Suicidality and Mood: The Impact of Trends, Seasons, Day of the Week, and Time of Day on Implicit and Explicit Cognitions

Decades of research have established seasonality effects on completed and attempted suicides, with an increase in rates during spring and early summer. Using more than six years of data (April 2012 – November 2018), we used new Prophet models to forecast mood and explicit and implicit measures of self-harm among an online community sample residing in the US and UK (N > 7,975). We decomposed the time series into trends across the years, within years (seasons), weekly, and daily seasonal patterns. Across all outcomes, the long-term changes across the years and the seasonal patterns show the strongest variation on explicit and implicit cognitions, followed by the time of day (negative cognitions peaking around 4 am – 5 am), with the day of the week showing the weakest effects. The data show a general increase of negative cognitions across the six years, paralleling trends in suicide rates and depression prevalence in the US and UK. Autoregressive-integrated moving average (ARIMA) models showed seasonality effects for mood and desire to die among US, UK, and Canadian respondents (N > 10,445), particularly in the group of respondents who previously made a suicide attempt. Negative cognitions were generally the lowest in summer (June) and peaked in winter (December). These negative cognitions precede the rise in suicidal behaviors during spring and early summer. We discuss potential reasons for lagged effects of negative cognitions on suicidal behavior and implicit cognitions, which may be crucial for theoretical advancements. Our findings have implications for the clinical risk assessment of patients witha history of suicide attempts and public policies regarding the availability of health services.

RESEARCH OF RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN IMPLICIT AND EXPLICIT HEALTHY OR UNHEALTHY FOOD RELATED COGNITIONS

The research aim is to study the relationships between implicit and explicit healthy or unhealthy food related cognitions. Research questions: (1) Is there a relationship between the results of measurements of healthy or unhealthy food related cognitions by implicit and self-assessment procedures? (2) How are healthy or unhealthy food related implicit and explicit cognitions and somatic properties (weight, height, body mass index (BMI), age, sex) related? (3) What common factors underlie the relationship between implicit and explicit healthy or unhealthy food related cognitions and somatic properties? (4) What contribution to food related implicit cognitions is made by explicit attitudes (preference of healthy or unhealthy food, the recentness of consumption, awareness of healthy or unhealthy food, sensations of taste) and somatic properties? (5) What contribution to each food related explicit cognition is made by food related implicit cognitions, the other food related explicit cognitions and somatic properties? Method. Participants – 83 students, aged 19-35, M = 25.75, SD = 4.63 years. Measurements: the specially designed IAT and corresponding self-assessment procedures. Results. There is a relationship between the results of implicit and explicit measurements. The main contribution to implicit preference for food is made by the weight, sex and explicit preference, based on recentness of its consumption.

Métodos indirectos para evaluar cogniciones implícitas hacia el alcohol: una revisión conceptual

ResumenDesde su aparición, en la década del 70, el Modelo del Doble Procesamiento (MDP) ha ganado una gran popularidad en diversos ámbitos de la psicología, entre ellos, en el estudio de las adicciones. Según este modelo existirían dos sistemas cognitivos: uno explícito, conciente y controlable; y otro implícito, automático y más ligado a la intuición y al afecto. El MDP se ha empleado para comprender los factores que subyacen a los comportamientos relacionados con el alcohol y en poco tiempo se produjo un crecimiento exponencial de las investigaciones que utilizan métodos indirectos para evaluar cogniciones implícitas hacia el alcohol (CIA). Si bien estos métodos comparten algunas características básicas, difieren en aspectos importantes (evidencias de validez disponibles, condiciones de administración, etc). Por ello, con este trabajo pretendemos ofrecer un panorama comprensivo de las distintas formas de evaluar la CIA. Esperamos que esta revisión resulte de utilidad no solo para los investigadores, sino también para los profesionales que se ocupan de los problemas relacionados con el alcohol en el ámbito clínico.Palabras Clave: alcohol, cogniciones implícitas, métodos indirectos, modelo del doble procesamiento, revisión. AbstractSince its emergence in the 70s, the Dual Process Model (DPM) has gained wide popularity in different fields of psychology, including the study of addictions. According to this model, there are two cognitive systems: one explicit, conscious and controllable; and another implicit, automatic and linked to intuition and affection. The DPM has been used to understand mechanisms underlying alcohol related behaviors, and quickly an exponential growth of research using indirect measures to evaluate implicit cognitions toward alcohol (ICA) occurred. While these methods share some basic features, they differ in important aspects such as validity evidence available, administration procedures, etc. Therefore, in this paper we provide a comprehensive overview of the different ways to evaluate ICA. We hope this review will be useful not only for researchers but also for professionals working in the clinical area with alcohol-related problems.Key words: alcohol, implicit cognitions, indirect measures, dual process model, review.