Psychological Bulletin

Frankenbach, Julius; Weber, Marcel; Loschelder, David D.; Kilger, Helena; Friese, Malte

doi: 10.1037/bul0000366pmid: 36227317

Few spheres in life are as universally relevant for (almost) all individuals past puberty as sexuality. One important aspect of sexuality concerns individuals’ sex drive—their dispositional sexual motivation. A vigorous scientific (and popular) debate revolves around the question of whether or not there is a gender difference in sex drive. Several theories predict a higher sex drive in men compared to women, with some theories attributing this difference to biased responding rather than true differences. Currently, there is little consensus on how to conceptualize sex drive, nor does a quantitative summary of the literature exist. In this article, we present a theory-driven conceptualization of sex drive as the density distribution of state sex drive, where state sex drive is defined as momentary sexual motivation that manifests in sexual cognition, affect, and behavior. We conduct a comprehensive meta-analysis of gender differences in sex drive based on 211 studies, 856 effect sizes, and 621,463 persons. The meta-analysis revealed a stronger sex drive in men compared to women, with a medium-to-large effect size, g = 0.69, 95% CI [0.58, 0.81]. Men more often think and fantasize about sex, more often experience sexual affect like desire, and more often engage in masturbation than women. Adjustment for biased responding reduced the gender difference (g = 0.54). Moderation analyses suggest that the effect is robust and largely invariant to contextual factors. There was no evidence of publication bias. The discussion focuses on validity considerations, limitations, and implications for psychological theory and people’s everyday lives.

Quigley, Leanne; Thiruchselvam, Thulasi; Quilty, Lena C.

doi: 10.1037/bul0000372pmid: N/A

Cognitive theories of depression propose that impaired cognitive control of emotional material may be involved in the onset, maintenance, and/or recurrence of depression. The present study is a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature on cognitive control biases in depression. Seventy-three articles describing 77 independent studies (N = 4,134 participants) were included in the meta-analysis. Depression-vulnerable individuals, including individuals with diagnosed major depressive disorder (MDD), remitted MDD (rMDD), and dysphoria, showed significantly impaired cognitive control of negative stimuli relative to both neutral and positive stimuli. Control samples did not exhibit the aforementioned biases, and instead showed significantly worse cognitive control of positive stimuli relative to negative stimuli and similar cognitive control of neutral stimuli relative to both negative and positive stimuli. Evidence for sample or methodological moderators of effect sizes was limited and inconsistent. Based on our review, we recommend that researchers assess and examine directional and causal relationships between multiple cognitive control biases (especially in updating and set shifting), investigate the causal relationships between general deficits and biases in cognitive control, select tasks that control for nontarget influences on performance (e.g., processing speed), use sample sizes adequately powered to detect small effects, provide psychometric information on task indices, consistently report within-groups biases and between-groups comparisons of biases, and examine potential moderators of cognitive control biases at the individual level.

Rueger, Sandra Yu; Pyun, Yoonsun; Coyle, Samantha; Wimmer, Jessica; Stone, Lauren B.

doi: 10.1037/bul0000378pmid: N/A

The current meta-analysis investigates the parental support–youth depression association and whether this association varies by gender and stress. Studies published from 1983 to February 2021 were gathered via electronic search in six databases and a hand search of 14 journals. Studies that measured support from parents and youth depression were included. Depression intervention studies and studies that measured constructs conceptually distinct from social support were excluded. Using a random-effects model, the overall effect size based on 170 studies on N = 114,674 participants was r = .27 (p < .001). Cross-sectional results supported the general benefits model with no evidence of parent gender differences, but results showed stronger associations between depression and support from parents as a unit compared to either mothers or fathers alone. Cross-sectional results also showed larger effect sizes for girls compared to boys in the association between depression and support from parents and mothers. However, there was no evidence for parent or youth gender differences in any of the longitudinal analyses. A significant cross-sectional dampening effect of stress on maternal/paternal support for both boys and girls was uncovered but disappeared in longitudinal analyses, and stress-buffering effects of parental support emerged over time in longitudinal analyses. Bidirectional analyses demonstrated parent and child effects with no youth gender differences. Sensitivity analyses showed little evidence of publication bias or historical influences. Limitations include lack of information about support type and developmental differences. Results underscore the importance of including both mothers and fathers in depression prevention and intervention efforts.

Li, Lilian Y.; Dent, Amy L.; Donberg, Ryan; Martin, Elizabeth A.

doi: 10.1037/bul0000380pmid: N/A

Evidence suggests that individuals with schizophrenia display a trait–state disjunction in affective experience characterized by severe trait-level disturbances yet relatively intact state-level experiences, but the extent to which trait–state disjunction is found in individuals at high risk (HR) for schizophrenia-spectrum disorders is unclear. Therefore, this meta-analysis provides an integrative evaluation of HR individuals’ self-reported affective experiences across trait and state to identify which disturbances are most pronounced and for whom—a crucial objective for understanding affective vulnerability factors for schizophrenia. A literature search yielded 181 studies, totaling 995 effect sizes across 9,672 HR and 15,386 controls. Notably, a large amount of heterogeneity among effect sizes was observed. Multivariate models with robust variance estimation showed that HR (vs. control) participants had lower trait positive affect (PA) and higher trait negative affect (NA), with state-level disturbances being weaker than trait-level disturbances. Heightened NA generalized across methods used for eliciting and assessing affective experiences, whereas PA deficits were more variable and most severe for social processes. Moreover, the severity of PA and NA disturbances was greater for participants with higher levels of schizophrenia-spectrum risk. Overall, findings provide support for the trait–state disjunction in HR conditions along the schizophrenia spectrum, although the observed heterogeneity highlights the uncertainty of our findings and urges continued investigation in further explicating this heterogeneity. We outline an explanatory model for these findings and discuss important implications to facilitate future research on the role affective experience disturbances may play in the developmental pathway for schizophrenia.