Stability and Change in Genetic and Environmental Influences on Well-Being in Response to an Intervention.

Genetic and environmental influences on complex traits can change in response to developmental and environmental contexts. Here we explore the impact of a positive activity intervention on the genetic and environmental influences on well-being and mental health in a sample of 750 adolescent twins. Twins completed a 10-week online well-being intervention, consisting of kindness and gratitude tasks and matched control activities. The results showed significant improvements both in well-being and in internalizing symptoms in response to the intervention activities. We used multivariate twin analyses of repeated measures, tracking stability and change in genetic and environmental influences, to assess the impact of this environmental intervention on these variance components. The heritability of well-being remained high both before and after the intervention, and the same genetic effects were important at each stage, even as well-being increased. The overall magnitude of environmental influences was also stable across the intervention; however, different non-shared environmental influences emerged during the intervention. Our study highlights the value of exploring the innovations in non-shared environmental influences that could provide clues to the mechanisms behind improvements in well-being. The findings also emphasize that even traits strongly influenced by genetics, like well-being, are subject to change in response to environmental interventions.

Do unto others or treat yourself? The effects of prosocial and self-focused behavior on psychological flourishing.

When it comes to the pursuit of happiness, popular culture encourages a focus on oneself. By contrast, substantial evidence suggests that what consistently makes people happy is focusing prosocially on others. In the current study, we contrasted the mood- and well-being-boosting effects of prosocial behavior (i.e., doing acts of kindness for others or for the world) and self-oriented behavior (i.e., doing acts of kindness for oneself) in a 6-week longitudinal experiment. Across a diverse sample of participants (N = 473), we found that the 2 types of prosocial behavior led to greater increases in psychological flourishing than did self-focused and neutral behavior. In addition, we provide evidence for mechanisms explaining the relative improvements in flourishing among those prompted to do acts of kindness-namely, increases in positive emotions and decreases in negative emotions. Those assigned to engage in self-focused behavior did not report improved psychological flourishing, positive emotions, or negative emotions relative to controls. The results of this study contribute to a growing literature supporting the benefits of prosocial behavior and challenge the popular perception that focusing on oneself is an optimal strategy to boost one's mood. People striving for happiness may be tempted to treat themselves. Our results, however, suggest that they may be more successful if they opt to treat someone else instead. (PsycINFO Database Record

Waiting for a baby: Navigating uncertainty in recollections of trying to conceive.

OBJECTIVE: Guided by the uncertainty navigation model, this study examined experiences of uncertainty associated with trying to conceive and identified predictors of this experience using a multi-method approach. METHOD: 429 American adults from Amazon's Mechanical Turk who had a child under age three completed online questionnaires regarding their experiences trying to conceive, including recollections of psychological adjustment, use of coping strategies, and individual and situational variability. Then they provided open-ended reflections of their experience trying to conceive. Participants' descriptions were analyzed for word use using LIWC, a text-analysis software program, to obtain an unobtrusive and pseudo-observational measure of coping resources. RESULTS: Consistent with the uncertainty navigation model, recollections of distress as individuals tried to conceive were associated with lower levels of dispositional optimism; intolerance of uncertainty; fewer social, emotional, and cognitive resources (reflected in word use); placing greater importance on conception; lower risk for infertility; and less searching for meaning in life. CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed many novel insights regarding the experience of trying to conceive, including protective factors and vulnerabilities that may buffer or heighten the distress associated with this experience.

Thinking about rumination: the scholarly contributions and intellectual legacy of Susan Nolen-Hoeksema.

Our article reviews and celebrates Susan Nolen-Hoeksema's remarkable contributions to psychological and clinical science, focusing on her vast body of theoretical and empirical work and her influence on colleagues and students. Susan spent her career trying to understand how and why a style of regulating emotions called rumination increases vulnerability to depression and exacerbates and perpetuates negative moods. More broadly, we describe research by Susan and her colleagues on the predictors of depression in childhood and adolescence; gender differences in depression and rumination in adolescence and adulthood; roots, correlates, and adverse consequences of ruminative response styles; and rumination as a transdiagnostic risk factor for not only depression but also a host of psychological disorders, including anxiety, substance abuse, and eating disorders. Susan's intellectual legacy is evident in her impressive publication and citation record, the clinical applications of her work, and the flourishing careers of the students she mentored.

Beyond Self-Protection: Self-Affirmation Benefits Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being.

Limited work has examined how self-affirmation might lead to positive outcomes beyond the maintenance of a favorable self-image. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted two studies in two cultures to establish the benefits of self-affirmation for psychological well-being. In Study 1, South Korean participants who affirmed their values for 2 weeks showed increased eudaimonic well-being (need satisfaction, meaning, and flow) relative to control participants. In Study 2, U.S. participants performed a self-affirmation activity for 4 weeks. Extending Study 1, after 2 weeks, self-affirmation led both to increased eudaimonic well-being and hedonic well-being (affect balance). By 4 weeks, however, these effects were non-linear, and the increases in affect balance were only present for vulnerable participants-those initially low in eudaimonic well-being. In sum, the benefits of self-affirmation appear to extend beyond self-protection to include two types of well-being.

The pains and pleasures of parenting: when, why, and how is parenthood associated with more or less well-being?

The relationship between parenthood and well-being has become a hot topic among scholars, media, and general public alike. The research, however, has been mixed-some studies indicate that parents are happier than nonparents, whereas others suggest the reverse. We suggest that the question of whether parents are more or less happy than their childless peers is not the most meaningful one. To reconcile the conflicting literature and expand understanding of the emotional experience of parenthood, we present a model of parents' well-being that describes why and how parents experience more or less happiness than nonparents (i.e., mediators of the link between parenthood and well-being). We then apply this model to explain when parents are more likely to experience more or less happiness (i.e., moderators of parents' well-being, such as parent age or child temperament). Supporting our model, we review 3 primary methodological approaches: studies comparing parents and nonparents, studies examining changes in well-being across the transition to parenthood, and studies comparing parents' experiences while with their children to their other daily activities. Our review suggests that the relationship between parenthood and well-being is highly complex. We propose that parents are unhappy to the extent that they encounter relatively greater negative emotions, magnified financial problems, more sleep disturbance, and troubled marriages. By contrast, when parents experience greater meaning in life, satisfaction of their basic needs, greater positive emotions, and enhanced social roles, they are met with happiness and joy.

The relation between electroencephalogram asymmetry and attention biases to threat at baseline and under stress.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry in the alpha frequency band has been implicated in emotion processing and broad approach-withdrawal motivation systems. Questions remain regarding the cognitive mechanisms that may help elucidate the observed links between EEG asymmetry and patterns of socioemotional functioning. The current study observed frontal EEG asymmetry patterns at rest and under social threat among young adults (N=45, M=21.1 years). Asymmetries were, in turn, associated with performance on an emotion-face dot-probe attention bias task. Attention biases to threat have been implicated as potential causal mechanisms in anxiety and social withdrawal. Frontal EEG asymmetry at baseline did not predict attention bias patterns to angry or happy faces. However, increases in right frontal alpha asymmetry from baseline to the stressful speech condition were associated with vigilance to angry faces and avoidance of happy faces. The findings may reflect individual differences in the pattern of response (approach or withdrawal) with the introduction of a mild stressor. Comparison analyses with frontal beta asymmetry and parietal alpha asymmetry did not find similar patterns. Thus, the data may reflect the unique role of frontal regions, particularly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, in cognitive control and threat detection, coupled with ruminative processes associated with alpha activity.

In defense of parenthood: children are associated with more joy than misery.

Recent scholarly and media accounts paint a portrait of unhappy parents who find remarkably little joy in taking care of their children, but the scientific basis for these claims remains inconclusive. In the three studies reported here, we used a strategy of converging evidence to test whether parents evaluate their lives more positively than do nonparents (Study 1), feel relatively better than do nonparents on a day-to-day basis (Study 2), and derive more positive feelings from caring for their children than from other daily activities (Study 3). The results indicate that, contrary to previous reports, parents (and especially fathers) report relatively higher levels of happiness, positive emotion, and meaning in life than do nonparents.

Kindness counts: prompting prosocial behavior in preadolescents boosts peer acceptance and well-being.

At the top of parents' many wishes is for their children to be happy, to be good, and to be well-liked. Our findings suggest that these goals may not only be compatible but also reciprocal. In a longitudinal experiment conducted in 19 classrooms in Vancouver, 9- to 11-year olds were instructed to perform three acts of kindness (versus visit three places) per week over the course of 4 weeks. Students in both conditions improved in well-being, but students who performed kind acts experienced significantly bigger increases in peer acceptance (or sociometric popularity) than students who visited places. Increasing peer acceptance is a critical goal, as it is related to a variety of important academic and social outcomes, including reduced likelihood of being bullied. Teachers and interventionists can build on this study by introducing intentional prosocial activities into classrooms and recommending that such activities be performed regularly and purposefully.