Cognitive behaviour therapy of acute stress disorder: a four-year follow-up

The aim of this study was to index the long-term benefits of early provision of cognitive behavior therapy to trauma survivors with acute stress disorder. Civilian trauma survivors (n = 80) with acute stress disorder were randomly allocated to either cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or supportive counseling (SC) - 69 completed treatment, and 41 were assessed four years post-treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale. Two CBT patients (8%) and four SC patients (25%) met PTSD criteria at four-year follow-up. Patients who received CBT reported less intense PTSD symptoms, and particularly less frequent and less avoidance symptoms, than patients who received SC. These findings suggest that early provision of CBT in the initial month after trauma has long-term benefits for people who are at risk of developing PTSD.     

Mood repair and processing mode in depression

Recalling positive autobiographical memories is a powerful emotion regulation strategy that can be used to repair low mood and alleviate negative affect. Unlike healthy individuals, those with current or past depression do not experience an improvement in mood as a consequence of recalling positive memories. We tested whether differences in processing mode might account for this impairment. Following mood induction procedures designed to ensure equivalence of mood state, depressed (n = 35) and recovered depressed (n = 33) participants were instructed to recall a positive memory and focus on it while adopting either an abstract or a concrete mode of processing. Participants in the abstract processing condition experienced no change in mood, while those in the concrete processing condition showed improved mood after memory recall. This research illustrates that the process by which positive autobiographical memories are recalled is important in determining their emotional impact and suggests that psychological interventions for depression may be improved by explicitly targeting processing mode.     

Cognitive reappraisal increases heart rate variability in response to an anger provocation

Adaptive self-regulatory responses to negative events are associated with good mental health, social functioning, and physical health. Two forms of emotion regulation that have received attention within the context of anger are cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Research suggests that greater heart rate variability (HRV) is a physiological indicator of adaptive emotion regulation and decreased mental load. In the present experiment, we recorded HRV while 131 undergraduate women viewed an anger-inducing video of a fellow student arguing for a position counter to that of the participant on an important political issue. Immediately prior to viewing, participants were instructed to reappraise, suppress their emotions, or simply watch the video as normal. Participants in the reappraisal condition showed increased HRV whereas those in the suppression and control condition showed no such increase. These results provide support for increased HRV as a biological correlate of adaptive emotion regulation. One implication is that cognitive reappraisal might afford greater autonomic flexibility when an individual is confronted with anger-inducing events.     

Autobiographical memory characteristics in depression vulnerability: formerly depressed individuals recall less vivid positive memories

The differential activation hypothesis (DAH; Teasdale, 1988) proposes that individuals who are vulnerable to depression can be distinguished from non-vulnerable individuals by the degree to which negative thoughts and maladaptive cognitive processes are activated during sad mood. While retrieval of negative autobiographical memories is noted as one such process, the model does not articulate a role for deficits in recalling positive memories. Two studies were conducted to compare the autobiographical memory characteristics of never-depressed and formerly depressed individuals following a sad mood induction. In Study 1, features of negative memories of never-depressed and formerly depressed individuals did not differ, either in neutral or sad mood. For positive memories, groups did not differ in neutral mood, but following a sad mood induction, formerly depressed individuals rated their positive memories as less vivid than their never-depressed counterparts. Study 2 examined positive autobiographical memory features more comprehensively and replicated the finding that in a sad mood formerly depressed individuals recalled less vivid positive memories than never-depressed controls. These findings suggest that the phenomenological features of positive memories could represent an important factor in depressive vulnerability, and, more broadly, that depression may be associated with a deficit in the processing of positive material.     

Collaborative recall of details of an emotional film

Collaborative inhibition refers to the phenomenon that when several people work together to produce a single memory report, they typically produce fewer items than when the unique items in the individual reports of the same number of participants are combined (i.e., nominal recall). Yet, apart from this negative effect, collaboration may be beneficial in that group members remove errors from a collaborative report. Collaborative inhibition studies on memory for emotional stimuli are scarce. Therefore, the present study examined both collaborative inhibition and collaborative error reduction in the recall of the details of emotional material in a laboratory setting. Female undergraduates (n = 111) viewed a film clip of a fatal accident and subsequently engaged in either collaborative (n = 57) or individual recall (n = 54) in groups of three. The results show that, across several detail categories, collaborating groups recalled fewer details than nominal groups. However, overall, nominal recall produced more errors than collaborative recall. The present results extend earlier findings on both collaborative inhibition and error reduction to the recall of affectively laden material. These findings may have implications for the applied fields of forensic and clinical psychology.     

A New Measure of the Maladaptive Self-Beliefs in Social Anxiety: Psychometric Properties in a Non-Clinical Sample

Clark and Wells’ (1995) model of social phobia proposes that there are three types of maladaptive self-beliefs responsible for persistent social anxiety (high standard, conditional, and unconditional beliefs). Although these beliefs are theoretically important, there currently is not a validated measure of these beliefs in the social anxiety literature. Hence, the Self-Beliefs Related to Social Anxiety (SBSA) Scale was developed (Wong & Moulds, 2010a) and its psychometric properties were examined in the current study using a non-clinical sample (N = 600). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses ultimately indicated that a correlated three-factor solution optimally summarized the data with the three factors corresponding to the three belief types. The SBSA and its three subscales demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, as well as convergent and divergent validity. The SBSA thus appears to have good psychometric properties and is appropriate for use in non-clinical samples. The potential applications of the SBSA and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Erratum to: A New Measure of the Maladaptive Self-Beliefs in Social Anxiety: Psychometric Properties in a Non-Clinical Sample

Clark and Wells’ (1995) model of social phobia proposes that there are three types of maladaptive self-beliefs responsible for persistent social anxiety (high standard, conditional, and unconditional beliefs). Although these beliefs are theoretically important, there currently is not a validated measure of these beliefs in the social anxiety literature. Hence, the Self-Beliefs Related to Social Anxiety (SBSA) Scale was developed (Wong and Moulds 2009) and its psychometric properties were examined in the current study using a non-clinical sample (N = 600). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses ultimately indicated that a correlated three-factor solution optimally summarized the data with the three factors corresponding to the three belief types. The SBSA and its three subscales demonstrated good internal consistency and test-retest reliability, as well as convergent and divergent validity. The SBSA thus appears to have good psychometric properties and is appropriate for use in non-clinical samples. The potential applications of the SBSA and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Prospective and positive mental imagery deficits in dysphoria

We know less about positive mental imagery than we do about negative mental imagery in depression. This study examined the relationship between depressed mood and the subjective experience of emotion in imagined events; specifically, prospective imagery, and imagery in response to emotionally ambiguous stimuli. One hundred and twenty-six undergraduates completed measures of depression, imagery vividness for future events, and a homograph interpretation task in which they generated images and subsequently rated image pleasantness and vividness. As predicted, compared to low dysphoria, high dysphoria was associated with poorer ability to vividly imagine positive (but not negative) future events. These findings were augmented by the observation that high dysphorics provided lower pleasantness ratings of images generated in response to homographs they interpreted as positive. We suggest that an imbalance in the inability to vividly imagine positive but not negative future events may curtail the ability of high dysphorics to be optimistic. High dysphoric individuals are further disadvantaged: even when they interpret ambiguity positively, the resulting images they generate are associated with less positive affect. Therapeutic strategies that address both such positive-specific imagery biases hold promise for depression treatment innovation.