Creative ways to well-being: Reappraisal inventiveness in the context of anger-evoking situations

Neuroscientific studies in the field of creativity mainly focused on tasks drawing on basic verbal divergent thinking demands. This study took a step further by investigating brain mechanisms in response to other types of creative behavior, involving more “real-life” creativity demands in the context of emotion regulation and well-being. Specifically, functional patterns of EEG alpha activity were investigated while participants were required to generate as many and as different ways as possible to reappraise presented anger-eliciting situations in a manner that reduces their anger. Cognitive reappraisal involves some of the same cognitive processes as in conventional verbal creativity tasks, inasmuch as it requires an individual to inhibit or disengage from an emotional event, to shift attention between different perspectives, and to flexibly adopt new solutions. To examine whether alpha oscillations during cognitive reappraisal are different from those during conventional creative ideation, the EEG was also assessed during performance of the Alternative Uses task, requiring individuals to generate as many and as original uses of an object as possible. While cognitive reappraisal was associated with a similar pattern of alpha power as observed in conventional verbal creative ideation, the former yielded significantly stronger alpha power increases at prefrontal sites, along with lower alpha increases at more posterior cortical sites, indicating higher cognitive control and less spontaneous imaginative thought processes in the generation of effective strategies to regulate an ongoing negative emotional state.     

RECONNECTING SCIENCE AND SPIRITUALITY: TOWARD OVERCOMING A TABOO

Abstract. We argue that reconnecting science and spirituality yields the best rational understanding of the world. Spirituality is seen as the core of many religions. Distinctions are drawn between science and scientism and between spirituality and religion. A historical analysis provides a partial explanation of scientists' aversion to religion. A thought experiment illustrates that spirituality could not only be a legitimate research topic of science but also inform science by offering certain insights. Specifically, science could and should more freely study spirituality in its beneficial impact on individuals' attempts to attain personal wholeness, overcome substance abuse, achieve a more communal society, and safeguard the environment.     

Changes of attachment status among women with personality disorders undergoing inpatient treatment

Background: Attachment has increasingly received attention in psychotherapy and has been used as a predictor of process and outcome. Studies investigating changes of attachment styles during psychotherapy are very rare. Method: Forty women with either borderline (BPD) or avoidant personality disorders (AVPD), treated as inpatients, were investigated using an attachment interview (interpersonal relations assessment (IRA)), and questionnaires to determine therapy outcome at the beginning and after seven weeks of therapy. The IRA uses similar questions as the adult attachment interview (AAI) and is used as the basis for the adult attachment prototype rating (AAPR), a procedure to assign individuals to prototypical categories of attachment. Results: The study showed that the therapy in general was effective. In contrast to other studies, we did not find many women classified as secure at the end of their therapy. Comparisons of pre‐post‐ratings revealed instead that clients within both subgroups received higher ratings for the avoidant prototypes at the end of therapy, indicating deactivation of attachment. Changes from ambivalent to avoidant attachment were linked with better outcome among women with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Conclusions: This study adds further evidence to the result that attachment styles do not change dramatically during a time‐limited psychological treatment of personality disorder. Instead, the study showed that features of preoccupied/ambivalent attachment were less significant after seven weeks of therapy. For women with BPD, these changes were linked with a more favourable outcome which might reflect a more structured and deactivated attachment status as a result of inpatient therapy.     

Emotional processing in psychopathic personality

Emotional‐processing deficits may be one of the characteristic features of impaired affect in individuals with psychopathy. These include shallowness and profound lack of remorse or empathy. Performances on standardized emotion discrimination tasks and mood induction tasks were compared between 17 patients with antisocial personality disorder (DSM‐IV) and 17 nonpsychopaths. Subjects with psychopathic personality demonstrated poorer performance on emotion‐discrimination tasks compared with controls. However, higher scores on factor “emotional detachment” of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL‐R) were associated with better discrimination ability. Subjective ratings were comparable between groups during mood induction. Although the findings support the hypothesis of a significant association between impaired emotional processing and psychopathy, they also suggest a relationship between emotional discrimination and the core personality features of psychopathy. Aggr. Behav. 28:394–400, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Creative Thinking in an Emotional Context: Specific Relevance of Executive Control of Emotion-Laden Representations in the Inventiveness in Generating Alternative Appraisals of Negative Events

Although divergent thinking ability in different domains may largely rely on the same basic executive functions, domain-specific functions may also be important, in particular when it comes to more real-life creativity demands. This study investigated if functional executive control of emotion-laden representations may be specifically relevant in cognitive reappraisal, which implies being creative in an affective context. In a sample of 88 healthy individuals, the relation between the participants’ inventiveness in generating positive reappraisals of adverse events (Reappraisal Inventiveness Test) and in generating novel ideas without emotional component (conventional divergent thinking test) to their executive functioning in tasks without (Mittenecker Pointing Test) and with emotional contribution (humor processing task) was studied. In line with hybrid models of creative thinking, poorer basic inhibition skills were found to be associated with poorer fluency performance in both divergent thinking tasks. Relations applied more specifically to reappraisal inventiveness when it came to executive processes with a more prominent emotional component. Creative performance in both tasks may have been hampered by time limits. The results support the notion that, in addition to basic executive functioning, more specific cognitive control functions are implicated in more real-life creative performance, according to related domain-specific demands.