We critically reexamine extant theory and empirical study of Oxytocin. We question whether OT is, in fact, a "social neuropeptide" as argued in dominant theories of OT.
We critically review human and ...animal research on the social and non-social effects of Oxytocin, including behavioral, psychophysiological, neurobiological, and neuroimaging studies.
We find that extant (social) theories of Oxytocin do not account for well-documented non-social effects of Oxytocin. Furthermore, we find a range of evidence that social and non-social effects of Oxytocin may be mediated by core approach-avoidance motivational processes.
We propose a General Approach-avoidance Hypothesis of Oxytocin (GAAO). We argue that the GAAO may provide a parsimonious account of established social and non-social effects of Oxytocin. We thus re-conceptualize the basic function(s) and mechanism(s) of action of Oxytocin. Finally, we highlight implications of the GAAO for basic and clinical research in humans
We review theory and empirical study of distress tolerance, an emerging risk factor candidate for various forms of psychopathology. Despite the long-standing interest in and promise of work on ...distress tolerance for understanding adult psychopathology, there has not been a comprehensive review of the extant empirical literature focused on the construct. As a result, a comprehensive synthesis of theoretical and empirical scholarship on distress tolerance, including integration of extant research on the relations between distress tolerance and psychopathology, is lacking. Inspection of the scientific literature indicates that there are a number of promising ways to conceptualize and measure distress tolerance, as well as documented relations between distress tolerance factors and psychopathological symptoms and disorders. Although promising, there also is notable conceptual and operational heterogeneity across the distress tolerance literature. Moreover, a number of basic questions remain unanswered regarding the associations between distress tolerance and other risk and protective factors and processes, as well as its putative role(s) in vulnerability for and resilience to psychopathology. Thus, the current article provides a comprehensive review of past and contemporary theory and research and proposes key areas for future empirical study of this construct.
Temporal Dynamics of Attentional Bias Zvielli, Ariel; Bernstein, Amit; Koster, Ernst H. W.
Clinical psychological science,
09/2015, Volume:
3, Issue:
5
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Biases of emotional attention are believed to be central to human (mal)adaptation and multiple forms of psychopathology. Yet fundamental questions remain regarding the nature and empirical study of ...attentional bias (AB). We thus aimed to (a) test a novel conceptualization and related operationalization of AB expression in time and (b) illuminate the nature of AB and specifically its temporal expression. We examined AB expression in time by means of a novel trial-level bias score (TL-BS) analysis of dot probe task data in two experiments—among spider phobics and healthy controls, and among smoking-deprived daily smokers. Findings revealed evidence of the dynamic expression of AB in time; furthermore, TL-BS parameters demonstrated unique associations with psychopathology and addiction beyond traditional bias score. The present research may help to bring the conceptualization and quantification of AB closer to the nature of the phenomenon and thereby advance basic and clinical knowledge.
Highlights • Intra-nasal Oxytocin reduced avoidance of negative social and non-social stimuli. • Effects of Oxytocin among participants for whom negative emotion is motivationally-relevant. • ...Findings cannot be explained by extant social theories of Oxytocin. • Findings predicted by General Approach-Avoidance Hypothesis of Oxytocin.
Our mind's eye and the role of internal attention in mental life and suffering has intrigued scholars for centuries. Yet, experimental study of internal attention has been elusive due to our limited ...capacity to control the timing and content of internal stimuli. We thus developed the Simulated Thoughts Paradigm (STP) to experimentally deliver own-voice thought stimuli that simulate the content and experience of thinking and thereby experimental study of internal attentional processes. In independent experiments (N = 122) integrating STP into established cognitive-experimental tasks, we found and replicated evidence that emotional reactivity to negative thoughts predicts difficulty disengaging internal attention from, as well as biased selective internal attention of, those thoughts; these internal attention processes predict cognitive vulnerability (e.g., negative repetitive thinking) which thereby predict anxiety and depression. Proposed methods and findings may have implications for the study of information processing and attention in mental health broadly and models of internal attentional (dys)control in cognitive vulnerability and mental health more specifically.
The aim of the present study was to question untested assumptions about the nature of the expression of Attentional Bias (AB) towards and away from threat stimuli. We tested the idea that high trait ...anxious individuals (N = 106; M(SD)age = 23.9(3.2) years; 68% women) show a stable AB towards multiple categories of threatening information using the emotional visual dot probe task. AB with respect to five categories of threat stimuli (i.e., angry faces, attacking dogs, attacking snakes, pointed weapons, violent scenes) was evaluated. In contrast with current theories, we found that 34% of participants expressed AB towards threat stimuli, 20.8% AB away from threat stimuli, and 34% AB towards some categories of threat stimuli and away from others. The multiple observed expressions of AB were not an artifact of a specific criterion AB score cut-off; not specific to certain categories of threat stimuli; not an artifact of differences in within-subject variability in reaction time; nor accounted for by individual differences in anxiety-related variables. Findings are conceptualized as reflecting the understudied dynamics of AB expression, with implications for AB measurement and quantification, etiology, relations, and intervention research.
The goal of the present research was to develop and test a novel conceptual model and corresponding measure of state mindfulness-the State Mindfulness Scale (SMS). We developed the SMS to reflect ...traditional Buddhist and contemporary psychological science models of mindfulness not similarly reflected in extant published measures of the construct. Study 1 exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a higher order 2-factor solution encompassing 1 second-order state mindfulness factor, and 2 first-order factors, one reflecting state mindfulness of bodily sensations and the other state mindfulness of mental events. Study 2 provided cross-sectional evidence of the convergent, discriminant, and incremental convergent validity of SMS scores with respect to other measures of state and trait mindfulness. Study 3, a randomized control experimental mindfulness intervention study, yielded a number of key findings with respect to SMS stability as a function of time and context, construct validity, incremental sensitivity to change in state mindfulness over time, and incremental predictive criterion-related validity. Findings are discussed with respect to the potential contribution of the SMS to the study of mindfulness as a statelike mental behavior, biopsychobehavioral research on the mechanisms of mindfulness, and clinical evaluation of mindfulness.
Traumatic stress among forcibly displaced people has a variety of adverse consequences beyond individual mental health, including implications for poor socioemotional developmental outcomes for their ...children post-displacement.
This study explored the intergenerational transmission of maternal ICD-11 Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and depression among asylum-seeking mothers for their children's internalizing and externalizing difficulties.
Participants were 127 trauma-affected Eritrean mothers of preschool-aged children in Israel. The severity of child difficulties was compared between mothers with probable ICD-11 CPTSD (94.5% comorbid depression), ICD-11 PTSD (48.5% comorbid depression), unimorbid depression, and healthy mothers, using multivariate analyses of variance, while controlling for children's direct exposure to adverse life experiences.
Probable ICD-11 CPTSD and PTSD were present in 23.6% and 26.0% of mothers, respectively. Relative to maternal PTSD, CPTSD was significantly and strongly associated with elevated child internalizing symptoms (
= 2.44) and marginally significantly, although strongly, associated with child externalizing symptoms (
= 1.30). Post-hoc exploratory analyses documented that, relative to maternal PTSD and depression, CPTSD and depression comorbidity was marginally significantly but strongly associated with child internalizing (SMD = .67), but not externalizing symptoms (SMD = .35).
Findings implicate maternal CPTSD and comorbid depression in child socio-emotional development and inform clinical assessment, prevention, and intervention to attenuate poor development among children in unstable post-displacement settings.
Objective: Threat-related attention bias figures prominently in contemporary accounts of the maintenance of anxiety disorders, yet longitudinal intervention research relating attention bias to ...anxiety symptom severity is limited. Capitalizing on recent advances in the conceptualization and measurement of attention bias, we aimed to examine the relation between attention bias, indexed using trial-level bias scores (TLBSs) to quantify temporal dynamics reflecting dysregulation of attentional processing of threat (as opposed to aggregated mean bias scores) and social anxiety symptom severity over the course of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and 1-month follow-up. Method: Adults with social anxiety disorder (N = 39) assigned to either yohimbine- or placebo-augmented CBT completed measures of attention bias and social anxiety symptom severity weekly throughout CBT (5 sessions) and at 1-week and 1-month posttreatment. Results: TLBSs of attention bias temporal dynamics showed stronger psychometric properties than mean aggregated scores and were highly interrelated, in line with within-subject temporal variability fluctuating in time between attentional overengagement and strategic avoidance from threat. Attention bias toward threat and temporal variability in attention bias (i.e., attentional dysregulation), but not attention bias away from threat, significantly reduced over the course of CBT. Cross-lag analyses revealed no evidence of a causal relation between reductions in attentional dysregulation leading to symptom severity reduction, or vice versa. Observed relations did not vary as a function of time. Conclusions: We found no evidence for attentional dysregulation as a causal mechanism for symptom reduction in CBT for social anxiety disorders. Implications for future research are discussed.
What is the public health significance of this article?
This study suggests that attentional dysregulation may not be a mechanism for change in cognitive-behavioral therapy, an effective treatment for social anxiety disorder. Though data are still preliminary, our finding that cognitive-behavioral therapy did not lead to changes in attentional avoidance leaves open the possibility that targeting attentional avoidance alongside cognitive-behavioral therapy may enhance its efficacy.
Abstract Though there has been a recent surge of interest in the relations between facets of mindfulness and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), there has been a dearth of empirical studies ...investigating the impact of changes in facets of mindfulness on PTSD treatment outcomes. The present study tested the prospective associations between pre- to post-treatment changes in facets of mindfulness and PTSD and depression severity at treatment discharge, among 48 military Veterans in residential PTSD treatment adhering to a cognitive-behavioral framework. Together, changes in facets of mindfulness significantly explained post-treatment PTSD and depression severity (19–24% of variance). Changes in acting with awareness explained unique variance in post-treatment PTSD severity and changes in nonjudgmental acceptance explained unique variance in post-treatment depression severity. These results remained significant after adjusting for shared variance with length of treatment stay.
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