The continuity principle: A unified approach to disaster and trauma

The continuity principle stipulates that through all stages of disaster, management and treatment should aim at preserving and restoring functional, historical, and interpersonal continuities, at the individual, family, organization, and community levels. Two misconceptions work against this principle and lead to decisional errors: the “abnormalcy bias” which results in underestimating victims' ability to cope with disaster, and the “normalcy bias” which results in underestimating the probability or extent of expected disruption. This article clarifies these biases and details the potential contributions of the continuity principle at the different stages of the disaster. The authors are reserve officers in the Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences Centers of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and were, in this capacity, directly involved in the coordination of agencies dealing with Gulf War victims.     

Anxiety-related threat bias in recognition memory: the moderating effect of list composition and semantic-similarity effects

Individuals with high anxiety show bias for threatening information, but it is unclear whether this bias affects memory. Recognition memory studies have shown biases for recognising and rejecting threatening items in anxiety, prompting the need to identify moderating factors of this effect. This study focuses on the role of semantic similarity: the use of many semantically related threatening words could increase familiarity for those items and obscure anxiety-related differences in memory. To test this, two recognition memory experiments varied the proportion of threatening words in lists to manipulate the semantic-similarity effects. When similarity effects were reduced, participants with high trait anxiety were biased to respond “new” to threatening words, whereas when similarity effects were strong there was no effect of anxiety on memory bias. Analysis of the data with the drift diffusion model showed that the bias was due to differences in processing of the threatening stimuli rather than a simple response bias. These data suggest that the semantic similarity of the threatening words significantly affects the presence or absence of anxiety-related threat bias in recognition memory. The results indicate that trait anxiety is associated with a bias to decide that threatening stimuli were not previously studied, but only when semantic-similarity effects are controlled. Implications for theories of anxiety and future studies in this domain are discussed.     

Effects of Anxiety,Disaster Education,and Resources on Disaster Preparedness Behavior

The thrust of this study is to understand the responses of anxiety‐prone people to threats like natural disasters. It examines whether anxiety influences disaster preparedness, and whether disaster education and resources mediate between anxiety and disaster preparedness. Data were collected from 300 people, each from flood‐prone and heat‐wave‐affected areas in Orissa, India. Controlling for the influence of age and family type, the results revealed that trait anxiety decreased flood and heat‐wave preparedness. Further, it was found that disaster education and resources are partial mediators between anxiety and flood preparedness and full mediators between anxiety and heat‐wave preparedness. Implications of the findings are discussed within the socioeconomic and cultural contexts of India.     

Natural disaster induced cognitive disruption: impacts on action slips

Previous research has indicated an increase in stress levels and cognitive intrusions after natural disasters. These previous studies have not, however, assessed the impact disaster induced cognitive disruption has on human performance. In the present report, we investigated the impact of the 7.1 magnitude 2010 Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake on self-reported earthquake-induced cognitive disruption and its relationship to performance on the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART). Participants who self-reported greater cognitive disruption induced by the earthquake also had higher levels of errors of commission during SART (r = .80, p < .001). This was even the case when controlling for earthquake-induced anxiety, depression, participant sex, and self-reported sleep amount. Post-disaster assessments need to include the impact of the events directly on cognitive self-regulation and conscious thoughts, in addition to more clinical constructs, such as anxiety and depression.     

无法忍受不确定性与担忧：对记忆偏差与解释偏差的检验

本研究旨在探索记忆偏差与解释偏差在无法忍受不确定性(IU)与个体担忧之间的中介作用。实验1采用伴随学习任务范式,计算被试对中性词语和不确定词的回忆量。结果发现,IU对记忆偏差的预测不显著,记忆偏差在IU与担忧倾向之间的中介作用不显著。实验2采用情境评估任务范式收集被试在不确定情境下的担忧评分和解释倾向。结果发现,IU可以正向预测被试在不确定情境下的担忧评分,被试对情境的解释倾向在IU与担忧评分的关系中起到中介作用。概言之,高IU个体存在一定的信息加工偏差。     

The interplay of trait worry and trait anxiety in determining episodic retrieval: The role of cognitive control

Worrying is a key concept in describing the complex relationship between anxiety and cognitive control. On the one hand, cognitive control processes might underlie the specific tendency to engage in worrying (i.e., trait worry), conceptualized as a future-oriented mental problem-solving activity. On the other hand, the general tendency to experience the signs and symptoms of anxiety (i.e., trait anxiety) is suggested to impair cognitive control because worrisome thoughts interfere with task-relevant processing. Based on these opposing tendencies, we predicted that the effect of the two related constructs, trait anxiety and trait worry, might cancel out one another. In statistics, such instances have been termed suppressor situations. In four experiments, we found evidence for such a suppressor situation: When their shared variance was controlled, trait worry was positively whereas trait anxiety was negatively related to performance in a memory task requiring strategic, effortful retrieval. We also showed that these opposing effects are related to temporal context reinstatement. Our results suggest that trait worry and trait anxiety possess unique sources of variance, which differently relate to performance in memory tasks requiring cognitive control.     

Mindfulness and dream quality: the inverse relationship between mindfulness and negative dream affect

The aim of the study was to examine the relationship of mindfulness to the emotional quality of dreaming. In our questionnaire-based study, comprising the data of 587 undergraduate students we examined the association between trait anxiety, perceived stress, trait mindfulness, negative dream affect and dream anxiety. Our results indicate that mindfulness is inversely related to disturbed dreaming and predicts less severe dream disturbances after controlling for trait anxiety. Moreover, the results of the applied hierarchical regression analysis suggest that mindfulness is associated with reduced dream anxiety by moderating the extent of waking anxiety. Our findings extend previous research relating mindfulness, emotional regulation and sleep quality to the domain of dream research. We suggest that mindfulness is a possible protective factor against dream disturbances.     

特质焦虑个体在高难度Stroop任务下的情绪启动效应

通过问卷法,选取特质焦虑和非特质焦虑被试作为本实验的研究对象,考察了正性、负性、中性三种不同的情绪对不同特质焦虑个体认知抑制的影响。在Stroop任务之前呈现三种情绪图片,结果发现,相比非特质焦虑被试,特质焦虑被试的Stroop效应量更大;特质焦虑被试和非特质焦虑被试在正性和负性情绪条件下的Stroop效应量均更大。说明特质焦虑被试的认知抑制功能存在不足,正性和负性情绪对特质焦虑和非特质焦虑被试的认知抑制均存在阻碍作用。     

Trait anxiety, trait depression, worry, and memory

A study is reported which investigated the proposal that high trait anxiety is associated with a memory bias for worry themes. Forty-five participants were categorised as being high or low trait anxious on the basis of scores on the (Spielberger et al., 1983) (Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Form Y) (1983)). The participants were requested to rate a number of worry and non-worry statements for how much they generally thought about the issues represented by them. Analysis of the ratings given by the participants showed that low trait anxiety individuals thought about the non-worry items significantly more than worry items. The high trait anxiety participants, however, showed little or no difference in the amount of time spent thinking about worry and non-worry themes. In a subsequent free recall task of the statements it was observed that the low trait anxiety group recalled significantly more non-worry than worry items, whereas there was no such difference for the high trait group. It was also found that the degree of memory bias was related to both positive affectivity and trait anxiety. The implications of such findings are discussed.     

Alexithymia and the automatic processing of affective information: Evidence from the affective priming paradigm

In Study 1, we examined the moderating impact of alexithymia (i.e., a difficulty identifying and describing feelings to other people and an externally oriented cognitive style) on the automatic processing of affective information. The affective priming paradigm was used, and lower priming effects for high alexithymia scorers were observed when congruent (incongruent) pairs involving nonverbal primes (angry face) and verbal target were presented. The results held after controlling for participants' negative affectivity. The same effects were replicated in Studies 2 and 3, with trait anxiety and depression entered as additional covariates. In Study 3, no moderating impact of alexithymia was found for verbal-facial pairs suggesting that the results cannot be merely explained in terms of transcoding limitations for high alexithymia scorers. Overall, the present results suggest that alexithymia could be related to a difficulty in processing and automatically using high arousal emotional information to respond to concomittant behavioural demands.     

Retrospective versus prospective explanations of changes in political opinion

Retrospective and prospective causal attributions of one's political opinion changes were compared in light of the distinction between external and internal attributions. Semistructured interviews focusing on three political issues were held with 47 psychology undergraduates. Subjects were asked to explain (a) why they changed opinion in the past, and (b) what would make them abandon their current positions in the future. Two judges estimated independently the importance the subjects attached to four categories of external attributions (firsthand and secondhand information, neutral and persuasive information sources) and two categories of internal attributions (cognitive elaboration and personality characteristics). As a group, subjects explained their past opinion changes by referring to several attribution categories whereas in their explanations of hypothetical future opinion changes they above all referred to (secondhand information on) crucial events. It is concluded that people feel something drastic would need to occur before they would be ready to abandon a political stance.     

生涯适应力与择业焦虑：注意偏向和归因的认知加工作用

为了探讨生涯适应力与择业焦虑的关系及内部的认知加工过程。采用点探测范式测量注意偏向,问卷法调查大学生的生涯适应力、归因和择业焦虑。结果发现：（1）生涯适应力既能直接负向预测择业焦虑,又能通过积极事件归因方式、及注意偏向和积极事件归因方式的链式中介作用间接预测择业焦虑。（2）在生涯适应力与择业焦虑的关系中受到消极事件归因方式的调节作用：只有消极事件积极归因时,生涯适应力才会影响择业焦虑。研究结果揭示了择业焦虑的内部作用过程,丰富了生涯适应力通过注意偏向和积极事件归因方式影响择业焦虑的解释视角,为通过归因和注意偏向的调整缓解不同生涯适应力个体择业焦虑提供了重要参考。     

Managing to avert disaster: Explaining collective resilience at an outdoor music event

There is considerable evidence that psychological membership of crowds can protect people in dangerous events, although the underlying social–psychological processes have not been fully investigated. There is also evidence that those responsible for managing crowd safety view crowds as a source of psychological danger, views that may themselves impact upon crowd safety; yet, there has been little examination of how such ‘disaster myths’ operate in practice. In a study of an outdoor music event characterized as a near disaster, analysis of questionnaire survey data (N = 48) showed that social identification with the crowd predicted feeling safe directly as well as indirectly through expectations of help and trust in others in the crowd to deal with an emergency. In a second study of the same event, qualitative analysis of interviews (N = 20) and of contemporaneous archive materials showed that, in contrast to previous findings, crowd safety professionals' references to ‘mass panic’ were highly nuanced. Despite an emphasis by some safety professionals on crowd ‘disorder’, crowd participants and some of the professionals also claimed that self‐organization in the crowd prevented disaster.     

Trait anxiety reduces affective fading for both positive and negative autobiographical memories

The affect associated with negative events fades faster than the affect associated with positive events (the Fading Affect Bias; the FAB). The research that we report examined the relation between trait anxiety and the FAB. Study 1 assessed anxiety using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale; Studies 2 and 3 used the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Studies 1 and 2 used retrospective procedures to probe positive event memories and negative event memories while Study 3 used a diary procedure. The results of all 3 studies showed that increased anxiety was associated with both a lowered FAB and lower overall affect fading for both positive events and negative events. These results suggest that for people free of trait anxiety, the FAB reflects the operation of a healthy coping mechanism in autobiographical memory that is disrupted by trait anxiety.     

The effects of trait and state anxiety on attention to emotional images: An eye-tracking study

Attentional biases for threatening stimuli have been implicated in the development of anxiety disorders. However, little is known about the relative influences of trait and state anxiety on attentional biases. This study examined the effects of trait and state anxiety on attention to emotional images. Low, mid, and high trait anxious participants completed two trial blocks of an eye-tracking task. Participants viewed image pairs consisting of one emotional (threatening or positive) and one neutral image while their eye movements were recorded. Between trial blocks, participants underwent an anxiety induction. Primary analyses examined the effects of trait and state anxiety on the proportion of viewing time on emotional versus neutral images. State anxiety was associated with increased attention to threatening images for participants, regardless of trait anxiety. Furthermore, when in a state of anxiety, relative to a baseline condition, durations of initial gaze and average fixation were longer on threat versus neutral images. These findings were specific to the threatening images; no anxiety-related differences in attention were found with the positive images. The implications of these results for future research, models of anxiety-related information processing, and clinical interventions for anxiety are discussed.     

Depression and Anxiety in Roman Catholic Secular Clergy

A nationally selected random sample of Roman Catholic secular priests was investigated using the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form Y. Additionally, a Self-Report Inventory requested information regarding participants' demographics as well as four categories of predictor variables (i.e., Vocational Satisfaction, Social Support, Spiritual Activities, Physical Environment) potentially associated with depression and anxiety. The study yielded a return rate of 64%. Secular clergy reported significantly greater depression and anxiety (both state and trait) than are reported in the general population. Low Vocational Satisfaction was found to be predictive of depression as well as both state and trait anxiety. Additionally, low Social Support was found to be predictive of state and trait anxiety. When the significant predictor variables were conceptually collapsed, it appeared that both people and place were significantly related to Roman Catholic secular priests' experience of depression and anxiety.     

Secondhand information and social judgment

This research investigates how secondhand impressions of other people differ from those based on firsthand information. It was hypothesized that secondhand impressions are often more extreme because secondhand accounts of another person's actions frequently fail to convey adequately the role of mitigating circumstances and situational constraints in producing that person's behavior. Experiments 1 and 2 tested this hypothesis by exposing “first generation” subjects to information about a target person, having them rate the target on several trait and attribution scales, and having them describe the target person's actions to a group of “second generation” subjects. As predicted, second generation subjects made more extreme ratings of the target than their first generation counterparts. Content analyses of the accounts transmitted by first generation subjects indicated that they did indeed underemphasize various situational qualifications of the target persons' behavior. Experiment 3 extended these findings by demonstrating that people's impressions of someone they have often heard about from a friend (but never met) are more extreme than their friends' more informed impressions.     

Four Myths about Subjective Well‐being

Subjective well‐being is a broad construct that reflects an individual's subjective evaluation of the quality of his or her life. Psychologists know a great deal about the causes and correlates of well‐being, but some important misconceptions have developed and are often repeated. The purpose of this article is to address the evidence for four such misconceptions that we believe reflect ‘myths’ about subjective well‐being. These myths include the idea that well‐being measures are strongly influenced by irrelevant contextual factors, the idea that money is not an important correlate of well‐being, the idea that social relationship variables are a particularly strong correlate of well‐being, and the idea that well‐being cannot change.     

Debiasing of Pessimistic Judgments Associated with Anxiety

This study tested the Consider-An-Alternative debiasing procedure and its ability to reduce pessimistic judgmental predictions associated with anxiety. Study participants were randomly assigned to either a control group or a debiasing group and were asked to rate the likelihood of hypothetical events. Level of trait anxiety was assessed to assign participants to a normal and a highly anxious group. The results showed that the debiasing procedure was effective in the reduction of pessimistic judgmental predictions for participants with both high and normal levels of trait anxiety. Specifically, the generation of alternative positive information significantly reduced pessimistic predictions of future events. The results were discussed in terms of availability of information in memory and cognitive biases.     

The behavioral inhibition system and the verbal information pathway to children's fears

The behavioral inhibition system (BIS) is the neurological substrate of trait anxiety and is linked to the development of anxiety disorders. Three experiments are reported that investigate the moderating influence of the BIS on 1 pathway to fear: threat information. In all studies, children were given verbal information about a set of novel animals, and their BIS sensitivity was measured. The results suggest that BIS sensitivity (a) facilitates attentional biases to stimuli associated with threat information and (b) facilitates behavioral avoidance of novel stimuli associated with threat information. This suggests a possible mechanism through which the BIS may promote the acquisition of animal fears.