36 research outputs found
Language and Visuospatial Abilities in Down Syndrome Phenotype: A Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective
Individual Differences in Performance Speed Are Associated With a Positivity/Negativity Bias. An ERP and Behavioral Study
There is a current dispute over the origins, incidence, and development of Positivity Bias, i.e., preferential processing of positive relative to negative information. We addressed this question using a multi-method technique of behavioral, psychometric and event-related potential (ERP) measures in a lexical decision task (LDT). Twenty-four university students (11 female) participated (age range 18–26), but four were omitted owing to data issues. Participants were classified as Positivity Biased (PB) if their LDT responses to positive words were faster than negative words, and vice versa for those classified as Negativity Biased (NB), leading to a group of 11 PB participants and a group of 9 NB participants. Interestingly, the PB group was significantly faster overall than the NB group and had significantly shorter P2 component ERP latencies in the left occipital region. Furthermore, the PB group had significantly higher scores for expressive suppression (ES), together with higher scores for Crystallized Knowledge and for cognitive reappraisal (CR). These results suggest that around 55% of the students had Positivity Bias, and these were more efficient in processing information and had better emotion regulation abilities than those with a Negativity Bias
Sleep-related attentional bias for faces depicting tiredness in insomnia: evidence from an eye-tracking study
Study Objectives: To date, evidence of an attentional bias in insomnia has mostly been obtained through reaction time tasks, with a limited number of studies using eye tracking. Here, using an eye-tracking paradigm, this study sought to determine whether individuals with insomnia display an attentional bias for novel faces depicting tiredness.
Methods: Individuals with insomnia (n = 20) and normal sleepers (n = 20) viewed a series of face pairs depicting neutral and tired expressions each for periods of 4000 milliseconds. Eye movements were recorded using eye tracking, and first fixation onset, first fixation duration, total fixation duration, and total gaze duration were examined for three interest regions (eyes, nose, mouth).
Results: Significant group Ă— face interactions for total fixation duration and total gaze duration indicated that, regardless of interest-region, participants with insomnia spent more time fixating on and observing tired faces relative to neutral faces when compared with normal sleepers. Additionally, significant group Ă— face Ă— interest-region interactions for total fixation duration and total gaze duration indicated that participants with insomnia spent more time observing the eye region of the tired faces than the eye region of the neutral faces when compared with normal sleepers.
Conclusions: Individuals with insomnia display an attentional bias toward tired faces, more specifically for the eye region compared to normal sleepers. These findings contribute to our understanding of face perception in insomnia and provide more objective support for cognitive models of insomnia, suggesting that individuals with insomnia selectively attend to faces for tiredness cues
Loneliness is not a homogeneous experience: An empirical analysis of adaptive and maladaptive forms of loneliness in the UK
Understanding loneliness is pivotal to informing relevant evidence-based preventive interventions. The present study examined the prevalence of loneliness in the UK, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the association between loneliness, mental health outcomes, and risk and protective factors for loneliness, after controlling for the effects of social isolation. It was estimated that 18.1% of the population in our study experienced moderately high to very high loneliness. We also found that loneliness was positively associated with self-disgust and social inhibition, and negatively associated with trait optimism and hope. Cluster analysis indicated that two distinct groups emerged among those experiencing higher levels of loneliness: “adaptive” and “maladaptive” loneliness groups. The maladaptive loneliness group displayed psychological characteristics like self-disgust and social inhibition including symptoms of depression and anxiety that can potentially undermine their ability to connect with others and form meaningful social relationships. These findings suggest that not all people experience loneliness in the same way. It is possible that a one-size-fit-all approach to reducing loneliness, may be less effective because it does not take into account the differential psychological profiles and characteristics of lonely people, relevant to their capacity to connect with others
Self-disgust as a potential mechanism explaining the association between loneliness and depression
Background: Loneliness and self-disgust have been considered as independent predictors of
depressive symptoms. In the present study, we hypothesized that self-disgust can explain the
association between loneliness and depression, and that emotion regulation strategies interact
with self-disgust in predicting depressive symptoms.
Methods: Three hundred and seventeen participants (M = 29.29 years, SD = 14.11; 76.9%
females) completed structured anonymous self-reported measures of loneliness, self-disgust,
emotion regulation strategies, and depressive symptoms.
Results: One-way MANOVA showed that participants in the high-loneliness group reported
significantly higher behavioural and physical self-disgust, compared to those in the middle
and low-loneliness groups. Bootstrapped hierarchical linear regression analysis showed that
self-disgust significantly improved predicted variance in depressive symptoms, after
controlling for the effects of loneliness. Regression-based mediation modelling showed that
both physical and behavioural self-disgust significantly mediated the association between
loneliness and depression. Finally, moderated regression analysis showed that expressive
suppression interacted with self-disgust in predicting depressive symptoms.
Limitations: A cross-sectional design was used, and our study focused on expressive
suppression and cognitive reappraisal but not on other aspects of emotion regulation or the
modulation of emotional arousal and responses.
Conclusions: We demonstrated, for the first time, that self-disgust plays an important role in
the association between loneliness and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, variations in
emotion regulation strategies can explain the association between self-disgust and depressive
symptoms
The roles of impulsivity, self-regulation, and emotion regulation in the experience of self-disgust
Self-disgust is a distinct self-conscious emotion schema that is characterized by disgust appraisals directed towards the self. Recent studies have demonstrated an association between self-disgust and a range of psychological disorders, but there is a paucity of research on the psychological phenomena and processes that may elicit self-disgust experiences. The present study assessed the direct and indirect effects of impulsivity, self-regulation, and emotion regulation on self-disgust. Overall, 294 participants (M age = 21.84 years, SD = 4.56) completed structured and anonymous measures of trait impulsivity, self-regulation, emotion regulation strategies, and self-disgust. Path analysis showed that non-planning impulsivity and expressive suppression (positively) and cognitive reappraisal and self-regulation (negatively) predicted self-disgust. Mediation analysis further showed that emotional regulation strategies and self-regulation mediated the association between attentional and non-planning impulsivity and self-disgust. Our findings provide, for the first time, evidence about the association between self-disgust and individual differences in impulsivity, self-regulation, and emotion regulation, and have implications for the psychological phenomena that may lead to self-disgust experiences in non-clinical populations
The role of physical and behavioural self-disgust in relation to insomnia and suicidal ideation
The emotional burden of loneliness and its association with mental health outcomes
Background
The present study examined, for the first time, the emotional burden of loneliness on dimensions of emotional valence and arousal, and its association with mental health outcomes.
Method
A cross-sectional design was used, and data were collected from 503 adults across the UK with an online survey. Measures included socio-demographic characteristics, self-reported measures of loneliness and social isolation, affective ratings (i.e., valence and arousal) of loneliness experiences, and symptoms of depression and anxiety as mental health outcomes.
Results
The emotional burden of loneliness differed significantly across groups with differing loneliness experiences, and females scored significantly higher in the emotional burden of loneliness than males. The emotional burden of loneliness was associated with both depression and anxiety symptoms, and respectively added 4.7% and 6.2% of the variance, on top of measures of loneliness frequency and social isolation.
Conclusions
Measuring the valence and arousal dimensions of loneliness experiences advances our understanding of loneliness experiences and its association with mental health outcomes. The theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of our study are discussed
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Impulsive and Self-Regulatory Processes in Risky Driving Among Young People: A Dual Process Model
The present study empirically examined a novel dual process model of self-reported aberrant driving behavior in young and novice drivers that incorporates both impulsive and self-regulatory processes. Four hundred and nine participants aged 18–25 years (M age = 21.18 years, SD = 2.12; 65.5% females) completed online questionnaires on impulsivity, normlessness, sensation seeking, emotion and self-regulation, and attitudes toward driving safety. Path analysis showed that motor impulsivity was associated with self-reported driving violations, errors, and lapses, whereas sensation seeking was uniquely directly associated with self-reported errors. Non-planning impulsivity, normlessness and sensation seeking had significant indirect effects on self-reported errors, via self-regulation. Finally, motor impulsivity and normlessness had a significant indirect effect on self-reported violations, errors and lapses, via attitudes to driving safety. Based on our findings we suggest that a dual-process approach is relevant to the study of aberrant driving behavior in young and novice drivers, and the results of the present study have important implications for initiatives to promote driving safety in this population