Self-compassion Buffers Impaired Decision-Making by Potential Problem Gamblers in a Casino Setting.

Self-compassionate individuals treat themselves kindly when undergoing stress. The present study examined self-compassion's relationship to risky decision-making on a gambling task by 240 problem and non-problem gamblers who were tested in a casino setting. Multi-level modeling analyses showed that participants expressed differential rates of learning to avoid risks on the gambling task, depending on their status as potential problem/non-problem gamblers and their level of self-compassion.

Passionately motivated reasoning: Biased processing of passion-threatening messages.

Objective: When facing setbacks and obstacles, the dualistic model of passion outlines that obsessive passion, and not harmonious passion, will predict greater levels of defensiveness. Our aim was to determine whether these passion dimensions predicted defensiveness in the same way when confronted with threatening messages targeting the decision to pursue a passion.

Method: Across four studies with passionate Facebook users, hockey fans, and runners (total N = 763), participants viewed messages giving reasons why their favorite activity should not be pursued.

Testing the dualistic model of passion using a novel quadripartite approach: A look at physical and psychological well-being.

Objective: Passion research has focused extensively on the unique effects of both harmonious passion and obsessive passion (Vallerand, 2015). We adopted a quadripartite approach (Gaudreau & Thompson, 2010) to test whether physical and psychological well-being are distinctly related to subtypes of passion with varying within-person passion combinations: pure harmonious passion, pure obsessive passion, mixed passion, and non-passion.

Method: In four studies (total N = 3,122), we tested whether passion subtypes were differentially associated with self-reported general health (Study 1; N = 1,218 undergraduates), health symptoms in video gamers (Study 2; N = 269 video game players), global psychological well-being (Study 3; N = 1,192 undergraduates), and academic burnout (Study 4; N = 443 undergraduates) using latent moderated structural equation modeling.

The effect of time perspectives on mental health information processing and help-seeking attitudes and intentions in younger versus older adults.

Unlabelled: Socioemotional selectivity theory posits that changes in time perspective over the lifespan are associated with distinct goals and motivations. Time perspectives and their associated socioemotional motivations have been shown to influence information processing and memory, such that motivation-consistent information is more likely to be remembered and evaluated more positively.

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the effect of motivation-consistent mental health information on memory for and evaluations of this information, as well as help-seeking attitudes and intentions to seek mental health services.

The two roads of passionate goal pursuit: links with appraisal, coping, and academic achievement.

Background And Objectives: In this research, we tested the role of cognitive appraisals in explaining why harmonious and obsessive passion dimensions are related to distinct forms of coping and explored if performance was impacted by these appraisal and coping processes.

Design: Undergraduate students (N = 489) participated in a longitudinal study and completed three surveys throughout the course of an academic year.

Methods: Participants completed assessments of both passion dimensions (Time 1), reported how they were appraising and coping with the mid-year examination period (Time 2), and provided consent to obtain their final grade in Introductory Psychology (Time 3).

Predicting stability and change in loneliness in later life.

This study examined potential discriminators of groups of older adults showing different patterns of stability or change in loneliness over 5 years: those who were and were . Discriminant function analysis results showed that the , compared with the , were more often living alone, widowed, and experiencing poorer health and perceived control. Moreover, in living arrangements and perceived control predicted loneliness change.

Consequences of loneliness on physical activity and mortality in older adults and the power of positive emotions.

Objectives: This study examined the longitudinal relationships between loneliness, physical activity, and mortality in older adults. This study also tested the implication of Fredrickson's Broaden and Build Theory (1998, 2001) that positive emotions (happiness) might serve to "undo" the detrimental effects of negative emotions (loneliness).

Method: Participants (n = 228; 62% female; aged 77-96 years) took part in the Aging in Manitoba Study (2001) and the Successful Aging Study (2003).

Sense of control in late life: health and survival implications.

Believing that one can influence outcomes presumably fosters a psychological sense of control. So too, however, might adaptive ways of thinking known as secondary control (SC) processes that operate when outcomes are believed to be unattainable. Using a 5-year prospective design and a representative sample of adults (ages 79-98), folk beliefs (e.

Age, relative autonomy and change in health locus of control beliefs: a longitudinal study of members of a health-promotion facility.

Health locus of control (HLC) describes an individual's characteristic attribution of health outcomes to internal or external causes. This four-year longitudinal study examined changes in HLC beliefs among 124 members of a health-promotion facility, related to their age (22-81) and relative autonomy toward health-related goals. HLC beliefs changed with age as developmental theories of control striving would predict.

Perceived control and risk characteristics as predictors of older adults' health risk estimates.

Overestimating one's own health risks is associated with negative affect and decreased well-being. To identify psychosocial factors that reduce pessimistic risk estimates, the authors examined global perceived (primary and secondary) control as a predictor of health risk (hip fracture) estimates among 222 community-dwelling older adults. To determine whether characteristics of the health risk moderated the effects of perceived control on risk estimates, the authors manipulated risk level (low, high) and risk attribution (controllable, uncontrollable).

Exploring the commonalities between adaptive resources and self-enhancement in older adults' comparative judgments of physical activity.

Objective. This study examines the extent to which optimism, control beliefs and motivation, and downward social comparison contribute independently to the maintenance of older adults positive self-evaluations in a functional domain. Method.

Collective self-esteem and the onset of chronic conditions and reduced activity in a longitudinal study of aging.

Collective self-esteem (CSE) is an individual's self-evaluation as a member of social groups. It is thought to promote health and well-being in later life by moderating the harmful effects of losing personal control over these experiences. In this study of 144 community-dwelling older adults in Manitoba, Canada, among those with lower health-related perceived control, respondents with higher CSE at baseline developed significantly fewer chronic conditions over the next 6 years.

Emotional and self-evaluative effects of social comparison information in later life: how are they moderated by collective self-esteem?

This study examined how the emotional and self-evaluative effects of social comparison in 162 community-dwelling older people were moderated by individual differences in their collective self-esteem (CSE), a trait that reflects valuing and identifying with reference groups. In our experimental simulation, administered 6 years after participants' CSE was measured, those with higher CSE reported significantly more positive emotions and self-evaluations only after downward comparison (i.e.

Optimistic social comparisons of older adults low in primary control: a prospective analysis of hospitalization and mortality.

Social comparison can be used strategically to bolster the self-concept. Such use may constitute secondary striving for control, when primary striving through action is unattainable. On the basis of the life span theory of control, the authors hypothesized and found that social comparison judgments would predict physical health outcomes among older adults with low primary control perceptions in the health domain.

Two views of self-rated general health status.

Global self-evaluations of health have proven to be sensitive predictors of morbidity and mortality. Yet researchers have only a limited understanding of how these self-evaluations are reached. This research compares two interpretations of self-rated health, as reflecting either a spontaneous assessment of one's health status and related practices, or an aspect of one's enduring self-concept.

Compensating for losses in perceived personal control over health: a role for collective self-esteem in healthy aging.

Collective self-esteem (CSE) refers to an individual's self-evaluation of his or her social identity. We speculate that a positive social identity, or high CSE, facilitates accommodation to negative health-related circumstances in later life, especially when one feels unable to alter these circumstances directly. Accordingly, we hypothesized that CSE would be associated with fewer chronic conditions and greater perceived health for those with low perceived control.