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Current Opinion in Psychology Aug 2022The negative effects of overconsumption of food have been extensively studied, with a focus on overweight and negative food attitudes. In this overview, we argue that... (Review)
Review
The negative effects of overconsumption of food have been extensively studied, with a focus on overweight and negative food attitudes. In this overview, we argue that this negative perspective has spilled over to food consumption in general, which is in contrast with eating as a pleasurable activity that contributes to people's well-being. We review four areas of research that have recently emerged: (de)moralization of food consumption, moderate eating for pleasure, intuitive and mindful eating, and the social benefits of eating. Throughout these four themes, it becomes clear that there needs to be a clear distinction between overconsumption of food, bearing negative consequences, and normal levels of food consumption. The latter is positively associated with enjoyment, contentment, and our social and psychological well-being.
Topics: Emotions; Feeding Behavior; Humans; Mindfulness
PubMed: 35339981
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101324 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Jul 2023Ancient and culturally universal, dance pervades many areas of life and has multiple benefits. In this article, we provide a conceptual framework and systematic review,... (Review)
Review
Ancient and culturally universal, dance pervades many areas of life and has multiple benefits. In this article, we provide a conceptual framework and systematic review, as a guide for researching the neuroscience of dance. We identified relevant articles following PRISMA guidelines, and summarised and evaluated all original results. We identified avenues for future research in: the interactive and collective aspects of dance; groove; dance performance; dance observation; and dance therapy. Furthermore, the interactive and collective aspects of dance constitute a vital part of the field but have received almost no attention from a neuroscientific perspective so far. Dance and music engage overlapping brain networks, including common regions involved in perception, action, and emotion. In music and dance, rhythm, melody, and harmony are processed in an active, sustained pleasure cycle giving rise to action, emotion, and learning, led by activity in specific hedonic brain networks. The neuroscience of dance is an exciting field, which may yield information concerning links between psychological processes and behaviour, human flourishing, and the concept of eudaimonia.
Topics: Humans; Brain; Emotions; Learning; Music; Pleasure
PubMed: 37100162
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105197 -
International Journal of Sexual Health... 2021Various sources of evidence suggest that men and women differ in their experience of sexual pleasure. Such gender differences have been attributed to men's higher...
Various sources of evidence suggest that men and women differ in their experience of sexual pleasure. Such gender differences have been attributed to men's higher innate sex drive, supported by evolutionary psychology perspectives and gender differences in reproductive strategies. This paper presents biopsychosocial evidence for gender similarities in the capacity to experience pleasure, and for substantial gender differences in opportunities for sexual pleasure. We conclude that sexual activity, in most cultures, is less pleasurable and associated with greater cost for heterosexual women than for heterosexual men, even though they do not differ in the capacity for sexual pleasure. Since gender differences in experienced sexual pleasure are not a biological given, a more critical discourse of sexual pleasure might create awareness of current inequalities, help lift restrictions for women's opportunities for pleasure, and could reduce gender differences in the cost of sex. That would truly serve sexual justice around the globe.
PubMed: 38595780
DOI: 10.1080/19317611.2021.1965689 -
PloS One 2022What is difficult is not usually pleasurable. Yet, for certain unfamiliar figurative language, like that which is common in poetry, while comprehension is often more...
What is difficult is not usually pleasurable. Yet, for certain unfamiliar figurative language, like that which is common in poetry, while comprehension is often more difficult than for more conventional language, it is in many cases more pleasurable. Concentrating our investigation on verb-based metaphors, we examined whether and to what degree the novel variations (in the form of verb changes and extensions) of conventional verb metaphors were both more difficult to comprehend and yet induced more pleasure. To test this relationship, we developed a set of 62 familiar metaphor stimuli, each with corresponding optimal and excessive verb variation and metaphor extension conditions, and normed these stimuli using both objective measures and participant subjective ratings. We then tested the pleasure-difficulty relationship with an online behavioral study. Based on Rachel Giora and her colleagues' 'optimal innovation hypothesis', we anticipated an inverse U-shaped relationship between ease and pleasure, with an optimal degree of difficulty, introduced by metaphor variations, producing the highest degree of pleasure when compared to familiar or excessive conditions. Results, however, revealed a more complex picture, with only metaphor extension conditions (not verb variation conditions) producing the anticipated pleasure effects. Individual differences in semantic cognition and verbal reasoning assessed using the Semantic Similarities Test, while clearly influential, further complicated the pleasure-difficulty relationship, suggesting an important avenue for further investigation.
Topics: Adult; Comprehension; Female; Humans; Male; Metaphor; Pleasure; Poetry as Topic; Reaction Time; Semantics
PubMed: 35148355
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263781 -
Journal of Eating Disorders Nov 2023Recent research suggests that individuals with eating disorders (EDs) report elevated anhedonia, or loss of pleasure. Although individuals with avoidant/restrictive food...
BACKGROUND
Recent research suggests that individuals with eating disorders (EDs) report elevated anhedonia, or loss of pleasure. Although individuals with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) often express that they do not look forward to eating, it is unclear whether they experience lower pleasure than those without EDs. Thus, identifying whether individuals with ARFID experience anhedonia may yield important insights that inform clinical conceptualization and treatment.
METHODS
A sample of 71 participants ages 10-23 with full and subthreshold ARFID and 33 healthy controls (HCs) completed the Pica, ARFID, and Rumination Disorder Interview, a diagnostic interview to assess ARFID profile severity (lack of interest in food, sensory sensitivity, fear of aversive consequences) and the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS), a self-report measure of consummatory and anticipatory pleasure. Statistical analyses were performed using the full TEPS and also the TEPS with food-related items removed.
RESULTS
The ARFID group reported significantly lower anticipatory and consummatory pleasure compared to HCs, but these differences were no longer significant after controlling for depression, nor after removing food items from the TEPS. Within the ARFID sample, greater ARFID severity was associated with lower anticipatory pleasure across analyses, and greater endorsement of the lack of interest in food profile was related to lower anticipatory pleasure. ARFID severity was also associated with lower consummatory pleasure using the full TEPS, but this relationship was no longer significant with food items removed.
CONCLUSIONS
These results provide initial evidence for lower pleasure before potentially pleasurable events in individuals with more severe ARFID, particularly those with the lack of interest phenotype. Our findings also suggest that depression is likely to contribute low pleasure in this population. Future research should seek to further characterize how dimensions of pleasure relate to the maintenance and treatment of ARFID symptoms.
PubMed: 37950288
DOI: 10.1186/s40337-023-00921-w -
Harm Reduction Journal Jul 2023Opioid and methamphetamine co-use is increasing across the USA with overdoses involving these drugs also rising. West Virginia (WV) has led the US in opioid overdose...
BACKGROUND
Opioid and methamphetamine co-use is increasing across the USA with overdoses involving these drugs also rising. West Virginia (WV) has led the US in opioid overdose death rates since at least 2013 and rising co-use of methamphetamine with opioids has played a greater role in deaths over the last 5 years.
METHODS
This study used rapid ethnography to examine methods and motivations behind opioids and methamphetamine co-use from the viewpoint of their consumers. Participants (n = 30) were people who injected heroin/fentanyl also using methamphetamine who participated in semi-structured interviews.
RESULTS
We found multiple methods of co-using opioids and methamphetamine, whether alternately or simultaneously and in varying order. Most prioritized opioids, with motives for using methamphetamine forming three thematic categories: 'intrinsic use', encompassing both inherent pleasure of combined use greater than using both drugs separately or for self-medication of particular conditions; 'opioid assisting use' in which methamphetamine helped people manage their existing heroin/fentanyl use; and 'reluctant or indifferent use' for social participation, reflecting methamphetamine's low cost and easy availability.
CONCLUSIONS
Methamphetamine serves multiple functions among people using opioids in WV. Beliefs persist that methamphetamine can play a role in preventing and reversing opioid overdose, including some arguments for sequential use being protective of overdose. 'Reluctant' uptake attests to methamphetamine's social use and the influence of supply. The impact on overdose risk of the many varied co-use patterns needs further investigation.
Topics: Motivation; Methamphetamine; Heroin; West Virginia; Fentanyl; Heroin Dependence; Interviews as Topic; Self Medication; Pleasure; Social Interaction; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Male; Female; Adult
PubMed: 37438812
DOI: 10.1186/s12954-023-00816-8 -
Cadernos de Saude Publica 2023This study offers a set of reflections on the relationship between risk and pleasure in the field of HIV prevention and care, as it mediates new biomedical...
This study offers a set of reflections on the relationship between risk and pleasure in the field of HIV prevention and care, as it mediates new biomedical prevention/care technologies, particularly pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), among men who have sex with men (MSM). We begin by investigating some studies about condomless sex between men, more specifically barebacking and PrEP use among young MSM. We base our analysis on the assumption that PrEP, as one of these new actants, has reconfigured the field of HIV prevention/care, especially in relation to the dimensions of risk and pleasure, with the potential to considerably reduce the chances of HIV infection while enabling maximum pleasure and a sense of greater safety and freedom. Despite this progress, we also problematize some of the ambivalences, tensions, and moral conflicts that still exist in the field of prevention, especially the potential for condomless sex. Finally, taking a praxiographic perspective on health care and foregrounding the situated practices of human and non-human actors/actants in interaction, we consider HIV/AIDS prevention as a more fluid, non-linear, erratic phenomenon that involves multiple types of knowledge, feelings, and participations, and is open to different kinds of experimentation. Besides a "logic of choice", we hold that health care is a permeable, continuous process that is enacted in situated practices and may produce different effects in response to a heterogeneous network of interactions.
Topics: Male; Humans; HIV Infections; Homosexuality, Male; Sexual Behavior; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Pleasure; Anti-HIV Agents; Sexual and Gender Minorities; Brazil
PubMed: 36995864
DOI: 10.1590/0102-311XEN139221 -
American Journal of Public Health Feb 2020
Topics: Humans; Pleasure; Public Health
PubMed: 31913673
DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305496 -
Revista Da Escola de Enfermagem Da U S P 2020To evaluate the impact of work on nursing professionals' health.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the impact of work on nursing professionals' health.
METHOD
This is a cross-sectional and quantitative study conducted with nurses from a university hospital in João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil. Data were collected through interviews using an instrument to obtain sociodemographic data and health conditions and the Pleasure and Suffering Indicators at Work Scale (PSIWS).
RESULTS
There were 152 nurses who participated. The Experience of Pleasure and its domains were rated as satisfactory, while Suffering Factors and their domains were critically evaluated. Statistically significant associations were observed (p≤0.05) between the indicators of pleasure and suffering and some health conditions, health problems and medication use.
CONCLUSION
Satisfactory levels of pleasure were associated with better health conditions and critical levels of suffering were associated with worse health conditions.
Topics: Brazil; Cross-Sectional Studies; Humans; Job Satisfaction; Nurses; Occupational Health; Pleasure
PubMed: 32813822
DOI: 10.1590/s1980-220x2018046103584 -
The International Journal on Drug Policy Jul 2022GHB is used among some sexuality and gender diverse populations at elevated rates, however little qualitative research has explored GHB use among these populations with...
BACKGROUND
GHB is used among some sexuality and gender diverse populations at elevated rates, however little qualitative research has explored GHB use among these populations with regards to diverse contexts, settings, practices, and experiences of use. Internationally, harms relating to GHB overdose appear to be increasing. Research outlining consumers' experiences of GHB-related pleasures and their strategies to reduce harms may inform GHB education and intervention responses.
METHODS
N = 31 participants reporting three or more occasions of GHB use within the previous 12 months were recruited via digital advertising and snowball methods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, data were transcribed and analysed in NVivo using a thematic framework analysis. Emergent themes were charted, and divergences and convergences were considered with regards to the sexuality and gender identities of participants.
RESULTS
Pleasures associated with GHB were described in relation to the sensation of the GHB high and experiences of intimacy, and connection. GHB was used to enhance socialising and sex in domestic, private, and commercial venues. Participants prioritised terminology of 'control' when describing their practices associated with GHB dosing, measuring, timing and peer moderation. Most participants reported personal experience of GHB overdose with loss of consciousness.
CONCLUSION
Participants' near-ubiquitous experience of GHB overdose highlights ongoing education needs around overdose prevention. Efforts must target people new to GHB use who appeared particularly susceptible to overdose. Inconsistencies in understandings around GHB overdose, the perceived severity of overdose and the differences between GHB and its precursors GBL and 1,4-BD, highlight potential focus areas of future education responses. Further research is required to better understand consumers' experiences of sexual violence in the context of GHB use.
Topics: Drug Overdose; Gender Identity; Humans; Pleasure; Sexual Behavior; Sexuality; Sodium Oxybate
PubMed: 35643047
DOI: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2022.103747