Emotional Suppression and Psychological Well-Being in Marriage: The Role of Regulatory Focus and Spousal Behavior

Emotional suppression has been considered a critical factor in determining one’s mental health and psychological well-being in intimate relationships such as marriage. The present study aimed to delineate the nuanced association between emotional suppression and psychological well-being in marriage by considering two critical factors: (a) individual differences in motivational orientation and (b) the perceived level of a partner’s emotional suppression. A set of two online survey studies were conducted on a large sample of married participants. The participants were asked to indicate (a) their own level of emotional suppression, (b) the perceived level of their spouse’s emotional suppression, (c) relationship motivation, and (d) satisfaction with marital life. The results consistently indicated that for prevention-focused individuals being emotionally suppressive was associated with greater marital satisfaction, but only for those who perceived their spouses as also emotionally suppressive. Conversely, for promotion-focused individuals, being less emotionally suppressive was associated with greater marital satisfaction, but again, only for those who perceived their spouses as also being less emotionally suppressive. These findings provide insights into research on emotion regulation and self-regulatory strategies in influencing psychological well-being and mental health in an intimate relationship.

The Role of Self-Efficacy in the Thesis-Writing Experiences of Undergraduate Honors Students

Writing a thesis is often the culminating experience for undergraduate students enrolled in university honors programs in the United States. Because writing a thesis is one of the most difficult academic tasks that an undergraduate student may undertake, it requires a high level of self-efficacy, or belief in one’s capabilities to achieve certain results. However, the factors that contribute to students’ efficacy expectations when writing a thesis are not fully understood. This qualitative study followed 11 honors students over the course of several months in order to understand their experiences as they completed their theses. Data was gathered through a series of four questionnaires and two interviews. Analysis revealed six themes: previous research experiences, emotions, project timelines, structure, advisors, and support networks. These themes suggest that students’ abilities to manage their emotions and employ self-regulatory strategies play a critical role in their self-assessments of efficacy during work on challenging academic tasks, findings which have implications for a variety of academic programs and campus support services. In addition, this study reveals that faculty mentoring of undergraduate students may require greater attention to cultivating emotional awareness and regulation than does the mentoring of graduate students.

Comparison of Food-Based and Music-Based Regulatory Strategies for (Un)Healthy Eating, Depression, Anxiety and Stress

There are many ways to regulate emotions. People use both adaptive (e.g., regulation by music) and maladaptive (e.g., regulation by food) strategies to do this. We hypothesized that participants with a high level of food-based regulatory strategies and a low level of music-based regulatory strategies (a group with the least adaptive form of emotion regulation) would have significantly greater levels of unhealthy eating behaviours, depression, anxiety and stress, as well as a significantly lower level of healthy eating behaviours than those with a low level of food-based regulatory strategies and a high level of music-based regulatory strategies (a group with the greatest adaptive form of emotion regulation). Participants (N = 410; Mage = 31.77, SD = 13.53) completed: the Brief Music in Mood Regulation Scale, the Emotional Overeating Questionnaire, the Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Behavior Scale, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale and a socio-demographic survey. The four clusters were identified: (a) Cluster 1 (N = 148): low food-based regulatory strategies and high music-based regulatory strategies; (b) Cluster 2 (N = 42): high food-based regulatory strategies and high music-based regulatory strategies; (c) Cluster 3 (N = 70): high food-based regulatory strategies and low music-based regulatory strategies; (d) Cluster 4 (N = 150): low food-based regulatory strategies and low music-based regulatory strategies. Overall, our outcomes partially support our hypothesis, as higher levels of unhealthy eating behaviours, depression, anxiety and stress were observed in participants with high food-based and low music-based regulatory strategies as compared with adults with low food-based and high music-based regulatory strategies. To sum up, the results obtained indicate that during the COVID-19 pandemic the group of people regulating their emotional state and unhealthy eating predominantly with food is potentially characterized by worse functioning than the group of people regulating with music. Therefore, it can be concluded that people who regulate their functioning using food should be included in preventive measures by specialists. During the visit, psychologists and primary care physicians can ask patients about their daily strategies and based on this information specialists can estimate the potential risk of developing high levels of stress and anxiety, depressive disorders and unhealthy eating habits and provide specific (match) intervention.

Long-Range Transport of Sulfur Dioxide Emissions From External Sources to Tehran

Large-scale emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) from the combustion of heavy fuel oils are deteriorating the air quality in Tehran and regularly causing complex atmospheric pollution situations and human health concerns. Our analysis of the long-term SO2 emission data in Tehran confirmed that the magnitude of local SO2 emission sources is not adequate to reach SO2 concentrations to their present levels. Tehran is predominantly affected by regional transport of SO2 from exterior sources further away located in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and adjacent provinces neighboring Tehran. Approximately 80% of total SO2 emissions in Tehran were observed to have impacts from the external hotspots outside of Tehran. While local emission sources only contribute around 20% of the total SO2 emissions. Bivariate polar plots, k-mean cluster, pairwise polar correlation, and PSCF analysis provided evidence for the impact of large-scale transport of SO2 emissions from external locations from the west/northwest, north/northeast, and south/southwestern areas of the region. Further observations of these hotspot areas observed in our analysis with TROPOMI satellite data confirmed significant SO2 emissions resulting from the consumption of heavy fuel oils in thermal power plants and oil/gas refineries. Overall, the results suggested that the regulatory strategies for controlling local traffic emissions of SO2 in Tehran would not be beneficial for reducing public health exposures to SO2 in Tehran. Such improvements can be attained mainly by diminishing the emission sources located further away from Tehran.

Narrative and Bodily Identity in Eating Disorders: Toward an Integrated Theoretical-Clinical Approach

Eating disorders (EDs) can be viewed as “embodied acts” that help to cope with internal and external demands that are perceived as overwhelming. The maintenance of EDs affects the entire identity of the person; the lack of a defined; or valid sense of self is expressed in terms of both physical body and personal identity. According to attachment theory, primary relationships characterized by insecurity, traumatic experiences, poor mirroring, and emotional attunement lead to the development of dysfunctional regulatory strategies. Although the literature shows an association between attachment style or states of mind, trauma, behavioral strategies, and various EDs, the debate is still ongoing and the results are still conflicting. Therefore, we believe it is important to examine and treat EDs by understanding which narrative trajectory intercepts distress in relation to narrative and embodied self-concept. Drawing on clinical observation and a narrative review of the literature, we focus on the construction and organization of bodily and narrative identity. Because bodily representations are the primary tools for generating meaning, organizing experience, and shaping social identity from the earliest stages of life, we focus on the role that bodily interactions and sensorimotor and proprioceptive patterns have played in the development of EDs. We consider the role that lack of attunement, insecure attachment, and relational trauma play in mentalizing, affecting self-representation and emotion regulation strategies. The paper also considers a semantic mode of trauma in EDs that involves a top-down pathway through beliefs and narratives about oneself based on lack of amiability, on devaluation, and on humiliation memories. Finally, we would like to highlight the proposal of an integrated model with multiple access model to psychotherapy that takes into account the complexity of ED patients in whom aspects related to dysregulation, body image disintegration, and post-traumatic symptoms are associated with a suffering sense of self and a retraumatizing narrative.

Adaptation and Validation of a Chinese Online Self-Regulated Learning Questionnaire

This study aimed to adapt and validate a Chinese version of the online self-regulated learning questionnaire (COSLQ) with Chinese junior secondary students in Hong Kong. A total of 716 students from six schools participated voluntarily in the study. Overall, the findings of this study supported the COSLQ’s psychometric quality. The COSLQ subscales all demonstrated high internal consistency. Different measurement models were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The results indicated that a 7-factor model best fit the data, suggesting that the participants could distinguish seven types of online self-regulatory strategies: goal setting, environment structuring, time management, effort regulation, cognitive/monitoring strategies, help seeking, and self-evaluation.

Reduced emotion regulatory selection flexibility in post-traumatic stress disorder: converging performance-based evidence from two PTSD populations

Background Contemporary views of emotion dysregulation in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) highlight reduced ability to flexibly select regulatory strategies according to differing situational demands. However, empirical evidence of reduced regulatory selection flexibility in PTSD is lacking. Multiple studies show that healthy individuals demonstrate regulatory selection flexibility manifested in selecting attentional disengagement regulatory strategies (e.g. distraction) in high-intensity emotional contexts and selecting engagement meaning change strategies (e.g. reappraisal) in low-intensity contexts. Accordingly, we hypothesized that PTSD populations will show reduced regulatory selection flexibility manifested in diminished increase in distraction (over reappraisal) preference as intensity increases from low to high intensity. Methods Study 1 compared student participants with high (N = 22) post-traumatic symptoms (PTS, meeting the clinical cutoff for PTSD) and participants with low (N = 22) post-traumatic symptoms. Study 2 compared PTSD diagnosed women (N = 31) due to childhood sexual abuse and matched non-clinical women (N = 31). In both studies, participants completed a well-established regulatory selection flexibility performance-based paradigm that involves selecting between distraction and reappraisal to regulate negative emotional words of low and high intensity. Results Beyond demonstrating adequate psychometric properties, Study 1 confirmed that relative to the low PTS group, the high PTS group presented reduced regulatory selection flexibility (p = 0.01, $\eta _{\rm p}^2$ = 0.14). Study 2 critically extended findings of Study 1, in showing similar reduced regulatory selection flexibility in a diagnosed PTSD population, relative to a non-clinical population (p = 0.002, $\eta _{\rm p}^2$ = 0.114). Conclusions Two studies provide converging evidence for reduced emotion regulatory selection flexibility in two PTSD populations.

Directed evolution of colE1 plasmid replication compatibility: a fast tractable tunable model for investigating biological orthogonality.

Plasmids of the ColE1 family are among the most frequently used plasmids in molecular biology. They were adopted early in the field for many biotechnology applications, and as model systems to study plasmid biology. The mechanism of replication of ColE1 plasmids is well understood, involving the interaction between a plasmid-encoded sense-antisense gene pair (RNAI and RNAII). Because of its mechanism of replication, bacterial cells cannot maintain two different plasmids with the same origin, with one being rapidly lost from the population — a process known as plasmid incompatibility. While mutations in the regulatory genes RNAI and RNAII have been reported to make colE1 plasmids more compatible, there has been no attempt to engineer compatible colE1 origins, which can be used for multi-plasmid applications and that can bypass design constrains created by the current limited plasmid origin repertoire available. Here, we show that by targeting sequence diversity to the loop regions of RNAI (and RNAII), it is possible to select new viable colE1 origins that are compatible with the wild-type one. We demonstrate origin compatibility is not simply determined by sequence divergence in the loops, and that pairwise compatibility is not an accurate guide for higher order interactions. We identify potential principles to engineer plasmid copy number independently from other regulatory strategies and we propose plasmid compatibility as a tractable model to study biological orthogonality. New characterised plasmid origins increase flexibility and accessible complexity of design for challenging synthetic biology applications where biological circuits can be dispersed between multiple independent genetic elements.