Brain structure links trait creativity to openness to experience

Creativity is crucial to the progression of human civilization and has led to important scientific discoveries. Especially, individuals are more likely to have scientific discoveries if they possess certain personality traits of creativity (trait creativity), including imagination, curiosity, challenge and risk-taking. This study used voxel-based morphometry to identify the brain regions underlying individual differences in trait creativity, as measured by the Williams creativity aptitude test, in a large sample (n = 246). We found that creative individuals had higher gray matter volume in the right posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG), which might be related to semantic processing during novelty seeking (e.g. novel association, conceptual integration and metaphor understanding). More importantly, although basic personality factors such as openness to experience, extroversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness (as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory) all contributed to trait creativity, only openness to experience mediated the association between the right pMTG volume and trait creativity. Taken together, our results suggest that the basic personality trait of openness might play an important role in shaping an individual’s trait creativity.     

Relative stability of alexithymia and openness to emotions in one psychiatric day hospital setting

Alexithymia (literally, difficulty finding words for emotions) and openness to emotions (OE: referring to the cognitive representation, communication, regulation, perception of internal and external bodily sensations, and social restriction of emotions) are strongly linked to psychopathology. The absolute and relative stability hypotheses were tested in order to determine whether significant changes occurred on these constructs after therapy, a condition where changes were expected for both constructs. Negative attitudes toward treatment (NTI) and perceived social support (PSS) were expected to significantly predict alexithymia and OE. Patients (N = 179) who participated in this longitudinal study filled in the Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Dimensions of Openness to Emotions Scale, the NTI subscale, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and the Social Desirability Scale. After treatment, we observed significant decrease of all alexithymia scores and significant increases of three OE scores, that is, cognitive representation, communication, and regulation of emotions. Regression analyses revealed that gender, age, NTI, and PSS were significant predictors of alexithymia and OE. NTI strongly predicted lower OE levels and higher alexithymia levels, whereas PSS had opposite predicting effects on these constructs. In conclusion, the significant changes, and the moderate to high correlational levels observed between before and after alexithymia and OE scores, strengthen the relative stability hypothesis for both constructs. In addition, PSS represents a protective factor and NTI a vulnerability indicator for therapists. Our aim is to optimize treatment by providing therapists treating emotion difficulties a more concrete array of variables that potentially either promote or subvert recovery.     

Paths to the Facilitation of Open Adoption

The present study was designed to test a model of the paths leading to the facilitation of open adoption. Professionals used open facilitation if they held optimistic attitudes about its effects. Belief in the positive effects of openness were in turn associated with liberal placement boundaries and short list criteria. A second path described older, better educated and employed birth mothers choosing urban, fee‐charging facilitators who were more likely to have incorporated openness into their adoption practice.     

卫生事业管理专业人才培养中的系统开放性思维解读与启示

随着我国医疗卫生体制改革的不断推进,社会对卫生管理人才的综合能力要求不断提高。我国高校的卫生事业管理专业是一门边缘交叉性学科,在人才培养模式方面尚不成熟,尤其缺乏人才培养的开放性。文章叙述了以系统开放性原理为基础,从内外环境建设方面探索并构建卫生事业管理专业人才培养新模式的必要性和可行性。     

Personality,psychosocial and health-related predictors of quality of life in old age

Objectives: Beyond its well-documented association with depressive symptoms across the lifespan, at an individual level, quality of life may be determined by multiple factors: psychosocial characteristics, current physical health and long-term personality traits.

Method: Quality of life was assessed in two distinct community-based age groups (89 young adults aged 36.2 ± 6.3 and 92 older adults aged 70.4 ± 5.5 years), each group equally including adults with and without acute depressive symptoms. Regression models were applied to explore the association between quality of life assessed with the World Health Organization Quality of Life - Bref (WHOQOL-Bref) and depression severity, education, social support, physical illness, as well as personality dimensions as defined by the Five-Factor Model.

Results: In young age, higher quality of life was uniquely associated with lower severity of depressive symptoms. In contrast, in old age, higher quality of life was related to both lower levels of depressive mood and of physical illness. In this age group, a positive association was also found between quality of life and higher levels of Openness to experience and Agreeableness personality dimensions.

Conclusion: Our data indicated that, in contrast to young cohorts, where acute depression is the main determinant of poor quality of life, physical illness and personality dimensions represent additional independent predictors of this variable in old age. This observation points to the need for concomitant consideration of physical and psychological determinants of quality of life in old age.     

Posttraumatic growth in accident survivors: openness and optimism as predictors of its constructive or illusory sides

Posttraumatic growth (PTG), the phenomenon of self-reported positive outcomes of trauma, is assumed to consist of two sides: a constructive and an illusory side. This study investigates the relationship between PTG and its possible illusory and constructive predictors, as well as the moderating role of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) severity. One-hundred two motor vehicle accident (MVA) survivors with full, subsyndromal, and without PTSD were assessed by multiple psychometric measures targeting PTSD severity, posttraumatic growth, optimism, and openness to experience. Hierarchical regression analysis yielded differential interaction effects between PTSD severity and optimism, as well as openness facets pointing to the moderating role of PTSD severity in the prediction of an illusory and a constructive factor in PTG.     

Globalisation and national trends in nutrition and health: A grouped fixed‐effects approach to intercountry heterogeneity

Using a panel dataset of 70 countries spanning 42 years (1970–2011), we investigate the distinct effects of social globalisation and trade openness on national trends in markers of diet quality (supplies of animal proteins, free fats and sugar, average body mass index, and diabetes prevalence). Our key methodological contribution is the application of a grouped fixed‐effects estimator, which extends linear fixed‐effects models. The grouped fixed‐effects estimator partitions our sample into distinct groups of countries in order to control for time‐varying unobserved heterogeneity that follows a group‐specific pattern. We find that increasing social globalisation has a significant impact on the supplies of animal protein and sugar available for human consumption, as well as on mean body mass index. Specific components of social globalisation such as information flows (via television and the Internet) drive these results. Trade openness has no effect on dietary outcomes or health. These findings suggest that the social and cultural aspects of globalisation should receive greater attention in research on the nutrition transition.