Psychological Bulletin

Bennett, Susanna; Robb, Kathryn A.; Zortea, Tiago C.; Dickson, Adele; Richardson, Cara; O’Connor, Rory C.

doi: 10.1037/bul0000397pmid: N/A

Suicide is a gendered phenomenon, where male deaths outnumber those of women virtually everywhere in the world. Quantitative work has dominated suicide research producing important insights but only a limited understanding of why more men die by suicide. We conducted a qualitative metasynthesis and systematic review of 20 years of narratives both from men who are suicidal and from people who are bereaved by male suicide to identify putative risk and recovery factors. We identified 78 studies that encapsulated insights from over 1,695 people. Using Thomas and Harden’s Thematic Synthesis Method, our analysis is built on 1,333 basic codes, 24 descriptive themes, and four analytical themes. We noted an association between cultural norms of masculinity and suicide risk in 96% of studies. Norms relating to male emotional suppression, failing to meet standards of male success, and the devaluing of men’s interpersonal needs appeared to be associated with dysregulated psychological pain and suicide risk. Although masculinity is not pathological, we speculate that the interaction and accumulation of cultural harms to men’s emotions, self, and interpersonal connections may potentially distinguish men who are suicidal from men who are not. Supporting men to understand and regulate emotions and suicidal pain, expanding possibilities for masculine identity, and building meaningful interpersonal connections were reported as helping support recovery from suicidal crises. Though our sample was predominantly White, cisgendered, and English speaking, and the underlying research designs prevent strong causal inferences, we discuss possible implications of these findings for male suicide intervention and suggestions for future research.

Buecker, Susanne; Luhmann, Maike; Haehner, Peter; Bühler, Janina Larissa; Dapp, Laura C.; Luciano, Eva C.; Orth, Ulrich

doi: 10.1037/bul0000401pmid: N/A

How does subjective well-being (SWB) develop across the life span? Theories and previous empirical research suggest heterogeneous conclusions regarding this question. Therefore, in this meta-analysis, we synthesized the available longitudinal data on mean-level change in three SWB components: life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. The analyses were based on 443 unique samples with a total of 460,902 participants. Our results showed that life satisfaction decreased from age 9 to 16 (d = −0.56), increased slightly until age 70 (d = 0.16), and then decreased again until age 96 (i.e., the oldest age for which data on life satisfaction were available; d = −0.24). Positive affect declined from age 9 for almost the entire time until age 94 (d = −1.71). Negative affect showed small ups and downs between ages 9 and 22. After age 22, negative affect declined until age 60 (d = −0.92), after which it increased again until age 87 (d = 0.58). Average changes in positive and negative affect were stronger than in life satisfaction. The moderator analyses suggested that the pattern of mean-level changes held across gender, country, ethnicity, sample type, the measure of SWB, time frame of SWB measure, and birth cohort. In sum, we found a favorable developmental trajectory of SWB over large parts of life for life satisfaction and negative affect and decreases from childhood until late adulthood for positive affect. In late adulthood, SWB tended to worsen rather than improve. Consequently, interventions aimed at maintaining or enhancing SWB in older adults might be useful.

Lu, Junsong; Yao, Jiayi; Zhou, Zehui; Wang, X. T. (XiaoTian)

doi: 10.1037/bul0000396pmid: N/A

A long-running debate about the developmental trajectory of delay discounting has received growing attention since 1994. Relevant theories, ranging from developmental psychology and evolutionary biology to behavioral economics, yield contradictory predictions. Encompassing a wide age range from 6.7 to 83.1 years, we evaluated these theories based on meta-analyses of 178 effect sizes from 105 articles that examined age-dependent delay discounting, providing up-to-date the most comprehensive review of the topic. Delay discounting decreased with advancing age (Fisher’s z = −.059). However, meta-regression suggested that this linear trend masked a U-shaped function, as implied by some theoretical models. We developed a derivative-based method and recovered this nonlinear function based on 58 effects. Both the meta-regression based on all 178 effect sizes and the derivative-based method convergently demonstrated that delay discounting was the lowest for middle-aged people around 50, depending on the magnitude of the reward. The U-shaped function was steeper for people with shorter life expectancies; the turning point comes at a younger age for medium-to-large rewards, and delay discounting models explained heterogeneity across studies. We expanded the current theoretical frameworks by synthesizing the life history theory and the antagonistic pleiotropy hypothesis. Built upon the mortality–fertility trade-off model of Sozou and Seymour (2003), we postulated the role of parental investment in postponing the increase of delay discounting in late adulthood, suggesting a three-way mortality–fertility–parenting trade-off. Possible proximate mechanisms were also discussed. Overall, when allocating assets over temporal intervals, a higher delay discount rate accompanies a lower future reproductive opportunity.

Lin, Zhicheng; Ma, Qi; Huang, Xiaolin; Wu, Xuebing; Zhang, Yang

doi: 10.1037/bul0000399pmid: N/A

Transparency in research reporting is crucial for evaluating the reproducibility and validity of research, including potential confounding factors (internal validity) and generalizability (external validity). Here, we focus on visual stimuli—stimuli routinely used to elicit mental processes and behaviors—as a case study to systematically assess and evaluate current practices in reporting visual characteristics, including display setup, stimulus size, luminance/color, and contrast. Our first study scrutinized recent publications (N = 360) in leading journals in neuroscience and psychology—spanning vision, cognitive, clinical, developmental, and social/personality psychology. The second study examined recent publications (N = 114) on visual attentional bias in clinical samples, involving tasks known to be sensitive to visual properties. Analyzing the full text and supplemental materials of these articles, the two studies reveal a systematic lapse in current practices of reporting characteristics of visual stimuli. This reporting failure was not due to authors making visual materials available online, which was rare (<20%) and could not replace the reporting of visual characteristics. Failure to report stimulus properties hinders efforts to build cumulative science: (a) direct replications become challenging if not impossible; (b) internal validity may be compromised; and (c) generalizability across stimulus properties is prematurely assumed, and its evaluation is precluded in the first place. Our findings have immediate implications for journal policies on reporting practices, urging for explicit emphasis on transparent reporting of stimulus properties, particularly when perceptual components are involved. To assist in this effort, we provide templates for reporting study setup, visual displays, and visual stimuli.