Strategies for Improving Mental Control in Depression

Recent research has shown that trying to mentally "run away" from unwanted thoughts (i.e., thought suppression) can actually make them more of a problem. People who are depressed are bombarded with what is often an overwhelming slew of negative thoughts that they would like to get rid of. How can people who are depressed take care of such thoughts without ending up making them worse in the process?

In a recent review, researchers from the University of Miami and the University of Texas at San Antonio offer several strategies for improving mental control over such thoughts. They conclude that the most effective strategies involve preventing or changing the natural tendency for people who are depressed to seek out thoughts that signal mental control failure. 

One effective strategy is to change the goal of mental control from trying not to think about unwelcome thoughts (e.g., trying not to think about being sad) to trying to think about welcome thoughts (e.g. trying to think about being happy). 

A second effective strategy is to challenge unwanted thoughts using techniques that can be learned through cognitive therapy. 

A third effective strategy is to use acceptance-based methods, which essentially involve allowing oneself to experience both positive and negative aspects of concepts in the absence of any attempts to modify them, evaluate them, or get red of them.

Source: Beevers, C. G., Wenzlaff, R. M., Hayes, A. M., & Scott, W. D. (1999). Depression and the ironic effects of thought suppression: Therapeutic strategies for improving mental control. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, 6, 133-148.

Stress and Happiness

Tension and coping ability are among the personality traits most highly associated with happiness

What makes people happy? Psychologist seriously began trying to answer this question in the 1970s by focusing on the role of demographic factors, such as variables like age and socioeconomic status. More recently, they have shifted most of their attention to the role of personality traits like extra-version (i.e., positive emotionality) and neuroticism (i.e., negative emotionality) as the primary determinant of happiness.

Kristina DeNeve, PhD, from the University of Utah recently reviewed the research findings on the relation between happiness and 137 personality traits. Two personality traits highly relevant to stress, tension and coping ability, were among the eight personality traits that were identified as those most highly associated with happiness. Tension refers to the tendency to experience negative emotions, for example, in response to a stressor. Coping ability, referred to specifically as hardiness in this review, refers to the tendency to cope positively with stressors. The other six personality traits of the eight were repressive-defensiveness (the tendency to avoid threatening information), trust, emotional stability, desire for control, extraversion, and locus of control-chance (the tendency to think that events occur by chance alone). Of all the personality traits examined, repressive-defensiveness was most highly associated with happiness.

Thus, regarding the relevance of stress for happiness, more happiness is related to having a personality characterized by coping positively with stressors and lacking feelings of tension in response to them

Source: DeNeve, K. M. (1999). Happy as an extraverted clam? The role of personality for subjective well-being. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 141-144.

Stress and the Familiarity of Support Providers

Social support is only helpful from people you know

Researchers at Bowling Green State University recently published a pair of studies that clarify one of the circumstances in which social support is helpful for people in stressful situations. Their studies emphasize the importance of the people providing social support. The people providing social support in their studies were not people who knew the participants. They were complete strangers. 

Unlike other research, in which social support was provided by people who the participants knew or had a reasonable opportunity to get acquainted with, the presence of the other person either did not provide any stress relief.

Participants in the studies were asked to prepare and deliver a speech that they were told would be videotaped and evaluated by experts. Depending on the condition, another person was also in the room with the participants to evaluate. In some conditions, the other person also provided social support. Across all the conditions in both studies, the presence of the other person did not change the participants' bodily stress reactions (e.g., blood pressure, heart rate) or self-reported level of stress.

Evidently, for social support to be a source of stress relief, the people providing the support need to be people who are familiar to the person experiencing stress. In these studies, if the support from the other person actually did provide any benefit, it was probably covered up by the additional stress prompted by the other person's role as an evaluator.

Source: Anthony, J. L., & O'Brien, W. H. (1999). An evaluation of the impact of social support manipulations on cardiovascular reactivity to laboratory stressors. Behavioral Medicine, 25, 78-87.

Racism

Stressful psychological, social, and physiological consequences for African Americans

A team of researchers from Wayne State University, the National Institutes of Health, Morehouse College, and the University of Michigan recently developed a model of how perceived racism, the subjective experience of prejudice or discrimination, leads to various psychological, social, and physiological stress responses among African Americans. Although the model is unique in that it deals specifically with perceived racism of African Americans, it is based on a well-known model of stress and coping proposed by Lazarus and Folkman in 1984.

According to the model, actions by others can be perceived as racist, which can lead to psychological and physiological stress responses, and over time, to physical and mental health problems if attempts at coping are unsuccessful. Additionally, the model shows that a variety of factors can influence the extent to which actions by others are perceived as racist, such as skin tone, socioeconomic status (e.g., education, income), self-esteem, sense of control, and expression or suppression of anger.

The researches comment that the model could probably be expanded to represent other ethnic groups.

Source: Clark, R., Anderson, N. B., Clark, V. R., Williams, D R. (1999). Racism as a stressor for African Americans: A biopsychosocial model. American Psychologist, 54, 805-816.

Smoking Causes Stress

People who smoke cigarettes often report that it helps them relax and alleviate their feelings of stress. Andy Parrott, a psychologist at the University of East London, has recently argued that, although smokers probably do not realize it, cigarette smoking actually causes stress.

A review of the research on cigarette smoking and stress is consistent with this assertion. Smokers on average have higher levels of stress than do nonsmokers. As adolescent smokers develop regular patterns of smoking, they experience more and more stress. When people quit smoking, the experience reduced levels of stress.

Parrott recently proposed a model that is based on the idea of nicotine dependency as a cause of stress. According to the model, most smokers are psychologically and physiologically dependent on nicotine, a chemical found in tobacco, and become tense and irritable when they do not have enough nicotine in their system. Consequently, cigarettes may seem like stress relievers because they provide the nicotine that smokers need to feel normal.

Source: Parrott, A. C. (1999). Does cigarette smoking cause stress? American Psychologist, 54, 817-820.

Stressful Marital Interactions

The role of hostility in cardiovascular stress responses

Researchers at the University of Utah recently investigated whether people who tend to be hostile react to stressful marital interactions with a greater increase in cardiovascular stress responses than do people who do not tend to be hostile. Cardiovascular stress responses include heart rate and blood pressure.

In the study, sixty couples participated in discussions in which they either agreed or disagreed with each other while facing either low or high evaluative threat. Under low evaluative threat, they were told that their discussions would be recorded but just to check the clarity and volume of their speech. Under conditions of high evaluative threat, they were told that their discussions would be recorded to determine the level of verbal intelligence evident in their discussions.

When evaluative threat was high, hostility was associated with higher systolic blood pressure in husbands. For wives, however, hostility was not related to cardiovascular stress responses. Although, when wives disagreed with their hostile husbands, they responded with increases in heart rate.

The researchers suggest that hostility may make a difference for husbands but not for wives because of efforts by husbands to assert dominance in marital interactions.

Source: Smith, T. W., & Gallo, L. C. (1999). Hostility and cardiovascular reactivity during marital interaction. P

Stress and Smoking Among Adolescents

Among adults, it is well known that stress is related to smoking. Unfortunately, very little attention has been given to the relation between stress and smoking among adolescents. In an attempt to address this shortcoming, researchers at The Australian National University recently reported their findings from a study that examined the relations between stress, smoking, and the use of alcohol and other drugs among adolescents. The participants in the study were in the 10th or 11th grade, years in which many adolescents go through a potentially stressful transition from high school to college or the job market. The goals of the study were (a) to look at the association between stress and smoking among adolescents, (b) to look at the role of specific sources of adolescent stress, and (c) to see whether stress is related not only to smoking but also to the use of alcohol and other drugs.

Overall, they found that some sources of stress among adolescents relate to both smoking and other substances. The associations between stress and smoking were generally stronger than they were between stress and other substances, and these associations involved a greater number of the individual sources of stress for girls than they did for boys. One source of stress in particular, school attendance, clearly differentiated boys and girls in terms of smoking. School attendance represented compulsory school attendance, boredom at school, excessive hours in school, insufficient time for leisure, discipline, and enforced concentration. Additionally, the association between stress and smoking was stronger than the association between stress and other substances.

Although smoking is stimulating biologically, it seemed somehow to serve as a stress reliever. The researchers offer two explanations for why this apparent paradox may occur among adolescents. First, smoking may allow adolescents to briefly distract themselves and shift their attention away from sources of their stress. Second, being known as a "smoker" by peers may improve how adolescents see themselves by making them feel more "grown-up."

Source: Byrne, D. G., Mazanov, J. (1999). Sources of adolescent stress, smoking and the use of other drugs. Stress Medicine, 15, 215-227.