Individual differences in cognitive control over emotional material modulate cognitive biases linked to depressive symptoms

Deficient cognitive control over emotional material and cognitive biases are important mechanisms underlying depression, but the interplay between these emotionally distorted cognitive processes in relation to depressive symptoms is not well understood. This study investigated the relations among deficient cognitive control of emotional information (i.e. inhibition, shifting, and updating difficulties), cognitive biases (i.e. negative attention and interpretation biases), and depressive symptoms. Theory-driven indirect effect models were constructed, hypothesising that deficient cognitive control over emotional material predicts depressive symptoms through negative attention and interpretation biases. Bootstrapping analyses demonstrated that deficient inhibitory control over negative material was related to negative attention bias which in turn predicted a congruent bias in interpretation and subsequently depressive symptoms. Both shifting and updating impairments in response to negative material had an indirect effect on depression severity through negative interpretation bias. No evidence was found for direct effects of deficient cognitive control over emotional material on depressive symptoms. These findings may help to formulate an integrated understanding of the cognitive foundations of depressive symptoms.     

Emotion recognition training using composite faces generalises across identities but not all emotions

Many cognitive bias modification (CBM) tasks use facial expressions of emotion as stimuli. Some tasks use unique facial stimuli, while others use composite stimuli, given evidence that emotion is encoded prototypically. However, CBM using composite stimuli may be identity- or emotion-specific, and may not generalise to other stimuli. We investigated the generalisability of effects using composite faces in two experiments. Healthy adults in each study were randomised to one of four training conditions: two stimulus-congruent conditions, where same faces were used during all phases of the task, and two stimulus-incongruent conditions, where faces of the opposite sex (Experiment 1) or faces depicting another emotion (Experiment 2) were used after the modification phase. Our results suggested that training effects generalised across identities. However, our results indicated only partial generalisation across emotions. These findings suggest effects obtained using composite stimuli may extend beyond the stimuli used in the task but remain emotion-specific.     

Present Bias and Everyday Self‐Control Failures: A Day Reconstruction Study

Everyday life is full of self‐control problems. The economist's favorite explanation for self‐control problems is present bias. This paper tests whether experimentally elicited present bias predicts self‐control problems in everyday life. We measure present bias by using a standard incentivized delay discounting task and everyday self‐control by using the day reconstruction method (DRM). Because this is the first study to measure everyday self‐control by using the DRM, we also validate the method by showing that its data replicate key results from the seminal Everyday Temptation Study. We find that present bias does not predict everyday self‐control. This points to a distinction between decreasing impatience (as measured in delay discounting tasks) and visceral influences (as occurring in everyday life) as determinants of self‐control problems. We argue that decision making research can benefit from the DRM as a cost‐effective tool that complements lab and field experiments to better understand economic preference measures and their correlates in everyday life decision making. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Defining agency after implicit bias

Recent findings in empirical psychology show that implicit biases can affect behavior in ways that are difficult to control deliberatively. Doris argues that findings like these constitute a threat to agency, if agency is defined as the ability to reflectively, deliberatively direct one’s actions. I argue, however, that implicit biases pose no fundamental threat to agency since they can be brought under indirect deliberative control, whereby deliberative, reflective actions put in place automatic processes that automatically inhibit unwanted biases. Since automatic processes can be thus used to achieve deliberatively, reflectively endorsed goals, agency should be defined as the ability to act in line with reflectively endorsed goals, whether by deliberative or automatic processes.     

Behaving Optimistically: How the (Un)Desirability of an Outcome Can Bias People's Preparations for It

Past research on the desirability bias and on bracing for bad news has focused on the potential influence of outcome desirability on people's stated expectations. The present studies examined its influence on behavior—that is, what is done in anticipation of, or preparation for, an uncertain outcome. In five studies, the desirability of possible outcomes for an event, which was uncertain and uncontrollable by the participant, was manipulated, and preparation behavior was measured. Study 1 used a hypothetical‐events paradigm. Studies 2 and 3 involved a computer activity in which behavior was tracked on a trial‐by‐trial basis. In Studies 4 and 5, the uncertain event was the ending of a videotaped basketball game. Rather than exhibiting bracing or a reluctance to tempt fate, participants tended to behave in a manner consistent with an optimistic desirability bias. In a subset of studies, predictions and likelihood judgments were also solicited; the differential effects of outcome desirability on these measures are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does a person selectively recall the good or the bad from their personal past? It depends on the recall target and the person’s favourability of self-views

In three studies, participants remembered real-life behaviours at Time 1 and attempted to recall them at Time 2. When the recall target was the self, a positivity bias emerged: self-positivity. In Study 3, self-positivity extended to an individual (target) who was liked by the participant, but did it not extend to a disliked target. For this latter target, a negativity bias emerged. For recall targets that were participants’ acquaintances, self-positivity in recall was also eliminated in Studies 1 and 3, and a negativity bias in recall emerged in Study 2. Finally, in Study 2 (but not Study 3), the favourability of participants’ self-view predicted the magnitude of the self-positivity in self-recall, but it did not predict valence effects in other-recall. Taken together, the results indicate that the link between behaviour valence and recall is moderated by the recall target and the favourability of one’s self-view.     

Expanding Diversity: Noncategorical Inclusion and Equity

Contemporary public policy and laws give strong support to equal protection and civil rights. This article argues that a modern society and each person therein should cultivate qualities in one’s self and others that will promote inclusion and equity to continually reduce and eventually eliminate unjust bias, prejudice, and discrimination (albeit perhaps an “impossible dream”). To date, equal protection has depended primarily on governmental regulations based on categorization of human factors. It is argued that everyone, particularly those persons granted “professional” status in society, should aspire for self-concept features that will move toward adopting and expanding inclusion to eliminate the need for categorization per se. Rather than diversity per se, inclusion and equity have contemporary support for better obtaining the personal and social values that can reduce bias, discrimination, and prejudice. It is recommended that interventions be directed at the structural, institutionalized, and close-minded barriers that exist in individual and collective decision making.     

疼痛恐惧相关的注意偏向及其矫正

疼痛恐惧是影响和维持慢性痛的重要因素。不同材料和被试类型情况下, 疼痛恐惧均主要作用于个体对疼痛相关信息的早期注意加工阶段, 表现为注意警觉模式。该注意模式使个体将注意维持在疼痛上, 从而干扰了对非疼信息的注意能力。矫正疼痛恐惧相关注意偏向可以改善疼痛体验。未来研究应采用更具生态效度的任务测量疼痛恐惧相关的注意偏向及其神经基础, 进一步考察矫正疼痛恐惧相关注意偏向能否改善慢痛患者的忧郁和功能丧失等问题。     

不安全依恋者注意偏向的形成机制及神经基础

不安全依恋者的注意偏向是指依恋焦虑和回避个体对依恋信息产生或趋近或回避的注意偏好, 这一注意偏好使得个体形成了处理与依恋对象关系的特殊认知机制：依恋回避个体偏好采用防御性机制, 倾向于回避对依恋信息的注意; 依恋焦虑个体偏好采用夸大性机制, 倾向于夸大威胁性信息, 因而会积极寻求与依恋对象的亲近。不安全依恋者注意偏向的差异主要体现在情绪信息、痛觉感受和工作记忆三个方面; 加工阶段特征主要涉及P1、N1波等代表的注意自动加工和LPP波代表的注意控制加工; 脑网络上主要包括两个子网络, 即负责情绪评估的边缘系统和负责情绪调节的以前额叶为代表的神经网络。未来研究中更应该关注刺激物的生态效度, 检验依恋系统是否激活, 不安全依恋者注意偏向的自动加工和控制加工阶段的关系, 不安全依恋者注意偏向产生的分子遗传机制以及注意偏向的跨文化研究。     

气质性乐观的正性偏向及其神经生理研究证据

气质性乐观是对未来的总体的积极期待。乐观能够带给个体诸多好处, 如有利于提高身体健康, 提高幸福感, 促进成功等等, 究其原因可能是乐观者存在正性偏向。这一偏向主要体现在注意、知觉、记忆、解释风格、应对策略的选择、情绪、期待及动机方面。而乐观者正性偏向产生的神经生理机制可能与前扣带回喙部、前额叶皮质的激活水平变化有关。未来研究可将乐观的核心--期待--作为重点, 整合期待−价值理论、人格理论与神经基础来进一步探讨乐观的心理机制。