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Reduced responsiveness to emotional stimuli ('emotional dampening') has been observed in normotensives with elevated blood pressure (BP) and hypertensives but it is not known whether this is due to aberrant responding to emotional information at the involuntary level and whether it is also associated with minimal elevations in BP in the normal range. In this study, we examined emotional dampening using the affect-modulated startle paradigm given its proven sensitivity to motivational states of approach and withdrawal, typically independent of conscious intentional control. Acoustically elicited startle eye-blink modulation was measured using electromyography of the orbicularis oculi muscle beneath the left eye in 59 healthy individuals while they viewed pleasant, unpleasant and neutral standardized pictures. The expected startle attenuation to pleasant pictures, and startle potentiation to unpleasant pictures, relative to neutral pictures, was found in people in the comparison (N = 29) but not elevated BP (N = 30) group. This finding was further supported by significant moderating effect (assessed using ANCOVA and sub-sample analysis) of BP on valence-startle amplitude relationship. The comparison BP group also showed slower latencies to response onset for pleasant stimuli compared to neutral and unpleasant, with no effect of valence in the elevated BP group. However, BP did not moderate the valence-onset latency relationship. Our findings indicate that previously reported emotional dampening associated with elevated BP extends to reduced involuntary emotional reactivity and to individuals with even minimal BP elevations (i.e. higher but still within the normal range). Future research needs to confirm these findings in hypertensive individuals, preferably using within-subjects designs., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

This study examined the effect of sense modality (auditory/visual) on emotional dampening (reduced responsiveness to emotions with elevation in blood pressure). Fifty-six normotensive participants were assessed on tasks requiring labelling and matching of emotions in faces and voices. Based on median split of systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP and DBP, respectively), participants were divided into low BP, high BP and isolated BP groups. On emotion-labelling tasks, analysis revealed reduced emotion recognition in the high BP than the low BP group. On emotion-matching tasks, reduced emotion recognition was noted in high and also isolated BP group as compared to low BP group for the task that required matching a visual target with one of the four auditory distractors. Our findings show for the first time that even isolated elevations in either SBP or DBP may result in emotional dampening. Furthermore, the study highlights that the emotional dampening effect generalises to explicit processing (labelling) of emotional information in both faces and voices-and that these effects tentatively occur during more pragmatic and covert (matching) emotion recognition processes too. These findings require replication in clinical hypertensives., (© 2017 International Union of Psychological Science.)

Psychological factors are known to play an important part in the origin of many medical conditions including hypertension. Recent studies have reported elevated blood pressure (even in the normal range of variation) to be associated with a reduced responsiveness to emotions or 'emotional dampening'. Our aim was to assess emotional dampening in individuals with more extreme blood pressure levels including prehypertensives (N = 58) and hypertensives (N = 60) by comparing their emotion recognition ability with normotensives (N = 57). Participants completed novel facial emotion matching and facial emotion labelling tasks following blood pressure measurement and their accuracy of emotion recognition and average response times were compared. The normotensives demonstrated a significantly higher accuracy of emotion recognition than the prehypertensives and the hypertensives in labelling of facial emotions. This difference generalised to the task where two facial halves (upper & lower) had to be matched on the basis of emotions. In neither the labelling nor matching emotion conditions did the groups differ in their speed of emotion processing. Findings of the present study extend reports of 'emotional dampening' to hypertensives as well as to those at-risk for developing hypertension (i.e. prehypertensives) and have important implications for understanding the psychological component of such medical conditions as hypertension.

Emotional dampening (blunted responses to affective stimuli or experiences) has been reported in individuals with clinical and subclinical levels of elevated blood pressure (BP). Our aim in the present study was to explore how the basic motivational systems of approach and avoidance to positively- and negatively-valenced stimuli are affected in elevated BP. High BP (n = 27) and Low BP (n = 29) participants completed an approach-avoidance task. In this task, participants pulled the joystick towards them when viewing a happy face (approach) and pushing it away when viewing an angry face (avoid) in the congruent condition, and reversed these action-to-emotion pairings in the incongruent condition. A mixed-design ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of condition, such that overall participants were faster across trials in the congruent than trials of the incongruent condition. There was also an emotion x BP interaction. Among the Low BP group, there were no RT differences to happy and angry expressions (across congruent and incongruent conditions) but those with High BP were quicker to respond to actions paired with angry than happy facial expressions (across conditions). Findings suggest that valence-specific motivational reactions are not dampened with an increase in BP, and are rather sensitized for the negative emotion of anger. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well documented that emotion regulation difficulties are linked with various forms of psychopathology including anxiety and depression but the literature is still inconclusive regarding whether emotion regulation difficulties are transdiagnostic or pathology-specific. We speculate that certain types of emotion regulation difficulties may be transdiagnostic while others may show specificity. The present study attempts to empirically validate this speculation and tries to explore the common (transdiagnostic) and unique domains of emotion regulation difficulties associated with psychometrically identified subclinical groups of anxious and anxious-depressed individuals. University and college students (N = 192) were assessed on self-report measures of emotion regulation difficulties, positive-negative affect, depression, and trait and free-floating anxiety and classified into anxious, anxious-depressed, and normal groups based on the results of cluster analysis. Both subclinical groups reported overall higher levels of emotion regulation difficulties than normals, with anxious-depressed group showing more difficulties than anxious group. While difficulty engaging in goal-directed behaviour, lack of emotional awareness and emotional clarity were common across anxious and anxious-depressed groups, the anxious-depressed group showed a unique profile of emotion regulation difficulties characterized by non-acceptance of emotional response, impulse control difficulties, and limited access to emotion regulation strategies. Findings of discriminant function analysis revealed that while anxious-depressed group was characterised by difficulties in regulating emotions, the anxious group presented difficulties in emotional insight. The findings highlight the possible role of both unique and transdiagnostic components of emotion regulation difficulties in the development/maintenance of psychopathologies and have significant implications for predicting future development and psychotherapeutic management of these disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) assesses emotion regulation among adults and adolescents, in healthy as well as clinical populations. However, its factor structure is a widely debated issue. Although earlier studies replicated the original six-factor structure, they pointed out psychometrically poor items in the DERS. The issue is further complicated by the findings of recent studies reporting a five- or even a four-factor structure of the DERS. Further, several studies have questioned the validity of the Awareness dimension of DERS and suggested excluding this dimension. Against this backdrop, the present study attempts to examine the factor structure of the Hindi version of the DERS (DERS-H) on 434 healthy participants (303 females, 131 males) of middle socio-economic status. Findings of the exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) did not support either of the one-, six- or five-factor solutions. After excluding five psychometrically poor items (poor loadings and higher standardized residuals), the CFA though yielded a satisfactory fit for first-order six-factor model, the second-order model did not fit well. However, after removing the Awareness dimension, the first-order as well as the second-order modified five-factor models provided apt fits to the data. This modified DERS-H (and its five sub-domains) showed satisfactory reliability and validity as well as factor structure invariance across gender and age. The findings suggest that the modified DERS-H is a psychometrically sound tool (with stable factor structure) to measure the second-order construct of emotion regulation difficulties as well as its five first-order subdomains, particularly in the Indian cultural context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between mindfulness and better emotion regulation (ER) has been well documented, but the mechanism through which it improves ER is still unclear. It is likely that the emotion regulatory effects of mindfulness might be occurring indirectly through other affective aspects (e.g., range & differentiation of emotional experiences). The said possibility was tested on a sample of 211 adults, using self-report measures of mindfulness, the use of ER strategies (reappraisal & suppression) and range and differentiation of emotional experience. Analyses revealed that mindfulness and its dimensions correlated negatively with the use of suppression and positively with reappraisal as well as range and differentiation of emotional experiences. The hypothesis that mindfulness influences ER indirectly through altering the range and differentiation of emotions is supported by the findings of structural equation modeling. Findings revealed that mindfulness was indirectly linked with enhanced use of reappraisal through improved emotional differentiation and reduced use of suppression through enhancement of both the range and differentiation of emotional experiences. Further, mindfulness was found to have a significant direct effect on suppression but not on reappraisal. These findings imply that mindfulness exerts its emotion regulatory effect indirectly by enhancing the range and differentiation of emotional experiences but it may also have some direct effect on some aspects of ER such as reduced emotional suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dimensionality of the construct of affect intensity is still a debated issue and most of the studies dealing with this debate have used the Affect Intensity Measure (AIM; Larsen & Diener, 1987) although this measure has been criticized on various psychometric grounds. We speculate that the inconsistency regarding the dimensionality of affect intensity may be either because of lack of clarity in its conceptualization or inappropriateness of its psychometric measures. In view of this, the present study attempts to explore the dimensionality of affect intensity using the Hindi version of the Emotional Intensity Scale (EIS; Bachorowski & Braaten, 1994) that claims to overcome the psychometric limitations of the AIM. The EIS-H was administered to 284 Hindi speaking Indian adults (119 males and 165 females). Exploratory factor (principal component) analysis identified two factors that were labelled as positive and negative emotional intensity. However, observation of some overlap and/or cross loading undermines the factorial purity of the EIS-H. Thus, a maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test two models - one assuming the two factors to be uncorrelated and the other as correlated. Findings revealed that the correlated two factors model provided a better fit to the data as compared to that which assumed the two factors to be uncorrelated. Findings imply that affect intensity is a multidimensional construct that encompasses two independent yet related dimensions of positive and negative affect intensity and the EIS-H may be used to reliably measure it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alexithymia, characterized by difficulty in identifying and describing feelings and a deficit in the cognitive modulation of emotions, has been linked with health related problems. Indirect empirical evidences suggest the possibility that alexithymia may potentially also relate with emotion regulation difficulties. However, the exact nature of the relationship between the two constructs has not been fully explored. The relationship between the two constructs may reflect the overlap of the content domains or dependence of one (e.g., emotion regulation difficulties) on the other (e.g., alexithymia). Given the link between the two constructs, it is also likely that alexithymics' health related difficulties may result from their impaired ability to regulate emotions. The present study tested the above theoretical propositions on 27 alexithymic and 26 non-alexithymic participants who were assessed on self-report measures of emotion regulation difficulties and general mental health. The findings revealed that compared to non-alexithymics, the alexithymics showed greater emotion regulation difficulties and such affective difficulties differentiated the two groups with a very high accuracy. Further, the observation of two orthogonal components (emotion regulation difficulties and alexithymia) with a minimum overlap suggests that these constructs represent two independent domains of behavior. Findings also revealed that alexithymics reported more health related problems as compared to non-alexithymics and the health problems of alexithymics are likely to be an outcome of their emotion regulation difficulties (indicated by a non-significant health difference after controlling for emotion regulation difficulties). The findings imply that alexithymia is associated with emotion regulation difficulties and such difficulties largely contribute to health related problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measures exposed eye area (EEA) in photographs of Indian adults who modeled six emotions--happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust--as well as a neutral expression. Factorial analysis of covariance (ANCOVA); Results.

Most studies though report that emotion regulation (ER) mediates the relationship of mindfulness with subjective well-being (SWB), there is also an unexamined conjecture that ER skills cultivate mindfulness which consequently enhances SWB. Present study attempts to empirically tests which of the said two models better explains the mindfulness-well-being relationship. Two hundred eleven adults were assessed on the self-report measures of the said constructs. Initially we tested the mediational model assuming that the use of ER (cognitive reappraisal & suppression) would mediate the mindfulness-SWB relationship. This model was found to yield a good fit to the data with some minor modification. The test of alternative model that assumes ER as an antecedent factor in mindfulness - well-being relationship was also found to be a good fit to the data. The comparison of both models revealed that later model yielded a better fit compared to the former model. These findings suggest that the alternate possibility that better emotion regulation helps to attain a mindful state which in turn enhances health/well-being appears to be a better explanatory model than the conventional model which assumes that mindfulness exerts beneficial health effects through its emotion regulatory effect. The findings also implied that there may be a circular relationship between mindfulness and emotion regulation. However, such speculations need to be empirically tested in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study reports the relationship of emotion regulation difficulties and alexithymia with mental health and subjective wellbeing of an individual. Two hundred and eighty eight participants (218 males and 70 females) in the age range of 16 to 38 years (Mean age =20.78, SD= 2.95 years) were assessed on a measure of alexithymia, difficulties in emotion regulation, general mental health, and subjective well-being (assessed by Positive Negative Affect Schedule and Satisfaction with Life Scale). The results of the bi-variate correlation analysis revealed that difficulties in understanding and communicating as well as regulating emotions, in general, have a negative influence on health and wellbeing. However, the findings of step-wise multiple regression analysis indicated that some specific types of emotional deficits such as difficulties in identifying feelings, lack of emotional clarity and limited access to emotion regulation strategies were relatively more important in predicting the health status and well-being of an individual as compared to other emotional difficulties. Overall the findings imply that emotion regulation difficulties and alexithymia in general is associated with impaired mental health and lower level of happiness and life satisfaction, i.e., subjective well-being. The observed findings have been discussed in the light of the available empirical evidences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Anxiety in adolescence is characterised by disturbances in attentional processes and the overgeneralisation of fear, however, little is known about the combined and reciprocal effects of and between these factors on youth anxiety. The present study investigated whether attention (attention allocation and control) and fear generalisation processes together predict more variance on adolescent anxiety symptoms than each factor in isolation, and explored their interrelations.Methods: 197 adolescents completed a novel conditioning task, which paired balloon cues with mildly aversive or neutral outcomes. A spatial cueing task, and self-report measures of emotional attentional control and anxiety, were also completed.Results: Threat-avoidant attention allocation biases, impaired attention control, and exaggerated fear generalisation together predicted greater variance in anxiety symptoms (55.3%), than each set of fear and attention processes in isolation. Results also provided evidence of an interplay between these factors. Individual differences in threat-avoidant attention allocation biases predicted variability in the generalisation of fear, whilst the association between heightened anxiety and the overgeneralization of fear was moderated by poor attention control.Conclusions: This study provides unique evidence of the combined effects of attention and fear generalisation mechanisms in explaining youth anxiety, and interrelations between these factors. Importantly, results suggested that deficiencies in attention control may bring out anxiety-associated impairments in fear generalisation.Limitations: We relied on self-reported ratings of fear during generalization and also of attention control. Thus demand effects cannot be discounted. Reaction-time measures of attention focus are also indirect assessments of attention that may lack precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]