Lisbeth Nielsen

Anticipation of Monetary Gain but Not Loss in Healthy Older Adults

Although global declines in structure have been documented in the aging human brain, little is known about the functional integrity of the striatum and prefrontal cortex in older adults during incentive processing. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to determine whether younger and older adults differed in both self-reported and neural responsiveness to anticipated monetary gains and losses. The present study provides evidence for intact striatal and insular activation during gain anticipation with age, but shows a relative reduction in activation during loss anticipation. These findings suggest that there is an asymmetry in the processing of gains and losses in older adults that may have implications for decision-making.

Awareness of subtle emotional feelings: A comparison of long-term meditators and nonmeditators

The authors explored whether meditation training to enhance emotional awareness improves discrimination of subtle emotional feelings hypothesized to guide decision-making. Long-term meditators and nonmeditators were compared on measures of self-reported valence and arousal, skin conductance response (SCR), and facial electromyography (EMG) to masked and nonmasked emotional pictures, and on measures of heartbeat detection and self-reported emotional awareness. Groups responded similarly to nonmasked pictures. In the masked condition, only controls showed discrimination in valence self-reports. However, meditators reported greater emotional clarity than controls, and meditators with higher clarity had reduced arousal and improved valence discrimination in the masked condition. These findings provide qualified support for the somatic marker hypothesis and suggest that meditation may influence how emotionally ambiguous information is processed, regulated, and represented in conscious awareness.

Affect Dynamics, Affective Forecasting, and Aging

Affective forecasting, experienced affect, and recalled affect were compared in younger and older adults during a task in which participants worked to win and avoid losing small monetary sums. Dynamic changes in affect were measured along valence and arousal dimensions, with probes during both anticipatory and consummatory task phases. Older and younger adults displayed distinct patterns of affect dynamics. Younger adults reported increased negative arousal during loss anticipation and positive arousal during gain anticipation. In contrast, older adults reported increased positive arousal during gain anticipation but showed no increase in negative arousal on trials involving loss anticipation. Additionally, younger adults reported large increases in valence after avoiding an anticipated loss, but older adults did not. Younger, but not older, adults exhibited forecasting errors on the arousal dimension, underestimating increases in arousal during anticipation of gains and losses and overestimating increases in arousal in response to gain outcomes. Overall, the findings are consistent with a growing literature suggesting that older people experience less negative emotion than their younger counterparts and further suggest that they may better predict dynamic changes in affect.

Conscientiousness and Public Health: Synthesizing Current Research to Promote Healthy Aging.

In this special section, 9 studies and 6 commentaries make a unique contribution to the study of personality. They focus on the five-factor model and, in particular, one of those 5: conscientiousness. This trait has had astonishing success in the actuarial prediction of adaptive outcomes in adulthood and aging, but we have little understanding of the mechanisms that account for this actuarial success. The current studies and comments marshal current knowledge of conscientiousness to advance a mechanistic understanding of these predictions and to exploit that understanding toward interventions to enhance robust adult development and healthy aging. In this introductory article, we underscore the strategy we used to invite presentations and commentary. First, we sought a clearer definition of conscientiousness and a review of its assessment. Second, we sought a review of how the components of this complex trait develop in childhood and are assembled across development. Third, we sought an understanding of how mechanisms linking conscientiousness and health might be transformed across the life span. Fourth, we scrutinized naturally occurring factors that moderate the links between conscientiousness and health for clues to successful interventions. Finally, we sought ways to pull these analyses together to outline the framework for a program of interventions that, collectively, might be applicable at specific points across the life span. Six commentaries place this project in sharp relief. They remind us that the causal status of the associations between conscientiousness and health, reported throughout our 9 studies, are uncertain at best. Second, they remind us that the concept of conscientiousness is still too spare: It fails to embody the social skills required for conscientious behavior, the moral judgment of self or other implicit in its assessment, or the neurobiological mechanisms that might account for differences among individuals. Third, they raise a potent counterfactual: What, in a practical sense, does conceptualization or assessment of conscientiousness contribute-if anything-to the design of interventions to enhance conscientious behavior?

The NIH Science of Behavior Change Program: Transforming the science through a focus on mechanisms of change

The goal of the NIH Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Common Fund Program is to provide the basis for an experimental medicine approach to behavior change that focuses on identifying and measuring the mechanisms that underlie behavioral patterns we are trying to change. This paper frames the development of the program within a discussion of the substantial disease burden in the U.S. attributable to behavioral factors, and details our strategies for breaking down the disease- and condition-focused silos in the behavior change field to accelerate discovery and translation. These principles serve as the foundation for our vision for a unified science of behavior change at the NIH and in the broader research community.

Editorial overview: Theories, methods, and applications of mixed emotions

The concept mixed emotions refers to the experience of multiple emotions or affective states at the same time or the toggling between multiple emotions. Studies of mixed emotions include research on a number of distinct phenomena including the co-occurrence of feelings, blends of same and different emotion valences, flexible and dynamic appraisals of emotions and feelings, asynchrony of behavioral reactions and subjective feelings, spillover of moods, fluctuations in feelings, and transitions from one emotion to another. It brings to mind numerous questions about process, for example: Which emotions, emotion components, or affective experiences are mixed? How and why does the mixing process arise? How much time does the process take? When are emotions and affective states mixed: Do some situations/contexts afford a mixture and others not? What functions and outcomes are associated with mixed emotions? Overlaid with these questions, are others about individual and life-span developmental differences in the ability to experience mixed emotions as well as enquiries about measurement and analytic strategies.

A mechanism-focused approach to the science of behavior change: An introduction to the special issue

A recent Google search (July 20, 2017) for the term “behavior change” returned approximately 4,560,000 results, including an article on “Why behavior change is hard—and why you should keep trying,” a book on how to design products to facilitate change in daily routines, and a fitness certification program advertisement for becoming a “Behavior Change Specialist.” The wide-ranging nature of these themes reflects more than the vast breadth of topics an Internet query returns; it also shows how broad vernacular conceptions of behavior change are. Although scientists use more restrictive definitions, the landscape remains vast across invested disciplines. Furthermore, whether one is an individual seeking to stop a troublesome habit, or a scientist seeking to improve an important public health outcome, consistent, reliable behavior change remains an elusive target.

News from NIH: translational research for an aging population.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) has long been the primary sponsor of research in the basic social and behavioral sciences on the processes of aging. These investments have generated a large body of knowledge about change in physical health, social and psychological function, and economic behavior over the adult life course; on the inter-relationships between older people and social institutions; and on the economic impact of both changing age-composition of the population and public/private programs that serve older populations. (For more information visit the Division of Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) website at: http://www.nia.nih.gov/research/dbsr.). As recent years have seen an explosion of fundamental insights in the basic social and behavioral sciences, translating this knowledge into practical advances to benefit the health and well-being of older Americans has increasingly become a priority for the NIA. Of particular interest are approaches that apply these evidence-based insights to (1) translation into state/federal/international public policy; (2) adoption by agencies or firms (e.g., government agencies, insurance companies, employers, nursing homes); (3) translation into public health practice; (4) development of new technologies and; (5) development of behavior change/behavior maintenance programs.

Awareness of subtle emotional feelings: A comparison of long-term meditators and nonmeditators: Correction to Nielsen and Kaszniak (2006).

The authors explored whether meditation training to enhance emotional awareness improves discrimination of subtle emotional feelings hypothesized to guide decision-making. Long-term meditators and nonmeditators were compared on measures of self-reported valence and arousal, skin conductance response (SCR), and facial electromyography (EMG) to masked and nonmasked emotional pictures, and on measures of heartbeat detection and self-reported emotional awareness. Groups responded similarly to nonmasked pictures. In the masked condition, only controls showed discrimination in valence self-reports. However, meditators reported greater emotional clarity than controls, and meditators with higher clarity had reduced arousal and improved valence discrimination in the masked condition. These findings provide qualified support for the somatic marker hypothesis and suggest that meditation may influence how emotionally ambiguous information is processed, regulated, and represented in conscious awareness.