The two faces of alcohol myopia: attentional mediation of psychological stress

Two studies provided evidence that alcohol's relationship to psychological stress is indirect and is mediated by the allocation of attention. Study 1 found that, as the attentional demands of a distracting activity increased, so did alcohol's reduction of anxiety. Study 2 replicated this effect and found that a highly demanding activity could reduce anxiety even without alcohol. This study further implicated the role of attention in anxiety reduction by demonstrating a relationship between changes in anxiety and response latency to a secondary monitoring task. Finally, in both experiments, intoxicated subjects who did not perform any activity showed an increase in anxiety. From these data, we argue that alcohol affects psychological stress, to an important degree, through its ability, in conjunction with ongoing activity, to affect the amount of attention paid to stressful thoughts.     

Negative self-focused cognitions mediate the effect of trait social anxiety on state anxiety

The cognitive model of social anxiety predicts that negative self-focused cognitions increase anxiety when anticipating social threat. To test this prediction, 36 individuals were asked to anticipate and perform a public-speaking task. During anticipation, negative self-focused cognitions or relaxation were experimentally induced while self-reported anxiety, autonomic arousal (heart rate, heart rate variability, skin conductance level), and acoustic eye-blink startle response were assessed. As predicted, negative self-focused cognitions mediated the effects of trait social anxiety on self-reported anxiety and heart rate variability during negative anticipation. Furthermore, trait social anxiety predicted increased startle amplitudes. These findings support a central assumption of the cognitive model of social anxiety.     

Alcohol myopia. Its prized and dangerous effects

This article explains how alcohol makes social responses more extreme, enhances important self-evaluations, and relieves anxiety and depression, effects that underlie both the social destructiveness of alcohol and the reinforcing effects that make it an addictive substance. The theories are based on alcohol's impairment of perception and thought--the myopia it causes--rather than on the ability of alcohol's pharmacology to directly cause specific reactions or on expectations associated with alcohol's use. Three conclusions are offered (a) Alcohol makes social behaviors more extreme by blocking a form of response conflict. (b) The same process can inflate self-evaluations. (c) Alcohol myopia, in combination with distracting activity, can reliably reduce anxiety and depression in all drinkers by making it difficult to allocate attention to the thoughts that provoke these states. These theories are discussed in terms of their significance for the prevention and treatment of alcohol abuse.     

Impact of anticipatory processing versus distraction on multiple indices of anxiety in socially anxious individuals

In models of social phobia, anticipatory processing before a social-evaluative event is a key maintaining factor for the disorder. This study investigated the impact of anticipatory processing versus distraction before a social-evaluative task on affective (self-reported anxiety), psychophysiological (skin conductance), cognitive (self-reported maladaptive self-beliefs) and behavioural (in-situation performance) responses of participants. High and low socially anxious undergraduates were randomly allocated to either an anticipatory processing or distraction condition, and then completed an impromptu speech task. Relative to distraction, anticipatory processing increased self-reported anxiety in all participants, and increased skin conductance and the strength of conditional and high standard beliefs in the high (but not low) socially anxious participants. Unconditional beliefs were not affected. For high socially anxious individuals, anticipatory processing was also indirectly associated with poorer speech performance by increasing self-reported anxiety. Anticipatory processing appears to have multiple adverse effects in socially anxious individuals.     

How to push someone's buttons: A comparison of four anger-induction methods

This study compared the effects of four ways of inducing anger: film, stress interview, punishment, and harassment. Sixty-four healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of these conditions. Effects were examined by means of self-report and physiological measures (blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance level, and skin conductance response). All four methods produced comparable levels of self-reported anger, while harassment and interview produced the largest cardiovascular effects, and electrodermal activity increased more in reaction to harassment, interview, and punishment conditions compared to film. Thus, physiological reactivity was especially increased by anger-induction methods that included personal contact (harassment and interview). Regarding specificity of self-reported emotions, fear and frustration were the only emotions out of nine non-target emotions that increased in comparable degree to anger following film, interview, and punishment, while harassment produced more self-reported anger than fear. Possible explanations and further recommendations are discussed.     

Intoxication and exposure to stress: effects of temporal patterning

In this study we explored the temporal patterning of intoxication and exposure to a stress-producing situation on alcohol's effects on stress. Forty male social drinkers received either a 0.7 g/kg dose of alcohol or a placebo. When exposure to a social stressor preceded intoxication, a significant alcohol-induced increase in heart-rate reactivity was found. When intoxication preceded exposure to the stressor, conventional analysis of the data indicated a stress-dampening effect on alcohol on heart rate. No differences were obtained from self-reports of anxiety in either pattern. The findings are explained in terms of attentional and cognitive-encoding processes.     

Acute effects of alcohol on cardiovascular reactivity to stress in college-age Type A (coronary prone) individuals

Healthy college-age males and females classified as Type A or Type B were randomly assigned to an alcohol (N=24) or a no-alcohol condition (N=24). Subjects were exposed to a verbal stress quiz while blood pressure, heart rate, peripheral vascular response (PVR), and self-reported anxiety indices were monitored. Results indicated that alcohol effected a reduction in resting levels of systolic blood pressure and a tonic reduction in the peripheral vascular response. Alcohol attenuated the systolic blood pressure, heart rate, and PVR to stress and efffected a decrease in anxiety following the Stressor. When analyzed relative to the participants' drinking experience, data indicated that the strongest stress-modulating effect of alcohol was evidenced by Type A subjects who have been identified as long-term drinkers. During recovery from stress Type A subjects identified as short-term drinkers maintained high levels of PVR. Types A and B subjects who did not ingest alcohol evidenced high PVR levels during stress. The findings are discussed in terms of the protective action of moderate chronic alcohol use on cardiovascular disease risk reduction in persons evidencing the coronary-prone behavior pattern.     

The heart of control: Proactive cognitive control training limits anxious cardiac arousal under stress

Research and theory suggest that anxious people employ cognitive control on a relatively late and transient basis. This tendency may impair emotion regulation that depends on early, persistent implementation of cognitive control. We examined whether anxious people could be trained to apply cognitive control proactively (i.e., in advance of goal-related action) and whether such training limited anxiety’s rise during stress. In Study 1, 96 high trait-anxious participants completed proactive or reactive training followed by the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) with measurement of subjective anxiety, heart rate, and skin conductance level (SCL). In Study 2, 59 high trait-anxious participants completed a proactive or no-instruction training for 4 days and then completed the TSST. For Study 2 but not Study 1, the proactive versus control training was associated with lower stress-related increases in subjective anxiety and heart rate, but not sympathetically mediated SCL. Exercising proactive control may leverage the parasympathetic nervous system to inhibit the escalation of anxious arousal during stress.     

Offset control during recurrent 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air induction: relation to individual difference variables

Although control over aversive events maintains a central role in contemporary models of anxiety pathology, particularly panic disorder, there is little understanding about the emotional consequences of specific types of control processes. In the present study, offset control over 8 20% carbon dioxide-enriched air administrations was experimentally manipulated in a large nonclinical population (n = 96) varying in anxiety sensitivity (high or low) and gender. Dependent measures included self-reported anxiety, affective reports of valence, arousal, emotional control, and physiological indices of heart rate and skin conductance. High anxiety-sensitive participants who lacked offset control reported significantly greater elevations in self-reported anxiety, emotional displeasure, arousal, and dyscontrol relative to their yoked counterparts with offset control. In contrast, low anxiety-sensitive individuals responded with similar levels of cognitive and affective distress regardless of the offset control manipulation. Although the provocation procedure reliably produced bodily arousal relative to baseline, at a physiological level of analysis, no significant differences emerged across conditions. These findings are discussed in relation to offset control during recurrent interoceptive arousal, with implications for better understanding anxiety about abrupt bodily sensations.     

The worried mind: autonomic and prefrontal activation during worrying

To study the psychophysiological correlates of worrying, the authors recorded heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), skin conductance level, and alpha electroencephalographic asymmetry in healthy males during baseline, relaxation, worry induction, and anticipation of an impromptu speech task. Compared with baseline, relaxation, and anticipation, worrying was associated with greater heart rate and lower RSA. Worrying was further characterized by higher skin conductance levels compared with baseline but lower levels than during anticipation. Finally, worrying was associated with relatively greater left frontal activity compared with anticipation. Trait public speaking anxiety was positively correlated with left frontal activity during worrying. These results support the notion that worrying is a unique emotional state that is different from fearful anticipation.     

Alcohol and social behavior I: The psychology of drunken excess

Drinking alcohol clearly has important effect on social behaviors, such as increasing aggression, self-disclosure, sexual adventuresomeness, and so on. Research has shown that these effects can stem from beliefs we hold about alcohol effects. Less is known about how alcohol itself affects these behaviors. A cognitive explanation, that alcohol impairs the information processing needed to inhibit response impulses--the abilities to foresee negative consequences of the response, to recall inhibiting standards, and so on--has begun to emerge. We hypothesize that alcohol impairment will make a social response more extreme or excessive when the response is pressured by both inhibiting and instigating cues--in our terms, when it is under inhibitory response conflict. In that case, alcohol's damage to inhibitory processing allows instigating pressures more sway over the response, increasing its extremeness. In the present meta-analysis, each published test of alcohol's effect on a social, or socially significant behavior was rated (validated against independent judges) as to whether it was under high or low inhibitory conflict. Over low-conflict tests, intoxicated subjects behaved only a tenth of a standard deviation more extremely than their sober controls, whereas over high-conflict tests they were a full standard deviation more extreme. The effect of conflict increased with alcohol dosage, was shown not to be mediated by drinking expectancies, and generalized with few exceptions across the 34 studies and 12 social behaviors included in this analysis.     

Effects of suppression and acceptance on emotional responses of individuals with anxiety and mood disorders

The present investigation compared the subjective and physiological effects of emotional suppression and acceptance in a sample of individuals with anxiety and mood disorders. Sixty participants diagnosed with anxiety and mood disorders were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group listened to a rationale for suppressing emotions, and the other group listened to a rationale for accepting emotions. Participants then watched an emotion-provoking film and applied the instructions. Subjective distress, heart rate, skin conductance level, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia were measured before, during, and after the film. Although both groups reported similar levels of subjective distress during the film, the acceptance group displayed less negative affect during the post-film recovery period. Furthermore, the suppression group showed increased heart rate and the acceptance group decreased heart rate in response to the film. There were no differences between the two groups in skin conductance or respiratory sinus arrhythmia. These findings are discussed in the context of the existing body of research on emotion regulation and current treatment approaches for anxiety and mood disorders.     

Relaxation versus cognitive therapies for dental fear--a psychophysiological approach.

By separating 127 adult dental-phobic patients according to fear etiology and psychophysiologic response style, the authors investigated the outcome of 2 dental fear treatments. Before and after either relaxation or cognitively oriented treatment, subjects were exposed to neutral and fear-relevant video sequences while the subjects' forehead muscle tension, heart rate, and skin conductance were recorded. Pre- to postintervention differences in self-reported dental fear, general fear, and trait anxiety were analyzed together with psychophysiological data. Both treatments resulted in a significant reduction of dental fear. Despite significant interaction effects of Treatment Modality x Psychophysiological Response Style, it could not be concluded that patients with different fear etiologies or response styles benefit differentially from the 2 treatments given.     

Test anxiety and ego-threatening stress: Over- (and under-) estimation of emotional reactivity

Abstract

This study examined discrepancies between subjective and objective measures of state anxiety as a function of test anxiety in undergraduates. Under evaluative stress conditions, state anxiety was assessed in terms of (a) self-reported cognitive and somatic anxiety, (b) behavioral reactivity (motor and facial tension, avoidance comments and avoidance of eye contact), (c) physiological arousal (heart rate and skin resistance), and (d) cognitive and motor task performance. Participants high in test anxiety showed disproportionately greater self-reported than objective state anxiety. In contrast, those low in test anxiety showed lower self-reported than objective anxiety. The high- and the low-test-anxiety groups differed only in self-reported emotional reactivity. In line with current cognitive theories of anxiety, overestimation of reactivity in high-test anxiety, as well as underestimation in low-test anxiety, are conceptualized as a hypervigilance bias and an avoidance bias, respectively, in processing internal cues, i.e., prioritization and inhibition of attention to one's own behavioral and physiological signs of distress.     

Psychophysiological reactivity to mental arithmetic stress in black and white normotensive men

Racial differences in physiological responses to a behavioral stressor were examined. Thirty-four Black and 42 White male normotensives 34 to 55 years old (mean age = 43.01 years) performed a mental arithmetic task while blood pressure, heart rate, and skin conductance were recorded. Compared to Whites, Blacks had significantly higher baseline diastolic blood pressure (77.93 mm Hg vs. 73.11 mm Hg) and lower skin conductance levels (11.08 microS vs. 12.25 microS). These effects persisted during performance of the mental arithmetic task. However, when baseline differences were covaried, there were no significant physiological effects associated with the task. Analysis of changes in response levels from baseline revealed a nonsignificant trend for Whites to show greater increases in systolic blood pressure than Blacks. There were no significant race or family history effects. Further, task performance did not influence the outcome. Failure to demonstrate greater cardiovascular reactivity in Blacks and all men with a positive family history of hypertension is discussed with regard to possible "survivor effects" and methodologic limitations.     

Associations between emotional avoidance,anxiety sensitivity,and reactions to an observational fear challenge procedure

Research has shown that emotional avoidance and anxiety sensitivity are associated with more self-reported fear and distress in response to laboratory fear challenge procedures. The present study aimed to expand upon this work and examined how emotional avoidance and anxiety sensitivity are related to emotional and physiological responses to an observational fear challenge procedure. To accomplish this aim, a carefully screened, non-clinical sample (N = 43) was administered the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (AAQ), a measure of emotional avoidance, and the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI). Participants then engaged in an observational fear challenge paradigm. During the fear challenge, participants watched mock panic attacks while emotional (e.g., fear and panic) and skin conductance levels were assessed. Consistent with expectation, emotional avoidance and anxiety sensitivity were positively associated with more self-reported fear and more severe panic symptoms to the challenge procedure. However, anxiety sensitivity was more highly associated with self-reported fear and panic symptoms in response to the challenge procedure than emotional avoidance. Emotional avoidance and anxiety sensitivity were not associated with levels of physiological arousal to the observational fear challenge procedure. Discussion focuses on the interplay between emotional avoidance, anxiety sensitivity, and the development of vicarious fear responses and how these constructs may contribute to the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders.     

Alcohol and correspondence between self-report and physiological measures of anxiety

The present study was designed to determine the main effects of alcohol intoxication on self-report and physiological measures of anxiety. Second, we aimed to assess the role of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability (MCSD) scale in predicting the relationship between self-report and physiological indices of anxiety irrespective of drink content. A final purpose of the study was to determine whether the MCSD could account for discrepancies in the effects of alcohol on the two anxiety response systems. Subjects were male social drinkers who received an 0.70 g/kg dose of alcohol or placebo. Results indicated that irrespective of drink content, subjects with high MCSD scores reported lower levels of anxiety than did subjects with low MCSD scores. This relationship was not evident for heart rate. These results for measures of anxiety were not influenced by drink content.     

Guest referees for 17(4)

Background and objectives: Although intimate partner violence (IPV) has demonstrated strong associations with anxiety and posttraumatic stress, these constructs have rarely been examined simultaneously in IPV research. Gaps in knowledge remain as to their differential associations to substance use problems among IPV-victimized women. Design: A sample of 143 community women self-reported on their current IPV victimization, mental health and substance use problems. Method: Hierarchical entry multiple regressions were used to test for the direct and indirect effects of psychological, physical, and sexual IPV to alcohol and drug problems through anxiety and posttraumatic stress. Results: Higher anxiety symptom severity and higher physical IPV severity were associated with greater alcohol and drug problems. Higher posttraumatic stress symptom severity was associated with greater alcohol and drug problems. Mediation analyses indicated (i) significant indirect pathways of IPV types to alcohol problems through posttraumatic stress symptom severity controlling for anxiety symptom severity and (ii) significant indirect pathways of IPV types to drug problems through anxiety symptom severity controlling for posttraumatic stress symptom severity. Conclusions: In examining the indirect pathways of psychological, physical, and sexual IPV to substance use problems this study highlights that anxiety and posttraumatic stress symptom severity have unique effects on alcohol and drug problems among IPV-victimized women.     

EEG theta/beta ratio as a potential biomarker for attentional control and resilience against deleterious effects of stress on attention

Anxious stress compromises cognitive executive performance. This occurs, for instance, in cognitive performance anxiety (CPA), in which anxiety about one’s cognitive performance causes that performance to actually deteriorate (e.g., test anxiety). This is thought to result from a prefrontal cortically (PFC) mediated failure of top-down attentional control over stress-induced automatic processing of threat-related information. In addition, stress-induced increased catecholamine influx into the PFC may directly compromise attentional function. Previous research has suggested that the ratio between resting state electroencephalographic (EEG) low- and high-frequency power (the theta/beta ratio) is related to trait attentional control, which might moderate these effects of stress on attentional function. The goals of the present study were to test the novel prediction that theta/beta ratio moderates the deleterious effects of CPA-like anxious stress on state attentional control and to replicate a previous finding that the theta/beta ratio is related to self-reported trait attentional control. After recording of baseline frontal EEG signals, 77 participants performed a stress induction or a control procedure. Trait attentional control was assessed with the Attentional Control Scale, whereas stress-induced changes in attentional control and anxiety were measured with self-report visual analogue scales. The hypothesized moderating influence of theta/beta ratio on the effects of stress on state attentional control was confirmed. Theta/beta ratio explained 28% of the variance in stress-induced deterioration of self-reported attentional control. The negative relationship between theta/beta ratio and trait attentional control was replicated (r = –.33). The theta/beta ratio reflects, likely prefrontally mediated, attentional control, and should be a useful biomarker for the study of CPA and other anxiety–cognition interactions.     

Examination stress, personality and self-reported physical symptoms

Thirty-nine undergraduate students were investigated to determine the effects of examination stress on self-reported physical symptoms and sensations. Testing was undertaken six weeks prior to a final examination (phase I), immediately after the written part of the examination was over (phase II), and 12–14 days afterwards, but before an oral examination (phase III). The results showed that examination stress was associated with an increase in state anxiety and self-reported physical symptoms with the exception of heart-complaints which showed a gradual decline over the three experimental phases. In phase III, all symptom measures showed a reduction below baseline levels and below the control group's levels. Correlation analyses revealed that symptom scores were associated with variables reflecting psychological vulnerability (e.g. Recent stress and Neuroticism) and dysphoric affect, especially anxiety. The results are discussed in light of theories of attribution, attentional focusing and phychophysiological activation.