Association of intensity and dominance of CEOs' smiles with corporate performance.

This study investigated whether the facial expressions of chief executive officers (CEOs) are associated with corporate performance. A photograph of the CEO or president of each company that appeared on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2018 was taken from the company's official website. The smile intensity and action unit activation in each face were calculated using a pre-trained machine learning algorithm, FACET.

Effects of service dogs on children with ASD's symptoms and parents' well-being: On the importance of considering those effects with a more systemic perspective.

The integration of a service dog can have numerous benefits for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, although integration takes place within a family, little is known about the dynamics of these benefits on the family microsystem. Thus, the aim of our study was to propose a more systemic perspective, not only by investigating the benefits of SD integration, but also by exploring the relationships between improvements in children with ASD, parents' well-being, parenting strategies and the quality of the child-dog relationship.

Facial Reactivity to Emotional Stimuli is Related to Empathic Concern, Empathic Distress, and Depressive Symptoms in Social Work Students.

Helping professionals are exposed daily to the emotional burden of their vulnerable clients and are at risk of unconscious emotional contagion that may lead to stress and emotional distress. Being aware of their own susceptibility to emotional contagion, however, can improve their well-being. This study aimed to propose an objective measure of emotional contagion, complementary to the Emotional Contagion Scale, and to evaluate its construct and predictive validity.

Emotion Facial Processing in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Pilot Study of the Impact of Service Dogs.

Processing and recognizing facial expressions are key factors in human social interaction. Past research suggests that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present difficulties to decode facial expressions. Those difficulties are notably attributed to altered strategies in the visual scanning of expressive faces.

Visual Exploration and Observation of Real-Life Interactions Between Children with ASD and Service Dogs.

Two original studies explored relationships between visual attention of children with ASD (candidates for receiving a service dog) and their behaviors during their first interaction with a service dog. The first study consisted in video behavioural analyses of 16 children with ASD interacting with a service dog. During the interaction with a service dog, the time children with ASD spent looking towards social items vs objects was associated with how they interacted with the service dog.

Acute Stress Assessment From Excess Cortisol Secretion: Fundamentals and Perspectives.

Our paper aims to redefine the concept of stress in the context of maintaining allostasis; the term has been reserved for situations that concomitantly involve established physiological and psychological stress components. In particular, we analyze how novelty, unpredictability, threat to the ego, and low sense of control challenge allostasis. The concept of stress is then related to , rather than referring to the overall body response to the situation.

Benefit of Practice of the Stroop Test in Young and Older Adults: Pattern of Gain and Impact of Educational Level.

: The goal of this study was to examine how repeated practice of an inhibition test could improve performance in the test in young and older adults. In particular, we wished to explore whether the gains made during a practice program varied between age groups, and how educational level influenced practice-related gains in older adults. Thus, we tried to disentangle two hypotheses explaining the benefits of practice, namely compensation (greater gain by the lowest performers) and magnification (greater gain by the highest performers).

Blood lead levels and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal function in middle-aged individuals.

Experimental and epidemiological studies suggested that exposure to lead (Pb) may influence the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. However, previous studies have yielded mixed results. We evaluated changes in basal salivary cortisol levels and acute cortisol responsivity to psychological stress in relation with blood Pb levels (BPb), in Caucasian individuals 50-67 years of age.

Lead exposure is related to hypercortisolemic profiles and allostatic load in Brazilian older adults.

Lead levels (Pb) have been linked to both hyper- and hypo-reactivity of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) axis to acute stress in animals and humans. Similarly, allostatic load (AL), the 'wear and tear' of chronic stress, is associated with inadequate HPA axis activity. We examined whether Pb levels would be associated with altered diurnal cortisol profile, as a primary mediator of AL, during aging.

Association between heavy metal exposure and poor working memory and possible mediation effect of antioxidant defenses during aging.

Background: Inverse associations have been observed between memory performance and blood concentrations of cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb). Low antioxidant cell activity has also been linked to decline in memory due to aging. However, it has not yet been established whether the heavy metal-memory relationship is mediated by differences in antioxidant activity.

Prenatal and early-life polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) levels and behavior in Inuit preschoolers.

Background: Whereas it is well established that prenatal exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can disrupt children's behavior, early postnatal exposure has received relatively little attention in environmental epidemiology.

Objectives: To evaluate prenatal and postnatal exposures to PCB-153, a proxy of total PCB exposure, and their relation to inattention and activity in 5-year-old Inuits from the Cord Blood Monitoring Program.

Methods: Prenatal exposure to PCBs was informed by cord plasma PCB-153 levels.

Cross-country differences in basal and stress-induced cortisol secretion in older adults.

Objective: Several studies have emphasized the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and inadequate response of the biological stress system. However, other factors related to SES are rarely considered, such as cultural values, social norms, organization, language and communication skills, which raises the need to investigate cross-country differences in stress response. Although some studies have shown differences in cortisol levels between immigrants and natives, there is no cross-country evidence regarding cortisol levels in country-native elders.

Household crowding is associated with higher allostatic load among the Inuit.

Background: Household crowding is an important problem in some aboriginal communities that is reaching particularly high levels among the circumpolar Inuit. Living in overcrowded conditions may endanger health via stress pathophysiology. This study examines whether higher household crowding is associated with stress-related physiological dysregulations among the Inuit.

Early menarche predicts increased depressive symptoms and cortisol levels in Quebec girls ages 11 to 13.

Earlier age of menarche is believed to confer greater vulnerability to depressive symptoms via increased reactivity to stressors associated with adolescence. In this longitudinal study, we measured depressive symptoms and salivary cortisol levels in 198 boys and 142 girls between the ages of 11 and 13 tested four times during Grade 7 as they transitioned from elementary school to secondary school as per Quebec's education system. Results showed that girls who had already reached menarche before starting secondary school had significantly higher depressive symptoms and salivary cortisol levels across the school year in comparison to girls who had not reached menarche, who in turn presented higher depressive scores than boys.

Prenatal methylmercury, postnatal lead exposure, and evidence of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder among Inuit children in Arctic Québec.

Background: Prenatal exposure to methylmercury (MeHg) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) has been associated with impaired performance on attention tasks in previous studies, but the extent to which these cognitive deficits translate into behavioral problems in the classroom and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) remains unknown. By contrast, lead (Pb) exposure in childhood has been associated with ADHD and disruptive behaviors in several studies.

Objectives: In this study we examined the relation of developmental exposure to MeHg, PCBs, and Pb to behavioral problems at school age in Inuit children exposed through their traditional diet.

A transdisciplinary perspective of chronic stress in relation to psychopathology throughout life span development.

The allostatic load (AL) model represents an interdisciplinary approach to comprehensively conceptualize and quantify chronic stress in relation to pathologies throughout the life cycle. This article first reviews the AL model, followed by interactions among early adversity, genetics, environmental toxins, as well as distinctions among sex, gender, and sex hormones as integral antecedents of AL. We next explore perspectives on severe mental illness, dementia, and caregiving as unique human models of AL that merit future investigations in the field of developmental psychopathology.

Salivary cortisol levels are associated with resource control in a competitive situation in 19 month-old boys.

Glucocorticoids (GCs) have been related to social rank in many studies across species, a particular rank giving rise to a particular stress-related physiological profile. Our aim was to examine the hypothesis that GCs levels in toddlers would be related to social dominance in a competitive resource situation. Subjects were 376 toddlers from the Quebec Newborn Twin Study.

Dominance among unfamiliar peers starts in infancy.

Dominance has been conceived for a long time in terms of asymmetry in agonistic conflicts. But this conception has shown its limits in the complexity of children's social worlds. Today, dominance is rather conceived in terms of asymmetry in resource control within children's dyads.