Emotional Awareness in Daily Life: Exploring Its Potential Role in Repetitive Thinking and Healthy Coping

Cross-sectional research has found that emotional awareness, which is composed of one’s emotional clarity and attention to emotions, is associated with psychopathology, emotion regulation, and coping. Not surprisingly then, emotional awareness is often a target of cognitive and behavioral therapies. However, little is known about what emotional awareness is related to in daily life, which would inform how and for whom emotional awareness training should be conducted in therapeutic settings. The goal of the current studies was to examine associations among facets of emotional awareness and repetitive thinking (i.e., rumination, worry, and reflection), emotion regulation, and coping in daily life. We conducted two 7-day daily diary studies (n = 172 in Study 1, n = 211 in Study 2) measuring daily experiences of repetitive negative thinking, emotion regulation efforts, and coping. Multilevel models showed that trait levels of emotional clarity were negatively associated, at the between-person level, with daily levels of repetitive negative thinking and positively associated with active coping. Additionally, daily levels of emotional clarity were associated, at the within-person level, with worrying and active coping, whereas daily levels of attention to emotions were associated, at the within-person level, with reflection. Theoretical and clinical implications for emotional awareness, particularly emotional clarity, are discussed.     

Ecumenical epistemic instrumentalism

According to extant versions of epistemic instrumentalism, epistemic reasons are instrumental reasons. Epistemic instrumentalism is unpopular. I think it’s just misunderstood. Rather than saying epistemic reasons are instrumental reasons, epistemic instrumentalists should only say that if there is an epistemic reason, there is also an instrumental reason. This is the view I call ecumenical epistemic instrumentalism. In this paper, I first motivate, next sketch, and finally highlight the advantages of this version of epistemic instrumentalism.

     

The Relationship Between Mindfulness and Multicultural Counseling Competence

The authors examined the association between multicultural counseling competence (MCC) and mindfulness. Previous authors have maintained a conceptual link between MCC and mindfulness; however, this is the first empirical analysis of the relationship between MCC and mindfulness. Results revealed that, after race/ethnicity, multicultural course completion, and empathy were controlled, components of mindfulness were correlated with multicultural awareness and multicultural knowledge. These results have implications for counselor education, counseling practice, and future research.     

Herman Bavinck on the Image of God and Original Sin

The organic motif is Bavinck's preferred means to communicate creation's triune shape. An archetypal unity‐in‐diversity in the Godhead implies that creation displays an ectypal unity‐in‐diversity. This article argues that Bavinck's organic ontology provides him with a theological rationale for a doctrine of original sin in which the covenant headship of Adam reflects the organic character of humanity in unity and diversity. Thus, the transmission of original guilt on account of Adam's trespass is not a mere special ordinance by an inscrutable divine will, but an expression of humanity's organic shape. The article concludes by drawing some implications of Bavinck's construction for current discussion concerning original sin.     

Vivid: How valence and arousal influence word processing under different task demands

In this study, we used event-related potentials to examine how different dimensions of emotion—valence and arousal—influence different stages of word processing under different task demands. In two experiments, two groups of participants viewed the same single emotional and neutral words while carrying out different tasks. In both experiments, valence (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral) was fully crossed with arousal (high and low). We found that the task made a substantial contribution to how valence and arousal modulated the late positive complex (LPC), which is thought to reflect sustained evaluative processing (particularly of emotional stimuli). When participants performed a semantic categorization task in which emotion was not directly relevant to task performance, the LPC showed a larger amplitude for high-arousal than for low-arousal words, but no effect of valence. In contrast, when participants performed an overt valence categorization task, the LPC showed a large effect of valence (with unpleasant words eliciting the largest positivity), but no effect of arousal. These data show not only that valence and arousal act independently to influence word processing, but that their relative contributions to prolonged evaluative neural processes are strongly influenced by the situational demands (and by individual differences, as revealed in a subsequent analysis of subjective judgments).     

Use of Trauma‐Informed Care With Incarcerated Offenders

Regardless of preexisting trauma history, offenders regularly experience traumatic events while incarcerated. Current therapeutic approaches focus on coping skills and behavioral responses. The authors recommend integrating the use of trauma‐informed care to address the deeper emotional responses tied to trauma.     

Self-Construal and Forgiveness Revisited: Replication and Extension

Evidence suggests that people who have greater interdependent self-construal forgive others more often because they are motivated to forgive to maintain the relationship. Furthermore, such forgiveness might lead to greater emotional well-being. In this study, we examined the relationship between interdependent self-construal and (a) decisional forgiveness and (b) emotional well-being. We also tested models that included trait forgivingness and the motivation to forgive to maintain relationships. Results indicated that (a) trait forgivingness and relational motivations to forgive uniquely mediate the relationship between interdependent self-construal and decisional forgiveness and (b) trait forgivingness may be a pathway from interdependent self-construal to emotional well-being.     

Thomas Verner Moore and the electronic road to the unconscious: A reminiscence

A number of contemporary commentators and observers have urged a rapprochement between customary methods of psychoanalytic treatment and other modalities in order to shorten the traditional duration of “standard” psychoanalysis. In particular, adoption or adaptation of treatment modalities drawn from the repertoire of behavior therapy has been advocated. This note recalls that nearly 50 years ago the remarkable priest-psychologist-psychiatrist Thomas Verner Moore proposed in The Driving Forces of Human Nature and Their Adjustment, his capstone work, an “electronic road” to the unconscious via the psychogalvanometer as an alternate to the “royal road” of dream analysis and free association, attributing its development to von Stauffenberg, who demonstrated the technique in Munich between 1913-1915. By such reckoning, the union between psychoanalysis and the psychogalvanometer may be nearing its 85th anniversary.     

Limbic system dysfunction and inventoried psychopathology among incarcerated pedophiles

This study explored relationships between “highly probable” neuropathology in the limbic system (as gauged by clinically elevated scores on the Limbic System Check-list-33, or LSCL-33, a screening index for limbic system dysfunction developed by medical researchers at Harvard and Dartmouth) and inventoried psychopathology (as gauged through scores on the MMPI) among a group of adjudicated pedophiles incarcerated for treatment in a specialized prison for criminal sexual psychopaths in a mid-Atlantic state. Principal findings: Only 33 percent of this sample of incarcerated pedophiles exhibits scores on the LSCL-33 at a level high enough to warrant a medical conclusion of “probable” limbic system dysfunction. When scores on the MMPI are grouped according to critical values for clinically relevant scores on the LSCL-33, significant F ratios in one-way analyses of variance are observed on L, F, K, Hs, D, Hy, Pa, Pt, Sc, and Ma. Mean T scores for “probable” dysfunctionals simultaneously reach elevations at or above the threshold of clinical significance for Pd, Pa, and Sc. On that basis, the categorization psychopathic paranoid schizophrenia readily applies to limbic system dysfunctional child sexual abusers studied in this inquiry, but not to their nondysfunctional counterparts. But significant F ratios are observed neither for the age of the victim(s) in the instant offense(s), for the number of prior arrests for sex offenses, for the number of prior arrests for any and all felony offenses, including sex offenses, nor for the offender's current age. However, a stepwise multiple regression between gross number of prior arrests for any and all offenses (including sex offenses) as the most robust of the indices of past criminal activity and both LSCL-33 and MMPI scores across all offenders represented in this inquiry (i.e., the limbic system dysfunctional, the nondysfunctional, and a mid-range group) proceeds to four steps, achieving a multiple R of .575 and encompassing Pd, Mf, Pa, and LSCL-33 scores as the most efficient interactive post-dictive set. Stepwise multiple regression analyses of past arrest record computed independently for limbic system dysfunctionals and nondysfunctionals progresses among dysfunctionals to seven steps, achieving a multiple R of .867 and encompassing Pd, Hy, Ma, Mf, Si, Pa, and Sc scores as the most efficient interactive post-dictive set; and among nondysfunctionals, to six steps, achieving a multiple R of .797 and encompassing Mf, D, Pt, Hy, Pa, and over-controlled hostility scores as the most efficient interactive post-dictive set. The latter results are interpreted as suggesting that neuropathology and psychopathology interact with and potentiate each other in post-dicting criminal behavior among the pedophiles studied in this inquiry. This study was supported in part by the Fund for Correctional and Forensic Psychology, Rutgers University Foundation. The investigators express deep appreciation to Charles Albino for assis-tance in data collection.