Matthew J. Zawadzki

Rumination and Anxiety Mediate the Effect of Loneliness on Depressed Mood and Sleep Quality in College Students

OBJECTIVE We examined the mechanisms that underlie the observed relationships between loneliness and depressed mood and poor sleep quality in college students. This study was the first to investigate whether rumination and trait anxiety are psychological mechanisms that mediate this relationship. METHODS In Study 1 (n = 1,244), using factor analysis with cross-sectional data, we established that loneliness and rumination are distinct constructs. We then collected survey data in two cross-sectional samples (ns = 300 and 218) and one prospective (n = 334) sample to test whether rumination and anxiety were mediators of the relationship between loneliness and depressed mood and poor sleep quality. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed relationships. Participants completed self-report measures of loneliness, rumination, trait anxiety, depressed mood, and sleep quality. In addition, measures of hostility, neuroticism, negative affect, and tobacco use were also assessed and tested as mediators, while social support was assessed and tested as a moderator. RESULTS Consistent across the three studies, we found that rumination and trait anxiety fully mediated the associations between loneliness and depressed mood as well as poor sleep quality; these relationships held after testing all other factors. CONCLUSION This study helps explain how loneliness dynamics relate to poor health and suggests specific points of departure for the development of interventions.

Rumination as a Mediator of Chronic Stress Effects on Hypertension: A Causal Model

Chronic stress has been linked to hypertension, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly specified. We suggest that chronic stress poses a risk for hypertension through repeated occurrence of acute stressors (often stemming from the chronic stress context) that cause activation of stress-mediating physiological systems. Previous models have often focused on the magnitude of the acute physiological response as a risk factor; we attempt to extend this to address the issue of duration of exposure. Key to our model is the notion that these acute stressors can emerge not only in response to stressors present in the environment, but also to mental representations of those (or other) stressors. Consequently, although the experience of any given stressor may be brief, a stressor often results in a constellation of negative cognitions and emotions that form a mental representation of the stressor. Ruminating about this mental representation of the stressful event can cause autonomic activation similar to that observed in response to the original incident, and may occur and persist long after the event itself has ended. Thus, rumination helps explain how chronic stress causes repeated (acute) activation of ones stress-mediating physiological systems, the effects of which accumulate over time, resulting in hypertension risk.

Reducing the Endorsement of Sexism Using Experiential Learning: The Workshop Activity for Gender Equity Simulation (WAGES)

In two multipart studies, we tested the effectiveness of an experiential learning-based intervention (Workshop Activity for Gender Equity Simulation–Academic [WAGES-Academic]) to reduce sexism endorsement. We randomly assigned undergraduates to either WAGES (n = 144) or one of two control conditions (n = 268): one where participants received the same information as WAGES but without experiential learning or another that included an experiential group activity but no gender equity information. WAGES participants (vs. both controls) reported less endorsement of sexist beliefs after completing the activity and/or at a follow-up 7–11 days later as measured by the Modern Sexism (Study 1), Neo-sexism (Study 2), Hostile Sexism (Study 2), and Gender-Specific System Justification (Studies 1 and 2) scales. Both studies demonstrated that these effects were attributable to WAGES providing more information, evoking less reactance, eliciting more empathy, and instilling more self-efficacy compared to the other conditions. Results suggest that programs to reduce sexist beliefs will be successful only insofar as they invite access to discussion in such a way that does not elicit defensive denial of the problem, create a context in which participants are readily able to empathize with other, and instill feelings of self-efficacy that one can address the problem.

Has work replaced home as a haven? Re-examining Arlie Hochschild's Time Bind proposition with objective stress data

Using innovative data with objective and subjective measures of stress collected from 122 employed men and women, this paper tests the thesis of the Time Bind by asking whether people report lower stress levels at work than at home. The study finds consistent support for the Time Bind hypothesis when examining objective stress data: when participants were at work they had lower values of the stress hormone cortisol than when they were at home. Two variables moderated this association - income and children at home - such that the work as haven effect was stronger for those with lower incomes and no children living at home. Participants also, however, consistently reported higher subjective stress levels on work days than on non-work days, which is in direct contrast to the Time Bind hypothesis. Although our overall findings support Hochschilds hypothesis that stress levels are lower at work, it appears that combining work and home increases peoples subjective experience of daily stress.

Early adversity, personal resources, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating

OBJECTIVE Early adverse experiences have been associated with disordered eating, but the mechanisms underlying that association are not well understood. The purpose of this study is to test a structural equation model in which early adversity is associated with disordered eating via intrapersonal resources, interpersonal resources, and body dissatisfaction. METHOD Female university students (n = 748) completed a series of questionnaires online, including measures of early adverse experiences, intrapersonal resources (self-esteem and personal growth initiative), interpersonal resources (gratitude and social support), body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating and exercising to lose weight. RESULTS Structural equation modeling indicated that early adverse experiences were negatively associated with interpersonal and intrapersonal resources. Intrapersonal resources were negatively associated with body dissatisfaction, whereas interpersonal resources were positively associated with body dissatisfaction (although negative bivariate correlations in this latter case suggest possible suppression effects). Finally, body dissatisfaction was associated with a range of disordered eating behaviors and exercise. DISCUSSION Early adverse experiences are important to consider in models of disordered eating. The results of this study highlight potential points of early prevention efforts, such as improving personal resources for those who experience early adversity, to help reduce the risk of body dissatisfaction and disordered eating in young women.

Examining the effects of perceived social support on momentary mood and symptom reports in asthma and arthritis patients

Objective: Social support has been linked to beneficial effects on health directly (main effect) and as a buffer to stress. Most research, however, has examined these relationships using global and retrospective assessments of health and stress, which may be subject to recall biases. This study used ambulatory ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods to test the main and stress-buffering effects of social support on the daily health and well-being of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. Design: Community volunteers with asthma (n = 97) or RA (n = 31) responded to EMA prompts five times daily for one week. Main outcomes: Baseline perceived social support was obtained, and then, participants reported mood, stress and symptoms using EMA. Multilevel mixed-modelling examined whether social support predicted mood and symptoms directly or via stress-reducing effects. Results: Supporting a main effect, more perceived social support predicted decreased negative mood and stress severity. Supporting a stress-buffering effect, more perceived social support resulted in fewer reported symptoms when stress was present. Conclusion: Results suggest perceived social support directly relates to better ambulatory status and dynamically buffers individuals against the negative effects of stressors, and highlight the importance of studying social support across different temporal and contextual levels.

Real-Time Associations Between Engaging in Leisure and Daily Health and Well-Being

BackgroundEngagement in leisure has a wide range of beneficial health effects. Yet, this evidence is derived from between-person methods that do not examine the momentary within-person processes theorized to explain leisure’s benefits.PurposeThis study examined momentary relationships between leisure and health and well-being in daily life.MethodsA community sample (n = 115) completed ecological momentary assessments six times a day for three consecutive days. At each measurement, participants indicated if they were engaging in leisure and reported on their mood, interest/boredom, and stress levels. Next, participants collected a saliva sample for cortisol analyses. Heart rate was assessed throughout the study.ResultsMultilevel models revealed that participants had more positive and less negative mood, more interest, less stress, and lower heart rate when engaging in leisure than when not.ConclusionsResults suggest multiple mechanisms explaining leisure’s effectiveness, which can inform leisure-based interventions to improve health and well-being.

Rumination is independently associated with poor psychological health: Comparing emotion regulation strategies

Objective: Emotion regulation (ER) strategies are related to psychological health, with most work examining reappraisal and suppression. Yet, emerging findings suggest that rumination may have stronger relationships with psychological health, namely depression, than other ER strategies. This paper replicated and extended this work by testing whether rumination was independently associated with a range of poor psychological health risk indicators and outcomes. In addition, it explored whether the reason why rumination is so deleterious to health is because it underlies the stress–health relationship. Design: Participants (n = 218) completed measures online. Main outcome measures: Surveys assessed ER strategies (reappraisal, suppression, proactive coping, emotion support seeking, and rumination), health risk indicators (hostility, optimism, self-esteem), health outcomes (depression, poor sleep quality, anxiety) and perceived chronic stress. Results: Multivariate regression analyses revealed rumination as the only ER strategy with a consistent independent effect on all the health risk indicators and outcomes. Bootstrapping analyses revealed indirect effects of perceived chronic stress on all the health variables via rumination. Conclusion: Rumination had a deleterious relationship with psychological health, perhaps because rumination underlies the relationship between stress and psychological health. Results have implications for interventions, particularly emphasizing the need to target ruminative thinking after stressful experiences.

Stress at work: Differential experiences of high versus low SES workers.

This paper asks whether workers with higher socioeconomic status (SES) experience different levels of stress at work than workers with lower SES and, if so, what might explain these differences. We collected innovative assessments of immediate objective and subjective measures of stress at multiple time points across consecutive days from 122 employed men and women. We find that in comparison to higher SES individuals, those with lower SES reported greater happiness at work, less self-reported stress, and less perceived stress; cortisol, a biological marker of stress, was unrelated to SES. Workers momentary perceptions of the workplace were predicted by SES, with higher SES individuals more commonly reporting feeling unable to meet work demands, fewer work resources, and less positive work appraisals. In turn, perceptions of the workplace had a generally consistent and robust effect on positive mood, subjective stress, and cortisol.

Absorption in Self-Selected Activities Is Associated With Lower Ambulatory Blood Pressure but Not for High Trait Ruminators

BACKGROUND A range of nonpharmacological interventions (e.g., meditation) have positive effects on blood pressure (BP) but tend to have poor adherence. These interventions may lower BP partly by absorbing and directing attention away from ones negative thoughts. We hypothesized that recurring self-selected activities (SSAs) that are attentionally absorbing may similarly lower BP. We examined the effect of reported engagement in SSAs during the previous month prior to participation on ambulatory BP (ABP) and whether those prone to rumination were less likely to show these effects. METHODS Participants (n = 38) reported engagement in SSAs and how absorbing they were, responded to trait rumination and perceived stress questionnaires, wore an ABP monitor for 24 hours, and at each ABP measurement answered electronic diary questions assessing activity levels, affect, social interactions, and caffeine and tobacco use. RESULTS Regression analyses tested whether the reported absorption of SSAs, trait rumination, and their interaction predicted daytime and nighttime systolic and diastolic ABP. Greater absorption predicted lower daytime and nighttime ABP (bs = -18.83 to -8.79; Ps < .05), but this relationship was moderated by trait rumination (bs = 3.72 to 9.97; Ps < .05). Follow-up analyses revealed that absorption was unrelated to ABP for those with high trait rumination but that more absorption predicted lower ABP for those less prone to rumination. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that regular engagement in absorbing SSAs is related to lower ABP. These findings have implications for the development of nonpharmacological interventions and suggest SSAs may serve as an adjuvant intervention strategy to lower BP.