Association between dimensions of trauma-related psychopathology and asthma in trauma-exposed women.

Introduction: Exposure to traumatic events and stressful life experiences are associated with a wide range of adverse mental and physical health outcomes. Studies have found post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety sensitivity occurrence to be common in addition to inflammatory diseases like asthma, especially in women. Moreover, overlapping neurobiological mechanisms have been linked to both PTSD and asthma. Methods: In the current study, n = 508 women reported on presence of lifetime asthma diagnosis and symptoms of trauma-related psychopathology including PTSD and depression. A separate group of female participants (n = 64) reported on asthma, PTSD, depression and anxiety sensitivity, and underwent functional MRI scans during a fearful faces task, and their anterior insula responses were analyzed. Results: Overall, PTSD and depression severity were significantly higher in those with asthma versus those without asthma. There was a positive association between anterior insula response to social threat cues and depression symptoms only among individuals without a lifetime presence of asthma. Discussion: These findings provide continued evidence on the interactions between stress, neural mechanisms involved in interoception and salience detection, and trauma-related psychopathology.

Gender differences in emotional reminiscing in a Scandinavian sample.

Emotional reminiscing is a context where children learn culture-specific ways of understanding past emotional experiences through parentally scaffolded conversations, and learn how to connect these disparate experiences into their developing autobiographical memory. The goal of the present investigation was to explore possible gender differences in emotional reminiscing in an egalitarian cultural context (Denmark). Mothers and fathers from families (N = 88) reminisced about a happy and a sad past event with their 4.5-year-old children. Parents' and children's contributions were coded for emotion words, emotion attributions, and explanations. The emotional content did not differ as a function of parent or child gender. However, Danish children talked more about emotions overall with their mothers compared to their fathers. The results are discussed in light of the socio-cultural practices.

Functions of Parental Intergenerational Narratives Told by Young People.

Family stories help shape identity and provide a foundation for navigating life events during adolescence and early adulthood. However, little research examines the types of stories passed onto adolescents and emerging adults, the extent to which these stories are retained and accessible, and the potentially influential parental- and self-identity content constructed in telling these stories. Across three samples, we investigate the accessibility and functions of intergenerational narratives that adolescents and emerging adults know of their parents. By examining adolescents' open-ended intergenerational stories, emerging adults' intergenerational stories of parents' transgression and proud moments, and emerging adults' intergenerational stories of parents' self-defining moments, we systematically describe the functions of various intergenerational stories during adolescence and early adulthood, when identity is in formation. We found that adolescents and emerging adults can readily recount intergenerational stories from parents, and that many of these stories serve to build relationships with the parent, provide insights about parents, provide insights about self, and transmit life lessons. The specific findings by narrative topic and by gender of both participant and parent are discussed.

Neural response to emotion related to narrative socialization of emotion in school-age girls.

Emotion is processed on multiple dimensions, both internal and external, and these dimensions interact over time and development. Socialization of emotion via parent-child conversations is well known to shape emotion processes, with greater parental elaboration supporting children's emotion knowledge, understanding, and regulation. However, it is unclear how the effects of socialization may extend to neural processing of emotion, which in turn relates to emotion behaviors. In this research, 28 school-age girls and their parents discussed recent emotional experiences (positive and negative), and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded as the children viewed emotionally evocative picture stimuli. Parent-child conversations were recorded and coded for parents' use of elaborative style. ERPs indicated a robust emotion response (late positive potential, LPP) that was observed across the scalp. Children of parents who used a greater elaborative style when discussing negative experiences had reduced LPPs at posterior sites. This relation was not observed for discussions of positive experiences despite similar use of elaborative style between event types. The results suggest that parental elaboration, during discussion of negative experience, is associated with reduced neurophysiological emotional reactivity in children. Thus, the impact of socialization of emotion extends beyond emotional behaviors to neural processing of emotion.

Adolescents' intergenerational narratives across cultures.

Adolescents' intergenerational narratives-the stories they tell about their mothers' and fathers' early experiences-are an important component of their identities (Fivush & Merrill, 2016; Merrill & Fivush, 2016). This study explored adolescents' intergenerational narratives across cultures. Adolescents aged 12 to 21 from 3 cultural groups in New Zealand (Chinese: n = 88; Maori: n = 91; European: n = 91) narrated stories about their mothers' and fathers' childhood experiences. In these narratives, New Zealand Chinese and Maori adolescents included more identity connections (statements linking their own identities to their parents' experiences) than did New Zealand European adolescents, and New Zealand Chinese adolescents' intergenerational narratives were more coherent than were New Zealand European and Maori adolescents' narratives. New Zealand Chinese and Maori adolescents were also more likely to report didactic reasons for their mothers' telling of the narratives, whereas New Zealand European adolescents were more likely to report reasons of sharing family history. Across cultures, but only in their mother narratives, adolescent girls included more references to subjective perspectives (emotions, evaluations, and cognitions) than did adolescent boys. Older adolescents also used more subjective perspective terms than younger adolescents. These findings suggest that intergenerational narratives serve different functions when adolescents across cultures explore their identities. These narratives may be especially important for adolescents growing up in cultures with an interdependent orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record

Emotion, gender, and gender typical identity in autobiographical memory.

Gender differences in the emotional intensity and content of autobiographical memory (AM) are inconsistent across studies, and may be influenced as much by gender identity as by categorical gender. To explore this question, data were collected from 196 participants (age 18-40), split evenly between men and women. Participants narrated four memories, a neutral event, high point event, low point event, and self-defining memory, completed ratings of emotional intensity for each event, and completed four measures of gender typical identity. For self-reported emotional intensity, gender differences in AM were mediated by identification with stereotypical feminine gender norms. For narrative use of affect terms, both gender and gender typical identity predicted affective expression. The results confirm contextual models of gender identity (e.g., Diamond, 2012 . The desire disorder in research on sexual orientation in women: Contributions of dynamical systems theory. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 41, 73-83) and underscore the dynamic interplay between gender and gender identity in the emotional expression of autobiographical memories.

Developmental changes in consistency of autobiographical memories: adolescents' and young adults' repeated recall of recent and distance events.

Autobiographical memories contribute continuity and stability to one's self yet they also are subject to change: they can be forgotten or be inconsistently remembered and reported. In the present research, we compared the consistency of two reports of recent and distant personal events in adolescents (12- to 14-year-olds) and young adults (18- to 23-year-olds). In line with expectations of greater mnemonic consistency among young adults relative to adolescents, adolescents reported the same events 80% of the time compared with 90% consistency among young adults; the significant difference disappeared after taking into consideration narrative characteristics of individual memories. Neither age group showed high levels of content consistency (30% vs. 36%); young adults were more consistent than adolescents even after controlling for other potential predictors of content consistency. Adolescents and young adults did not differ in consistency of estimating when their past experiences occurred. Multilevel modelling indicated that the level of thematic coherence of the initial memory report and ratings of event valence significantly predicted memory consistency at the level of the event. Thematic coherence was a significant negative predictor of content consistency. The findings suggest a developmental progression in the robustness and stability of personal memories between adolescence and young adulthood.

The recollective qualities of adolescents' and adults' narratives about a long-ago tornado.

The recollective qualities of autobiographical memory are thought to develop over the course of the first two decades of life. We used a 9-year follow-up test of recall of a devastating tornado and of non-tornado-related events from before and after the storm, to compare the recollective qualities of adolescents' (n = 20, ages 11 years, 11 months to 20 years, 8 months) and adults' (n = 14) autobiographical memories. At the time of the tornado, half of the adolescents had been younger than age 6. Nine years after the event, all participants provided evidence that they recall the event of the tornado. Adults also had high levels of recall of the non-tornado-related events. Adolescents recalled proportionally fewer non-tornado-related events; adolescents younger than 6 at the time of the events recalled the fewest non-tornado-related events. Relative to adolescents, adults produced longer narratives. With narrative length controlled, there were few differences in the recollective qualities of adolescents' and adults' narrative reports, especially in the case of the tornado; the recollective qualities were stronger among adolescents older at the time of the events. Overall, participants in both age groups provided evidence of the qualities of recollection that are characteristic of autobiographical memory.

The influence of gender and gender typicality on autobiographical memory across event types and age groups.

Gender differences in autobiographical memory emerge in some data collection paradigms and not others. The present study included an extensive analysis of gender differences in autobiographical narratives. Data were collected from 196 participants, evenly split by gender and by age group (emerging adults, ages 18-29, and young adults, ages 30-40). Each participant reported four narratives, including an event that had occurred in the last 2 years, a high point, a low point, and a self-defining memory. Additionally, all participants completed self-report measures of masculine and feminine gender typicality. The narratives were coded along six dimensions-namely coherence, connectedness, agency, affect, factual elaboration, and interpretive elaboration. The results indicated that females expressed more affect, connection, and factual elaboration than males across all narratives, and that feminine typicality predicted increased connectedness in narratives. Masculine typicality predicted higher agency, lower connectedness, and lower affect, but only for some narratives and not others. These findings support an approach that views autobiographical reminiscing as a feminine-typed activity and that identifies gender differences as being linked to categorical gender, but also to one's feminine gender typicality, whereas the influences of masculine gender typicality were more context-dependent. We suggest that implicit gendered socialization and more explicit gender typicality each contribute to gendered autobiographies.

Connecting the self to traumatic and positive events: links to identity and well-being.

Self-event connections in autobiographical narratives help integrate specific episodes from memory into the life story, which has implications for identity and well-being. Previous research has distinguished differential relations between positive and negative self-event connections to psychological well-being but less research has examined identity. In this study, examining self-event connections in emerging adults' narratives, 225 participants narrated a traumatic and an intensely positive experience and completed questionnaires assessing identity development and well-being. Participants who described more negative connections to self overall had higher psychological distress and identity distress, compared to those who described fewer negative connections. Participants who described positive connections to the self in traumatic events were more likely to have lower psychological distress, higher post-traumatic growth, and higher identity commitment, whereas positive connections in positive events was related to higher identity exploration and marginally higher post-traumatic growth. These findings contribute to a growing body of literature that suggests linking autobiographical memories to self can have differential effects on identity and well-being depending on the valence of the event and the connections made.

Does making meaning make it better? Narrative meaning making and well-being in at-risk African-American adolescent females.

It has been argued that, for certain people, attempts at making meaning about past life events, especially challenging events, might be detrimental to well-being. In this study we explored the association between narrative indicators of meaning making and psychological well-being, while also considering the role of individual level factors such as life history, personality characteristics, and locus of control, among an at-risk sample of low socioeconomic status inner-city African-American adolescent females with challenging lives. We found that having a more external locus of control and including more cognitive processing language in narratives about a highly negative past experience were associated with increased depressive symptoms. Our findings suggest that certain types of narrative meaning-making language may reflect ongoing and unsuccessful efforts after meaning, and may be more similar to rumination than to resolution. Additionally they support claims that for certain individuals from challenging backgrounds, efforts after meaning might not be psychologically healthy.