a memory measure, and 2 core measures of social cognitive functions: emotion recognition and theory of mind. RESULTS: Variation in memory and social cognitive abilities predicted distinct aspects of older adults' social networks. Having better memory predicted having larger, less-dense social networks, but better theory of mind was associated with having at least one acquaintance in the network, and having more heterogeneous social relationships within the network. DISCUSSION: Together our findings suggest that disparate social cognitive abilities may serve unique functions, facilitating maintenance of beneficial social connections.

Identifying peaks in attrition after clients initiate mental health treatment in a university training clinic.

Mental health treatment noncompliance (preintake attrition, premature termination) has serious consequences both for mental health providers, as well as for individuals suffering from mental illness. However, prior work has examined preintake attrition and premature treatment termination separately, which limits our ability to determine when attrition is highest (before or after intake), and whether different factors predict attrition throughout the treatment process. Moreover, preintake attrition has been conceptualized as failing to attend a scheduled intake, thereby overlooking potential attrition that may occur earlier. The current investigation sought to fill these gaps using data from a university training mental health clinic. Of the 264 individuals who initiated contact with the clinic between 2012 and 2017, only about a quarter of individuals successfully completed therapy. Nearly 60% of prospective clients who contacted the clinic did not schedule intake. Although 10% of attrition occurred before the clinic could even recontact prospective clients, being placed on a waitlist accounted for the most attrition. Indeed, nearly two thirds of individuals placed on the waitlist did not schedule an intake, accounting for 30% of the overall sample. Client factors (age, previous psychotherapy engagement) did not predict preintake attrition, but wait times did. Having just one "no show" for an appointment predicted premature termination, decreasing the likelihood of completion to one in four. Together, these findings suggest that attrition was the highest prior to scheduling intake, and different factors predicted preintake attrition and premature termination. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The Impact of Sheltering in Place During the COVID-19 Pandemic on Older Adults' Social and Mental Well-Being.

OBJECTIVES: We examined whether social isolation due to the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders was associated with greater loneliness and depression for older adults, and, if so, whether declines in social engagement or relationship strength moderated that relationship. METHODS: Between April 21 and May 21, 2020, 93 older adults in the United States who had completed measures characterizing their personal social networks, subjective loneliness, and depression 6-9 months prior to the pandemic completed the same measures via phone interview, as well as questions about the impact of the pandemic on their social relationships. RESULTS: Older adults reported higher depression and greater loneliness following the onset of the pandemic. Loneliness positively predicted depression. Perceived relationship strength, but not social engagement, moderated this relationship such that loneliness only predicted depression for individuals who became closer to their networks during the pandemic. For those who felt less close, depression was higher irrespective of loneliness. DISCUSSION: The COVID-19 pandemic negatively affected older adults' mental health and social well-being in the short term. Potential long-term impacts are considered.

Age differences in neural activity related to mentalizing during person perception.

Mentalizing, or thinking about others' mental states, shapes social interactions. Older adults (OA) have reduced mentalizing capacities reflected by lower medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activation. The current study assessed if OA' lower mPFC activation reflects less spontaneous mentalizing during person perception. Younger adults (YA) and OA viewed ingroup White and outgroup Black and Asian faces and completed a mentalizing task during fMRI. Afterward, they completed a task in which they inferred mental states from faces. Using an mPFC region defined by the mentalizing task, OA had lower activity than YA during person perception. OA' mPFC activity toward faces positively related to their mentalizing outside the scanner. The extent of OA' lower mPFC activation during person perception may depend on their actual detection of mental states in faces. Further, YA', but not OA', mPFC activity distinguished between outgroups. OA' lower mentalizing-related mPFC activity may reduce their ability to individuate outgroup members.

A stronger relationship between reward responsivity and trustworthiness evaluations emerges in healthy aging.

Older adults (OA) evaluate faces to be more trustworthy than do younger adults (YA), yet the processes supporting these more positive evaluations are unclear. This study identified neural mechanisms spontaneously engaged during face perception that differentially relate to OA' and YA' later trustworthiness evaluations. We examined two mechanisms: salience (reflected by amygdala activation) and reward (reflected by caudate activation) - both of which are implicated in evaluating trustworthiness. We emphasized the salience and reward value of specific faces by having OA and YA evaluate ingroup male White and outgroup Black and Asian faces. Participants perceived faces during fMRI and made trustworthiness evaluations after the scan. OA rated White and Black faces as more trustworthy than YA. OA had a stronger positive relationship between caudate activity and trustworthiness than YA when perceiving ingroup, but not outgroup, faces. Ingroup cues might intensify how trustworthiness is rewarding to OA, potentially reinforcing their overall positivity.

Psychological distance reduces the effect of internalized stigma on mental health treatment decisions.

Although stigma is a major barrier to treatment for those with mental health concerns, it is poorly understood when stigma is more or less influential in mental health treatment decisions. In the current work, we examined whether psychological distance - the removal of an event from direct experience - reduced the influence of internalized stigma on willingness to seek treatment. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that psychological distance versus proximity (e.g., seeking treatment in three months vs. in two days, respectively) decreases the negative influence of stigma on willingness to seek treatment. We focused on a population for whom mental health treatment decisions are personally-relevant: individuals who had previously sought mental health treatment. Experiment 1 showed that the extent to which these individuals internalized (i.e., personally endorsed) stigma about mental illness predicted lower intentions to make an appointment with a mental health care provider for themselves (but not another person). Experiment 2 replicated this result using a different measure of psychological distance (temporal distance) and extended this finding to behavior (time spent reading mental health resources). Overall, this research demonstrated that internalized stigma disrupts mental health treatment-seeking intentions and behaviors when they are psychologically proximal, but not when they are distant. Potential applications of these results are discussed.