Intelligence and emotional disorders: Is the worrying and ruminating mind a more intelligent mind?

Previous research has shown that anxiety and depression symptoms are negatively associated with measures of intelligence. However, this research has often not taken state distress and test anxiety into account, and recent findings indicate possible positive relationships between generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), worry, and intelligence. The present study examined the relationships between GAD, depression, and social anxiety symptoms, as well as their underlying cognitive processes of worry, rumination, and post-event processing, with verbal and non-verbal intelligence in an undergraduate sample (N = 126). While the results indicate that verbal intelligence has positive relationships with GAD and depression symptoms when test anxiety and state negative affect were taken into account, these relationships became non-significant when overlapping variance was controlled for. However, verbal intelligence was a unique positive predictor of worry and rumination severity. Non-verbal intelligence was a unique negative predictor of post-event processing. The possible connections between intelligence and the cognitive processes that underlie emotional disorders are discussed.     

Worry and the anxiety disorders: A meta-analytic synthesis of specificity to GAD

Although worry is central to the diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), it is also commonly observed in other anxiety disorders. In this meta-analytic review, we empirically evaluated the extent to which worry is specific to GAD relative to patients with other anxiety disorders, those with other psychiatric disorders, and nonpsychiatric controls. A total of 47 published studies (N = 8,410) were included in the analysis. The results yielded a large effect size indicating greater severity/frequency of worry, meta-worry, and domains of worry among anxiety disorder patients v. nonpsychiatric controls (d = 1.64). In contrast to the many differences emerging from comparisons between anxiety disordered patients and nonpsychiatric controls, when anxiety disordered patients were compared to people with other psychiatric disorders they differed only on severity/frequency and not on meta-worry or domains of worry. A large effect size indicating greater severity/frequency of worry, meta-worry, and domains of worry among patients with GAD v. nonpsychiatric controls was also found (d = 2.05). However, differences between GAD and those with other psychiatric disorders also emerged for severity/frequency of worry. GAD was associated with greater worry difficulties than other anxiety disorders, which generally did not differ from those with other psychiatric disorders and each other. The implications of these findings for conceptualizing worry in GAD and other anxiety disorders, and the potentially moderating effects of age and gender are discussed.     

The Spanish validation of the Short Health Anxiety Inventory: Psychometric properties and clinical utility

Background/ObjectiveThe Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI) is a widely used self-report instrument to evaluate health anxiety. To assess the SHAI's factor structure, psychometric properties, and accuracy in differentiating Spanish non-clinical individuals from patients with severe health anxiety or hypochondriasis.MethodA total of 342 community participants (61.6% women; M_age = 34.60, SD = 14.91) and 31 hypochondriacal patients (51.6% women; M_age = 32.74, SD = 9.69) completed the SHAI and other self-reports assessing symptoms of hypochondriasis, depression, anxiety sensitivity, worry, and obsessive-compulsive.ResultsThe original two-factor structure was selected as the best structure, based on its parsimony and empirical support (Factor 1: Illness likelihood; Factor 2: Negative consequences of illness). Moreover, the Spanish version of the SHAI demonstrated good construct and concurrent and discriminant validity, and internal consistency. A cutoff of 40.5 (total score) accurately distinguished non-clinical individuals from patients with severe health anxiety or hypochondriasis.ConclusionsThe SHAI is an adequate screening instrument to measure health anxiety in Spanish-speaking community adults.     

Does Worrying Mean Caring Too Much? Interpersonal Prototypicality of Dimensional Worry Controlling for Social Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms

Worry, social anxiety, and depressive symptoms are dimensions that have each been linked to heterogeneous problems in interpersonal functioning. However, the relationships between these symptoms and interpersonal difficulties remain unclear given that most studies have examined diagnostic categories, not accounted for symptoms’ shared variability due to general distress, and investigated only interpersonal problems (neglecting interpersonal traits, interpersonal goals, social behavior in daily life, and reports of significant others). To address these issues, students (Study 1; N = 282) endorsed symptoms and interpersonal circumplex measures of traits and problems, as well as event-contingent social behaviors during one week of naturalistic daily interactions (N = 184; 7,036 records). Additionally, depressed and anxious patients (N = 47) reported symptoms and interpersonal goals in a dyadic relationship, and significant others rated patients’ interpersonal goals and impact (Study 2). We derived hypotheses about prototypical interpersonal features from theories about the functions of particular symptoms and social behaviors. As expected, worry was uniquely associated with prototypically affiliative tendencies across all self-report measures in both samples, but predicted impacting significant others in unaffiliative ways. As also hypothesized, social anxiety was uniquely and prototypically associated with low dominance across measures, and general distress was associated with cold-submissive tendencies. Findings for depressive symptoms provided less consistent evidence for unique prototypical interpersonal features. Overall, results suggest the importance of multimethod assessment and accounting for general distress in interpersonal models of worry, social anxiety, and depressive symptoms.     

A short form of the metacognitions questionnaire: properties of the MCQ-30

The metacognitions questionnaire (MCQ) measures individual differences in a selection of metacognitive beliefs, judgments and monitoring tendencies considered important in the metacognitive model of psychological disorders. The development and properties of a shortened 30-item version of the MCQ, the MCQ-30, are reported. Construct validity was evaluated by confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis. Overall, the fit indices suggested an acceptable fit to a five-factor model consistent with the original MCQ. Exploratory factor analysis supported a five-factor structure, which was almost identical to the original solution obtained in previous studies with the full MCQ. The five factors are cognitive confidence, positive beliefs about worry, cognitive self-consciousness, negative beliefs about uncontrollability of thoughts and danger, and beliefs about need to control thoughts. The MCQ-30 showed good internal consistency and convergent validity, and acceptable to good test-retest reliability. Positive relationships between metacognitions and measures of worry and obsessive-compulsive symptoms provided further support for the validity of the measure and the metacognitive theory of intrusive thoughts. The psychometric properties of MCQ-30 suggest that the instrument is a valuable addition to the assessment of metacognitions that has the advantage of being more economical to use compared with the original MCQ.     

Psychometric properties of a French version of the Implicit Theories of Emotion Scale

IntroductionInspired by Carol Dweck's work on naive theories of intelligence, the implicit theory of emotions refers to beliefs regarding the general functioning of emotions, specifically, their controllability. Some individuals view emotions as uncontrollable (entity theory), while others think that emotions can be modulated (incremental theory). These beliefs guide the emotional regulation strategies that individuals use and influence subjective well-being.ObjectiveThe present study explores the psychometric properties of the French version of the Implicit Theories of Emotion Scale developed by Tamir et al. (2007).MethodOne hundred seventy-seven participants aged 18 to 72 years old (M = 34 years old) completed the Implicit Theories of Emotion Scale in conjunction with two other questionnaires: subjective well-being and emotional regulation strategies.ResultsFactor analyses identified a one-dimensional structure; the internal reliability (alpha = .81) and test-retest reliability indices (r = .69) were satisfactory. The study replicated the main results of contemporary international studies concerning the mediating role of cognitive reappraisal and further documents the pivotal role of positive reappraisal in the association between implicit theories and well-being.ConclusionThe discussion highlights clinical and theoretical interests and the usefulness of the Implicit Theories of Emotion Scale.     

Effects of safety behaviors on fear reduction during exposure

The use of safety behaviors has been considered one of the primary maintaining mechanisms of anxiety disorders; however, evidence suggests that they are not always detrimental to treatment success (Milosevic & Radomsky, 2008). This study examined the effects of safety behaviors on behavioral, cognitive, and subjective indicators of fear during exposure for fear of spiders. A two-stage design was used to examine fear reduction and approach distance during an in vivo exposure task for participants (N = 43) assigned to either a safety behavior use (SBU) or no safety behavior use (NSB) condition. Overall, both groups reported significant and comparable reductions in self-reported anxiety and negative beliefs about spiders at posttest and 1-week follow-up. Participants in the SBU group approached the spider more quickly than did participants in the NSB condition; however, participants in the SBU condition showed a small but significant decrease in approach distance at follow-up. These results call for a reconceptualization of the impact of safety behaviors on in vivo exposure.     

Cognitions as mediators in the relationship between self-compassion and affect

Previous studies suggest that self-compassion is related to numerous facets of mental health, but the role of cognitions in this relationship remains unknown. To examine the mediating role of cognitions in the relationship between self-compassion and anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction when controlling for self-esteem in Japanese people, we conducted two studies. Study 1 (N = 231) examined the relationship between self-compassion and affect by modeling negative automatic thoughts as a mediator; Study 2 (N = 233) tested whether positive and negative automatic thoughts meditate this relationship. Results suggested that both self-compassion and self-esteem increased positive automatic thoughts and decreased trait anxiety, whereas only self-esteem increased life satisfaction and decreased depression directly. Positive automatic thoughts increased life satisfaction and decreased depression and trait anxiety, and positive automatic thoughts mediated the relationship between self-compassion and negative affect. These findings suggest that both positive and negative automatic thoughts mediate the relationship between self-compassion and affect in Japanese people.     

Skepticism: Genuine unbelief or implicit beliefs in the supernatural?

We examined whether skeptics hold implicit supernatural beliefs or implicit cognitive underpinnings of the beliefs. In study 1 (N = 57), participants read a biological or a religious story about death. The story content had no effect on skeptics’ (or believers’) afterlife beliefs. Study 2 examined the relationships between religious and non-religious paranormal beliefs and implicit views about whether supernatural and religious phenomena are imaginary or real (n1 = 33, n2 = 31). The less supernatural beliefs were endorsed the easier it was to connect “supernatural” with “imaginary”. Study 3 (N = 63) investigated whether participants’ supernatural beliefs and ontological confusions differ between speeded and non-speeded response conditions. Only non-analytical skeptics’ ontological confusions increased in speeded conditions. The results indicate that skeptics overall do not hold implicit supernatural beliefs, but that non-analytically thinking skeptics may, under supporting conditions, be prone to biases that predispose to supernatural beliefs.     

Validation of the Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for Children

While both shame and guilt are described as self-conscious emotions, they differ in many ways, including their contextual antecedents and their associations with mental health. A measure that distinguishes proneness to experience shame and guilt is crucial.In the present study we present a brief questionnaire to measure shame- and guilt-proneness in children using short concrete items. Specifically, we presented our 12-item Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire to Dutch (n = 219) 9–14 year-olds along with measures of internalizing problems (social anxiety, worry) and externalizing problems (aggression and conduct behavior). In addition to self-reports, teacher-reports on the externalizing problems were also collected. Results confirmed the two-factor structure, showed good psychometric properties of the two scales and a good concurrent validity. Specifically, shame-proneness contributed to the prediction of more internalizing problems and guilt-proneness contributed to the prediction of fewer externalizing problems. As such, the Brief Shame and Guilt Questionnaire for Children is a reliable and accessible instrument to administer in children.     

The role of intergroup disgust in predicting negative outgroup evaluations

We introduce intergroup disgust as an individual difference and contextual manipulation. As an individual difference, intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS) represents affect-laden revulsion toward social outgroups, incorporating beliefs in stigma transfer and social superiority. Study 1 (5 samples, N = 708) validates the ITG-DS scale. Higher ITG-DS scorers demonstrated greater general disgust sensitivity, disease concerns, authoritarian/conservative ideologies, and negative affect. Greater ITG-DS correlated with stronger outgroup threat perceptions and discrimination, and uniquely predicted negative outgroup attitudes beyond well-established prejudice-predictors. Intergroup disgust was experimentally manipulated in Study 2, exposing participants (n = 164) to a travel blog concerning contact with a disgust-evoking (vs. neutral) outgroup. Manipulated disgust generated negative outgroup evaluations through greater threat and anxiety. This mediation effect was moderated: Those higher (vs. lower) in ITG-DS did not experience stronger disgust, threat, or anxiety reactions, but demonstrated stronger translation of aversive reactions (especially outgroup threat) into negative attitudes. Theory development and treatment implications are considered.     

Attitudes towards obesity in the Swedish general population: The role of one's own body size,weight satisfaction,and controllability beliefs about obesity

This study examined the associations of different socio-demographic and psychological factors with attitudes towards obesity. Individuals with different weight status (N = 2436) were drawn from an annual population-based survey in Sweden, and data on attitudes towards obesity (ATOP) and predictor variables were assessed in 2008. The strongest predictor of ATOP was controllability beliefs about obesity (β = 0.83). Thus, greater controllability beliefs about obesity predicted more negative attitudes. Sex and weight satisfaction were also independently associated with ATOP. However, there was no, or only a weak, association between weight satisfaction and ATOP among individuals with normal weight or overweight. And the higher the weight satisfactions of individuals with obesity, the more positive were their attitudes. It seems that stigma-reduction strategies in the general public should address the uncontrollable factors in the aetiology of obesity. However, more research is needed to understand the underlying causes of people's attitudes towards obesity.     

Time Course of Attention in Socially Anxious Individuals: Investigating the Effects of Adult Attachment Style

Theoretical models of social anxiety propose that attention biases maintain symptoms of social anxiety. Research findings regarding the time course of attention and social anxiety disorder have been mixed. Adult attachment style may influence attention bias and social anxiety, thus contributing to the mixed findings. This study investigated the time course of attention toward both negative and positive stimuli for individuals diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and assessed whether attachment style moderates this relationship.One hundred and thirty participants (age: M = 29.03) were assessed using a semistructured clinical interview. Those meeting eligibility criteria for the clinical sample met DSM-IV criteria for SAD (n = 90, age: M = 32.18), while those in the control sample did not meet criteria for any mental disorder (n = 23, age: M = 26.04, 11 females). All participants completed self-report measures examining depression, social anxiety, adult attachment style, and completed an eye-tracking task used to measure the time course of attention. Eye-tracking data were analysed using growth curve analysis.The results indicate that participants in the control group overall displayed greater vigilance towards emotional stimuli, were faster at initially fixating on the emotional stimulus, and had a greater percentage of fixations towards the emotional stimulus as the stimulus presentation time progressed compared to those in the clinical group. Thus, the clinical participants were more likely to avoid fixating on emotional stimuli in general (both negative and positive) compared to those in the control group.These results support the Clark and Wells (1995) proposal that socially anxious individuals avoid attending to emotional information. Attachment style did not moderate this association, however anxious attachment was related to greater vigilance toward emotional compared to neutral stimuli.     

Electrocortical Evidence of Enhanced Performance Monitoring in Social Anxiety

Self-focused attention is thought to be a key feature of social anxiety disorder. Yet few studies have used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine whether socially anxious individuals display greater monitoring of their performance and attention to their errors. Similarly, only a few studies have used ERPs to examine how social anxiety is related to processing of performance feedback. Individuals with high (n = 26) and low (n = 28) levels of social anxiety completed a trial-and-error learning task. Self-focus was manipulated using false heart-rate feedback during a random subset of trials. Performance feedback was given using emotional and neutral faces in a positive context (correct = happy face; incorrect = neutral face) and negative context (correct = neutral face; incorrect = disgust face) in order to investigate biased interpretation and attention to feedback. Socially anxious subjects displayed enhanced amplitude of the ERN and CRN, suggesting greater response monitoring, and enhanced Pe amplitude, suggesting greater processing of errors relative to the low social anxiety group. No group differences were observed with respect to feedback processing. Before learning stimulus–response mappings in the negative context, the FRN was larger for self-focus compared to standard trials and marginally larger for socially anxious subjects compared to controls. These findings support cognitive models and suggest avenues for future research.     

Metacognitions,intolerance of uncertainty and worry: An investigation in adolescents

BackgroundCognitive models of Generalized Anxiety Disorder have mainly been tested in adult samples to date. Studies investigating whether the concepts are also applicable to worry in adolescents are largely lacking. The goal of the present study was to test the relationship between worry and key cognitive variables (positive and negative metacognitions; intolerance of uncertainty) in adolescents.MethodSecondary school students (N = 521) completed self-report measures of worry frequency, metacognitions, intolerance of uncertainty, and depression.ResultsResults showed a significant association between metacognitions, intolerance of uncertainty and worry, even after controlling for depression. In regression analyses, a substantial proportion of the variance of worry could be accounted for by the cognitive variables of interest.ConclusionsThe findings support the relevance of metacognitions and intolerance of uncertainty for understanding cognitive mechanisms underlying worry in adolescents. It appears useful to combine them into a more comprehensive integrated model.     

Involuntary future projections are as frequent as involuntary memories,but more positive

Mental time travel (MTT) is the ability to mentally project oneself into one’s personal past or future, in terms of memories of past events or projections of possible future events. We investigated the frequency and valence of involuntary (spontaneously arising) MTT in the context of high trait worry. High (N = 18) and low (N = 16) worriers recorded the frequency and valence of involuntary memories and future projections using a structured notebook and completed measures probing individual differences related to negative affectivity. Involuntary future projections were as frequent as involuntary memories. We found a positivity bias for both past and future MTT, in that fewer negative events were reported than positive or neutral ones. This positivity bias was greater for future than for past events. Individual differences related to negative affectivity were positively associated with the proportion of negative events, indicating a reduced positivity bias in individuals with a general tendency to experience negative affect.     

Développement d’une échelle de mesure des conditions de l’estime de soi auprès d’adolescents francophones – ÉMCESA

This article presents the findings of three studies aiming to develop and validate a French-language scale of adolescents’ self-esteem conditions, the Adolescents’ Self-Esteem Conditions Scale (ASECS). Designed for young people from the beginning to the end of adolescence, the 30-item scale measures to which extent youths base their self-esteem on positive and negative events related to their social acceptance, physical appearance, sportive and athletic performance, body weight and academic achievement. In the first study, the ASECS was administered to a sample of 431 francophone students from grade 7th to grade 11th. Seven weeks later, 372 of these students were invited to answer the questionnaire once more. Exploratory factor analysis yielded five factors with high internal consistency and strong test-retest reliability. In the second study, the five-factor model was confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis on data from 1523 francophone 7th–11th graders. Finally, finding from the third study (n = 344) demonstrated the instrument's convergent validity. The results from the three studies establish the ASECS’ strong psychometric properties. The discussion focuses on its usefulness in research and intervention among adolescents.     

French validation of the 7-item Game Addiction Scale for adolescents

IntroductionThe Game Addiction Scale (GAS: Lemmens, Valkenburg, & Peter, 2008, 2009) is a short instrument (7-item) for evaluating video game playing by adolescents.ObjectiveThe aim of the current research was to investigate the psychometric properties of a French version of the 7-item Game Addiction Scale for adolescents.MethodTwo studies were conducted with two samples of French adolescents between the ages of 10 and 18 (study 1: n = 159; study 2: n = 306). First, we examined the factor structure and internal consistency. Second, we added a concurrent validity analysis with estimation of the daily time spent playing video games and an assessment of depression and anxiety.ResultsIn both studies, the factor analysis revealed a one-factor structure that had good psychometric properties and fit the data well. The analysis also confirmed good internal consistency of the scale. Correlation analysis in the second study showed that the GAS score had significant positive relationships with the time spent playing video games, depression, anxiety, and the fact of being a boy, thereby supporting the concurrent validity of the scale.ConclusionThis French version of the GAS seems to be a reliable tool for identifying and assessing problematic use of video games.     

The influence of trait affect and the five-factor personality model on impulse buying

Research into the influence of affect on impulse buying has to date produced contradictory results, partly due to confusion between the potentially discrete influences of, respectively, state and trait affect. Additionally, studies on how the five-factor personality model’s dimensions influence impulse buying have also produced contradictory results. Moreover, while the established link between trait affect and personality suggests dimensions of this latter could account for whatever influence the former has on impulse buying, no study has yet attempted to examine this possibility. We draw on self-regulation theory to examine three unanswered questions: (1) the extent to which trait affect influences impulse buying whilst controlling for state affect; (2) establish which dimensions of the five-factor personality model predict impulse buying; and (3) test whether or not any influence of trait affect on impulse buying is additive to the effects of the five-factor personality model. Analyses of cross-sectional data (n = 842) find that trait affect does have a significant (p < .05) influence on impulse buying controlling for state affect, but that this influence is fully accounted for by the five-factor personality model (p < .001), the extraversion, conscientiousness and neuroticism dimensions of which are found consistently to predict impulse buying.     

The effect of baby books on mothers' reading beliefs and reading practices

The impact of a baby book intervention on promoting positive reading beliefs and increasing reading frequency for low-income, new mothers (n = 167) was examined. The Baby Books Project randomly assigned low-income, first-time mothers to one of three study conditions, receiving educational books, non-educational books, or no books, during pregnancy and over the first year of parenthood. Home-based data collection occurred through pregnancy until 18 months post-partum. Mothers who received free baby books had higher beliefs about the importance of reading, the value of having resources to support reading, and the importance of verbal participation during reading. The results showed that providing any type of baby books to mothers positively influenced maternal reading beliefs, but did not increase infant-mother reading practices. Maternal reading beliefs across all three groups were significantly associated with self-reported reading frequency when children were at least 12 months of age.