Full statistical mediation of the relationship between trauma and depressive symptoms

Owing to the potentially devastating effects of trauma‐induced depression, explaining the relationship between trauma and depressive symptoms is important. In this study, we measured lifelong exposure to potentially traumatic events and depressive symptoms in 370‐female undergraduates. We also measured anxiety, past negative time perspective and dissociation as potential mediators. Trauma exposure and depressive symptoms were related with a small but significant effect size (r = .16). Trauma was not associated with dissociation. We found that past negative time perspective and anxiety were full statistical mediators of this trauma‐depressive symptoms relationship. These two mediators combined accounted for all of the variance in that association. Anxiety accounted for more of the variance than past negative time perspective. A proposed explanation is that trauma both affectively elevates anxiety and cognitively creates an enduring focus on the events. Chronic anxiety and a past negative time perspective may lead to depression over time. The clinical implications are possible explanations as to why some treatments work.     

Testing emotional memories: does negative emotional significance influence the benefit received from testing?

A large body of research shows that emotionally significant stimuli are better stored in memory. One question that has received much less attention is how emotional memories are influenced by factors that influence memories after the initial encoding of stimuli. Intriguingly, several recent studies suggest that post-encoding factors do not differ in their effects on emotional and neutral memories. However, to date, only detrimental factors have been addressed. In the present study, we examined whether emotionally negative memories are differentially influenced by a well-known beneficial factor: the testing of memories. We employed a standard cued recall testing-effect paradigm where participants studied cue-target pairs for negative and neutral target pictures. In a subsequent post-encoding phase, one third of the cue-target pairs were tested and one third restudied; the remaining third served as control pairs. After one week, memory for all cue-target pairs was tested. While replicating both the testing effect and the emotional enhancement effect, no differences between negative and neutral memories in the benefits received from testing and restudying were observed. Thus, it seems to be true that post-encoding factors do not influence emotional memories in any other way than neutral memories, even when they are beneficial.     

Customer reactions to encountering consecutive service failures

According to previous studies, many consumers in Taiwan have experienced consecutive service failures. Despite these failures, many consumers still remain loyal to a service provider for a variety of reasons, such as money deposits, contractual agreements, associated costs, time constrains, and health concerns. We attempt to investigate the emotional reactions and expectations of consumers after they have experienced two consecutive service failures. Our findings reveal that for high‐involvement services, although customers display strong negative emotional reactions after each service failure, the reaction to the second service failure is less intensive than that to the first one. Furthermore, our findings show that as long as the products or services remain in use, customers tend to retain high levels of expectation in regard to the service provider. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Maternal Expressive Style and Children's Emotional Development

Maternal expressive styles, based on a combination of positive and negative expressive patterns, were identified at two points in time and related to multiple aspects of preschool children's emotional development. Mother–child pairs from 260 families participated when the children were 3 years old, and 240 participated again at aged 4 years. Expressive styles were identified at age 3 using cluster analysis, replicated at age 4 and examined in relation to children's emotional understanding, expressiveness and regulation. Three expressive styles were identified: high positive/low negative, very low positive/average negative and average positive/very high negative. Cluster membership was stable in 63% of families from age 3 to 4 years; no systematic patterns of change were evident in the remaining families. Expressive style was related to aspects of children's emotional expression at 3 years and to emotion expression and regulation at 4 years. Children's expressiveness and regulation at age 3 were also related to changes in mothers' expressive styles over 1 year. Identifying mothers' expressive styles provides a unique way to understand the potential role of the emotional climates in which preschool‐aged children learn to express and regulate their own emotions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding alexithymia within a psychoanalytical framework

The object of this paper is to provide a metapsychological definition of alexithymia as described in 1967 in terms of operational thinking and negative hallucination. This is a familiar and established concept in the fields of psychopathology, psychology, and of clinical and psychosomatic medicine. From a psychoanalytic and psychosomatic point of view, the term is conceptually close to P. Marty's “operative thinking”, as described in 1963, even though we know they do not belong to the same epistemological field: on one hand Neuroscience, Psychiatry and the objectalization of the symptom at different levels, and on the other, as regards mechanical functioning, a psychoanalytic clinical approach within the dynamics of the relationship between transference and counter‐transference. The present authors consider that Freudian metapsychology, as now complexified by Andrè Green, allows for a metapsychological approach to alexithymia insofar as it relates to Marty's operative thinking. Thus does Green’s conceptualization of the mother’s negative hallucination, of negative introjection, of a psychically ‘dead (and insecure) mother’, now provide us with the opportunity to describe, in metapsychological terms, the genesis of this particular mode of psychical functioning. Given the mother’s negative hallucination produces a host structure as a background to negativity that will fit future object representations, we will assume that in the case of … future operational or alexithymic …?, this negative hallucination will pathologically and defensively involve the endo‐psychic perception of affect.     

Do aggressive driving and negative emotional driving mediate the link between impulsiveness and risky driving among young Italian drivers?

ABSTRACT

The present study examined the contribution of impulsiveness and aggressive and negative emotional driving to the prediction of traffic violations and accidents taking into account potential mediation effects. Three hundred and four young drivers completed self-report measures assessing impulsiveness, aggressive and negative emotional driving, driving violations, and accidents. Structural equation modeling was used to assess the direct and indirect effects of impulsiveness on violations and accidents among young drivers through aggressive and negative emotional driving. Impulsiveness only indirectly influenced drivers’ violations on the road via both the behavioral and emotional states of the driver. On the contrary, impulsiveness was neither directly nor indirectly associated with traffic accidents. Therefore, impulsiveness modulates young drivers’ behavioral and emotional states while driving, which in turn influences risky driving.     

The relationship of positive and negative expressiveness to the processing of emotion information

The tendency to express emotions non-verbally is positively related to perception of emotions in oneself. This study examined its relationship to perception of emotions in others. In 40 healthy adults, EEG theta synchronization was used to indicate emotion processing following presentation of happy, angry, and neutral faces. Both positive and negative expressiveness were associated with higher emotional sensitivity, as shown by cortical responses to facial expressions during the early, unconscious processing stage. At the late, conscious processing stage, positive expressiveness was associated with higher sensitivity to happy faces but lower sensitivity to angry faces. Thus, positive expressiveness predisposes people to allocate fewer attentional resources for conscious perception of angry faces. In contrast, negative expressiveness was consistently associated with higher sensitivity. The effects of positive expressiveness occurred in cortical areas that deal with emotions, but the effects of negative expressiveness occurred in areas engaged in self-referential processes in the context of social relationships.     

负性情绪在心理契约违背与反生产行为中的作用

为了探究反生产行为的产生机制,本研究采用问卷调查法,以“压力-情绪”模型为基础,使用相关分析以及线性回归分析等统计方法,考察了心理契约违背、负性情绪以及反生产行为之间的密切关系.结果发现,心理契约违背与负性情绪之间有显著的正相关,心理契约违背和负性情绪与反生产行为也具有显著的正相关关系,负性情绪在心理契约违背与反生产行为之间具有部分中介作用.     

Negative cognitive style and looming cognitive style synergistically predict stress generation

There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that cognitive vulnerabilities to depression or anxiety may lead individuals to generate negative interpersonal life events. However, there has been no study to date that examines the effects of co-occurring vulnerabilities to depression and anxiety. In a sample of 304 participants, we examined the potential interaction of co-occurring negative cognitive style, a vulnerability to depression and looming cognitive style, vulnerability to anxiety. Results indicate that co-occurring cognitive vulnerabilities synergistically predict higher levels of negative interpersonal life events six weeks later, even when controlling for initial levels of stressful life events and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Thus, co-occurring vulnerabilities may have stronger stress generating effects than would be expected from the additive effects of each vulnerability considered separately. This finding highlights the importance of examining cognitive vulnerabilities as interactive effects rather than as individual vulnerabilities.     

Vulnerability-specific stress generation: an examination of depressogenic cognitive vulnerability across multiple domains

Background and Objectives: Although there is supporting evidence for the stress generation hypothesis (i.e., the tendency for depression-prone individuals to experience more negative dependent events influenced by their behaviors and characteristics), additional research is required to advance current understanding of the specific types of dependent events relevant to this effect. The present study elaborated on the stress generation hypothesis, in which the content of negative dependent events experienced by individuals is contingent upon, and matches, the nature of their particular vulnerabilities. This extension was tested within the context of Cole's competency-based model of depression. Design: Participants (n = 185) were assessed at two time-points separated by a four-month interval. Methods: Self-perceived competence in academic, social, and appearance domains at the initial time-point were examined in relation to negative life events prospectively occurring over the four-month follow-up period, assessed using the “contextual threat” method. Results: Partial support was obtained for vulnerability-specific stress generation. Stress-generation specificity was found for self-perceived competence in appearance and academic domains, but not for self-perceived social competence. Conclusions: The current findings are consistent with the possibility of a more complex relation between self-perceived social competence and domain-congruent stress generation. Individuals may be more likely to experience negative dependent events in domains matching their specific vulnerabilities.