Using a ''subjectivist'' approach to the assessment of happiness, a new 4-item measure of global subjective happiness was developed and validated in 14 studies with a total of 2 732 participants. Data was collected in the United States from students on two college campuses and one high school campus, from community adults in two California cities, and from older adults. Students and community adults in Moscow, Russia also participated in this research. Results indicated that the Subjective Happiness Scale has high internal consistency, which was found to be stable across samples. Test-retest and self-peer correlations suggested good to excellent reliability, and construct validation studies of convergent and discriminant validity confirmed the use of this scale to measure the construct of subjective happiness. The rationale for developing a new measure of happiness, as well as advantages of this scale, are discussed.

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A measure of subjective happiness: preliminary reliability and construct validation

In the 40 years since Aaron Beck first proposed his cognitive model of depression, the elements of this model — biased attention, biased processing, biased thoughts and rumination, biased memory, and dysfunctional attitudes and schemas — have been consistently linked with the onset and maintenance of depression. Although numerous studies have examined the neural mechanisms that underlie the cognitive aspects of depression, their findings have not been integrated with Beck's cognitive model. In this Review, we identify the functional and structural neurobiological architecture of Beck's cognitive model of depression. Although the mechanisms underlying each element of the model differ, in general the negative cognitive biases in depression are facilitated by increased influence from subcortical emotion processing regions combined with attenuated top-down cognitive control.

Neural mechanisms of the cognitive model of depression

Why are people who live in poverty disproportionately affected by mental illness? We review the interdisciplinary evidence of the bidirectional causal relationship between poverty and common mental illnesses-depression and anxiety-and the underlying mechanisms. Research shows that mental illness reduces employment and therefore income, and that psychological interventions generate economic gains. Similarly, negative economic shocks cause mental illness, and antipoverty programs such as cash transfers improve mental health. A crucial step toward the design of effective policies is to better understand the mechanisms underlying these causal effects.

/pdf/poverty-depression-and-anxiety-causal-evidence-and-2639nb7ud7.pdf

Poverty, depression, and anxiety: Causal evidence and mechanisms.

An unselected community sample of 128 patients were studied over the 12 months after their first stroke, and compared with a control sample of subjects from the general population. Psychiatric status was assessed using the PSE and BDI. Symptoms of mood disorder were commoner in the stroke patients than the controls, but the differences were not substantial and had largely disappeared by 12 months. Psychiatric problems encountered included agoraphobia, social withdrawal, apathy and self-neglect, irritability and pathological emotionalism. While there was a high cumulative incidence of psychiatric disorder, little of it persisted: only two cases of major depression were present for the whole 12 months. We believe undue emphasis has been placed in the recent literature on major depression as a specific syndrome following stroke.

Mood disorders in the year after first stroke.

Depressive symptoms are associated with unrealistic negative predictions of future life events.

Depression—Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects

Advances in Psychosomatic Medicine. Vol 6. Duodenal Ulcer

This is a long and scholarly book on conditions which have been written about since antiquity, and, as the author points out, are still in need of much clarification. Despite the book's scholarship and length, the hoped-for clarification does not emerge sharply. The writing is involved and often couched in phrases foreign to American ears so that at times it is difficult to apprehend the author's meanings. The bibliography is large; this—coupled with a chapter of historical review of the concepts of hypochondriasis, and both subject and name indexes—is valuable to research workers in the field. The author points out that in order to safeguard against considering hypochondria as a nosological entity one should use the term only as an adjective, for the conditions are manifest in states ranging from the mildly neurotic to the psychotic. He then attempts to characterize descriptively the essential aspect of all hypochondriacal syndromes, part of which he then compares with \"nonhypochondriac body experience\" from an existential point of view. This characterization is vague and so, unfortunately, may not be too helpful in practice; but, on the other hand, the discussion of body experience may be of general interest from a theoretical point of view. The author contends that his studies lead him further to question and take exception to some of the distinctions between neurosis and psychosis; a chapter is devoted to this. The following chapters, comprising the bulk of the book, consist of a presentation of data derived from the 225 patients the author has studied. Total assessment of the patients permitted assignment to the various diagnostic groupings and each chapter considers one such group—hypochondriacal syndromes in schizophrenia, hypochondriacal syndromes in manic depressive and involutional psychoses, etc. The patients all were from clinics in Amsterdam. Case histories are furnished at various points to illustrate specific facets of the various hypochondriacal conditions. The discussion is broad, that is, from a genetic, social and psychoanalytic approach, and yet a holistic, unified view does not result; perhaps such a view cannot yet be achieved. There is a final chapter on prognosis and appropriate therapies. WALTER MANN, M.D.

Larry H. Strasburger

Papers

Depression—Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects

Advances in Psychosomatic Medicine. Vol 6. Duodenal Ulcer

Sleep Therapy: A Bibliography and Commentary