Consensus design of a calibration experiment for human fear conditioning

Publication date: May 2023Source: Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Volume 148Author(s): Dominik R. Bach, Juliana Sporrer, Rany Abend, Tom Beckers, Joseph E. Dunsmoor, Miquel A. Fullana, Matthias Gamer, Dylan G. Gee, Alfons Hamm, Catherine A. Hartley, Ryan J. Herringa, Tanja Jovanovic, Raffael Kalisch, David C. Knight, Shmuel Lissek, Tina B. Lonsdorf, Christian J. Merz, Mohammed Milad, Jayne Morriss, Elizabeth A. Phelps

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Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin: ‘When you’re making a movie, if there is fear you can’t show it’

Lee Cronin, one of the country’s most exciting young directors, had just completed his new movie, Evil Dead Rise, and was going for a pint in Dublin to celebrate, when a call came through that changed his life. His mother Pauline and her husband had been visiting family in Donegal and were at the bus depot in Derry on the way back to Dublin when she took a turn and passed away suddenly.

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The role of positive relationship events in romantic attachment avoidance.

Motivated by the Attachment Security Enhancement Model (Arriaga et al., 2018), the present research investigated the associations between positive relationship experiences and romantic attachment avoidance in three dyadic studies that combined multiple methods, including daily diaries, laboratory observations, and longitudinal follow-ups. Frequency of daily positive relationship events (but not external positive events) during a 21-day diary period predicted declines in romantic attachment avoidance (but not anxiety) from pre- to post-diary in fledgling couples (Study 1) and newlyweds (Study 2). Video-recorded discussions of fledgling couples’ shared positive experiences revealed that behaviors validating the relationship (but not simply showing conversational interest) predicted lagged declines in romantic attachment avoidance (but not anxiety) over 1 month (Study 3). The associations were mediated by positive affect during the diary period in Studies 1 and 2, and by changes in positive affect from pre- to post-discussion in Study 3. Positive relationship experiences did not significantly interact with time in predicting romantic avoidance over a 1-year follow-up with quarterly assessments of attachment orientations in Study 1, over an 8-month follow-up with monthly assessments in Study 2, or over a 2-month follow-up with monthly assessments in Study 3. Altogether, these studies provide one of the most comprehensive tests of how positive relationship experiences in nondistressing contexts are linked to romantic attachment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

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People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas.

Using two nationally representative surveys, we find that people in China’s historically rice-farming areas are less happy than people in wheat areas. This is a puzzle because the rice area is more interdependent, and relationships are an important predictor of happiness. We explore how the interdependence of historical rice farming may have paradoxically undermined happiness by creating more social comparison than wheat farming. We build a framework in which rice farming leads to social comparison, which makes people unhappy (especially people who are worse off). If people in rice areas socially compare more, then people’s happiness in rice areas should be more closely related to markers of social status like income. In two studies, national survey data show that income, self-reported social status, and occupational status predict people’s happiness twice as strongly in rice areas than wheat areas. In Study 3, we use a unique natural experiment comparing two nearby state farms that effectively randomly assigned people to farm rice or wheat. The rice farmers socially compare more, and farmers who socially compare more are less happy. If interdependence breeds social comparison and erodes happiness, it could help explain the paradox of why the interdependent cultures of East Asia are less happy than similarly wealthy cultures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

People in historically rice-farming areas are less happy and socially compare more than people in wheat-farming areas. Read More »