The Librarian

Existential Meaninglessness Scale: Scale Development and Psychometric Properties

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Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Ahead of Print. Grounded in a tripartite existential meaninglessness model, the authors developed the 18-item Existential Meaninglessness Scale (EMS) to assess one’s concern and anxiety of existential meaninglessness. Across three samples, the EMS’s factor structure and evidence of convergent, criterion-related, and incremental validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability were examined. Exploratory factor analyses demonstrated three dimensions of the EMS: incomprehension, purposelessness, and insignificance. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a bifactor model was a better fit to the data than other models. The bifactor model provided evidence for a general factor and measurement invariance. Ancillary bifactor indices indicated EMS’s unidimensionality. Findings of bivariate correlations and hierarchical regression analyses provided evidence for different aspects of construct validity and internal consistency. Both the Concern and Anxiety measures of the EMS positively predicted depressive symptoms and suicide ideation above and beyond the effects of general existential meaninglessness, general feelings of anxiety, and presence of meaning in life. Based on the findings, the authors discuss future research directions on existential meaninglessness using the EMS.

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Classic Psychedelic Use and Mechanisms of Mental Health: Exploring the Mediating Roles of Spirituality and Emotion Processing on Symptoms of Anxiety, Depressed Mood, and Disordered Eating in a Community Sample

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Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Ahead of Print. A resurgence of research has begun to systematically examine the relationship between psychedelic use and mental health and well-being. Although preliminary findings examining the therapeutic value of these substances show promise, the mechanisms through which psychedelic use may predict reduced mental distress remain poorly understood. To this end, we surveyed a community sample of individuals (n = 159) who endorsed lifetime psychedelic use to examine relationships among psychedelic use and self-reported spirituality, difficulties in emotion regulation, and symptoms of mental health issues. Results revealed a pathway through which classic psychedelic use predicted greater spirituality, which in turn predicted better emotion regulation, ultimately predicting lower levels of anxiety, depressed mood, and disordered eating. These results contribute to our understanding of potential mechanisms of change with respect to psychedelics and mental health. They also add to the growing body of literature pointing to the healing effects of the cultivation of spirituality and emotion regulation as separate and related constructs.

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Toward an Expanded Taxonomy of Happiness: A Conceptual Analysis of 16 Distinct Forms of Mental Wellbeing

Leave a Comment / Happiness Research /

Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Ahead of Print. Recent decades have seen a surge of scientific interest in happiness. However, its theoretical conceptualization is a work in progress. Much of the literature focuses on two main forms: hedonic (encompassing life satisfaction and positive affect) and eudaimonic (encompassing phenomena such as character development and meaning in life). However, this binary has been critiqued as being incomplete, in part because it reflects a Western-centric perspective that overlooks forms emphasized in non-Western cultures. As a result, scholars have begun to highlight other forms besides hedonia and eudaimonia. This article surveys the literature to identify 16 potential forms in total, classified according to whether they primarily pertain to feelings (hedonic, contented, mature, chaironic, and vital), thought (evaluative, meaningful, intellective, aesthetic, and absorbed) or action (eudaimonic, masterful, accomplished, harmonic, nirvanic, and relational). This article thus offers a more expansive, albeit still just provisional, taxonomy of this vital and still-evolving topic.

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Fear memory engram is the mind-killer

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Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 06 April 2023; doi:10.1038/s41593-023-01292-w Stegemann et al. have unraveled a long-lasting role for fear engrams in future pain perception. Prefrontal pain and fear representations become entangled following a fearful event. As subsequent painful experiences also reactivate the fear network, silencing the fear engram alone can alleviate both tonic pain and hypersensitivity

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Prefrontal engrams of long-term fear memory perpetuate pain perception

Leave a Comment / Anxiety Neuroscience and Neurobiology, Anxiety News, Anxiety Research, Fear and Pain, Fear Research /

Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 06 April 2023; doi:10.1038/s41593-023-01291-x Can erasing bad memories relieve pain? Stegemann et al. uncover the cellular basis of fear–pain interactions, reporting that fear potentiates pain via memories encoded in prefrontal engrams. Blocking these memory traces reduces chronic pain in mice.

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Social media use and adolescents’ well-being: A note on flourishing

Leave a Comment / Anxiety in Young People / Adolescents, Anxiety Research, Communication Research, Depression Research, Happiness Research, internet / digital living, News, research, Social Anxiety Research, Technology and Anxiety /

BackgroundSeveral large-scale studies and reviews have reported both negative and positive associations of social media use with well-being, suggesting that the findings are more complex and need more nuanced study. Moreover, there is little or no exploration of how social media use in adolescence influences flourishing, a more all-encompassing construct beyond well-being, including six sub-domains (i.e., happiness, meaning and purpose, physical and mental health, character, close social relationships, and financial stability). This paper aims to fill this gap by understanding how adolescents might flourish through social media activities by fulfilling the basic needs pointed out by the Self-Determination Theory, i.e., relatedness, autonomy, and competence.MethodsThe study is drawn on cross-sectional data collected from 1,429 Swiss adolescents (58.8% females, Mage = 15.84, SDage = 0.83) as part of the HappyB project in Spring 2022. Self-reported measures included the Harvard Adolescent Flourishing scale, positive and negative online social experiences, self-disclosure on social media, and social media inspiration. Control variables included, among others, self-esteem, ill-being, and personality.ResultsAfter applying Bonferroni’s correction, results of the hierarchical regression analyses showed that positive social media experiences (β = 0.112, p 

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Preoperative Anxiety and Preemptive Analgesia on Postoperative Delirium in Adenotonsillectomy Surgery

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Conditions:   Preoperative Anxiety;   Postoperative DeliriumIntervention:   Other: The Modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale (m-YPAS) of childrenSponsor:   Zonguldak Bulent Ecevit UniversityCompleted

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Lethal and severe violence: Characterizing Swedish female offenders with and without a severe mental disorder [SMD]

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… All females charged with lethal or attempted lethal violence, who had undergone forensic psychiatric investigations (FPI) in Sweden between 2000 and 2014, constituting the two groups SMD (n = 84) and no SMD (n = 91), were included. … … Overall, both groups were often unemployed, previously victimized within close relations, had psychiatric health issues, and more than

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