阈下启动的恐惧和厌恶情绪对人际判断的影响

该研究通过两个实验,采用单因素的组间设计,探讨了阈下启动的恐惧情绪和厌恶情绪对人际判断的影响作用。研究结果显示:1)阈下呈现恐惧图片的情况下,被试认为随后的中性人物面孔图片表现出更多的攻击性和威胁性,相对于阈下呈现中性图片的条件;2)阈下呈现厌恶图片的情况下,被试认为人物随后的中性人物面孔图片表现出更多的无礼性和令人讨厌,相对于阈下呈现中性图片的条件。研究结果表明,在具体情绪的水平上,阈下情绪启动会影响被试随后的人际判断。     

越“八卦”越沉迷:人际好奇与大学生社交网站成瘾倾向的关系

本研究基于“使用与满足”理论和有限自制力理论,探讨人际好奇与大学生社交网站成瘾倾向的关系,并在此基础上建构了一个有调节的中介模型,考察错失恐惧的中介作用和特质自我控制的调节作用。采用方便抽样法对湖北省和河南省各一所综合性大学621名使用微信朋友圈或QQ空间的学生进行问卷调查,结果显示：（1）人际好奇与错失恐惧、社交网站成瘾倾向显著正相关,与特质自我控制显著负相关;错失恐惧与特质自我控制显著负相关,与社交网站成瘾倾向显著正相关;特质自我控制与社交网站成瘾倾向显著负相关;（2）错失恐惧在人际好奇与大学生社交网站成瘾倾向之间起中介作用,特质自我控制调节该中介路径的后半段。具体而言,相对于高特质自我控制的大学生,间接效应对于低特质自我控制的大学生更加显著。本研究结果揭示了人际好奇对大学生社交网站成瘾倾向的影响及其作用机制,对大学生社交网站成瘾的干预具有一定的指导意义。     

“In your head,zombie”: zombies,predation and memory

ABSTRACT

Imagining fictional creatures like zombies in survival situations boosts long-term memory for words encoded in these situations more than rating words for pleasantness (zombie effect). Study 1 required word-ratings in a zombie-survival scenario; participants were told they had to protect against either possible zombie attack or contamination. The zombie-survival situations yielded identical recall levels but higher recall rates than pleasantness. Study 2 matched a zombie-survival scenario on perceived fear with scenarios involving ghosts or predators. Perceived disgust in the zombie scenario was higher than in these other survival conditions. Words were remembered better when processed in survival scenarios than when rated for pleasantness, but there was no reliable difference in recall between the scenarios. In neither study did the number of death-related words produced in a word-fragment completion task fit the mortality salience account of the zombie memory effect. Overall findings suggest that this effect relates to the fear system.     

The anxiety disorder spectrum: Fear imagery,physiological reactivity,and differential diagnosis∗

Abstract

This review considers recent research assessing psychophysiological reactivity to fear imagery in anxiety disorder patients. As in animal subjects, fear cues prompt in humans a state of defensive motivation in which autonomic and somatic survival reflexes are markedly enhanced. Thus, a startle stimulus presented in a fear context yields a stronger (potentiated) reflex, providing a quantitative measure of fearful arousal. This fear potentiation is further exaggerated in specific or social phobia individuals when viewing pictures or imagining the phobic object. Paradoxically, fear imagery studies with more severe anxiety disorder patients – panic disorder with agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, or anxious patients with comorbid depression – show a blunted, less robust fear potentiated response. Furthermore, this reflex blunting appears to systematically be more pronounced over the anxiety disorder spectrum, coincident with lengthier chronicity, worsening clinician-based judgments of severity and prognosis, and increased questionnaire-based indices of negative affectivity, suggesting that normal defensive reactivity may be compromised by an experience of long-term stress.     

The contributions of arousal and self-focused attention to avoidance in social anxiety

Abstract

Fear of blushing is a specific syndrome generally subsumed under the diagnostic category of social anxiety disorder (SAD). This study aims at gathering preliminary data about an intensive weekend intervention specifically designed for individuals with fear of blushing as the predominant complaint. Treatment consisted of a combination of attention training and behavioral therapy. Thirty-one blushing-fearful individuals meeting the criteria for SAD following the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV) were treated in three groups. The study was conducted as an open trial. Full assessments were performed before treatment, six weeks after treatment, and at six-month follow-up. Only fear of blushing, the main outcome criterion, was assessed immediately before and after the treatment weekend. The intensive therapy program was well accepted. Fear of blushing and SAD were significantly reduced and reductions remained stable. At follow-up, nearly two-thirds of the participants achieved significant changes in fear of blushing. Despite the preliminary nature of this study, the condensed format of weekend therapy for treating fear of blushing calls for further investigation.     

Memories of Childhood Threat,Fear of Disclosure and Paranoid Ideation: A Mediation Analysis Using a Nonclinical Sample

This study investigated whether associations between childhood memories of threat and adult paranoia could be partially mediated by factors associated with impeded interpersonal communication (concealment and fear of disclosure of personal and distressing information). University undergraduates (N = 179) completed a battery of psychometric scales. Mediation analysis identified a direct effect between early memories of threat and paranoid ideation (B = 0.11, 95% CI = [0.07, 0.14], p = .00). A mediated effect between these variables was also significant (B = .05, 95% CI = [0.02, 0.07], p = .01). However, although significant associations were identified between memories of threat and each of the mediating variables (self-concealment, fear of self-disclosure, anxiety, depression) only fear of self-disclosure displayed a significant association with paranoid ideation (B = .05, 95% CI = [0.02, 0.07], p = .01).     

Optimism as a predictor of the effects of laboratory‐induced stress on fears and hope

The objective of the current study is to explore optimism as a predictor of personal and collective fear, as well as hope, following laboratory‐induced stress. Students (N = 107; 74 female, 33 male) were assigned randomly to either the experimental (stress—political violence video clip) or the control group (no‐stress—nature video clip). Questionnaires of fear and hope were administered immediately after the experiment (Time 1) and 3 weeks later (Time 2). Structural equation modeling indicated the following: (a) Optimism significantly predicted both fear and hope in the stress group at Time 1, but not in the no‐stress group. (b) Optimism predicted hope but not fear at Time 2 in the stress group. (c) Hope at Time 1 significantly predicted hope at Time 2, in both the stress and the no‐stress groups. (d) Gender did not predict significantly fear at Time 1 in the stress group, despite a significant difference between genders. This study supports previous studies indicating that optimism plays an important role in people's coping with stress. However, based on our research the data raise the question of whether optimism, by itself, or environmental stress, by itself, may accurately predict stress response.