This brief report reviewed research trends based on articles published in Korean Journal of Health Psychology, Journal of Health Psychology, and British Journal of Health Psychology, and suggested the directions for Korean health psychologists students to further study. As a result of comparing the local and foreign research, it was determined that Korean research of health psychology did not differ from foreign researches. However, foreign researches in health psychology have been targeting patients with the more diverse physical diseases, and researched healthy behaviors so far varied. In Korea, experimental studies which examined the effectiveness of interventions for health promotion were more frequently fulfilled, and more diverse addicted behaviors were studied. Finally, Korean health psychologists need to be interested in studying theories and psychological factors related to a large variety of healthy behaviors, using both qualitative and meta analysis studies.
'Health' has become the concern of every age and class in modern society, 'Health psychology' is no longer a discipline only for a specific group. To date, children and adolescents have not the center of attention in the clinical setting and research of health psychology. But, the stages of child and adolescents development have been an emerging subject of interest because of the importance of prevention and treatment during periods making a fundamental and long-lasting impact on the whole life. The aim of this study is to introduce the creation of Pediatric Psychology, created by the academic and clinical interest in the need for children and adolescents in health psychology. The "new marriage between Psychology and Pediatrics" (Kagan, 1965) also started the academic gestation of interdisciplinary groups such as Clinical Psychology, Child and Adolescents Clinical Developmental Psychology, Clinical Nursing, Social Work, Family Therapy, Preventive Medicine and Public Health Medicine. The Society of Pediatric Psychology, the 54th division in the American Psychological Association, was established in 2001. At last, health psychologists for children and adolescents are suggesting looking at domestic issues both now and in the future.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a motivation management program on procrastination, anxiety, depression, and subjective well-being among female university students with a tendency towards procrastination. Forty-eight university students were recruited based on their Procrastination Assessment Scale-Student scores and divided into a treatment group (n=22) and a waiting-list control group (n=26). All participants completed the following scales at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and follow-up: Aitken Procrastination Scale(APS), Korean Adaptation of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-Y (K-STAI-Y), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Life Satisfaction Expectancy Scale (LSES), Affect scale, and Life Orientation Test-Revised(LOT-R). The treatment group participated in the motivation management program based on the Motivational States Theory and Integrative Motivation Management for 80-minute sessions per week over a 6-week period. The major findings were as follows: The treatment group showed greater improvements in the APS, K-STAI-Y, and LSES scores, as compared to the waiting-list control group. In addition, at follow-up, the treatment group showed significant improvements in CES-D, SWLS, Affect scale, and LOT-R scores. After the second assessment, the wait-list control group received three 100-minute sessions of the motivation management program and showed similar improvements. The implications of the results, along with suggestions for further studies, are discussed.
The purpose of this study was to verify the mediating effects of intolerance of uncertainty and emotional clarity in the relationship between daily stress and internet addiction in university students. Therefore, 250 university students were asked to complete a series of questionnaires consisting of Life Stress Scale for College Students, Internet Addiction Proneness Scale for Adults(A-Scale), Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale(IUS) and Trait Meta-Mood Scale(TMMS). The following results were obtained; First, daily stress showed a significant positive correlation with internet addiction and intolerance of uncertainty, and a significant negative correlation with emotional clarity. Further, internet addiction showed a significant positive correlation with intolerance of uncertainty, and a significant negative correlation with emotional clarity. Second, intolerance of uncertainty partly mediated the relationship between daily stress and internet addiction. Finally, emotional clarity partly mediated the relationship between daily stress and internet addiction. Based on these results, programs can be developed for internet addiction prevention and care for university students. Recommendations for future research were provided.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of ambivalent emotional expressiveness and health locus of control on the psychosocial adjustment of cancer patients, and its moderating effect of social support. The subjects of this study were 118 cancer patients, currently receiving chemotherapy and radiation therapy in hospitals. The Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer (Mini-MAC), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), Ambivalent Emotional Expressiveness Questionnaire (AEQ), Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLC), and Illness-Specific Social Support Scale (ISSS-GR) were administrated to them. The results of a multiple regression analysis were as follow. If patients have shown more ambivalent emotional expressiveness, their psychological disturbances such as anxiety, depression, helpless-hopeless and anxious preoccupation, were higher and the will to overcome cancer was lower. Also, if patients had more 'other health locus of control' and 'chance health locus of control' than 'internal health locus of control', their psychological disturbances were higher and the will to overcome cancer was lower. By examining the moderating effect of social support on cancer patients, in the relationship between ambivalent emotional expressiveness and psychosocial adjustment, positive support was an important factor in reducing helpless-hopeless. But, in the relationship between health locus of control and psychosocial adjustment, social support had no effect in reducing helpless-hopeless. The suggestions of this study and implications for further research were discussed.
The purpose of this study is to examine the roles of acceptance and cognitive reappraisal in the relationship between stress, subjective well-being and depression in older adults. Among various emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal, which is positively reinterpreting an event, is widely considered to improve subjective well-being and reduce depressive symptoms of the elderly. However, the role of acceptance - willingly experiencing an unpleasant thought and feeling - for successful aging is not yet clear. In this study, whether acceptance and cognitive reappraisal play a positive role on successful aging was identified by exploring the relationships among stress, subjective well-being, depression, acceptance, and cognitive reappraisal. Demographic characteristics such as gender, age, education level, and the presence of a spouse were also considered to verify whether the characteristics had an effect on elderly's subjective well-being and depression. The results showed that only education level was related to subjective well-being and depression. Acceptance was significantly related to high subjective well-being and low depression, whereas cognitive reappraisal was not. When the education level was controlled, the partial mediating effect of acceptance on the relationship between stress, subjective well-being and depression was found. From these results, it was provisionally supported that acceptance is helpful for improving elderly's subjective well-being and reducing depression, ultimately contributing to successful aging. Finally, the implications and limitations of this study and suggestions for future research were discussed.
The present study investigated how the fit between psychological distance associated with social distance and with goal state affects individuals' self-regulation. A total of 79 Korean undergraduates were randomly assigned to experimental conditions in a 2 (social distance: Friend vs. Stranger) X 2 (goal state: goal pursuit vs. goal completion) between-group design. Psychological distance was manipulated by priming either a friend (close) or a stranger (distant) who was either in the process of goal pursuit (close) or in the state of goal completion (distant). It was hypothesized that the fit in the direction of low-level construal (i.e., friend/pursuit) would have a facilitatory effect on the initiation of self-regulation, whereas the fit in the direction of high-level construal (i.e., stranger/completion) would facilitate the completion of the regulatory task. Results showed that, as expected, participants in the 'friend/pursuit' condition initiated the task more quickly than did those in the 'stranger/completion' condition. In contrast, participants in the 'stranger/completion' condition showed higher levels of task accuracy than did those in the 'friend/pursuit' condition. These results suggest that both low-level and high-level construal promote self-regulation but the effects are contingent upon the specific aspects of self-regulation. Implications of the findings and directions for future studies are discussed.
The aim of this study was to examine the effect of attentional bias for stimuli that are relevant in a group tending toward smartphone addiction using the Emotional Stroop Task and the Dot-Probe Task. The experiments were conducted with a general group (control group) included. Total 44 students participated in two tasks (22 addictive tendency group and 22 general group). Tendencies toward smartphone addiction were categorized by the Survey of Smartphone Addiction Scale (S-scale). In two experiments, Repeated ANOVA was used for statistical analysis. In experiment 1, the Emotional Stroop Task was performed, using smartphone-related and general words. There was no statistically significant difference between the subsamples, but the smartphone addictive tendency group displayed a slower reaction time for smartphone-related words, while the control group did for control words. In experiment 2, a modified Dot-Probe Task was conducted, using smartphone-related stimuli and control stimuli in pairs under 500 ms and 2,000 ms Stimulus-Onset Asynchrony (SOA) conditions. Under the SOA 500 ms condition, the smartphone addictive tendency group reacted more quickly to smartphone-relevant stimuli than to control stimuli which revealed an attentional bias for the former. The control group exhibited exactly the opposite response tendency: They reacted more quickly to the control stimuli than to the smartphone stimuli. There were no statistically significant results under the 2,000 ms SOA condition. This results can be interpreted as ‘Inhibition of Return(IOR)’. The findings suggest that the smartphone addictive tendency group has different attention characteristics than the control group. Such study results and related further research can be used for the evaluation of smartphone addiction.
The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of somatoform and, psychoform dissociation and hyperarousal on posttraumatic stress symptoms. We also investigated the differences between the two groups in heart rate variability (HRV) under different conditions. The experimental group included 14 individuals who had experienced traumatic events within 3 months. The control group included 14 healthy individuals who were matched for gender and age to the experimental group. All participants were asked to complete a series of self-report questionnaires pre- and post-treatment. Their heart rate variability (HRV) was recorded at baseline, recall, and during the recovery periods (for 5 minutes in each period). The results showed that experimental group reported lower heart rate variability at baseline than the control group. Furthermore, the hierarchical regression analysis indicated that only somatic dissociation contributed significantly to the prediction of posttraumatic stress symptoms among the prediction factors of the present study. Finally, the clinical implications and several limitations of the present study were discussed.
In this study, we examined the effects of gender roles on responses to trauma in laboratory settings to explain sex-differences in the prevalence rates and symptoms of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Two studies were conducted and compared to determine the effective experimental stimulus for Korean students and to investigate the association between gender roles and externalizing and internalizing responses to trauma. A total of 101 undergraduate students participated in the study. Traumatic experience was experimentally-induced by using videos that contained materials such as violent crime and terror attack. Individuals' depression, anxiety, aggression and anger were assessed before and after watching the traumatic video. Results from hierarchical regression models revealed that, controlling for biological sex of the participant, gender roles influenced individuals' responses to trauma including both externalizing and internalizing symptoms. Theoretical and clinical implications of this study are discussed.
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the factors that can influence posttraumatic growth(PTG), and to compare the subjective experience of PTG reported by trauma survivors and the objective observation made by professional therapists through qualitative research. The participants consisted of six trauma survivors who reported a PTG, and five professional therapists who usually treated trauma survivors. The participants were individually interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire, and asked about survivors' traumatic experience and process of PTG, or therapists' observation for their trauma clients. Data analysis was performed using the method of Giorgi(1985/2004) and Van Kaam(1969). All participants reported PTG in the various aspects of self, relationships, the attitude of life, and the perspective on life. Both trauma survivors and professional therapists commonly recognized the influence of constructive coping strategies on PTG. Whereas trauma survivors reported that PTG has been influenced by personality strength such as self-efficacy and interpersonal factors including social support, professional therapists emphasized cognitive factors and resiliency. Based on these findings, we discussed the process of PTG synthetically. Limitations of current study and directions for future research were presented.
The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical utility of the PSY-5 scales in the MMPI-2-RF and MMPI-2. According to the DSM-IV-TR, the sample consisted of cluster A, B and C personality disorder groups (N = 154). The results, based on multivariate ANOVAs showed that there were significant differences among the groups in the scales except for INTR (INTR-r). Post hoc analyses, Scheffe's and Dunnett's tests, revealed that cluster B scored higher than cluster C in AGGR (AGGR-r) and PSYC (PSYC-r). The scores of DISC (DISC-r) and NEGE (NEGE-r) in cluster B were higher than those of other groups. The results of the two PSY-5 scales were generally similar, but cluster C scored lower than cluster A in DISC of MMPI-2. The results suggest that the PSY-5 scale in the MMPI-2-RF can measure clinical range personality as much as the PSY-5 in the MMPI-2 with fewer questions. Implications and limitations of these findings are also discussed.