Rates Of Thoughts Research Articles

Appraisals of and recommendations for managing intrusive thoughts: An empirical investigation

The present study investigated strategies for managing intrusive thoughts. Eighty undergraduate students read vignettes of intrusive thoughts - blasphemous, sexual, and violent - which varied in frequency of the thought (high or low) and who experienced the thought (self or other). Appraisal ratings of thoughts were completed and participants completed a response strategy survey where they indicated how much they would endorse various methods for dealing with the thoughts. Some response strategies were theorized to help with intrusive thoughts and some were theorized to be unhelpful. Measures of obsessive-compulsive tendencies were completed to determine relationships between beliefs and appraisals as well as responses to the intrusive thoughts. Results indicated the more distressing a thought was perceived to be, the more likely participants were to recommend unhelpful strategies. Conversely, the less distressing the thought was, the more likely participants were to recommend helpful strategies. Ratings of distress and patterns of responses were related to obsessive-compulsive beliefs as well. Findings are discussed in terms of their relationship to the cognitive behavioral model of OCD, intrusive thoughts, and how future work may serve to educate and reduce stigma related to these common yet distressing experiences.

Measuring Subjective Wellbeing: Recommendations on Measures for use by National Governments

AbstractGovernments around the world are now beginning to seriously consider the use of measures of subjective wellbeing (SWB) – ratings of thoughts and feelings about life – for monitoring progress and for informing and appraising public policy. The mental state account of wellbeing upon which SWB measures are based can provide useful additional information about who is doing well and badly in life when compared to that provided by the objective list and preference satisfaction accounts. It may be particularly useful when deciding how best to allocate scarce resources, where it is desirable to express the benefits of intervention in a single metric that can be compared to the costs of intervention. There are three main concepts of SWB in the literature – evaluation (life satisfaction), experience (momentary mood) and eudemonia (purpose) – and policy-makers should seek to measure all three, at least for the purposes of monitoring progress. There are some major challenges to the use of SWB measures. Two related and well-rehearsed issues are the effects of expectations and adaptation on ratings. The degree to which we should allow wellbeing to vary according to expectations and adaptation are vexing moral problems but information on SWB can highlight what difference allowing for these considerations would have in practice (e.g. in informing prioiritisation decisions), which can then be fed into the normative debate. There are also questions about precisely what attention should be drawn to in SWB questions and how to capture the ratings of those least inclined to take part in surveys, but these can be addressed through more widespread use of SWB. We also provide some concrete recommendations about precisely what questions should be asked in large-scale surveys, and these recommendations have been taken up by the Office of National Statistics in the UK and are being looked at closely by the OECD.