Studies of arousal and emotion show that generalized physiological arousal can enhance emotional experience for a range of different emotions. Other research shows that different emotions may be associated with specific patterns of physiological reactivity. Together these findings suggest that while nonspecific autonomic activation can be sufficient in the generation of emotion, specific patterns of reactivity may appear once the emotion is established. This study aimed to test this hypothesis by examining the effects of generalized arousal on emotional experience, as well as the physiological responses associated with positive and negative emotions. One hundred and nine participants either sat or stood during the viewing of positive and negative film clips while emotion ratings and cardiorespiratory measures were taken. Those who stood during the videos reported greater levels of emotion than those who sat, indicating that generalized arousal due to standing heightened emotional experience. In addition, participants exhibited greater high-frequency heart rate variability and lower respiration rate during the negative video than the positive video, indicating that physiological reactivity differed between the positive and negative emotions. These results suggest that while patterns of physiological reactivity may be specific to individual emotions, nonspecific arousal is sufficient to enhance diverse emotions.

Self-affirmation is the act of focusing on important aspects of the self, such as personal values and characteristics. We used a within-participants design (N= 125) to examine cardiovascular reactivity and self-reported affective responses to the practice of self-affirmation. In the self-affirmation condition, we asked participants to write about their top-ranked personal value for 5 min and used a writing exercise unrelated to personal values in the control condition. The International Affective Picture System was used to induce positive and negative emotion. Results showed that participants had greater high frequency heart rate variability and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) when practicing self-affirmation. During negative emotion induction, self-affirmation also led to lower maximum heart rate, higher RSA, and lower ratings of negative affect. Our findings suggest that the act of focusing on an important aspect of self has beneficial effects on psychological and physiological well-being.

This chapter considers the implications of the development of an environmental stress perspective and discusses in detail some of the major methodological options presented. One development in the growth of environmental psychology has been the linking of environmental stress to the study of stress and medical outcomes. Stress is a process by which environmental events threaten, harm, or challenge an organism’s existence or well-being, and by which the organism responds to this threat. Subjects may be observed in the stressful environment and their behavioral responses recorded and interpreted, or performance measures can be used to assess the effects of stress on motivation or on some ability or skill during or after exposure to a stressor. Research on life change is concerned with measuring the frequency of experience with various stressors or events that require adjustment or involve disruption of everyday life. Observational measures of behavior under stressful conditions can also provide useful information.

This study aimed to investigate the impact of social media on perceptions of food-related content. We asked participants a series of questions about their diet, attitudes, and social media use. We also manipulated food photos posted on Instagram to reveal varying degrees of information from the social media app (no Instagram information, icons visible, number of likes visible, or caption visible). Participants rated the foods in these photos based on how healthy they perceived them to be and how likely they were to eat them. We then used a 2X4 MANOVA to test whether healthy, unhealthy, and neutral foods were perceived differently between genders and conditions. Results showed no effect of condition, but indicated that men rated unhealthy foods as significantly healthier than women did. We also found that women's perceived healthiness ratings of healthy foods were positively correlated with ratings of how likely they were to eat them; in contrast, there were no relationships between perceived health and likelihood of eating any foods for men. Finally, results of our social media use questions indicated that Facebook was the most popular website used for finding recipes. These findings suggest that while we did not see any between-condition differences, social media may be a factor in what people eat. Furthermore, gender may be a key factor in this relationship.

U-Pace instruction, comprised of concept mastery and amplified assistance, has shown promise in increasing undergraduate success. To evaluate the efficacy of U-Pace instruction for students at-risk for college non-completion and students not at-risk and to determine whether concept mastery, amplified assistance, or both U-Pace components are responsible for the greater learning associated with U-Pace instruction, an experiment was conducted with four instructional conditions (U-Pace, Concept Mastery, Amplified Assistance, and Face-to-Face). At a public university, 914 undergraduates (576 at-risk) participated. U-Pace instruction produced greater learning than the comparisons. Additionally, U-Pace instruction produced greater academic success than Face-to-Face instruction. The percentage of final grades of A or B did not differ for Concept Mastery, Amplified Assistance, and U-Pace students. No interaction between instructional condition and risk status was found for final grades or learning. The efficacy of U-Pace instruction for both at-risk students and students not at-risk was supported.

Lay Description Less than optimal student success in gateway courses figures prominently in college noncompletion. Past findings suggest that U-Pace instruction holds promise for increasing student success. However, all published studies of U-Pace instruction were conducted in the gateway course context of introductory psychology. The objective of this research was to rigorously evaluate the efficacy of U-Pace instruction in introductory sociology and introductory political science for students at-risk for college noncompletion and students not at-risk. The findings from both randomized controlled trials indicate that regardless of risk status, U-Pace students outperformed their conventionally taught face-to-face counterparts earning a greater percentage of final grades of A or B and higher scores on a proctored cumulative assessment of learning, independent of final grades. The results not only confirm previous findings of greater academic success and greater learning associated with U-Pace instruction but also clearly demonstrate that U-Pace instruction produces greater learning and greater academic success. Further, the findings of this research reveal that these student outcomes generalize across courses in two disciplines for both students at-risk for college noncompletion and students not at-risk, providing strong support for the efficacy of U-Pace instruction.

The current study tests whether manipulating simple motor movements can regulate one’s physiological reactivity to negative images. Healthy college age participants were randomly assigned to no tapping, steady tapping, or slow tapping conditions and viewed two sets of 15 negative images from the international affective picture system. Participants viewed the first image set without manipulation. During the second image set, they were instructed to tap at a steady pace, a slow pace or not at all. Steady tapping suppressed the vagal component of the cardiovascular defense response, and produced a significant increase in respiration rate and skin conductance level (SCL). Slow tapping suppressed the sympathetic and enhanced the vagal components of the cardiovascular defensive response, and produced a decrease in heart rate, SCL and skin conductance responses to negative images. Results suggest that manipulating simple motor movements is an effective way to both up-regulate and more importantly, down-regulate one’s physiological response to negative affective images. Manipulation of slow and simple motor movements may be an effective means to attenuate autonomic arousal.

Little is known about how control-oriented coping affects the stress responses in victims of technological catastrophes. In this study, control-oriented coping and immediate stress responses were studied in 40 evacuees (during a nearly 3-week evacuation) from a technological accident and concurrently in 50 participants from a demographically similar comparison site. Control-oriented coping was significantly and negatively associated with psychological, behavioral, and physiological stress responses in evacuees, but not comparison-site participants. This is the first investigation we are aware of relating control-oriented coping to immediate stress responses in the acute phase of exposure to evacuation from a technological accident.

This study investigated the effect of residual arousal on perceived positive and negative emotion, and the relationship between the valence of emotion and cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory reactivity. A total of 74 participants were randomly assigned to either a Residual Arousal (exercise-induced) group or a No Residual Arousal (no exercise) group. Following the arousal manipulation, participants watched a video that elicited positive emotion and a video that elicited negative emotion. Within-person differences revealed greater discrepancies between participants' reports of positive and negative emotions in response to the videos, indicating that residual arousal caused stronger positive and negative emotions. With regard to physiological reactivity, participants in the No Residual Arousal group exhibited lower heart rate, respiration amplitude, and heart rate variability (LF/HF ratio) during the negative video than during the positive video, suggesting that the positive and negative videos had different influences on physiology. These results support the hypothesis that autonomic activation may be nonspecific with regard to the genesis of emotion, but once a person becomes emotional, physiological reactivity may differ between emotions.

A randomized controlled trial was conducted to determine the efficacy of U-Pace instruction for older undergraduates, ages 25 and older, and younger undergraduates, ages 18 to 24. Additionally, change in learner perceptions across the semester, an outcome not reported in the literature on U-Pace instruction, was investigated. In both younger and older undergraduates U-Pace instruction produced greater learning, greater academic success, and sustained or improved students' perceptions of themselves as learners compared with Face-to-Face instruction. The findings provide strong support for the efficacy of U-Pace instruction in younger and older students and highlight a possible mechanism underlying U-Pace instruction's effects on learning and academic success.

Self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) has been recommended for people with type 2 diabetes mellitus. This trial tested an automated self-management monitor (ASMM) that reminds patients to perform SMBG, provides feedback on results of SMBG, and action tips for improved self-management. This delayed-start trial randomized participants to using the ASMM immediately (IG), or following a delay of 6 months (DG). Glycated hemoglobin (HgbA1c) level and survey data was collected at home visits every 3 months. 44 diabetic men and women, mean age 70, completed the 12-month trial. Baseline HgbA1c was 8.1 % ± 1.0, dropping to 7.3 ± 1.0 by 9 months, with a 3-month lag in the DG (F = 3.56, p = 0.004). Decrease in HgbA1c was significantly correlated to increased frequency of SMBG, R = 0.588, p < 0.01. Providing older diabetics with objective immediate contingent feedback resulted in more frequent SMBG that correlated with better glycemic control. This type of technology may provide real-time feedback not only to patient users, but to the health care system, allowing better integration of provider recommendations with patient-centered action.

BACKGROUND:To date only a few published studies have examined the effect of disorder-relevant stressors on heart rate variability (HRV) in participants meeting a clinical diagnosis of GAD, with conflicting results. The primary aim of this study was to determine if GAD is associated with lower HRV at rest, and whether vagal regulation during task varies by type (i.e., baseline, anticipation, imagery, or worry). METHODS:This study investigated resting cardiac vagal tone and vagal regulation in a sample of 40 participants with or without a validated diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). High-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) was used to index cardiac vagal activity. RESULTS:GAD was associated with vagal withdrawal during both imagery and worry inductions, but no group differences in resting vagal tone or worry were observed. LIMITATIONS:Methodological limitations include inherent limits to generalizability of laboratory-based findings; specifically worry induction and cardiac reactivity to lab-based stressors. CONCLUSIONS:The results support the notion that GAD is associated with vagal withdrawal during active bouts of idiographic worry and imagery, and question the assumption that GAD is associated with low resting vagal tone. In light of polyvagal theory these findings provide additional support for the presence of emotion regulation deficits in GAD, and identify specific ANS processes that underlie GAD.

This study was undertaken to evaluate whether the student success associated with the U-Pace instructional approach, which integrates mastery-based learning with proactive instructor support in an online learning environment, would replicate for both economically disadvantaged students and students who are not economically disadvantaged. Undergraduates were enrolled in U-Pace intervention or comparison sections of a gateway course at two universities with different learning management systems. Course content was held constant. At both universities, intervention students earned a significantly greater percentage of objectively determined final grades of A or B. This academic success was found for both economically disadvantaged intervention students and intervention students who were not economically disadvantaged. Improvement from the beginning to the end of the semester in intervention students' rate of mastering concepts was found at University 1, but not at University 2. The assessment of learning conducted at University 1, independent of final course grades, showed that intervention students scored significantly higher on the proctored cumulative exam than comparison students. Findings suggest that the U-Pace instructional intervention holds promise for increasing the success of undergraduates regardless of economic status.

Background and Purpose:Musculoskeletal problems, including shoulder pain, are common in the general population and are often cited as reasons for physician visits. Although many risk factors for shoulder pain are postulated, the effects of shoulder pain on functional level and perceived quality of life are poorly characterized in older adults. In this study, we set out to determine the prevalence and impact of shoulder symptoms and dysfunction in an older adult veteran population. Methods:A chart review, cross-sectional survey, and examination were performed. A sample of 93 individuals, aged 60 years or older, was recruited from a primary clinic outpatient waiting room at the Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Patients were asked about shoulder symptoms and self-assessed health and completed the Stanford Modified Health Assessment Questionnaire. A series of 3 shoulder maneuvers was used to assess shoulder mobility and pain. The presence of diabetes and statin use was documented. A more thorough chart review was performed on individuals who reported shoulder pain and disability. Results:Severe shoulder pain was common in the study group, reported by 31% of all participants. Functional limitation measured by the Modified Health Assessment Questionnaire and answering “yes” to greater difficulty performing daily tasks was associated with reduced internal rotation, which was present in almost 36% of all participants. Symptoms were often bilateral. No statistically significant risk factors emerged in this small sample, but suggestive trends were apparent. Interestingly, few patients reported discussing these problems with their providers, and shoulder-related problems were documented in only 10% of corresponding problem lists of symptomatic patients. Conclusions:With an aging population, the high prevalence of shoulder pain may have considerable impact on public health. It will become increasingly important to define risk factors, delineate etiologies, and devise new management strategies for patients with symptomatic shoulder disease.

U-Pace, an evidence-based online instructional approach, integrates mastery-based learning and Amplified Assistance (constructive support and tailored concept feedback). There is strong empirical evidence for U-Pace instruction, including randomized controlled trials funded by the U. S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, and studies funded by Educause’s Next Generation Learning Challenges program. Research in post-secondary education has shown that U-Pace produces greater learning and academic success compared to conventional classroom instruction and other forms of online instruction. Only one study has been conducted investigating whether U-Pace instruction can produce similar positive outcomes among high school students. Lessons learned from this study, which included students from two high schools enrolled in college-level math, developmental math, or college-level psychology, will be presented. This Best Practices presentation by U-Pace co-creators and staff will leave participants with an understanding of U-Pace instruction and the resources available at no cost to develop U-Pace courses.