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The prevalence of emotional disorders has increased in recent times. Emotional Reasoning (ER), which is a transdiagnostic process, occurs when feelings, rather than objective evidence, are used as a source of information to make judgements about the valence of a situation. Differences in ER may explain the existence and maintenance of emotional disorders. The objective is to systematically review the role of ER in the occurrence and severity of emotional disorders. Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched through: PubMed, PsycInfo, Scopus and The Cochrane Library. Search terms were 'Emotional Reasoning', 'ex-consequentia reasoning', 'Affect-as-information'; and 'emotional disorders', 'anxiety', 'depression', 'depressive'. Nine articles were included. An association was demonstrated between ER and a greater degree of anxious symptomatological severity. In depressive symptomatology, no significant differences were found. One study reported the effect of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy on ER bias, finding no changes after the intervention. Finally, another study evaluated the efficacy of computerised experiential training in reducing ER bias, showing significant differences. There are few studies on ER and its evolution in research has not been uniform over time. Encouragingly, though, research to date suggests that ER is a transdiagnostic process involved in several anxiety disorders. More investigation is needed to dilucidate whether ER also underlies the onset and maintenance of depressive disorders., Author(s): Macarena Paredes-Mealla [sup.1] , Verónica Martínez-Borba [sup.1] , Marta Miragall [sup.2] [sup.3] , Azucena García-Palacios [sup.1] [sup.3] , Rosa Mª Baños [sup.2] [sup.3] [sup.4] , Carlos Suso-Ribera [sup.1] [sup.3] [...]

Youth self-harm is associated with poor health outcomes and attempted and completed suicide. Associations exist between self-harm and expressed emotion (EE), attachment insecurity, and reflective functioning (RF), but these associations are poorly understood. This study evaluates a mediation model in which perceived caregiver EE (pEE) exerts an indirect effect on youth self-harm through attachment insecurity and RF uncertainty. 461 participants aged 16-24 years completed an online survey. Statistical analyses revealed significant direct effects of pEE on attachment insecurity, and of RF uncertainty on self-harm; however, some direct effects were specific to pEE from female caregivers, and attachment insecurity in youth relationships with female caregivers. A significant direct effect of pEE on self-harm was found for pEE from male caregivers only. Significant indirect effects of pEE on self-harm through attachment anxiety and RF uncertainty were found only in relation to female caregivers. The findings encourage family-, attachment-, and mentalization-based approaches to preventing and treating youth self-harm, with a recommendation that caregivers are given adequate support, education, and skills-based training following youth disclosures of self-harm., Author(s): Jamie Kennedy-Turner [sup.1] [sup.2] , Vilas Sawrikar [sup.1] , Lucy Clark [sup.3] , Helen Griffiths [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) https://ror.org/01nrxwf90, grid.4305.2, 0000 0004 1936 7988, Clinical Psychology Department, School [...]

The aim of this study was to examine the link between personal beliefs about emotion controllability and symptoms of anxiety and depression, with a particular focus on the mediating role of emotion regulation. To date, there has been little research examining the mediating role of cognitive reappraisal or expressive suppression in the link between beliefs about emotion controllability and symptoms of anxiety. Online questionnaires measuring emotion regulation, beliefs about emotion controllability, and depression and anxiety, were completed by 1227 participants (n = 336 males; M.sub.age = 25.3, SD = 10.1; range = 16 to 83 years). The results indicated that perceived control over one's own emotions predicted better psychological health (fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression). This link between beliefs about emotion controllability and psychological heath was partially mediated by cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, with cognitive reappraisal predicting a reduction in clinical symptoms and expressive suppression predicting an increase in clinical symptoms. These findings suggest that individuals' beliefs about emotion controllability, leads to the use of certain emotion regulation strategies which in turn, have important consequences for psychological health., Author(s): Carla Deplancke [sup.1] , Matthew P. Somerville [sup.1] , Amy Harrison [sup.1] , Laura Vuillier [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.83440.3b, 0000000121901201, Department of Psychology and Human Development, UCL Institute [...]

Despite increasing knowledge about the brain mechanisms underlying major depressive disorder (MDD), efforts to explore the neural underpinnings of emotional processing among individuals with MDD and their relationship with neural abnormalities and the maintenance of depression, are still ongoing. This exploratory fMRI study examined the nature of neural responses to emotional faces and their relationship with dysfunctional attitudes among unmedicated individuals with MDD. Twenty-five unmedicated individuals with MDD and 23 control participants completed a facial emotion perception task and self-report questionnaires, including the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS). Participants with MDD (vs. control participants) showed less accuracy in identifying mildly (50%) and intensely (100%) happy, and mildly (50%) sad faces. Whole-brain analyses reflected increased activation in bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, left posterior (in response to 50% and 100% sad vs. neutral faces) left anterior (in response to 50% sad vs. neutral faces), right anterior, and right middle cingulate cortices (in response to 100% sad vs. neutral faces) among participants with MDD. No group differences were observed in neural responses to happy faces. Hyperactivity in the left inferior frontal gyrus during negative emotion perception was correlated with the DAS' Performance Evaluation scores in the MDD group. This study highlighted that hyperactivity in the inferior frontal gyrus during negative facial emotion processing is associated with dysfunctional attitudes among people with MDD. The findings warrant further fMRI research to yield neural evidence for cognitive models of depression., Author(s): Bo-Ram Kim [sup.1] , Ji-Won Hur [sup.2] , Da-Som Park [sup.1] , Hye-Ri Moon [sup.2] , Sung-Won Choi [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.410884.1, 0000 0004 0532 6173, Department of [...]

The Coronavirus pandemic undeniably represents a global health threat unprecedented in living memory leading to very distinct behavioral, cognitive, and psychological responses to the crisis. We argue that the different ways of responding to the pandemic are rooted in personal dispositions and provide evidence regarding the function and value of the Big Five framework in understanding the pandemic personality. Using 18 samples from the six European countries most affected at the onset of the pandemic (overall N = 18,307), we find that most of the Big Five effects vary across countries and pandemic phases. However, while neuroticism is clearly linked to pandemic threat perception and emotional responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, conscientiousness is mainly related to exposure to pandemic hazard, preferences regarding political measures, and tolerance of epidemiologically undesirable behavior. Our findings are rich in implications for public health politics, policy-makers and social cohesion., Author(s): Markus Freitag [sup.1] , Nathalie Hofstetter [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.5734.5, 0000 0001 0726 5157, Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, , Fabrikstrasse 8, CH-3012, Bern, Switzerland Introduction [...]

Social media has expanded the scope and method of interpersonal communication, and presents the risk of social media addiction as well. This study reported the psychometrics of the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (BSMAS) and further analyzed the moderating role of peer relationship on the association between negative emotions and risk of social media addiction. A total of 1258 survey participants were asked to complete a set of scales online. Exploratory structural equation modeling enabled BSMAS to reveal a solid one-factor structure with satisfactory internal consistency coefficient. Criterion-related validity and variance explanation rate analysis implied a positive relationship between negative emotions and risk of social media addiction, and identified the significant contributions of negative emotions and peer relationship to the risk of social media addiction. Moderation analysis demonstrated that peer relationship positively moderated the effect of negative emotions on the risk of social media addiction. However, gender was not a moderator affecting negative emotions on the risk of social media addiction. BSMAS was a valid tool for measuring the risk of social media addiction among Chinese adolescents. Lastly, peer relationship is a positive moderator in influencing negative emotions and risk of social media addiction., Author(s): Lu Huang [sup.1] , Jiewen Zhang [sup.2] , Wenjie Duan [sup.3] , Longtao He [sup.4] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.413041.3, 0000 0004 1808 3369, Faculty of Law and Public Administration, [...]

Current debate has identified the factors emotion knowledge (EK) and attention as specific trajectories longitudinally influencing psychopathological development in childhood. The 'Emotion Knowledge Hypothesis' assumes that children with great emotion skills have high self-regulating abilities that result in lower cognitive load and stronger attention capacities. Attention problems are thus perceived as a consequence of reduced EK. According to the competing 'Attention Effect Hypothesis', attention problems and EK deficits are associated because of impaired learning capacities due to attention problems. According to this hypothesis, attention problems are predictive of impaired EK. If those specific trajectories are disrupted, this might attenuate the development of later behavior problems. The present study tests those competing hypotheses replicating previous studies in this field to shed light on potential psychopathology trajectories. A total of 136 pre- and elementary school children as well as their teachers participated in this study. Children's symptoms of inattention as well as their emotional competences were assessed 3 times over a 12-month period. We applied multilevel structural equation modelling and cross-lagged panel models for data analysis. Overall, we noted a drop in inattention scores and rise in emotional competences over the one-year course, indicating maturation effects. There was a significant but very small effect for attention scores predicting emotional competences. With respect to the question whether interventions should focus on the 'Emotion Knowledge' or 'Attention Effect' hypothesis, our findings imply that none of them has superiority over the other. Therefore, both emotion knowledge and attention are crucial for development, and that children with deficits in either domain should receive targeted interventions in order to disrupt potentially harmful developmental pathways., Author(s): Hanna Christiansen [sup.1] , Oliver Hirsch [sup.2] , Ashkan Beheshti [sup.1] , Mira-Lynn Chavanon [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.10253.35, 0000 0004 1936 9756, Department of Psychology, Clinical Child and [...]

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show an enhanced response to stressors, and gender plays an important role in stress response. Thus, autistic traits (ATs) in the general population and gender may regulate the emotion changes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the present study, participants were divided into higher and lower ATs groups. The generalized linear models were used to estimate the effects of the independent variables (e.g. the COVID-19 pandemic status (before, during), gender (male, female), and AT groups (higher ATs, lower ATs) and their interactions on emotions measured by the Positive and Negative Affect scales. The results showed that the COVID-19 pandemic reduced positive emotions and increased fear and anger. Furthermore, compared with the status before the COVID-19 pandemic, individuals with higher ATs and females experienced stronger anger and fear than individuals with lower ATs and males during the pandemic. The present study revealed the emotional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and greater emotional susceptibility to the pandemic among individuals with higher ATs and females. Our findings provide prospective evidence for understanding the ASD/ATs-related enhanced response to pathogen threat-related stressors and have implications for COVID-19 crisis interventions., Author(s): Xudong Zhao [sup.1] [sup.2] , Binglei Zhao [sup.3] , Wenrui Li [sup.1] , Yang Cai [sup.1] , Wendian Shi [sup.1] , Chunbo Li [sup.2] [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412531.0, [...]

COVID-19 is a major public health event affecting the people worldwide. Nurses are still under immense psychological pressure. This study aimed to explore the relationship between mental fatigue and negative emotions among frontline medical staff during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted in August 2020, which included 419 medical staff between 17 to 28 years. The Fatigue Scale, Multidimensional Mental Flexibility Questionnaire, Cognitive Fusion Scale, and Depression-Anxiety-Stress Brief Version Scale were used. During the data collection period, the pandemic was under control in China and continued worldwide. The results indicated that 27.7% of the medical staff experienced depression, and 32.3% of them feel stressed. Specifically, first, correlation analyses showed significant positive pairwise correlations between mental fatigue, psychological inflexibility, cognitive fusion, and negative emotions among nurses. Second, mediation model tests showed statistically significant mediating effects of psychological inflexibility and cognitive fusion between mental fatigue on nurses' negative emotions, and statistically, significant chain mediating effects of psychological inflexibility and cognitive fusion. Mental fatigue indirectly affects nurses' negative effects through the mediating effects of psychological inflexibility, cognitive fusion, and the chain mediating effects of psychological inflexibility and cognitive fusion, respectively. the negative effects of mental fatigue come from impairment of cognitive functioning, and interventions using acceptance and commitment therapy for mental fatigue and negative emotions are more effective since both psychological inflexibility and cognitive fusion are important components of the therapy., Author(s): Difan Wang [sup.1] [sup.2] , Xinjie Xie [sup.1] , Huiyi Tian [sup.1] , Tong Wu [sup.1] , Chenjie Liu [sup.3] , Ke Huang [sup.4] , Rufang Gong [sup.5] , [...]

Understanding the emotions of caregiving is key for supporting families with an ill relative. This study explored how negative and positive emotions were experienced by caregivers and the meaning they attached to both types of emotions with regard to schizophrenia. Content analysis was conducted by two independent reviewers to extract and code family caregivers' emotions according to Plutchik's wheel of emotions. The findings of 23 qualitative studies identified in a previous systematic review were used for the analysis. The proportion of the emotions that were negative and positive was calculated by the effect of the illness. Two reviewers also synthesized the qualitative findings to describe the meaning of the emotional content. Regarding the negative effects of schizophrenia, the dominant emotions were fear, sadness, anger, followed by shame, and guilt. These negative emotions detached the caregivers from their relationships with their family, community, and society. Additionally, such emotions involved them in the past and the future and prevented them from living in the present. Regarding positive effects, the essential emotions were trust, joy, and love. The positive effects were described using three domains of favorable appraisal (i.e., interpersonal relationships, inner strength, and mutual behavior), in which the caregivers could develop a sense of belonging from the relationships with health professionals and the courage to manage difficult reality. Understanding the emotions of caregivers shows professionals how to emotionally support family members during the continuous process of caregiving, which may allow them to identify the meaningful aspects of the care experience., Author(s): Nao Shiraishi [sup.1] , Jacqueline Reilly [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.260433.0, 0000 0001 0728 1069, Department of Psychiatry and Cognitive-Behavioral Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Nagoya City University, [...]

With the popularity of social network sites (SNSs) among the younger generation, adolescent SNS addiction has become a serious and highly-concerned problem in modern society. Based on the perspective of positive psychology, the current study focused on the protective role of emotional resilience on SNS addiction among adolescents. Specifically, this study tested the mediating effect of emotional expressivity in the association between emotional resilience and SNS addiction, and whether the mediating processes were moderated by Type D personality. The research model was examined with 699 Chinese high school students (mean age = 13.31 years, SD = 0.79; 51.93% were boys). Our mediation analysis revealed that the ability to generate positive emotions (a mechanism of emotional resilience) positively predicted SNS addiction via increasing positive expressivity; the ability to recover quickly from negative emotions (another mechanism of emotional resilience) negatively predicted SNS addiction directly and via decreasing positive and negative expressivity. Moreover, the moderated mediation analysis indicated that Type D personality moderated the association between positive expressivity and SNS addiction, as well as the relationship between negative expressivity and SNS addiction. These findings highlight the importance of uncovering the mechanisms underlying the links between emotional resilience and SNS addiction, which helps to reduce the risk of SNS addiction among adolescents., Author(s): Jia Nie [sup.1] , Wendi Li [sup.2] , Jie Long [sup.1] , Pan Zeng [sup.1] , Pengcheng Wang [sup.1] , Li Lei [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.24539.39, 0000 0004 [...]

Knowledge on Omani adolescents' vulnerability to depression is very limited. The current study examines the associations between Omani adolescents' depressive symptoms (DS) and three central constructs: negative cognition (NC), as reflected by the individual's view of self (VoS), view of the world (VoW) and view of the future (VoF), emotional and behavioral difficulties (EBDs), and negative life events (NLE). The Symptom Check List (SCL-90R), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Cognitive Triad Inventory for Children (CTI-C), and Negative Life Events Checklist (NLEC) were administered to a sample of 486 students aged between 13 and 16 from high schools in the southern region of Oman. A path analysis tested the effects of NC, EBDs, and NLE on Omani adolescents' DS. Findings revealed that EBDs and NLE have direct effects on Omani adolescents' DS. Similarly, the hypothesis that NC has direct effects on DS was partially supported. Our hypothesis, that EBDs and NLE may confer vulnerability to DS among Omani adolescents through NC, received partial support. The cognitive vulnerability hypothesis of depression is partially supported in an Arab sample. It could be argued that the hypothesis is culturally bound., Author(s): Mahmoud Mohamed Emam [sup.1] [sup.2] , Nasser Said Gomaa Abdelrasheed [sup.3] [sup.4] , Ehab Omara [sup.1] [sup.5] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412846.d, 0000 0001 0726 9430, Department of Psychology - [...]

Although it is today commonly accepted that cognitive and emotional factors interact in guiding decisions and behaviour in various domains, including medical and health related decision making, the interaction between these factors remains unclear. Within this study we explored the associations between individuals' health behaviours with different cognitive and emotional factors. In doing so, we focused on three domains important for health outcomes that include leading a healthy everyday lifestyle, engagement in healthy behaviours and medical adherence. As predictors, we used cognitive reflection and heuristics tasks for assessing individuals' ability to engage in rational thinking, cognitive styles that included need for cognition, faith in intuition and maximization to assess their motivation to engage in such thinking, optimism as an emotional indicator and trust and satisfaction with health provider as a final factor hypothesized to influence behaviour. The obtained results showed that all three assessed domains were associated with individuals' cognitive and emotional factors. Specifically, leading a healthy everyday lifestyle was predicted by maximizing, optimism and trust and satisfaction with health provider. Next, healthy behaviours were predicted by maximizing, optimism and ability to override heuristic and biased thinking, whereas higher need for cognition and trust and satisfaction with health provider predicted medical adherence. These results extend previous reports and provide novel insights into the contributions of various aspects of cognitive and emotional factors for specific domains of health behaviour., Author(s): Helena Tomljenovic [sup.1] , Andreja Bubic [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.38603.3e, 0000 0004 0644 1675, School of Medicine, University of Split, , Split, Croatia (2) grid.38603.3e, 0000 0004 0644 [...]

There is limited research on how the context in which moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) occurs influences the relationship between physical activity and affect. This study aimed to investigate how the social context and physical environment enhance the relationship between MVPA and affect in daily life. Overall, 119 adolescents (mean age = 14.7 years) provided information about their core affect, physical environment and social context on multiple occasions over a 4-day period using ecological momentary assessment. Additionally, participants' level of MVPA was objectively measured using accelerometers. Level of MVPA was positively associated with energetic arousal, being outdoors was positively associated with valence and energetic arousal, and being with someone else was also positively associated with energetic arousal. Additionally, being outdoors moderated the association between MVPA and tense arousal so that MVPA was only inversely related to tense arousal when outdoors. These findings showed that young people experience more positive valence, greater levels of energetic arousal and less tense arousal when physically active outdoors compared to when indoors and highlight the importance of encouraging young people to participate in physical activity outdoors. Further research is warranted to understand how social contexts may influence the association between MVPA and affect in young people., Author(s): Matthew Bourke [sup.1] , Toni A. Hilland [sup.2] , Melinda Craike [sup.1] [sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1019.9, 0000 0001 0396 9544, Institute for Health and Sport (IHES), Victoria University, [...]

Perceptions of the physical and social environment have been shown to be predictive of physical activity (PA) behavior. However, the mechanisms of this association have not been examined. Affective response to PA was examined as a putative mediator of the association between perceptions of the PA environment and subsequent PA behavior. As part of a PA promotion study, 59 low-active overweight or obese but otherwise healthy adults completed real-time assessments of the perceived physical and social PA environment, affective response to PA, and PA behavior over a 6-month period. As hypothesized, decreased latency to and greater duration of subsequent PA was predicted by engaging in PA with a partner (b = 17.24, SE = .45, p < .01), engaging in PA outdoors versus indoors (b = 3.70, SE = 0.67, p < .01), and perceived pleasantness of the physical (b = 0.59, SE = .17, p < .01) and social settings (b = 0.68, SE = .16, p < .01). Affective response to PA (a shift toward feeling good versus bad during PA) mediated the association between engaging in PA with a partner (a path: 0.53(.11), p < .01, b path: 0.42(.12), p < .01, ab path: 0.22(.08), 95% CI .09-.41) and perceived pleasantness of the physical (a path: .38(.02), p < .01; b path: .65(.23), p = .01; ab path: .25(.09), 95% CI .08-.43) and social setting (a path: .35(.02), p < .01; b path: .57(.23), p = .01; ab path: .20(.08), 95% CI .03-.37) and PA behavior, but not the association between engaging in PA outdoors versus indoors and PA behavior. These findings suggest that perceived environmental variables may have their effects on PA through the process of psychological hedonism., Author(s): Holly K. Boyle [sup.1] , Shira I. Dunsiger [sup.1] [sup.2] , Lauren Connell Bohlen [sup.3] , Jessica A. Emerson [sup.1] , Harold H. Lee [sup.1] , Courtney J. Stevens [...]

People with autism are often characterized as having difficulties with theory of mind abilities such as emotion recognition. However, rather than being a pervasive deficit of 'mindblindness,' a number of studies suggests these difficulties vary by context, and when people with autism mindread non-human agents, such as animals or cartoons, these abilities improve. To replicate this effect, 15 adolescents with both autism and intellectual disability participated in a test of facial emotion recognition, with both human and animal faces. Participants performed significantly better on the animal version of the assessment compared to the human version, and human rather than animal scores were the strongest predictor of symptom severity. These results were shown to be primarily driven by improvement in recognition of the emotions happiness and anger in animal rather than human faces. Implications with regards to social motivation and theory of mind interventions are discussed., Author(s): Liam Cross [sup.1] [sup.2] , Myles Farha [sup.2] , Gray Atherton [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) grid.255434.1, 0000 0000 8794 7109, Department of Psychology, Edge Hill University, , L39 4QP, [...]

Background: Difficulty in controlling emotional impulses is a crucial component of borderline personality disorder (BPD) that often leads to destructive, impulsive behaviours against others. In line with recent findings in aggressive individuals, deficits in prefrontal amygdala coupling during emotional action control may account for these symptoms. Methods: To study the neurobiological correlates of altered emotional action control in individuals with BPD, we asked medication-free, anger-prone, female patients with BPD and age- and intelligence-matched healthy women to take part in an approach-avoidance task while lying in an MRI scanner. The task required controlling fast behavioural tendencies to approach happy and avoid angry faces. Additionally, before the task we collected saliva testosterone and self-reported information on tendencies to act out anger and correlated this with behavioural and functional MRI (fMRI) data. Results: We included 30 patients and 28 controls in our analysis. Patients with BPD reported increased tendencies to act out anger and were faster in approaching than avoiding angry faces than with healthy women, suggesting deficits in emotional action control in women with BPD. On a neural level, controlling fast emotional action tendencies was associated with enhanced activation in the antero- and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex across groups. Healthy women showed a negative coupling between the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right amygdala, whereas this was absent in patients with BPD. Limitations: Specificity of results to BPD and sex differences remain unknown owing to the lack of clinical control groups and male participants. Conclusion: The results indicate reduced lateral prefrontal-amygdala communication during emotional action control in anger-prone women with BPD. The findings provide a possible neural mechanism underlying difficulties with controlling emotional impulses in patients with BPD., Introduction Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe mental disorder characterized by instability of affect, self-image, and personal goals, along with interpersonal dysfunctions and high levels of hostility, impulsivity and [...]

There is equivocal evidence as to whether there is a deficit in recognising emotional expressions in Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This study compared emotion recognition in ASD in three types of emotion expression media (still image, dynamic image, auditory) across human stimuli (e.g. photo of a human face) and animated stimuli (e.g. cartoon face). Participants were 37 adolescents (age 11-16) with a diagnosis of ASD (33 male, 4 female). 42 males and 39 females served as typically developing, age-matched controls. Overall there was significant advantage for control groups over the ASD group for emotion recognition in human stimuli but not animated stimuli, across modalities. For static animated images specifically, those with ASD significantly outperformed controls. The findings are consistent with the ASD group using atypical explicit strategies., Author(s): Mark Brosnan[sup.1] , Hilary Johnson[sup.1] , Beate Grawmeyer[sup.2] , Emma Chapman[sup.1] , Laura Benton[sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Psychology, University of Bath, BA2 7AY, Bath, UK (2) London [...]

Health disparities by socioeconomic status (SES) exist for many outcomes, including patients' subjective health status after myocardial infarction (MI). The Reserve Capacity Model (RCM), a theoretical means to understand such disparities, was tested to examine the possible mediating effects of cognitive-emotional factors on the association between SES and health status. Data from 2,348 post-MI patients in PREMIER were used. Indicators of SES were collected during hospitalization via personal interviews, while participants completed measures of stress and reserves at 1 month, depressive symptoms at 6 months, and health status at 1 year through telephone interviews. Structural equation model results provide partial support for the RCM, as cognitive-emotional factors partially mediated the association between SES and mental health status. For physical health status, results supported direct rather than indirect effects of SES. Findings suggest psychosocial interventions with patients of low SES will have their greatest effects on appraisals of psychological health status. Keywords Socioeconomic status * Health status disparities * Myocardial infarction * Depressive symptoms * Cognitive-emotional factors, Introduction Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death in the United States. It is estimated that one American dies from CVD every 39 seconds, and that 33.6% of [...]

Background: In healthy individuals, voluntary modification of self-relevance has proven effective in regulating subjective emotional experience as well as physiologic responses evoked by emotive stimuli. As social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by both altered emotional and self-related processing, we tested if emotion regulation through self-focused reappraisal is effective in individuals with SAD. Methods: While undergoing 3 T functional magnetic resonance imaging, individuals with SAD and matched healthy controls either passively viewed neutral and aversive pictures or actively increased or decreased their negative emotional experience through the modification of self-relevance or personal distance to aversive pictures. Participants rated all pictures with regard to the intensity of elicited emotions and self-relatedness. Results: We included 21 individuals with SAD and 23 controls in our study. Individuals with SAD reported significantly stronger emotional intensity across conditions and showed a nonsignificant tendency to judge pictures as more self-related than controls. Compared with controls, individuals with SAD showed an overactivation in bilateral temporoparietal regions and in the posterior midcingulate cortex during the passive viewing of aversive compared with neutral pictures. During instructed emotion regulation, activation patterns normalized and no significant group differences were detected. Limitations: As no positive pictures were presented, results might be limited to the regulation of negative emotion. Conclusion: During passive viewing of aversive images, individuals with SAD showed evidence of neural hyperreactivity that may be interpreted as increased bodily self-consciousness and heightened perspective-taking. During voluntary increase and decrease of negative emotional intensity, group differences disappeared, suggesting self-focused reappraisal as a successful emotion regulation strategy for individuals with SAD., Introduction Emotions are proposed to involve a 'person-situation interaction that engages attention, has meaning to an individual, and causes a coordinated yet malleable multisystem response to the interaction,' (1) including [...]

Can the experience of an emotion persist once the memory for what induced the emotion has been forgotten? We capitalized on a rare opportunity to study this question directly using a select group of patients with severe amnesia following circumscribed bilateral damage to the hippocampus. The amnesic patients underwent a sadness induction procedure (using affectively-laden film clips) to ascertain whether their experience of sadness would persist beyond their memory for the sadness-inducing films. The experiment showed that the patients continued to experience elevated levels of sadness well beyond the point in time at which they had lost factual memory for the film clips. A second experiment using a happiness induction procedure yielded similar results, suggesting that both positive and negative emotional experiences can persist independent of explicit memory for the inducing event. These findings provide direct evidence that a feeling of emotion can endure beyond the conscious recollection for the events that initially triggered the emotion. declarative memory | emotional memory | memory erasure | implicit memory | hippocampus doi: 10.1073/pnas.0914054107

We draw on the theory of allostasis to develop an integrative model of the current stress process that highlights the brain as a dynamically adapting interface between the changing environment and the biological self. We review evidence that the core emotional regions of the brain constitute the primary mediator of the well-established association between stress and health, as well as the neural focus of wear and tear due to ongoing adaptation. This mediation, in turn, allows us to model the interplay over time between context, current stressor exposure, internal regulation of bodily processes, and health outcomes. We illustrate how this approach facilitates the integration of current findings in human neuroscience and genetics with key constructs from stress models from the social and life sciences, with implications for future research and the design of interventions targeting individuals at risk. Keywords: stress, brain, allostasis, allostatic load, genes DOI: 10.1037/a0017773

Background: Neurobiological findings and clinical data suggest that dissociative experience inhibits conditioning processes, but experimental studies are lacking. The aim of our study was to determine whether high states of dissociative experience would specifically alter emotional learning, but not declarative knowledge. Methods: We used an aversive differential delay conditioning procedure in 33 unmedicated patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and 35 healthy controls. Results: Patients with BPD who had high state dissociative experiences (BPD D+) showed diminished acquisition of differential aversive delay conditioning with respect to emotional learning compared with those who did not experience dissociative symptoms (BPD D-) and healthy controls (skin conductance response; interaction dissociation x quadratic time x type, p = 0.009). Specifically, the control group and the BPD D- subgroup showed an increase in valence and arousal to the conditioned stimulus (CS+) during the conditioning procedure (all p < 0.012) and demonstrated differential skin conductance responses in the acquisition and extinction phases. In contrast, the BPD D+ subgroup showed no increase in valence and arousal to CS+ or differential response regarding skin conductance. We examined general psychopathology, trauma history, perceptual differences and posttraumatic stress disorder as confounding factors, but we found no evidence of bias. Limitations: Subdividing the BPD group reduced power. In addition, because our sample included only women, the generalizability of our results is constrained. Furthermore, we performed no separate analysis of the influence of different aspects of dissociation on the learning process. Conclusion: Emotional, amygdala-based learning processes seem to be inhibited during state dissociative experience. State dissociative experience may alter acquisition and extinction processes and should be closely monitored in exposure-based psychotherapy. Contexte : Selon des observations et des donnees cliniques neurobiologiques, les etats dissociatifs inhiberaient les processus de conditionnement, mais les etudes experimentales sur le sujet font defaut. La presente etude avait pour but de determiner si les etats hautement dissociatifs peuvent alterer specifiquement certains apprentissages emotionnels, sans influer sur le savoir declaratif. Methodes : Nous avons utilise une technique de conditionnement differe aversif differentiel chez 33 patientes atteintes d&apos;un trouble de personnalite limite non traitees pharmacologiquement et chez 35 temoins en bonne sante. Resultats : Les patientes atteints d&apos;un trouble de personnalite limite et presentant un etat hautement dissociatif (D+) ont manifeste une acquisition plus lente du conditionnement differe aversif differentiel en ce qui a trait a l&apos;apprentissage emotionnel, comparativement aux patientes qui ne presentaient pas de symptomes dissociatifs (D-) et aux temoins en bonne sante (reponse de conductance cutanee; dissociation de type << temps quadratique >> vis-a-vis des interactions, p= 0,009). Plus specifiquement, le groupe temoin et le sous-groupe de patientes D- ont presente une augmentation de la valence et de l&apos;eveil au stimulus conditionne (SC+) durant l&apos;etape de conditionnement (tous p< 0,012) et ont manifeste des reponses de conductance cutanee differentielles durant les phases d&apos;acquisition et d&apos;extinction. En revanche, le sousgroupe de patientes D+ n&apos;a manifeste aucune augmentation de valence et d&apos;eveil au SC+, ni aucune reponse differentielle en ce qui a trait A la conductance cutanee. Parmi les facteurs de confusion, nous avons analyse la psychopathologie generale, les antecedents de traumatisme, les differences perceptuelles et les troubles de type stress post-traumatique, mais nous n&apos;avons releve aucun signe de biais. Limites : La division du groupe atteint d&apos;un trouble de personnalite limite a reduit la puissance de l&apos;etude. De plus, etant donne que notre echantillon n&apos;incluait que des femmes, nos resultats sont plus difficilement generalisables. En outre, nous n&apos;avons effectue aucune analyse distincte de l&apos;influence de divers aspects de la dissociation sur le processus d&apos;apprentissage. Conclusion : Les processus d&apos;apprentissage emotionnels qui dependent de l&apos;amygdale semblent etre inhibes chez les participants presentant un etat dissociatif. Les etats dissociatifs peuvent perturber les processus d&apos;acquisition et d&apos;extinction et meritent d&apos;etre surveilles etroitement lors de psychotherapies par exposition., Introduction Neurobiological findings (1-9) and clinical data (10,11) suggest that conditioning processes are inhibited by dissociation. Regarding neurobiological processes, the corticolimbic disconnection model of dissociation (12) hypothesizes that the medial [...]

With age, the quality of emotions may shift from negative in tone to positive, but also from active to passive. The shift from negative to positive is consistent with the age as maturity perspective. The shift from active to passive supports the age as decline perspective. If these generalities are correct, then they should apply to positive emotions as well as negative emotions. We should see a shift in positive emotions from active (excitement) to passive (serenity), as well as in the negative emotions (from the agitation of anxiety and anger to the lethargy of depression). In order to accurately portray the shifts in emotional tone, age may best be considered as simultaneously indicating maturity and decline. This paper examines results from the emotions module of the 1996 U.S. General Social Survey and finds support for the idea that age is associated with a shift from negative to positive and from active to passive emotions. Keywords: Age; Depression; Anxiety; Anger; Serenity; Emotions; Older people; Aging; USA

This study reports effects of meaning and emotion (taboo vs. neutral words) on an illusory word (IW) phenomenon linked to orthographic repetition blindness (RB). Participants immediately recalled rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) lists consisting of two critical words (C1 and C2) containing shared letters, followed by a word fragment: for example, lake (C1) brake (C2) ush (fragment). For neutral critical words, participants often recalled C1, but not C2 or the fragment, reporting instead a nonoccurring or illusory word: here, brush (a blend of C2 and the fragment). Forward RB (defined as reduced report of orthographically similar C2s) was more common for neutral than for taboo C2s, and taboo IWs were reported significantly more often than were neutral IWs. Moreover, when both C2 and the potential IW were taboo, a new phenomenon emerged: Participants reliably reported both the IW and the intact C2. These and other results supported a binding theory of the IW phenomenon and orthographic RB.

Although emotions and patterns of emotion regulation are central to models linking personality and health, the generalizability of these models to diverse populations of older adults remains untested. In this study, 1,364 community-dwelling women (aged 50-70 years) from six ethnic groups completed self-report measures of trait anger, inhibition, defensiveness, and health. As expected, reports of trait anger and emotion inhibition predicted poorer health (and defensiveness better health), even when demographics and health behaviors were controlled. However, these characteristics related to outcome differently across ethnic groups; greater anger was related to better health in all groups other than U.S-born European Americans, and increased emotion inhibition was associated with better health among immigrant Eastern European women. Results are discussed within a contextualistic model of emotions and health, and directions for future research are given.

Inhibition of emotional expression has been associated with the incidence and progression of breast cancer and other chronic illnesses. Others have theorized that it may not be repression itself, but rather ambivalence over the expression of emotions that is the important health-related factor. The Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a 1 ong-term, national study focusing on disease prevention among postmenopausal women, is unique in its assessment of expression and ambivalence of negative emotion in a large study sample of multiethnic, older women. Psychological factors such as expression of negative emotion and ambivalence about expression of emotion are also determined by social patterning. The current study examined the psychometric properties of the instruments used to measure each construct and variation across race/ethnicity and age. The analysis suggests that the scales can be used with confidence in diverse ethnic and age groups. Examining ambivalence about expression of negative emotion in future longitudinal research will further elucidate its role in predicting disease incidence and recovery, both important in reducing the public health burden of chronic disease. KEYWORDS. Expression of negative emotion, ambivalence over the expression of emotions, cancer prone personality, race/ethnicity, postmenopausal women

Byline: A. V. Shafirkin (1) Abstract: Long-term exposure to adverse factors of various origin and intensity is expected to cause a significant decrease in the compensatory reserves and adaptive capacity of the human body. These changes deteriorate the population health status in general. A quantitative method of evaluation of the decrease in the compensatory reserves and adaptive capacity, as well as the resistance to chronic exposure to extreme factors of various origin and intensity, was developed. This method is based on the concept of stress and programmable nonspecific physiological reactions of the human body put forward by H. Selye. Model analytical curves of the time-related decrease in the volume of compensatory reserves and the increase in the probability of development of adaptive disorders and failure of the adaptation process were calculated for the cases of long-term exposure to various stressors (the factors were applied individually or in combination). This method allowed the levels of population health risk induced by various factors to be compared to each other. This is of particular importance under conditions of the existing trend toward an increase in the intensity of anthropogenic stress factors against the background of long-term psychoemotional stress. Statistical data on changes in the rates of morbidity and mortality and the life expectancy of Russian people for the period 1960--2000 were analyzed. The levels of risk of the negative impact on population health induced by various stress factors (radiation, chemical environmental pollution, and long-term psychoemotional stress) were compared to each other. Author Affiliation: (1) Russian Academy of Sciences, State Research Center Institute of Biomedical Problems, Khoroshevskoe sh. 76a, Moscow, 123007, Russia Article History: Registration Date: 11/10/2004

This study examines age and gender differences in descriptions of emotional reactions and reports of the intensity and duration of those emotional responses to interpersonal tensions. As part of a larger study, 185 (85 male and 100 female) participants aged 13 to 99 described the last time they were upset with members of their social networks. Participants then described how they felt and rated the intensity and duration of their distress. Participants' reported emotions were grouped by use of theoretically derived categories and empirically derived post hoc categories. Three emotion categories were examined: anger, sadness, and nonspecific negative emotions. Adolescents and young adults were more likely than older adults to describe anger. Adolescents and young adults also reported more intense aversive responses than older adults. Women rated their distress as more intense than men. With the exception of middle-aged and oldest-old adults, women reported that they experienced distress for a longer duration than men. Findings are interpreted in terms of theories regarding age and gender differences in emotion regulation and interpersonal tensions.

In the clinical setting, not enough attention is paid to the role that emotion plays. It is at worst ignored or avoided, isolating those who are suffering, at best treated as something to help another to endure. This is the result, in part, of an impoverished idea that views emotion as mere feelings. However, emotions are not just feelings, they are cognitive. If we look beneath the surface, emotions can provide information about values and beliefs, some of which may be false or unreasonable. When they are motivating decisions that seriously affect the lives of others, there is a moral obligation to ferret them out and correct or deal with them. Attention needs to be paid to the emotions of healthcare providers as well as to the emotions of patients and their loved ones, and more done to train healthcare providers to deal effectively and productively with emotion--their own and others'. A son tearfully requests everything be done for his dying father. He fears limiting treatment means his father will be ignored. A physician orders another course of chemotherapy because she cannot bear for this patient to die. The patient, fearing he will painfully suffocate to death, agrees. Paying attention to emotions and bringing to light the beliefs and values behind them can only enhance the care and consideration of all involved.

The relations between patterns of emotional experience, emotion inhibition, and physical health have been little studied in older adults or ethnically diverse samples. Testing hypotheses derived from work on younger adults, the authors examined the relations between negative affect and emotion inhibition and that of illness (hypertension, respiratory disease, arthritis, and sleep disorder) in a sample (N = 1,118) of community-dwelling older adults from four ethnic groups: U.S.-born African Americans, African Caribbeans, U.S.-born European Americans, and Eastern European immigrants. Participants completed measures of stress, lifestyle risk factors, health, social support, trait negative emotion, and emotion inhibition. As expected, the interaction of ethnicity with emotion inhibition, and, to a lesser extent, negative affect, was significantly related to illness, even when other known risk factors were controlled for. However, the relations among these variables were complex, and the patterns did not hold for all types of illness or operate in the same direction across ethnic groups. Implications for emotion--health relationships in ethnically diverse samples are discussed.

The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions predicts that positive emotions broaden the scopes of attention and cognition, and, by consequence, initiate upward spirals toward increasing emotional well-being. The present study assessed this prediction by testing whether positive affect and broad-minded coping reciprocally and prospectively predict one another. One hundred thirty-eight college students completed self-report measures of affect and coping at two assessment periods 5 weeks apart. As hypothesized, regression analyses showed that initial positive affect, but not negative affect, predicted improved broad-minded coping, and initial broad-minded coping predicted increased positive affect, but not reductions in negative affect. Further mediational analyses showed that positive affect and broad-minded coping serially enhanced one another. These findings provide prospective evidence to support the prediction that positive emotions initiate upward spirals toward enhanced emotional wellbeing. Implications for clinical practice and health promotion are discussed.

As the traditional perspective of viewing emotions from an intrapsychic perspective has shifted to a more relational stance, the interpersonal functions of emotions within the family system have been underscored. As a result, the role of emotions in therapeutic interventions designed to assist distressed couples and families requires attention. The purpose of the current paper is to trace the role that emotions have played in marriage and family therapy (MFT) interventions both historically and currently. Towards this end, a brief overview of the historical role of emotions in MFT is presented followed by a review of research and therapeutic approaches that have integrated emotion into systemically based therapies. Future directions for incorporating emotions into MFT research, theory, and intervention are addressed. KEYWORDS. Family emotions, family systems, marital interaction

A study into links between symptoms of eating and general pathology and disgust sensitivity in those with eating disorders, found that disgust has a positive link to eating disorder symptoms.

Research relating hostility between married people to nervous and immune system parameters is presented. Responses from men high and low in cynical hostility, and increases in natural killer cell numbers are discussed.