Stock Market Exposure and Anxiety in a Turbulent Market: Evidence From China

"Buy High, Sell Low": A Qualitative Study of Cryptocurrency Traders Who Experience Harm

The constant, substantial price fluctuations of cryptocurrency allow traders to engage in highly speculative trading that closely resembles gambling. With significant financial loss associated with adverse mental health outcomes, it is important to investigate the impact that market participation has on mental health. Therefore, we conducted interviews with 17 participants who self-reported problems due to trading. Thematic analysis was conducted revealing themes: (1) factors in engagement, (2) impacts of trading and (3) harm reduction. Factors in engagement captured factors that motivated and sustained cryptocurrency trading. Impacts of trading outlined how cryptocurrency trading positively and negatively impacted participants. Harm reduction described methods participants employed to reduce mental distress from trading. Our study provides novel insights into the adverse impacts of cryptocurrency trading across multiple domains, especially mental health, relationships and finances. They also indicate the importance of further research on effective coping strategies for distress caused by financial loss from trading. Additionally, our study reveals the significant role social environments play on participants' expectations and intentions regarding cryptocurrency trading. These social networks extend beyond real-life relationship to include celebrity and influencer endorsement. This encourages investigation into the content of cryptocurrency promotions and the influence they have on individuals' decision to trade.

Large-scale societal dynamics are reflected in human mood and brain

The stock market is a bellwether of socio-economic changes that may directly affect individual well-being. Using large-scale UK-biobank data generated over 14 years, we applied specification curve analysis to rigorously identify significant associations between the local stock market index (FTSE100) and 479,791 UK residents' mood, as well as their alcohol intake and blood pressure adjusting the results for a large number of potential confounders, including age, sex, linear and non-linear effects of time, research site, other stock market indexes. Furthermore, we found similar associations between FTSE100 and volumetric measures of affective brain regions in a subsample (n = 39,755; measurements performed over 5.5 years), which were particularly strong around phase transitions characterized by maximum volatility in the market. The main findings did not depend on applied effect-size estimation criteria (linear methods or mutual information criterion) and were replicated in two independent US-based studies (Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative; n = 424; performed over 2.5 years and MyConnectome; n = 1; 81 measurements over 1.5 years). Our results suggest that phase transitions in the society, indexed by stock market, exhibit close relationships with human mood, health and the affective brain from an individual to population level.

Insomnia Symptoms Moderate the Relationship Between Perseverative Cognition and Backward Inhibition in the Task-Switching Paradigm

Perseverative cognition (PC), that is, the continuous cognitive representation of uncontrollable threats, is known to dampen executive control processes in experimental paradigms. Similarly, PC has been shown to impair sleep and to be implicated in the exacerbation of insomnia, which may in turn contribute to the disruption of executive functions. The interactions between PC and insomnia in influencing executive functions, however, have never been tested to date. In the present study, we explored whether insomnia symptoms may moderate the associations between PC and disrupted executive functions, with the hypothesis to find a stronger relationship between these variables at increasing levels of insomnia. Fifty participants completed measures of trait PC and insomnia severity in the previous month and also completed a computerized task-switching paradigm assessing backward inhibition, switch cost, and accuracy. Prior to the task switching, participants completed a measure of state rumination in order to control for the effects of state PC on cognitive performance. Results show that trait PC was significantly correlated with higher insomnia symptoms and state rumination and marginally correlated with lower backward inhibition and longer switch cost. Moreover, insomnia severity moderated the relationship between trait PC and backward inhibition after controlling for the effects of state rumination; that is, the relationship between PC and inhibitory deficits was stronger in those with higher versus lower levels of insomnia symptoms. Findings suggest the need to better elucidate the associations between PC, insomnia, and executive functioning in clinical samples and longitudinal designs.