The study examined the personal sense of identity in alcohol use disorder (AUD) through the relation between autobiographical memories and individuals' self-conception. The AUD detoxified patients ...and control participants were asked to create a list of self-statements to which they associated for the three main autobiographical memories illustrating them. The group variable was not associated with the number of positive self-statements, but it was associated with the number of negative self-statements. Furthermore, for the autobiographical memories cued by a positive self-statement, the group was related to the number of positive memories and general memories, while no relation was observed for the memories cued by a negative self-statement. Our results also support that AUD patients' memories cued by self-statements are older and more alcohol-related. Hierarchical regression analyses in the AUD patients demonstrated that the use of adaptive emotional regulation strategies was the only significant predictor of the use of positive or negative self-statements.
•Insecure-anxious participants reported higher personal distress and fantasy scores.•Insecure-anxious participants showed more emotion regulation difficulties.•Insecure-avoidant individuals reported ...more difficulties in identifying emotions.•A mediating role of emotion regulation between attachment and empathy was found.
Much research has shown strong relationships between attachment security and the development of emotion regulation (ER) and empathic abilities in childhood. However, less is known about how attachment styles influence ER and empathy in adulthood. The aim of this study was to examine how differences in attachment styles influence the relationships between ER and affective and cognitive empathy in adults. From a total sample of 870 participants, 168 individuals were selected according to their specific attachment style and completed self-reports of attachment styles, ER difficulties, and affective and cognitive empathy. Concerning empathic dimensions, anxious individuals reported higher personal distress and fantasy than secure and avoidant individuals. The results also revealed that individuals with anxious attachment had higher ER difficulties than secure and avoidant individuals. Furthermore, partial least square modeling highlighted that the mediating role of ER in the relationship between attachment and empathy varied according to the attachment styles and the dimensions of empathy. This study emphasizes the role of attachment profiles and ER competences in developing cognitive and affective empathic abilities in adults.
We assessed the sympathetic and parasympathetic activation associated to the observation of Pantomime (i.e. the mime of the use of a tool) and Intransitive gestures (i.e. expressive) performed toward ...(e.g. a comb and "thinking") and away from the body (e.g. key and "come here") in a group of healthy participants while both pupil dilation (N = 31) and heart rate variability (N = 33; HF-HRV) were recorded. Large pupil dilation was observed in both Pantomime and Intransitive gestures toward the body; whereas an increase of the vagal suppression was observed in Intransitive gestures away from the body but not in those toward the body. Our results suggest that the space where people act when performing a gesture has an impact on the physiological responses of the observer in relation to the type of social communicative information that the gesture direction conveys, from a more intimate (toward the body) to a more interactive one (away from the body).
Objectives: Childhood trauma (physical, emotional, sexual abuse and/or physical and emotional neglect) represents a specific risk for developmental perturbations and long-term negative outcomes. ...Adolescents and young adults with childhood trauma have rarely experienced a single type of traumatic event but rather multiple traumatic experiences. However, studies on adolescent PTSD are sparse. This study examines the possible mediating role of mentalizing, cognitive and interpersonal emotion regulation strategies between multiple types of childhood trauma exposure and PTSD in adolescents and young adults. Methods: The sample consisted of 456 adolescents and young adults aged 15 and 25, recruited from four high schools and one university. Participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing childhood trauma, mentalizing, cognitive and interpersonal strategies of emotion regulation and PTSD. Results: Structural Equation Modeling revealed that multiple types of childhood trauma exposure have a significant indirect effect on PTSD symptoms through its association with hypomentalizing and maladaptive cognitive strategies of emotion regulation (i.e. self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing). Results also showed a significant indirect effect between multiple types of childhood trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms through its association with hypomentalizing and maladaptive interpersonal strategies of emotion regulation (i.e. emotional reactivity and tendency to avoid emotional connection). Indirect paths were also run in reverse to control for the direction of the effect. Conclusion: Our findings show that exposure to multiple types of childhood trauma contributes to severe PTSD through several complex pathways including both hypomentalizing and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in adolescence and young adulthood.
Background
While there has been a body of work that has investigated past thinking in individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUD), little is known about future thinking in these individuals.
Methods
...We invited participants with AUD and control participants to construct past and future events. We have also investigated the relationship between constructing past and future events and depression.
Results
By analyzing the specificity (i.e., the ability in constructing specific events situated in time and space) of these events, results demonstrated lower specificity of past and future thinking in AUD participants compared to control participants. No significant differences were observed between the specificity of past and future thinking in AUD or in control participants. Further, significant negative correlations were observed between depression and past/future thinking in AUD participants but not in controls.
Conclusions
Difficulties in constructing specific future scenarios, as observed in AUD participants compared with controls, are presumably related to ruminative thinking and emotional avoidance aspects of depression, which should be investigated in future studies. More specifically, individuals with AUD may tend to construct general future scenarios to dwell on negative past events and/or to avoid coping with hopelessness and processing of upsetting or distressful future scenarios.
Future thinking allows for “pre‐experiencing” events before they happen. This ability serves for planning and decision making. We demonstrate difficulties of individuals with alcohol use disorders (AUD) to construct specific future scenarios. Overgenerality of future thinking may have a protective function as individuals with AUD may use it to avoid the resurgence of undesirable future scenarios. Critically, this, overgenerality may impede emotional processing of upcoming events, thereby worsening emotion regulation and increasing hopelessness, and, consequently, increasing consumption individuals with AUD.
Background
Prior research has repeatedly shown that alcohol dependence is associated with a large range of impairments in psychological processes, which could lead to interpersonal deficits. ...Specifically, it has been suggested that these interpersonal difficulties are underpinned by reduced recognition and sharing of others’ emotional states. However, this pattern of deficits remains to be clarified. This study thus aimed to investigate whether alcohol dependence is associated with impaired abilities in decoding contextual complex emotions and with altered sharing of others’ emotions.
Methods
Forty‐one alcohol‐dependent individuals (ADI) and 37 matched healthy individuals completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test, in which they were instructed to identify complex emotional states expressed by individuals in contextual scenes and to state to what extent they shared them.
Results
Compared to healthy individuals, ADI were impaired in identifying negative (Cohen's d = 0.75) and positive (Cohen's d = 0.46) emotional states but, conversely, presented preserved abilities in sharing others’ emotional states.
Conclusions
This study shows that alcohol dependence is characterized by an impaired ability to decode complex emotional states (both positive and negative), despite the presence of complementary contextual cues, but by preserved emotion‐sharing. Therefore, these results extend earlier data describing an impaired ability to decode noncontextualized emotions toward contextualized and ecologically valid emotional states. They also indicate that some essential emotional competences such as emotion‐sharing are preserved in alcohol dependence, thereby offering potential therapeutic levers.
Alcohol‐dependent individuals (ADI) are impaired for decoding others’ emotional states, which leads to interpersonal deficits. Our study aimed at exploring two remaining questions: are ADI able (1) to take advantage of contextual cues to improve their decoding abilities and (2) to share others’ emotions. The Multifaceted Empathy Test revealed that ADI are still impaired in identifying contextualized emotional states, but present preserved emotional sharing. Some key emotional abilities are thus preserved in alcohol‐dependence, and could be used as therapeutic levers.
This study explored self‐regulatory efforts during the viewing of couple interactions and their association with relationship satisfaction. High‐frequency heart rate variability (HF‐HRV) was measured ...for each participant during a video recall of a recent couple interaction to quantify the self‐regulatory processes governed by parasympathetic activity. Among 30 couples, HF‐HRV was measured continuously during three specific periods to explore its change over time using a video‐recall procedure: (1) resting state; (2) viewing of couple interactions (expressing daily life situations and conflictual interactions); and (3) recovery. Results of multilevel models revealed a u‐shaped pattern of HF‐HRV responses for men and women across the three periods with a nadir at the midway through the process. This pattern of physiological change (vagal suppression) reflects a flexible response to a stressful situation. Nevertheless, the pattern of physiological responses varied according to the level of relationship satisfaction. Men who were more satisfied in their couple relationship presented greater vagal suppression than dissatisfied men. In contrast, no significant HF‐HRV changes were found in women over the different periods of the video‐recall procedure and no moderating effect of relationship satisfaction. We discuss the different patterns of physiological responses observed both for men and women in terms of interindividual variability according to the level of their relationship satisfaction. The present study highlights the important role of relationship satisfaction in regulatory processes.
Background
Self‐defining memories (SDM) are distinguished from other autobiographical memory (AM) processes to delineate those associated with the sense of personal identity and continuity in one's ...individual history. With chronic alcohol consumption, the construction of such memories may be modified in terms of specificity, valence, meaning‐making, and evoked topics. This study sought to characterize SDM in a population of 27 patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) who had been abstinent for at least 2 months compared with 28 control participants.
Methods
Besides cognitive and clinical assessment, participants were told to describe verbally and date 5 SDM and their narratives were recorded. For each memory, 5 dimensions were evaluated: level of specificity, emotional valence, integration of meaning, topics, and distance of memory in time.
Results
Overall, SDM of participants with AUD were specifically characterized by (i) low specificity, (ii) low integration, (iii) a predominance of memories with negative emotional valence and a low frequency of positive memories, and (iv) a low frequency of topics related to success. When different dimensions of the SDM were crossed, their characteristics depended mainly on the valence of the memory. Negative memories were more frequent, more specific and more integrated, while positive SDM were less frequent, less specific and less integrated.
Conclusions
The results underline the construction of a form of SDM with drinking problems that is mainly characterized by the disruption of positive memory and the presence of highly specific and integrated negative experiences. A disruption of the integration process modulated by the valence of memories could have repercussions on maintaining a sense of personal identity, the pursuit of personal goals and on social adaptability, and could constitute one of the main risks associated with persistent drinking problems. These results highlight the relevance of developing AM training programs for patients with AUD.
•Episodic future thinking refers to the ability to imagine events that may occur in a specific time and space.•We evaluated episodic future thinking in alcohol-use disorders (AUD).•We evaluated the ...participants’ ability to imagine episodic future events.•We observed difficulties to imagine episodic emotional future events in AUD.•These difficulties may be associated with avoidance strategies.
While previous research has highlighted the overgenerality of future thinking in alcohol-use disorders (AUD), the emotional characteristics of future thinking were not taken into account. We therefore evaluated the ability to retrieve episodic (i.e., events that happened at a particular place and time and lasted for a day or less) emotional future events in AUD.
We invited 36 participants with AUD and 40 control participants to imagine positive, negative and neutral future scenarios and analyzed these scenarios regarding their episodic characteristics (i.e., the ability of participants to imagine future events situated in time and space enriched with phenomenological details).
Analysis demonstrated lower episodic positive, negative and neutral future thinking in participants with AUD than in control participants. Participants with AUD also demonstrated lower episodic positive and negative future thinking compared to episodic neutral future thinking. Interestingly, high depression scores were associated with overgenerality of neutral, positive, and negative future thinking in AUD participants.
These findings demonstrate overgenerality of both positive and negative future thinking in AUD. This overgenerality may represent an avoidance strategy in which individuals with AUD may try to avoid the hopelessness and/or conflicts that may be activated when constructing future scenarios.
The study investigated interpersonal distance in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN), focussing on the role of other's facial expression and morphology, also assessing physiological and subjective ...responses.
Twenty-nine patients with AN and 30 controls (CTL) were exposed to virtual characters either with an angry, neutral, or happy facial expression or with an overweight, normal-weight, or underweight morphology presented either in the near or far space while we recorded electrodermal activity. Participants had to judge their preferred interpersonal distance with the characters and rated them in terms of valence and arousal.
Unlike CTL, patients with AN exhibited heightened electrodermal activity for morphological stimuli only, when presented in the near space. They also preferred larger and smaller interpersonal distances with overweight and underweight characters respectively, although rating both negatively. Finally, and similar to CTL, they preferred larger interpersonal distance with angry than neutral or happy characters.
Although patients with AN exhibited behavioural response to emotional stimuli similar to CTL, they lacked corresponding physiological response, indicating emotional blunting towards emotional social stimuli. Moreover, they showed distinct behavioural and physiological adjustments in response to body shape, confirming the specific emotional significance attached to body shape.
PDF
