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EEG activation studies suggest cerebral lateralization of emotions with greater left than right prefrontal activation during positive mood states and greater right than left prefrontal activation during negative mood states (Davidson et al., 1990). Cerebral lateralization is also observed in cognitive tasks, with verbal fluency associated with left frontal activation and design fluency associated with right frontal activation (Baldo et al., 2001). Further, there are lateralized associations between emotion and cognition; that is, verbal fluency is positively associated with induced positive mood, whereas design fluency is positively associated with induced negative mood (Bartolic et al., 1999). The current study expected naturally occurring mood states to be differentially associated with performance on executive function fluency tasks, and based on previous findings (Cabeza, 2002), that age would moderate the association between emotion and fluency. Results suggest a trend for a positive association between positive affect (PA) and verbal fluency. Age did not moderate associations between emotion and cognitive tasks, although greater interdependence between cognitive and emotion variables in older relative to middle-aged adults suggests decreased lateralization in older adults; however differences in interdependence between older and younger adults were negligible. These results suggest that PA may positively influence some areas of cognition, although age may not moderate these results. Sample and measurement limitations may have contributed to this finding.

Intense training for prolonged periods of time without adequate recovery can result in psychological problems and increased susceptibility to illness and injury in collegiate athletes. The Cognitive-Affective Model of Athletic Burnout (Smith, 1986), a framework for understanding the relationships among stressors, identifies cognitive appraisal as the mediating factor between negative or positive health outcomes, and therefore could be a target of interventions to reduce overtraining, burnout, injury, and illness. Mental toughness, the ability to perform at one’s best regardless of the circumstances, is a modifiable psychological construct that may influence cognitive appraisal. Altering an athlete’s interpretation of stressful situations through mental toughness training could change how the athlete evaluates his/her ability to handle the stressors of training and competition, and may attenuate negative psychological outcomes associated with increased illness and injury risk. The purpose of this study was to establish cross-sectional relationships among mental toughness and psychological and physical variables, implement an online Mental Toughness Training Program, and evaluate the impact of the training on changes in mental toughness, mood disturbances, athlete burnout, coping ability, depression, physical symptoms, and perceived stress before, during, and after the intervention program. Female student athletes from a private Division III institution on the varsity Field Hockey (N=19) and Soccer (N=28) teams participated in this study. All participants (N=47) provided cross-sectional data demonstrating that mental toughness was significantly correlated with total mood disturbance (ρ=-0.51, p≤.01), depression (ρ=-0.49, p≤.01), perceived stress (ρ=-0.53, p≤.01), and athlete burnout (ρ=-.46, p≤.01). Thirty-seven athletes (N= 16 Field Hockey, N=21 Soccer) were randomly assigned by team to the six-week Mental Toughness Training Program, involving psychological skills training, or control condition, and had longitudinal data available for analysis. Mental toughness levels were significantly increased in the intervention group from pre- to post-training. The training led to significant attenuations in levels of athlete burnout, depression, physical symptoms, and perceived stress. These findings show that mental toughness is associated with psychological variables, and mental toughness training had a positive impact on variables that have been associated with increased risk of injury in collegiate athletes.

Throughout history, the Black Diaspora has used fashion as a form of protest. The element of fashion is often overlooked when considering the history and struggle for Black equality, because it is less tangible or definable in terms of its influence and effect, but it is still important because Black males resist the dominant culture via dress by dressing in military uniforms, creating their own style, and using different colors in their dress. Studying the Black struggle in American history during specific periods is one way to better understand opposition to the majority culture through fashion. We should also consider the mood of a social system when examining the dress of a particular group during conflicts. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of fashion as a protest tool against the majority culture, and the social mood that affects the fashion choices of Black males. The study focuses on Black fashion from 1910 to 2015. Text data were collected and analyzed from articles published in The Crisis magazine, and men's fashion was specially examined. Additionally, images were studied via visual ethnography and images were coded based on color choice, fit, and accessories. For conducting sentiment analysis, lexicons were used, and the text was examined for negative sentiment. The overall negative sentiment of the document was obtained. Graphical analyses are included to present the findings. The findings, conclusions, limitations, and future research are discussed.

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Background. Europe and North America have low rates of mental health service use despite high rates of mental disorder. Little is known about mental health service use among South Africans. Design. A nationally representative survey of 4 351 adults. Twelve-month DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition) diagnoses, severity, and service utilisation were determined using the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Twelve-month treatment was categorised by sector and province. South Africans in households and hostel quarters were interviewed between 2002 and 2004 in all nine provinces. Outcome measures. 4 317 respondents 18 years and older were analysed. Bivariate logistic regression models predicted (i) 12-month treatment use of service sectors by gender, and (ii) 12-month treatment use by race by gender. Results. Of respondents with a mental disorder, 25.2% had sought treatment within the previous 12 months; 5.7% had used any formal mental health service. Mental health service use was highest for adults with mood and anxiety disorders, and among those with a mental disorder it varied by province, from 11.4% (Western Cape) to 2.2% (Mpumalanga). More women received treatment, and this was largely attributable to higher rates of treatment in women with mood disorders. Age, income, education and marital status were not significantly associated with mental health service use. Race was associated with the treatment sector accessed in those with a mental disorder. Conclusions. There is a substantial burden of untreated mental disorders in the South African population, across all provinces and even in those with substantial impairment. Greater allocation of resources to mental health services and more community awareness initiatives are needed to address the unmet need.

The purpose of the current investigation was to examine the efficacy of a music therapy protocol on mood states and levels of group cohesiveness in adult oncology patients. Eleven oncology patients in two groups (ages 30 to 84 years) took part in the study over a ten-week period of time (ten participants completed the study). During that period, participants took part in eight music therapy sessions consisting of two types of interventions: 1) four "music making" sessions (where the mechanism for change included the process of making music) and 2) four "music responding" sessions (where the mechanism included the process of responding to music). The two types of music therapy sessions and their effectiveness on improving mood states and group cohesiveness were examined. The Profile of Mood States- Short Form (POMS-SF) was used to assess changes in participants' mood states. A content analysis, attendance records, and a questionnaire were used to assess levels of group cohesiveness. Results showed significant improvement in mood state scores (from pre session levels to post sessions levels) after involvement in all music therapy sessions. Similar significant findings were found within each of the "music making" and "music responding" conditions but no differences were found when comparisons were made between those conditions. No statistically significant effects were found with respect to group cohesiveness measures. Study implications and future research directions are discussed.

The ultimate goal of this research was to improve student performance by adjusting an Intelligent Tutoring System's (ITS) coaching strategy based on the student's mood. As a step toward this goal, this study evaluated the relationships between each student's mood variables (pleasure, arousal, dominance and mood intensity), the coaching strategy selected by the ITS and the student's performance. Outcomes included methods to increase the perception of the intelligent tutor to allow it to adapt coaching strategies (methods of instruction) to the student's affective needs to mitigate barriers to performance (e.g. negative affect) during the one-to-one tutoring process. The study evaluated whether the affective state (specifically mood) of the student moderated the student's interaction with the tutor and influenced performance. This research examined the relationships, interactions and influences of student mood in the selection of ITS coaching strategies to determine which strategies were more effective in terms of student performance given the student's mood, state (recent sleep time, previous knowledge and training, and interest level) and actions (e.g. mouse movement rate). Two coaching strategies were used in this study: Student-Requested Feedback (SRF) and Tutor-Initiated Feedback (TIF). The SRF coaching strategy provided feedback in the form of hints, questions, direction and support only when the student requested help. The TIF coaching strategy provided feedback (hints, questions, direction or support) at key junctures in the learning process when the student either made progress or failed to make progress in a timely fashion. The relationships between the coaching strategies, mood, performance and other variables of interest were considered in light of five hypotheses. At alpha = .05 and beta at least as great as .80, significant effects were limited in predicting performance. Highlighted findings include no significant differences in the mean performance due to coaching strategies, and only small effect sizes in predicting performance making the regression models developed not of practical significance. However, several variables including performance, energy level and mouse movement rates were significant, unobtrusive predictors of mood. Regression algorithms were developed using Arbuckle's (2008) Analysis of MOment Structures (AMOS) tool to compare the predicted performance for each strategy and then to choose the optimal strategy. A set of production rules were also developed to train a machine learning classifier using Witten & Frank's (2005) Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA) toolset. The classifier was tested to determine its ability to recognize critical relationships and adjust coaching strategies to improve performance. This study found that the ability of the intelligent tutor to recognize key affective relationships contributes to improved performance. Study assumptions include a normal distribution of student mood variables, student state variables and student action variables and the equal mean performance of the two coaching strategy groups (student-requested feedback and tutor-initiated feedback ). These assumptions were substantiated in the study. Potential applications of this research are broad since its approach is application independent and could be used within ill-defined or very complex domains where judgment might be influenced by affect (e.g. study of the law, decisions involving risk of injury or death, negotiations or investment decisions). Recommendations for future research include evaluation of the temporal, as well as numerical, relationships of student mood, performance, actions and state variables.

Sleep disturbances are common in persons with Alzheimer's disease (AD) (Hart et al., 2003) and pose a great strain on their family caregivers (Hope, Keene, Gedling, Fairburn, & Jacoby, 1998) including their emotional functioning (Schulz & Martire, 2004). The current study is the first to examine the impact of daily sleep and mood in persons with AD on their caregiver's sleep and emotional functioning. The study examined sleep and mood across eight days in 40 family caregivers of persons with AD. It was hypothesized that poor sleep in the person with AD person would have a negative impact on caregiver emotional functioning the next day. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that sleep disruption or the mood in the person with AD would mediate the association between AD person sleep and caregiver mood. The results demonstrated a direct link between poor sleep in persons with AD and caregiver negative affect (NA), but not positive affect (PA). The results also indicated that poor caregiver sleep and NA in the person with AD partially mediated the relationship between AD person sleep and caregiver NA. The results suggest that addressing AD person and caregiver sleep and AD person affect may improve caregiver emotional functioning. Improving AD person sleep and mood, and caregiver emotional functioning has important implications that may prolong the time until institutionalization.