Understanding the relationship between emotional and behavioral dysregulation: emotional cascades

Recent research suggests that many dysregulated behaviors, such as binge-eating and non-suicidal self-injury, often occur during times of emotional distress. These behaviors also appear to decrease negative affect. Why is it, however, that individuals engage in these behaviors to reduce emotional distress rather than taking a shower or talking to a friend? This study proposes the role of emotional cascades, an emotional phenomenon that occurs when an individual intensely ruminates on negative affect, thus increasing the magnitude of that negative affect to the point that an individual engages in a dysregulated behavior in order to distract from that rumination. The purpose of these studies was to examine the relationship between rumination and dysregulated behaviors, and in doing so determine if there is some support for the emotional cascade model of behavioral dysregulation. Using two different studies we were able to demonstrate that rumination is associated with some dysregulated behaviors, both cross-sectionally using structural equation modeling, and temporally using a two time-point method.     

Decoupling between physiological,self-reported,and expressed emotional responses in alexithymia

Alexithymia is characterized by difficulties identifying, describing, and expressing emotions and is associated with mental health problems involving emotion dysregulation. To understand the relationship between alexithymia and health, researchers have predominately examined group differences in physiological arousal and self-reported experience. The present study extends this research by examining differences in physiological arousal, self-reported experience, and observed expression. In addition to this between-subjects approach the present study examined within-person difference scores to better understand individual differences in decoupling between all three emotional response domains. Participants (N = 106; M = 18.00 years), classified as alexithymic (males = 17, females = 34) or non-alexithymic (males = 23, females = 32), gave an impromptu 3-min speech while measures of heart rate and galvanic skin response were continuously recorded. Participants completed self-report measures of self-conscious affect and their behavior was later coded for self-conscious affect. Alexithymic participants: (1) had significantly higher heart rate during baseline however physiological responses were indistinguishable during arousal and recovery, (2) experienced greater self-consciousness collapsing across the tasks, and (3) expressed more self-consciousness as a result of the speech. In addition, findings support the decoupling hypothesis. Alexithymic males experienced and expressed greater self-consciousness compared to their physiological arousal. Results are discussed in terms of the underlying mechanisms of alexithymia.     

An investigation of the relationship between trait emotional intelligence and emotional task performance

This study examined the relationships between trait emotional intelligence (EI) and tasks involving the recognition of facial expressions of emotion. Two facial expression recognition tasks using the inspection time (IT) paradigm assessed speed of emotional information processing. An unspeeded emotion recognition task was also included, and a symbol IT task was used to assess speed of processing of non-emotional information. It was found that scores on all three emotion-related tasks were strongly intercorrelated, as were scores on the three IT tasks. The two emotional IT scores remained significantly correlated when symbol IT performance was partialled out. This finding, together with the associations between the speeded (IT) and unspeeded face tasks suggests that the association between the emotional IT tasks is not entirely accounted for by general processing speed, and that a general emotion-processing ability also contributes to performance on these tasks. An EI subscale assessing Appraisal of Emotions was significantly correlated with performance on the emotional IT tasks, suggesting that self-reports of emotional perception ability do relate to performance measures.     

On the relationship between detection and recognition

Predictions derived from a “unitary-process” theory on the relationship between detection and recognition were examined in two experiments on visual detection and recognition. As predicted on the basis of this theory, recognition accuracy was superior to detection accuracy. An analysis of the conditional probabilities from a joint detection-recognition task revealed the pattern of relationships predicted by the theory. Increasing the number of alternative stimuli while maintaining only two response categories was found not to significantly affect detection or recognition performance, contrary to expectations based on the idea of multiple independent detectors.     

Neural systems for recognition of emotional prosody: a 3-D lesion study

Which brain regions are associated with recognition of emotional prosody? Are these distinct from those for recognition of facial expression? These issues were investigated by mapping the overlaps of co-registered lesions from 66 brain-damaged participants as a function of their performance in rating basic emotions. It was found that recognizing emotions from prosody draws on the right frontoparietal operculum, the bilateral frontal pole, and the left frontal operculum. Recognizing emotions from prosody and facial expressions draws on the right frontoparietal cortex, which may be important in reconstructing aspects of the emotion signaled by the stimulus. Furthermore, there were regions in the left and right temporal lobes that contributed disproportionately to recognition of emotion from faces or prosody, respectively.     

Sequential testing effects and the relationship between recognition and recognition failure

Tulving and Wiseman (1975) reported that there was a systematic relationship between the proportion of words recognized and the proportion of recallable words recognized. This relationship indicates a moderate positive covariation between recognition and recall across subject items, when each subject is given both types of test, recognition followed by recall. In this paper it is shown that the theoretical enterprise of trying to account for this relationship is fruitless unless the data are corrected for sequential testing effects. Evidence on the existence of these effects is reviewed, and then it is shown how they introduce a measure of dependency between recognition and recall. When the data are corrected, the theories proposed by Begg (1979) and Flexser and Tulving (1978) are shown to be poorly supported. The utility of the general enterprise of determining the relationship between recognition and recall by these means is also questioned.     

The link between emotional competence and well-being: a longitudinal study

What aspects of emotional competence help protect people from stress, anxiety, and depression, and help to promote positive affect? A total of 163 university students completed a two wave study that involved measuring emotional competence and emotional well-being at 1-year intervals. As expected, Time 1 measures of emotional competence predicted Time 2 measures of well-being, after controlling for Time 1 measures of well-being. Specifically, ineffective problem orientation predicted increases in anxiety and stress, and decreases in positive affect. Difficulty identifying and describing emotions predicted increases in anxiety and decreases in positive affect. Finally, an aspect of difficulty managing emotions (i.e. rumination) predicted decreases in positive affect. Each emotional competence variable predicted unique variance after controlling for other significant variables. We discuss the implications of these findings for counselling practice.     

Stability in alexithymia levels: A longitudinal analysis on various emotional answers

Alexithymia refers to a specific disturbance in emotional processing that is manifested through difficulties in identifying and verbalizing feelings, and a tendency to focus and amplify the somatic sensations accompanying emotional arousal. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the stability levels of alexithymia related to changes in emotional distress levels caused by university exams at two different times: after and during the exams. We carried out a 17-week follow-up on 36 university students, alexithymic features and self-reported emotional distress (anxiety, depression and somatic illness) were measured. Whereas emotional distress measures changed significantly during the follow-up period, the degree of alexithymia remained unchanged. We conclude therefore that alexithymia presents a constant trait in non-clinical samples, in contrast to anxiety and depression, which are state phenomena, influenced by stress levels.     

The relationship between induced emotional arousal and amnesia

An experiment was conducted to test a hypothesis emanating from a similarity in data pattern between studies on amnesia and studies on the effects of arousal on memory. The hypothesis was that arousal and amnesia might be related, or more precisely, that amnesia induced in the laboratory might be mediated by high levels of arousal. Subjects in this experiment were presented with a thematic, short story in pictorial form. One version of the story consisted of a traumatic, arousal-inducing event placed between neutral events. A second version of the story contained the same neutral events in the beginning and the end, but also a neutral event in the middle. Palmar skin conductance, heart rate, and subjective self-ratings were used to determine that the manipulation made had caused different degrees of emotional arousal for the two groups of subjects presented with the different versions of the story. The methods used to determine memory performance were recall and recognition. The data obtained indicate that amnesia induced in the laboratory is mediated by emotional arousal in terms of concepts of attention and reconstruction.     

False recognition of emotional stimuli is lateralised in the brain: An fMRI study

We have investigated whether the left (LH) and right (RH) hemisphere play a different role in eliciting false recognition (FR) and whether their involvement in this memory illusion depends on the emotional content of stimuli. Negative and neutral pictures (taken from IAPS) were presented in the divided-visual field paradigm. Subjects task was to indicate whether the pictures had already been presented or not during the preceding study phase. FR rate was much higher for the RH than the LH presentations. In line, FR resulted in activations mainly in the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) for either RH or LH presentations. Emotional content of stimuli facilitated the formation of false memories and strengthened the involvement of the right PFC in FR induction.     

Relation between alexithymia and the five-factor model of personality: a facet-level analysis

The relation between alexithymia and both the domain and the facet level of the five-factor model (FFM) of personality was examined in a sample of 101 university students by using the Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20; Bagby, Taylor, & Parker, 1994) and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992c). Consistent with the alexithymia construct, the TAS-20 was positively correlated with Neuroticism (N) and negatively correlated with Extraversion (E) and Openness (O), whereas no significant relations were found with Agreeableness (A) and Conscientiousness (C). Analysis of the lower order traits (i.e., facets) of the FFM revealed that depression for N; positive emotions and assertiveness for E; feelings and actions for O; altruism, tender-mindedness, and modesty for A; and competence for C predicted alexithymia. These results support the uniqueness of the alexithymia construct, which is represented by a cluster of traits across the dimensions and facets of the FFM.     

Influence of children's emotional states on the recognition of emotion in peers and social motives to change another's emotional state

This experiment addressed the question of whether children's own emotional states influence their accuracy in recognizing emotional states in peers and any motives they may have to intervene in order to change their peers' emotional states. Happiness, sadness, anger, or a neutral state were induced in preschool children, who then viewed slides of other 4-year-old children who were actually experiencing each of those states. Children's own emotional states influenced only their perception of sadness in peers. Sad emotional states promoted systematic inaccuracies in the perception of sadness, causing children to mislabel sadness in peers as anger. Children had high base rates for using the label “happy,” and this significantly enhanced their accuracy in recognizing that state. Low base rates for labeling others as in a neutral state reduced accuracy in recognizing neutrality. Children were generally motivated to change sad, angry, and neutral states in peers, and they were most motivated to change a peer's state if they were to be the agent of such change. The results are discussed in terms of the limited role of children's own emotional states in their recognition of emotion in others or motives to intervene and in terms of factors influencing the perception of emotion, such as base rate preferences for labeling others as experiencing, or not experiencing, particular emotional states.     

The relationship between emotional intelligence and ego defense mechanisms

The author examined the relationship between the components of emotional intelligence (perception of emotion, affect regulation, and emotional knowledge) and personality factors associated with adaptation, represented by the hierarchical model of defense mechanisms (M. Bond, S. Gardner, J. Christian, & J. Sigal, 1983). Bivariate correlation analyses yielded mixed results; the adaptive defense styles were correlated with overall emotional intelligence but not with the emotional perception and regulation components, as was hypothesized. Emotional knowledge was correlated with both adaptive and maladaptive defense styles and with general intelligence, as was expected. Implications for counseling and psychoeducational interventions are suggested.     

On the relationship between recall and recognition memory.

The relationship between recall and recognition has been a central topic for the study of memory. A test of alternative views about recall and recognition was arranged by studying amnesic patients. In amnesia, damage has occurred to a brain system important for declarative (conscious) memory, but skill learning, priming, and other forms of nonconscious memory are intact. Recall and recognition were found to be proportionately impaired in amnesic patients, and confidence ratings for the recognition judgments were commensurate with the level of impaired performance. The results are contrary to views that either recognition memory or associated confidence judgments are ordinarily supported significantly by nonconscious memory. The results favor the view that recall and recognition are related functions of declarative memory and equivalently dependent on the brain system damaged in amnesia.     

Display rule "regulators": the relationship between supervisors and worker emotional exhaustion

This field study examined the effect of supervisory regulation of display rules--the rules about what kind of emotion to express on the job (R. Ekman, 1992; A. Rafaeli & R. I. Sutton, 1987)--on the emotional exhaustion of subordinates. On the basis of a sample of 940 call center employees, the authors found that worker emotional exhaustion varied across supervisors within jobs, suggesting that emotion work is influenced at the supervisory, rather than job, level. Moreover, the authors found that the importance supervisors place on interpersonal job demands of their workers was positively related to worker emotional exhaustion. Worker career identity moderated the interpersonal-job-demands--emotional-exhaustion relationship, but self-efficacy did not. Study conclusions and suggestions for future research are provided.     

The relationship between basic need satisfaction and emotional eating in obesity

Emotional eating has been identified as a factor that promotes the development and maintenance of obesity and hinders its treatment. This study investigated the relationship between unsatisfied basic needs and emotional eating, including the mediating factors of self‐esteem and coping strategies. The results from a survey of 136 obese individuals indicated support for a significant relationship between basic need satisfaction and emotional eating, with a mediating effect of negative coping strategies. These findings extend previous research and provide guidance on how to help individuals who engage in emotional eating by focusing on developing more adaptive coping strategies.     

Assessing alexithymia and related emotional ability constructs using multiple methods: interrelationships among measures

This study examined relationships among various measures of emotional ability reflecting different methods of assessment: self-report, clinical interview, collateral report, and emotion-relevant performance. On 140 young adults, the authors assessed self-reported alexithymia, emotional approach coping, and trait metamood skills; observer-reported alexithymia; interviewer-rated alexithymia; emotional awareness in response to vignettes; and emotional intelligence test performance. There were moderate magnitude correlations among the self-report measures, but correlations among other measures were relatively low. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a 3-factor model in which explicit self, implicit self, and explicit other measures were differentiated. These emotional ability measures do not form a unitary construct but differ as a function of the person providing the information and whether the measure is explicit or implicit.     

Changes in the relationship between self‐reference and emotional valence as a function of dysphoria

The self‐positivity bias is found to be an aspect of normal cognitive function. Changes in this bias are usually associated with changes in emotional states, such as dysphoria or depression. The aim of the present study was to clarify the role of emotional valence within self‐referential processing. By asking non‐dysphoric and dysphoric individuals to rate separately the emotional and self‐referential content of a set of 240 words, it was possible to identify the differences in the relationship between self‐reference and emotional valence, which are associated with dysphoria. The results support the existence of the self‐positivity bias in non‐dysphoric individuals. More interestingly, dysphoric individuals were able to accurately identify the emotional content of the word stimuli. They failed, however, to associate this emotional valence with self‐reference. These findings are discussed in terms of attributional self‐biases and their consequences for cognition.