The Association of Negative Urgency with Psychological Distress: Moderating Role of Proactive Coping Strategies

Abstract

Negative urgency, which is the tendency to act impulsively under the influence of negative emotions, is a risk factor for various psychological disorders including anxiety and depression. In contrast, proactive coping is a future oriented coping strategy that aims to prepare the self for future stressors by reappraising the stressors as challenges or keep oneself prepared for impending losses. Although the effect of proactive coping and preventive coping strategies on reducing depression and anxiety has been consistently documented, the association of their interaction with risk factors received little attention. In the current study, the moderator roles of two dimensions of Proactive Coping strategies in the association of negative urgency with anxiety and depression, is examined. Data were collected from 404 individuals (255 women) aged 18 to 59 (M?=?31.29, SD = 11.70) through scales assessing negative urgency, proactive coping, anxiety and depression from a community sample. The results revealed that the interaction of proactive coping with negative urgency to be significantly associated with individual differences in depression scores, indicating that appraising the threats as challenges may have potential for buffering the effects of negative urgency on depression. However, a similar pattern was not observed for anxiety or preventive coping.     

Dialogical Temporal Chair Technique

ABSTRACT

The Dialogical Temporal Chair Technique (DTCT) is a method based on Hermans’s dialogical self theory combined with Gestalt and cognitive–behavioural therapeutic techniques. The Dialogical Temporal Chair Technique is a method of activating temporal voices. Three chairs symbolising the past, present and future are used to help subjects create a temporal dialogue. Participants are asked to take a specific I-position and to construct a temporal self-dialogue by changing chair (and hence I-position). The DTCT can be used to solve undefined problems or to explore new ways of thinking, but it may also be used to review important life decisions or enable integration of, or detachment from, ambivalent feelings and attitudes.     

Is knowledge of family history related to psychosocial functioning? Comparison of adolescents living in institutional care and adolescents living with their biological families

We tested adolescents growing up in institutional care and adolescents living with their birth families using the ‘Do you know?’ scale and other measures of psychosocial functioning. We found that children living in group homes knew significantly less of their family history, exhibited more behavioural problems and had a more external locus of control. Moreover, the correlations between self-esteem and knowledge of family history were significantly different between the groups. This may suggest that the contribution of the knowledge of family history to self-esteem is different depending on the quality of family history. We also found a significant correlation between locus of control and behavioural problems for the children in institutional care, but not children living with their birth families, which may indicate that their behavioural problems may partially stem from the sense of lack of control over their lives.     

Józef Tischner’s epistemology of “political reason” and the “ethics of truth”

Studies in East European Thought - That which connects ethics and epistemology is the concept of truth. The threads concerned with the ethical and epistemological understanding of truth are...