The Relationship Between Automatic Thoughts and Irrational Beliefs Predicting Anxiety and Depression

Cognitive behavioral approaches differ in their views on core cognitions and their hypothesized role in the etiology of depression and anxiety. The present study provides empirical evidence regarding the relationship between irrational beliefs and components of automatic thoughts and their role in the etiology of depression and anxiety. The present study utilized newer and improved questionnaires to assess components of irrational belief. Based on prior research by Safren et al. (Cogn Ther Res 24(3):327–344, 2000), a three-factor structure of the combined automatic thought questionnaires were utilized to measure components of automatic thoughts as they relate to depression and anxiety. Factor analytical methods were utilized to confirm the factor structure of the irrational beliefs and automatic thoughts components. Advanced path modeling was utilized to model the relationship between irrational beliefs and automatic thoughts in predicting anxiety and depression. The study used a sample of N = 542 undergraduate psychology students during stressful exam times. Results indicated that the irrational belief Demandingness represents a primary factor, followed by the secondary irrational beliefs as proposed by Rational Emotive Behavioral Theory. Selfdowning beliefs were fully mediated by depressive automatic thoughts in the case of depressive affect. Low frustration tolerance contributed unique variance to anxious and depressive affect that was not fully mediated by automatic thoughts. Results from the present study add empirical evidence that irrational beliefs indeed represent core and intermediary beliefs that lead to specific automatic thoughts, which is congruent with cognitive behavioral theory as proposed by Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy.     

Powerless Men and Agentic Women: Gender Bias in Hiring Decisions

Sex Roles - We examined male power-roles as a potential moderator of gender bias in hiring decisions. Drawing from previous work on perceptions of agentic women and precarious manhood theory, we...     

Re-emergence of extinguished auditory-cued conditioned fear following a sub-conditioning procedure: effects of hippocampal and prefrontal tetanic stimulations

Post-extinction exposure of rats to a sub-conditioning procedure can evoke conditioned fear, which may correspond to fear return and/or fear learning potentiation. The aim of the present study was to clarify this issue and examine the effects of tetanic stimulation of the hippocampus (HPC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), two brain regions implicated in post-extinction modulation of conditioned fear. Rats were initially submitted to five tone-shock pairings with either a 0.7-mA or 0.1-mA shock. Tone-evoked freezing was observed only with the higher shock intensity, indicating that the 0.1-mA shock corresponded to a sub-conditioning procedure. All conditioned rats underwent fear extinction with 20 tone-alone trials. When retrained with the sub-conditioning procedure, they displayed again tone-evoked freezing, except when the initial tone was unpaired or a new tone was paired with the 0.1-mA shock, demonstrating fear return rather than fear learning potentiation. We also found that HPC and mPFC tetanic stimulations, applied 24h after the sub-conditioning procedure, similarly reduced this fear return. However, mPFC inactivation abolished temporary HPC tetanus effect, whereas HPC inactivation did not interfere with mPFC tetanus effect. These data confirm our previous findings and reveal the nature of HPC-mPFC interactions in post-extinction modulation of conditioned fear.     

Self-objectification and well-being in women's daily lives

Laboratory experiments and surveys show that self-objectification increases body shame, disrupts attention, and negatively predicts well-being. Using experience sampling methodology, the authors investigated self-objectification in the daily lives of 49 female college students. Building on the predictions of objectification theory, they examined associations between internalizing an observer's perspective on the self and psychological well-being, and examined the moderating roles of trait self-esteem and appearance-contingent self-worth. Within-person increases in self-objectification predicted decreased well-being, but this association was moderated by trait self-esteem and trait appearance-contingent self-worth; high self-esteem, highly appearance-contingent participants reported increased well-being when they self-objectified. Furthermore, perceived unattractiveness partially mediated the main effect and the three-way interaction: high self-esteem, highly contingent participants experienced smaller drops in well-being when they self-objectified, in part because they felt less unattractive. These results suggest that in daily life, some women receive a boost from self-objectification, although most women experience decreases in well-being when self-objectifying.     

Learned preferences induced by electrical stimulation of a food-related area of the parabrachial complex: effects of naloxone

Electrical stimulation of the External Lateral Parabrachial Subnucleus (LPBe), a food-related area, induced behavioral preferences for associated stimuli in a taste discrimination learning task. Although this stimulation appeared to be ineffective to elicit standard lever press self-stimulation, it induced place preference for one of two training compartments of a rectangular maze in which animals (adult male Wistar rats) received concurrent electrical brain stimulation. In subjects that consistently showed a preference behavior in different trials, administration of the opioid antagonist naloxone (4 mg/ml/kg) blocked concurrent learning when the test was made in a new maze but not in the same maze in which animals had learned the task. These results are discussed in terms of the possible participation of the LPBe subnucleus in different natural and artificial brain reward systems.     

Inferring the popularity of an opinion from its familiarity: a repetitive voice can sound like a chorus

Despite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is people's tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when perceivers are consciously aware that the opinions come from 1 speaker. The results also indicate that the effect is due to opinion accessibility rather than a conscious inference about the meaning of opinion repetition in a group. Implications for social consensus estimation and social influence are discussed.     

Phenomenology of Early Childhood Onset Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

This paper describes the phenomenological features of early childhood onset obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD; defined as children meeting DSM-IV criteria for OCD with age of onset <8 years). Fifty-eight children (ages 4–8) were included in the sample. OCD and comorbid diagnoses were determined by structured interview, and OCD severity was measured using the Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS). Mean age of OCD onset was almost five, and mean age of presentation was between 6 and 7. Mean symptom severity was in the moderately severe range. Comorbidity and family history of OCD were common. Contamination and aggressive/catastrophic obsessions and washing and checking compulsions were endorsed most frequently. Results indicate that early childhood onset OCD may have a lower boy to girl ratio and lower rates of depressive disorders, but may be similar to later childhood onset OCD in terms of OCD symptom presentation and severity.