College Students May Forget Class Content to Protect Self-Image

New research suggests forgetting content from a stressful math class may be one way to protect an individual’s belief that they are good at math.

The phenomenon is similar to repression, the psychological process in which people forget emotional or traumatic events to protect themselves.

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers found that the students who forgot the most content from the class were those who reported a high level of stress during the course.

However, paradoxically, the study also found that the strong relationship between stress level and the tendency to forget course material was most prevalent among the students who are most confident in their own mathematical abilities.

The phenomenon, which the authors call “motivated forgetting,” may occur because students are subconsciously protecting their own self-image as excellent mathematicians, said Dr. Gerardo Ramirez, a UCLA assistant professor of psychology and the study’s lead author.

For the study, researchers analyzed 117 undergraduates in an advanced calculus course at UCLA.

The students generally consider themselves to be strong in mathematics and plan to pursue careers that rely on high-level mathematical skills, so the logical assumption would be that they would be likely to remember most of the material from the course.

Researchers asked students a series of questions at the start of the course, including having them assess to what extent they see themselves as “math people.”

Each week throughout the course, students were asked to gauge how stressful they thought the course was. Then, the study’s authors examined students’ performance on the course’s final exam and on another similar test two weeks later. On average, students’ grades were 21 percent lower on the follow-up.

Among students who strongly considered themselves to be “math people,” those who experienced a lot of stress performed measurably worse on the follow-up exam than those whose stress levels were lower.

The results were striking because, in the cases of the students whose stress levels were highest, test scores dropped by as much as a full letter grade, from an A-minus to a B-minus, for example.

Ramirez explains that the behaviors make sense from a psychological perspective.

“Students who found the course very stressful and difficult might have given in to the motivation to forget as a way to protect their identity as being good at math,” he said.

“We tend to forget unpleasant experiences and memories that threaten our self-image as a way to preserve our psychological well-being. And ‘math people’ whose identity is threatened by their previous stressful course experience may actively work to forget what they learned.”

The idea that people are motivated to forget unpleasant experiences — activating a sort of “psychological immune system” — goes back to Sigmund and Anna Freud, the pioneers of psychoanalysis, Ramirez said.

The students who think of themselves as excellent at math and felt high levels of stress were also more likely to report they avoided thinking about the course after it ended more than other students did. Previous studies by other researchers also seem to support the concept of motivated forgetting.

For example, a 2011 Harvard University study found that when people were asked to memorize an “honor code” and then pay themselves for solving a series of problems, those who cheated and overpaid themselves remembered less of the honor code at the end of the experiment than those who did not cheat.

“Motivated forgetting, or giving in to the desire to forget what we find threatening, is a defense mechanism people use against threats to the way they like to depict themselves,” Ramirez said. “The students are highly motivated to do well and can’t escape during the course, but as soon as they take their final exam, they can give in their desire to forget and try to suppress the information.”

Ramirez said there are steps teachers can take to help students retain information. Some of them:

• Emphasize the material’s real-world applications. This will give students incentives to remember information and review it later on. “I think we often do a poor job of showing students why the content is relevant to their lives and future job skills,” Ramirez said.
• Cover the entire course in final exams. And not just the most recent material. “Non-cumulative exams tell students they can forget what they have already been tested on,” he said.
• Guard against learning-by-photo. Specifically, Ramirez advises students not to try to capture course notes by taking photos with their smartphones — it might subtly create an impression that they don’t need to actually learn the information.
• Embrace the challenges. When his students struggle, Ramirez tells them the challenge they’re facing will lead to deeper learning. “I try to change what ‘struggle’ means for them so that they don’t feel threatened when they are stressed out about the material,” he said.

Source: UCLA

Pregnancy Warning Signs on Alcohol Tied to Reduced Drinking by Expectant Women

Alcohol consumption among pregnant women has dropped 11 percent in states with point-of-sale warning signs, according to a new study conducted by a health economist at the University of Oregon.

The benefits show up in fewer extremely premature births (less than 32 weeks gestation) and very-low-birth-weight babies (less than 3.5 pounds). The greatest effects were found among women aged 30 and older.

Health economist Gulcan Cil published her findings in the Journal of Health Economics. Her complex breakdown of extensive data points to reduced drinking by pregnant women in areas with required warning signs and suggests a likely causal relationship between drinking while pregnant and birth outcomes.

“The signage is working,” said Cil, a visiting instructor in the Department of Economics and postdoctoral fellow in the department’s Mikesell Environmental and Resource Economics Research Lab. “Drinking alcohol while pregnant has been an issue that many policies have tried to address over the last few decades. An 11 percent change in the prevalence of drinking is not trivial. It is big enough to show up in the birth outcomes.”

The study involved regression analyses of data available in two national sources and information from the 23 states and Washington, D.C., which have adopted such signage, and a group of states that have not. The study’s control group included women who had lived in non-adopting states and women who lived in adopting states before signage requirements were implemented.

Comparing data from sign-adopting states and those not using signage allowed Cil to identify the direct relationship between drinking while pregnant and birth outcomes, reducing the likelihood that other factors such as cigarette smoking, drug abuse, nutritional deficiencies, and other risky life choices were at play in behavioral changes.

“It’s very hard to isolate one thing from another,” she said. “One thing that we do in empirical economics, in general, or applied econometrics is to try to find something that changes one variable at a time.”

Overall, point-of-sale signage, said Cil, appears to be an effective, low-cost approach to protect the health of pregnant women and their babies.

“Some people never get exposed to these kinds of educational campaigns,” Cil said. “I found that the issue has never been studied and evaluated as a public education program or public awareness program.”

The idea for the study was sparked when Cil noticed a sign in a Eugene, Oregon grocery store. She added that the signage used in Oregon contains an eye-catching graphic depicting a pregnant woman, while signs used in other states do not. All contain similar language. A future study might explore whether variations in signage — graphics, fonts, colors, and language — may best influence behavioral change.

Source: University of Oregon

Money Anxiety During Pregnancy May Lead to Low-Birth Weight Baby

New research suggests a mother’s financial worries during pregnancy could contribute to birth of a smaller, medically vulnerable infant.

Ohio State University investigators found that pregnancy-specific distress, such as concerns that the baby’s needs won’t be met, appears to be a pathway between financial strain and higher likelihood of a low-birth-weight infant.

The study appears in the journal Archives of Women’s Mental Health.

Although money worries are relatively common, researchers believe solutions to minimize the perceived stress are available.

“There is an opportunity here to look for interventions during pregnancy that could help mitigate the effects of financial strain on birth outcomes,” said lead author Amanda Mitchell, a postdoctoral researcher in Ohio State Wexner Medical Center’s Stress and Health in Pregnancy Research Program.

While larger efforts to improve access to housing, jobs, and support for low-income women is critical, there are potential low-cost, stress-reduction techniques that could help reduce risk, Mitchell said. Meditation and breathing exercises could prove useful, for instance, she said.

“It’s important for all women who experience pregnancy-related stress to seek out help coping with that stress,” Mitchell said.

“And ob-gyns and other medical providers should also talk about stress during their visits with expecting moms.”

Researchers followed 138 pregnant women who filled out questionnaires to assess financial strain, depressive symptoms, pregnancy-specific distress, perceived stress, and general anxiety.

Moms in the racially diverse study group were between five and 31 weeks pregnant and 29 years old on average at the time of the assessment. The study, which was primarily designed to evaluate flu vaccine effectiveness, ran from 2013 to 2015.

After the participants’ babies were born, researchers were able to review medical records to compare birth weight against moms’ questionnaire responses during pregnancy.

The researchers knew from previous studies that pregnant moms who are socioeconomically disadvantaged have a higher likelihood of having smaller babies and worse birth outcomes.

What they wanted to learn was whether specific factors could be driving that connection — factors that could lead to positive interventions for women at risk of delivering low-birth-weight babies.

Statistical models designed to identify those drivers landed on one statistically significant factor: pregnancy-specific distress.

“This includes concerns about labor and delivery, about relationships changing, about working after the baby arrives, paying for medical care, and whether the baby will be unhealthy,” said study senior author Lisa Christian.

Financial strain was assessed based on a five-point scale derived from moms’ responses to three questions:

• “How difficult is it for you to live on your total household income right now?”
• “In the next two months, how likely is it that you and your family will experience actual hardships, such as inadequate housing, food, or medical attention?”
• “How likely is it that you and your family will have to reduce your standard of living to the bare necessities of life?”

The issue is salient as low-birth-weight babies often suffer from serious health problems and spend their first weeks or months in intensive care. About eight percent of babies born in the United States are underweight at birth.

Low birth weight is clinically defined as below 2,500 grams, or five pounds and eight ounces.

“It’s important to understand the factors that make it more likely for a woman with lower socioeconomic conditions to have a baby at higher risk of complications and death,” Mitchell said.

Limitations of the study include the fact that it was a secondary analysis of data collected during a different study, and that the overall number of low-birth-weight babies was small, at 11. The researchers suggest that replicating this study in a larger group would be beneficial.

Researchers are working on another study looking at blood biomarkers that might better explain what biological changes could be at play, including inflammation, Mitchell said.

Source: Ohio State University/EurekAlert

Bullies, Victims Want More Plastic Surgery

Teenagers who are affected by bullying in any way — whether by being bullied or by being the bully — have a greater desire to have plastic surgery, according to a new study at the University of Warwick in England.

The findings show that bullies want to have plastic surgery to improve their appearance and increase their social status, while victims of bullying want to go under the knife because their mental health is affected by being picked on giving them lower self-esteem, more emotional problems, and a desire to change their appearance.

Researchers from the Department of Psychology and Warwick Medical School screened nearly 2,800 adolescents aged 11 to 16 in UK secondary schools for their involvement in bullying, both through self and peer assessment.

A sample group of around 800 students — including bullies, victims, those who both bully and are bullied, and those who are unaffected by bullying — was analyzed for emotional problems, levels of self-esteem and body-esteem, and how much they desired to have plastic surgery.

The findings revealed that the __teens involved in bullying in any role were more interested in cosmetic surgery, compared to those not involved in bullying. Desire for cosmetic surgery was highest among victims of bullying, but was also increased in bullying perpetrators.

The study showed that 11.5 percent of bullying victims have an extreme desire to have cosmetic surgery, as well as 3.4 percent of bullies, and 8.8 percent of teenagers who both bully and are bullied — this is compared with less than one percent of those who are unaffected by bullying.

Girls have more desire for plastic surgery than boys. Of the sample group, 7.3 percent of the girls had an extreme wish to have plastic surgery, compared with two percent of boys.

The authors say that young people might have less of a desire for plastic surgery if their mental health issues due to bullying are addressed. They suggest that cosmetic surgeons screen potential patients for a history of bullying, and any related mental health issues.

“Being victimized by peers resulted in poor psychological functioning, which increased desire for cosmetic surgery. For bullies, cosmetic surgery may simply be another tactic to increase social status […] to look good and achieve dominance,” said Professor Dieter Wolke and co-authors.

“The desire for cosmetic surgery in bullied adolescents is immediate and long-lasting. Our results suggest that cosmetic surgeons should screen candidates for psychological vulnerability and history of bullying.”

The study, titled “Adolescent Desire for Cosmetic Surgery: Associations with Bullying and Psychological Functioning,” is published in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

Source: University of Warwick

Antidepressants in Early Pregnancy May Not Hike Risk of Autism, ADHD

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association contradicts prior research, finding that antidepressants used during early pregnancy does not increase the risk of children developing autism or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

The University of Indiana study found significant evidence for only a slight increase in risk for premature birth in the infants of mothers who used antidepressants during the first trimester of pregnancy.

“To our knowledge, this is one of the strongest studies to show that exposure to antidepressants during early pregnancy is not associated with autism, ADHD or poor fetal growth when taking into account the factors that lead to medication use in the first place,” said study leader Dr. Brian D’Onofrio.

“Balancing the risks and benefits of using antidepressants during pregnancy is an extremely difficult decision that every woman should make in consultation with her doctor,” he said. “However, this study suggests use of these medications while pregnant may be safer than previously thought.”

Researchers called the study unique because its methodology included the review of an entire population rather than common techniques using smaller samples.

Researchers reported that after controlling for multiple other risk factors, they did not find any increased risk of autism, ADHD or reduced fetal growth among exposed offspring. The risk for premature birth was about 1.3 times higher for exposed offspring compared to unexposed offspring.

The analysis, conducted in collaboration with researchers at Karolinska Institute in Sweden and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, drew upon data on all live births in Sweden from 1996 to 2012.

It also incorporated data reporting the country’s antidepressant prescriptions in adults, autism and ADHD diagnoses in children, genetic relationships between parents and children, parents’ age and education levels, and other factors.

With over 1.5 million infants, the study comprises one of the largest and most comprehensive populations ever analyzed to understand the impact of antidepressant use during pregnancy.

The increased risk for premature birth was found after controlling for other factors that affect health, such as a mother’s age at childbearing, in siblings whose mothers used antidepressants during one pregnancy but not during another pregnancy.

“The ability to compare siblings who were differentially exposed to antidepressants in pregnancy is a major strength of this study,” D’Onofrio said.

“Most analyses rely upon statistical matching to control for differences in factors such as age, race and socioeconomic status. But it’s difficult to know if you’ve made a perfect match because you can’t be certain you have all the relevant measures to control for these differences.”

When comparing unrelated children and controlling for related risk factors, the researchers found a slightly higher risk for all four conditions: 1.4 times higher odds for premature birth, 1.1 times higher odds for low fetal growth and 1.6 times higher risk for autism and ADHD.

In an uncontrolled analysis — which did not take these factors into account — antidepressant use in early pregnancy was associated with 1.5 times higher odds for premature birth, 1.2 times higher odds for fetal growth, 2.0 times higher risk for autism and 2.2 times increased risk for ADHD.

The majority of the antidepressants examined in the study — 82 percent — were selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, the most common type of antidepressants. Commonly used SSRIs include fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft) and citalopram (Celexa).

In addition to the use of these medications during early pregnancy, the study looked at concurrent antidepressant use in fathers, as well as mothers’ use of antidepressants before but not during pregnancy.

These uses were associated with increased risk for autism, ADHD and poor fetal growth, providing evidence that family factors, such as genetics or environmental factors, influence these outcomes, as opposed to antidepressant use during pregnancy.

“The additional comparisons provide further evidence that other factors — not first-trimester exposure to antidepressants — explain why women who took these medications during early pregnancy were more likely to have offspring with these pregnancy and neurodevelopmental problems,” D’Onofrio said.

Source: University of Indiana

Better Visualizers of the Future May Be More Impulsive

University of Pennsylvania researchers Dr. Joseph Kable and doctoral student Trishala Parthasarathi wanted to understand why some people are more impulsive than others, and whether that could change within an individual.

So they hypothesized, based on the field’s most recent research, that strong visualization of the future might motivate someone to wait to receive a larger reward rather than take a smaller amount right away — delaying gratification, in other words.

In fact, they found that the opposite was true.

Great visualizers turned out to be more impulsive, Kable and Parthasarathi discovered. Their findings are published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

“When people have to make tradeoffs between something that’s in front of them right now and something that they can only get in the future, they differ in the extent to which they go for each outcome,” said Kable.

As it turns out, “people who have imaginations with more vivid details are more likely to not delay gratification.”

Or as Parthasarathi, a fifth-year Ph.D. student, explained, “Better visualizers tend to be more impulsive when they’re making choices about a smaller reward, accepting it immediately rather than waiting for a larger reward in the future.”

To reach this conclusion, the research team devised an experiment that brought 38 adults with a median age of approximately 25 into the lab for a four-week intervention.

At the start, each participant completed several decision-making tests and self-reporting surveys, including the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, which asked participants to imagine in great detail a friend’s face or a setting sun, then rate on a scale of one to five how clearly they could see each.

“A lower score on the scale indicated people were better able to imagine things than a higher score, which indicated people imagined things less clearly,” Parthasarathi said.

The participants were then randomly split into two groups, one in which they got trained on improving their visualization skills, the other in which they practiced meditation. Twice weekly for the month, they worked with a health-and-wellness counselor on their respective areas.

“People in the visualization group would think about two future goals, one at a time, and the process used to achieve each, how they felt after they achieved each and so on,” Parthasarathi said.

“Those in the relaxation group were trained to think in the present, so breath awareness and attention to your body. Nothing related to thinking about the future.”

Once the study period ended, participants completed the same battery of tests they’d taken at the beginning. Analyzing comparison data from the experiments start and finished provided the researchers with their counterintuitive results.

“It certainly wasn’t what we expected. It’s surprising in light of the most recent work,” Kable said. But, he added, it’s less so if you think about findings from one of the original delayed-gratification experiments.

Kable is referring to what’s today commonly called the Marshmallow Test. In the 1960s, Stanford University psychologist Walter Mischel offered children the opportunity to eat a single treat immediately or get double the amount if they could wait alone in the room until the researcher returned.

Two plates — one with a single reward, the other with multiple — sat in plain view.

“The thought was, ‘Your goal is right in front of you. You’ll be able to work toward it more,'” Kable explained. In fact, Mischel “found the direction of the association that we see: When the kids could see what they would get if they waited, they were more impulsive.”

Interestingly, Parthasarathi and Kable also learned that improving someone’s visualization abilities can actually make that person more impatient.

Despite results counter to what they expected, the researchers feel their work has real-world implications regarding impulsive behaviors. They now know that those keen on taking an immediate reward are more likely to use drugs or do poorly in school.

They’re more likely to smoke and have a harder time quitting. So the psychologists can adjust behavior-changing treatments that accompany smoking cessation toward meditation and away from visualization, for instance.

“The reason why we studied this task is we think it’s a microcosm that can tell us what people are doing outside the lab,” Kable said. “We’re still interested in what we can do to help people become more patient.”

Source: University of Pennsylvania

Early Abuse May Lead to Attention Issues Later in Life

According to a new study, veterans with a history of physical or sexual abuse or witnessing family violence before the age of 18 have a reduced ability to concentrate compared to veterans who were not abused.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and the Translational Research Center for TBI and Stress Disorders at the VA Boston Healthcare System compared two groups of young veterans. One group had a history of early life abuse, while the other did not.

Both groups performed a concentration test while their brain activity was measured. The group that experienced trauma prior to 18 had worse concentration and abnormal communication between “emotional” regions (amygdala) and “attentional” regions of the brain (prefrontal cortex).

The amygdala is a core region for emotion, and frontal areas that help maintain focus.

The study, which appears in the journal Brain and Behavior, offers a new perspective on the long-term impact of psychological trauma years, if not decades, after childhood.

“Trauma during one’s youth may not just cause difficulties with emotions later in life but may also impact day-to-day functioning like driving, working, education, and relationships due to brain changes that stem from the trauma,” explained senior author Michael Esterman, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at BUSM and associate director of the VA Boston Neuroimaging Center.

“Our results suggest that early psychological interventions could result in better cognitive abilities as an adult.”

According to the researchers, this study suggests that interpersonal abuse before 18 can have dramatic and long-lasting effects on brain development that are only now beginning to be understood.

Source: Boston University Medical Center/EurekAlert