Evaluation of a web-based self-compassion intervention to reduce student assessment anxiety.

Assessment anxiety is associated with excessive worry and cognitive disruption which can contribute to academic failure. Compassion-focused interventions have previously been effective in reducing anxiety, stress and depression among the general population. Aims: This study extended this approach to students whose academic achievement is potentially compromised by assessment anxiety, by evaluating a web-based compassionate imagery intervention. Students (n=48) who self-identified as assessment anxious were randomised to practice either compassionate imagery exercises or to a control condition of practicing relaxation exercises. Students completed measures of test anxiety, mastery and performance learning goals, self-compassion, self-criticism/self-reassurance, depression, anxiety and stress, before and after the two-week intervention. The compassionate imagery exercises improved self-compassion more than the control condition of relaxation exercises did. Both tasks improved students’ wellbeing, and reduced assessment anxiety among those with higher baseline assessment anxiety. Web-based compassionate imagery and relaxation may offer cost-effective interventions for reducing assessment anxiety. More research is needed on the influence of self-compassion on learning processes and academic performance and achievement.University of Derby Research for Learning and Teaching Fund (RLTF

Striving and competing and its relationship to self-harm in young adults.

Previous research has found that competitive, insecure striving (striving to avoid inferiority) has strong links with psychopathologies, self-harm and appearance anxiety. However, with rates of self-harm in young people rising, it seems important to explore the link between competitive striving and self-harm in young adults. Ninety-two participants completed a series of questionnaires which measured striving to avoid inferiority, self-harm, psychopathologies, social comparison, goal orientation and self-ideals. The results showed that competitive insecure striving was a key predictor of self-harm, depression, anxiety and stress.Mental Health Research Uni

The Impact of Drought on Coastal Ecosystems in the Carolinas

2012 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Exploring Opportunities for Collaborative Water Research, Policy and Managemen

Beliefs about the automaticity of positive mood regulation: examination of the BAMR-Positive Emotion Downregulation Scale in relation to emotion regulation strategies and mood symptoms

Emotion regulation is a topic of great interest due to its relevance to navigating everyday life, as well as its relevance to psychopathology. Recent research indicates that beliefs about the automaticity of mood regulation are critical to psychological health. In the present study we assessed beliefs about the automaticity of positive mood regulation in relationship to self-reported mood symptoms and explicit emotion regulation strategies. Participants (n = 200) completed an online survey including a scale assessing beliefs about automatic downregulation of positive emotions (i.e. BAMR-PED), beliefs about automatic mood regulation for negative emotions, mood symptoms, and emotion regulation strategies. Results suggested that beliefs about automatic positive emotion regulation were associated with unhelpful emotion regulation strategies and reduced negative affect as well as fewer depressive, manic, and anxiety symptoms. Test-retest of the novel BAMR-PED measure was tested with a further sample (n = 46) and found to be acceptable. Future research should explore how these automatic beliefs have relevance to clinical disorders characterised by positive emotion disturbance, such as bipolar disorder

Radically open dialectical behavior therapy: Social signaling, transdiagnostic utility and current evidence

At the core of an overcontrolled personality and coping style is a tendency to have too much self-control, exhibiting as behavioral and cognitive inflexibility, high inhibition of emotion, high detail-focused processing and perfectionism, and a lack of social connectedness. Overcontrol underlies a wide variety of psychiatric illnesses and as such, an innovative transdiagnostic therapy called Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT) has been developed to treat disorders characterized by overcontrol. RO DBT targets maladaptive social signaling in order to help individuals rejoin the tribe, hypothesizing that increasing social connectedness by means of targeting social signaling is the central mechanism of change in treatment. Because RO DBT is used for individuals with an overcontrolled personality style, rather than individual disordered symptoms, it can be used transdiagnostically across a range of comorbid disorders, including treatment-resistant depression and anxiety, anorexia nervosa, and personality disorders such as obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. The current article introduces this novel treatment approach and discusses its emphasis on social signaling and its transdiagnostic nature. We then provide the first review of existing literature testing the efficacy of RO DBT across clinical populations, discuss issues related to assessment of overcontrol, and speculate on future directions for this novel therapy

Fears of compassion in a depressed population: Implication for psychotherapy

Background: While psychological therapies for depression have advanced in the last 20 years, still many people respond only partially and remain vulnerable to relapse. Insight into the limitations of our psychological therapies might be obtained from recent research that has revealed, in nonclinical populations, that some people can be fearful of positive emotions especially affiliative and compassion-focused ones. Aims: This study explores the fears of compassion in a clinical population and their associations with selfcriticism, self-compassion and depression, anxiety and stress. Method: 53 depressed patients completed a series of self-report scales. Results: Fears of compassion, particularly for oneself and from others, were strongly linked to self-criticism, depression, anxiety and stress, and negatively associated with self-compassion and self-reassurance. Conclusions: Since compassion and the affiliative emotions associated with compassion play a fundamental role in emotion regulation, individuals who are blocked or fearful of accessing these emotions are likely to be struggle with emotional regulation and the psychotherapeutic process. Research on the fears of compassion and affiliative emotions suggests these are important therapeutic targets.N/

Fears of negative emotions in relation to fears of happiness, compassion, alexithymia and psychopathology in a depressed population: A preliminary study

Abstract Objectives: While fears of negative or aversive emotions are linked to experiential avoidance and psychopathology, recent studies have also focused on the relation between psychopathology and fear of positive emotions. This study explores 1. which negative emotions of anger, anxiety and sadness on most feared and avoided and 2. the links between fears and avoidance of negative emotions, with fears of positive and affiliative emotions, alexithymia, and self-reported depression anxiety and stress. Method: A new scale was developed to measure fears of three negative emotions anxiety anger and sadness. 52 participants suffering from moderate to severe depression completed this measure, along with fear of happiness, fears of compassion, alexithymia and psychopathology. Results: Interestingly fears of negative emotions were not correlated with each other; in other words one can be frightened of one negative emotion but not another. The correlation between the fear of an emotion and the avoidance of that emotion was different for the three negative emotions, with fear of anger being the most strongly linked to its avoidance. Fear of sadness was the only feared ‘negative’ emotion associated with depression. Fear of sadness and fear of anger, but not anxiety also linked to fears of positive emotions and alexithymia. Conclusions: Fears of (so called) negative emotions vary in terms of the degree to which people are fearful of them and avoid them. Importantly it was sadness, a neglected emotion in the studies of emotion avoidance, which accounted for the higher proportion of variance for depression and alexithymia.N/

Styles of leadership, fears of compassion, and competing to avoid inferiority.

There is general agreement that styles of leadership evolved from mammalian group living strategies that form social ranks. In both non-human primates and humans, different styles of hierarchical dominant-subordinate and leader-follower behavior can be observed. These can be described in terms of dimensions of antisocial (relatively self-focused, aggressive and threat-based) and prosocial (relatively empathic, caring, and supportive) interpersonal styles. The aim of this study was to explore how a set of established self-report questionnaires might relate to these two dimensions. Two hundred and nineteen students completed questionnaires assessing ruthless self-advancement, coalition building, and dominant leadership styles, as well as hypercompetitiveness, narcissism, striving to avoid inferiority, compassion focused and ego focused goals, fears of compassion, social safeness and attachment (in)security. A principal component analysis supported an antisocial leadership style factor which comprised of ruthless self-advancement, narcissism and hypercompetitiveness. This was significantly correlated with fears of compassion, ego focused goals, insecure striving (striving to avoid inferiority), fears of losing out, fears of being overlooked, fears of being rejected, and avoidant relating in close relationships. It was significantly negatively correlated with compassionate goals. As the results did not reveal a clear factor solution for a prosocial leadership style, we chose to use the coalition building leadership style variable. This showed the opposite pattern, being significantly negatively correlated with narcissism, hypercompetitiveness, fears of compassion, fears of active rejection, and avoidance in close relationships. It was significantly positively correlated with secure striving, compassionate goals, and social safeness. We also found that fears of compassion for others was a partial mediator of the relationship between insecure striving with antisocial leadership style. Moreover, lower fears of compassion for the self emerged as a key mediator for the relationship between non-avoidant attachment with coalition building leadership style and, secure non-striving with coalition building leadership style. While the motive to accumulate social power, resources and dominance may be linked to antisocial forms of leadership, the intensity of the drive may also be linked to unaddressed threats and fears of rejection and fears of compassion. Efforts to promote more ethical, moral and prosocial forms of leadership may falter if such fears are left unaddressed.This research was supported by a donation received by the Compassionate Mind Foundation charity (https://compassionatemind.co.uk/) from Slimming World

Vorkurs in Zeiten von Corona – Zur Leistungsentwicklung in Distanz und Präsenz

Vorkurse stellen an vielen Hochschulen ein etabliertes Unterstützungsangebot dar, um mathematische Vorkenntnisse zu Studienbeginn zu vertiefen. Schon seit einigen Jahren werden dabei verschiedene Vorkursformate realisiert: Neben der klassischen Präsenzveranstaltung bieten verschiedene Hochschulen Blended-Learning- oder reine E-Learning-Kurse an (Derr et al., 2021; Fischer, 2014; Greefrath et al., 2017). Durch die pandemiebedingte Umstellung der Lehre wurde eine erneute Erweiterung der Lehrformate notwendig. Im Unterschied zu tradierten E Learning-Angeboten orientieren sich pandemiebedingte Distanzformate häufig stärker an der Präsenzlehre und beinhalten vermehrt synchrone Elemente (Büchele et al., 2021). Inwieweit dieses Format, auch im Vergleich, geeignet ist, die veranstaltungsbezogenen Ziele zu erreichen, wird in der vorgestellten Studie untersucht