Increasing Optimism Protects Against Pain-Induced Impairment in Task-Shifting Performance

Persistent pain can lead to difficulties in executive task performance. Three core executive functions that are often postulated are inhibition, updating, and shifting. Optimism, the tendency to expect that good things happen in the future, has been shown to protect against pain-induced performance deterioration in executive function updating. This study tested whether this protective effect of a temporary optimistic state by means of a writing and visualization exercise extended to executive function shifting. A 2 (optimism: optimism vs no optimism) x 2 (pain: pain vs no pain) mixed factorial design was conducted. Participants (N = 61) completed a shifting task once with and once without concurrent painful heat stimulation after an optimism or neutral manipulation. Results showed that shifting performance was impaired when experimental heat pain was applied during task execution, and that optimism counteracted pain-induced deterioration in task-shifting performance. Perspective: Experimentally-induced heat pain impairs shifting task performance and manipulated optimism or induced optimism counteracted this pain-induced performance deterioration. Identifying psychological factors that may diminish the negative effect of persistent pain on the ability to function in daily life is imperative. (C) 2016 by the American Pain Societ

The injury illness sensitivity index – Revised: Further validation in a Dutch community sample

Injury/illness sensitivity (IS) is conceptualized as a fundamental fear that underlies fear-related psychopathology and chronic health conditions, including chronic pain. The current study examines the internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and factor structure of the Dutch version of the injury/illness sensitivity index-revised (ISI-R). In addition, we aimed to further validate the ISI-R by studying convergent and divergent validity. Participants (N = 255) were recruited in a Dutch community sample to complete an online questionnaire battery including the ISI-R and several validation measures. Four weeks later, 117 participants completed the ISI-R a second time. The ISI-R showed good internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed two correlated factors in the ISI-R: Fear of Injury and Fear of Illness. The measure’s validity was supported by strong correlations between the ISI-R and well-established pain and physical health-related anxiety measures, moderate correlations with measures that reflect general negative emotionality (e.g. anxiety, depression), and weak correlations with fear constructs that do not entail a direct link to a health threat. These results indicate the appropriateness of working with the Dutch ISI-R and its two subscales as a reliable and valid measure of fear of physical harm, Fear of Illness and Fear of Injury

Provoked Aggression, Psychopathy and Narcissism:Comparing the Impact of Social Exclusion and Insult

Objective: Numerous provocations cause aggressive behavior. However, different provocation procedures are rarely directly compared. This study examined whether two different provocations (i.e., social exclusion and insult) were equally effective in terms of producing aggressive behavior, negative affective change and threat perception. As psychopathic and narcissistic personality traits may moderate provoked aggression, the current study also explored the differential impact of psychopathic and narcissistic traits on these variables. Method: A male (N = 94) community sample was randomly allocated to receive negative social belonging feedback (i.e., social exclusion) or negative intelligence feedback (i.e., insult) by a confederate. Aggressive behavior was measured using a competitive reaction time task after provocation. Here, aggressive behavior before first provocation (i.e., noise blast) by the opponent reflected unprovoked aggression, whereas aggressive behavior after first provocation reflected provoked aggression. Negative affect was measured pre- and postprovocation, and threat perception was measured postprovocation. Results: Results showed that both provocations were equally effective in producing aggressive behavior, negative affective change, and threat perception. Explorative analysis revealed that increased threat perception suppresses initial aggressive responding under the condition of agentic threat in narcissistic people. Also, decreased negative affective change during provocation suppressed aggressive responding in people with psychopathic traits. Conclusions: The findings suggest that both provocations can interchangeably be implemented to study provoked aggression. Emotional blunting may protect against detrimental provocation effects in people with psychopathic traits. Under conditions of agentic threat narcissistic traits related to withholding aggressive responding after first provocation, lashing out when a new threat emerges

Negative interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms among illness anxious individuals:Exploring the role of developmental and maintenance constructs

BACKGROUND: Cognitive factors play an essential role in the development and maintenance of anxiety problems. Among individuals with illness anxiety problems, their interpretation of bodily symptoms is a crucial factor in the determination of their ability to regulate their emotions. The catastrophic interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms and changes, known as interpretation bias, in line with the failure to reappraise the symptoms in safer ways, is supposed to increase the levels of anxiety in illness-anxious individuals. METHODS: This study aimed to address the statistical limitations of the direct (self-report) measure of interpretation bias, using an indirect (online interpretation bias task) measure for assessing biased interpretations of bodily symptoms. In addition, we examined the contribution of self-report anxiety sensitivity (AS), intolerance of uncertainty (IU), interpretation bias, and reappraisal to illness anxiety problems in a subclinical population and compared it with controls with low levels of illness anxiety. FINDINGS: Illness-anxious individuals made more negative interpretations of ambiguous, potentially health-threatening information. They used less reappraisal to regulate their emotion. Among the measures, the physical subscale of AS and the reaction time to the safe resolution of ambiguous information were the best factors that could contribute to the differentiation between the illness-anxious individuals and non-anxious individuals. CONCLUSION: Our findings provided further support for the biased processing of information related to physical symptoms among individuals with illness anxiety. AS-physical and safe resolutions for ambiguous situations could differentiate the illness-anxious and the control groups better than other factors. These findings suggest that a change of interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms among individuals suffering from chronic conditions can be a possible intervention to target anxiety and improve patients' lives

Interpreting ambiguous health and bodily threat:Are individual differences in pain-related vulnerability constructs associated with an on-line negative interpretation bias?

The present study examined the association between pain-related anxiety and an on-line interpretation bias for putative physical health threat. Healthy volunteers (n = 80) completed measures on Anxiety Sensitivity, Injury/illness Sensitivity, Fear of Pain and Pain Catastrophizing. Furthermore, they performed an interpretation task, in which spontaneous (on-line) inferences were indirectly assessed from reaction times and accuracy of a lexical decision to the final word of an ambiguous description. Results demonstrated a general facilitation of responses to final words that endorsed a health-threatening resolution of ambiguity (e.g., illness). This effect correlated positively with individual levels of Fear of Pain, but was found to be unrelated to levels of Anxiety Sensitivity, Injury/illness Sensitivity or Pain Catastrophizing. Implications of the findings and recommendations for future research are discussed. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Negative interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms among illness-anxious individuals: Exploring the role of developmental and maintenance constructs

BACKGROUND: Cognitive factors play an essential role in the development and maintenance of anxiety problems. Among individuals with illness anxiety problems, their interpretation of bodily symptoms is a crucial factor in the determination of their ability to regulate their emotions. The catastrophic interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms and changes, known as interpretation bias, in line with the failure to reappraise the symptoms in safer ways, is supposed to increase the levels of anxiety in illness-anxious individuals. METHODS: This study aimed to address the statistical limitations of the direct (self-report) measure of interpretation bias, using an indirect (online interpretation bias task) measure for assessing biased interpretations of bodily symptoms. In addition, we examined the contribution of self-report anxiety sensitivity (AS), intolerance of uncertainty (IU), interpretation bias, and reappraisal to illness anxiety problems in a subclinical population and compared it with controls with low levels of illness anxiety. FINDINGS: Illness-anxious individuals made more negative interpretations of ambiguous, potentially health-threatening information. They used less reappraisal to regulate their emotion. Among the measures, the physical subscale of AS and the reaction time to the safe resolution of ambiguous information were the best factors that could contribute to the differentiation between the illness-anxious individuals and non-anxious individuals. CONCLUSION: Our findings provided further support for the biased processing of information related to physical symptoms among individuals with illness anxiety. AS-physical and safe resolutions for ambiguous situations could differentiate the illness-anxious and the control groups better than other factors. These findings suggest that a change of interpretation of ambiguous bodily symptoms among individuals suffering from chronic conditions can be a possible intervention to target anxiety and improve patients' lives