Skin conductance responses as predictor of emotional responses to stressful life events

Preferential preattentive processing towards threat has been proposed to play a casual role in the development of anxiety, mainly because it reliably predicts emotional responding to stressful events. However, in the investigation of the predictive value of preferential preattentive processing towards threat, the emotional Stroop task has exclusively being used. This study was designed to prospectively investigate the predictive value of skin conductance reactivity in response to masked (i.e., preattentively perceived) threatening pictures on emotional responding following stressful life events. To collect skin conductance data, the picture perception task was administered to 136 police recruits due to enroll into active duty within 2-4 months. To assess psychological distress following emotionally stressful life events, the impact of event scale were administered approximately 24 months later. Controlling for trait anxiety, analyses indicated that enhanced skin conductance reactivity in response to masked threatening pictures (relative to neutrals) was a strong predictor of emotional responding to stressful life events. This finding support preferential preattentive processing towards threat as a relatively independent factor predictive of emotional responding.     

Explicit and implicit cognition: a preliminary test of a dual-process theory of cognitive vulnerability to depression

Two studies were conducted to test a dual-process theory of cognitive vulnerability to depression. According to this theory, implicit and explicit cognitive processes have differential effects on depressive reactions to stressful life events. Implicit processes are hypothesized to be critical in determining an individual's immediate affective reaction to stress whereas explicit cognitions are thought to be more involved in long-term depressive reactions. Consistent with hypotheses, the results of study 1 (cross-sectional; N=237) showed that implicit, but not explicit, cognitions predicted immediate affective reactions to a lab stressor. Study 2 (longitudinal; N=251) also supported the dual-process model of cognitive vulnerability to depression. Results showed that both the implicit and explicit measures interacted with life stress to predict prospective changes in depressive symptoms, respectively. However, when both implicit and explicit predictors were entered into a regression equation simultaneously, only the explicit measure interacted with stress to remain a unique predictor of depressive symptoms over the five-week prospective interval.     

抑郁的人格易感性：概念、理论与发展

抑郁人格易感性的研究主要围绕依赖-自我批评,社会性依赖-自主以及完美主义等概念展开。目前该方向的理论和研究不仅涉及抑郁易感人格的特点与结构,还探讨了人格与压力情境、抑郁的关系,易感人格与一般人格、特定抑郁症状的关系,人格易感性的不适应性本质等问题,文章对此进行了回顾。今后的研究除了应当在已有方向上深入探究之外,还应当考虑在不同文化背景下对人格易感性采用自下而上的方式重新考察,以及将人格与认知易感性研究相结合等新思路     

Empathy,Respect, and Vulnerability

ABSTRACT

This paper reconsiders Heather Battaly’s argument that empathy is not a virtue. Like Battaly, I argue that empathy is a disposition that includes elements of virtue acquisition, but is not in itself a virtue in the Aristotelian sense. Unlike Battaly, however, I propose a distinction between care and respect. Drawing on Darwall’s view of recognition respect as well as on phenomenologically inspired views of empathy, I argue that respect can be regarded as the moral feeling that is distinctive of empathy. In my view, the feeling of respect towards another’s situated experience grants epistemic dignity, which is the recognition of the intrinsic significance of subjective experience. By way of conclusion, I suggest that the relation between empathy and respect can be relevant for an account of vulnerability that is not opposed to autonomy.     

The Interactive Role of Anxiety Sensitivity and Pubertal Status in Predicting Anxious Responding to Bodily Sensations among Adolescents

The present study examined the interaction between pubertal status and anxiety sensitivity (AS) in predicting anxious and fearful responding to a three-minute voluntary hyperventilation challenge among 124 (57 females) adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 years (Mage = 15.04; SD = 1.49). As predicted, after controlling for baseline anxiety, age, and gender, there was a significant interaction between pubertal status and AS in predicting anxious responding to bodily sensations to the hyperventilation challenge. Specifically, adolescents reporting more advanced pubertal status and higher levels of AS reported the greatest post-challenge self-reported anxiety focused on bodily sensations, whereas pubertal status had relatively less of an effect on low AS adolescents. A test of specificity also was conducted; as expected, the interaction between AS and pubertal status was unrelated to generalized negative affectivity, suggesting the predictor variables interact to confer specific risk for anxious responding to bodily sensations. Finally, exploratory analyses of psychophysiological reactivity to the challenge indicated AS, but not pubertal status, moderated the relation between challenge-related change in heart-rate and post-challenge anxiety such that high AS youth who had experienced a relatively greater heart-rate change reported the most anxious reactivity to the challenge. Results are discussed in relation to theory regarding vulnerability to anxious responding to bodily sensations among adolescents.     

Biomedical research and mining of the poor: The need for their exclusion

Almost all ethical guidelines and legislative policies concerning biomedical research involving human subjects contain provisions about relevance of research for the participating populations, informed consent, adequate care for research induced injuries and several other safeguards but the poor continue to suffer. Globalization has further aggravated poor people’s vulnerability by exposing them to international markets. Since the developing countries are abode of higher population of the poor they have become the unholy mines of this human ore for researchers. In this paper I examine various dimensions of poverty and analyze the international ethical responses in the area of biomedical research involving human subjects in order to determine their adequacy to protect the poor against exploitation and misuse and conclude that in view of the poor’s inherent and extreme vulnerability and the failure of ethical pronouncements to protect them from misuse and exploitation, they should be excluded from being enrolled as research subjects This paper was presented at the 6th International Bioethics Conference on the subject of ‘The Responsible Conduct of Basic and Clinical Research’, held in Warsaw, Poland, 3–4 June 2005.     

Amalia X: dialogical sequence analysis as a method in theory-based single case research in psychoanalysis

In this article, Dialogical sequence analysis (DSA) is introduced as a method in theory-based single case research. The structure of article is as follows: first, we will describe briefly the historical background of single case studies and their position as the foundation of psychoanalytic knowledge formation. Secondly, we will describe through Amalia X’s case how one psychoanalytic ‘specimen case’ has been used as a cornerstone for a comprehensive psychoanalytic process research model, the so called ‘Ulm model’. Amalia X is one of the most studied single cases internationally also outside psychoanalytic process study field. Thirdly, we will introduce the central theory and practice of DSA. Fourthly, in the last section of our article, we will show in practice how DSA can be used in the analysis of Amalia’s dream in the session 152.     

The Children's Social Vulnerability Questionnaire (CSVQ): Validation,relationship with psychosocial functioning,and age-related differences

Background/Objective: Social vulnerability refers to difficulties detecting potentially harmful interpersonal situations. Although it is an important predictor of psychosocial and interpersonal difficulties in clinical samples, research investigating this construct is scarce. We aimed to (a) develop a brief measure for assessing social vulnerability in typically developing children, the Children's Social Vulnerability Questionnaire (CSVQ) (b) examine the relationship between social vulnerability and psychosocial functioning, (c) explore age-related differences, and (d) explore levels of social vulnerability amongst children with clinical needs. Method: Data were gathered on two samples. Participants were parents (n = 790) of elementary school-aged children (3-12 years), and parents and teachers of a second sample (n = 96). Results: Results provide strong reliability and validity evidence. Social vulnerability showed moderate relationships with emotional and behavioural problems, and only a weak relationship with social skills. Parents perceived greater social vulnerability in younger than older children, and amongst children with clinical needs. Parents’ and teachers’ scores were correlated. Conclusions: Social vulnerability is not simply a lack of social skill; rather, it is a valuable construct for understanding psychosocial risk, especially for young and clinical samples of children.     

A multimethod assessment to study the relationship between rumination and gender differences

Rumination is described as the propensity of responding to distress by repetitively and passively focusing on one’s negative emotions, and failures, and their consequences (Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991, 1998). Therefore, given that rumination is characterized especially by difficulties in managing and controlling negative emotional states, it is considered as the most common (impaired) emotional regulation strategy, and can be defined as an emotional process related to a repetitive, undesired, and past-oriented negatively inclined thought (Compare, Zarbo, Shonin, Van Gordon, & Marconi, 2014; Smith & Alloy, 2009). Recent evidence suggested that because of problems related to monitoring of negative states, rumination may be associated with exaggerated physiological reactivity relative to demands from the environment, and to some difficulties in attentional control abilities. The current study aimed at deepening our understanding of the role that a maladaptive emotional regulation strategy – such as rumination – might play in physiological response changes and in engaging dysfunctional attentional strategies. We used a multimethod assessment including self-reports (i.e., Rumination and Reflection Questionnaire, and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale), physiological measures, (i.e., Heart Rate Variability recording), and attention tasks (i.e., Stroop Task) in order to examine the multiple aspects of rumination across genders. Sixty-eight individuals (30 males and 38 females) were administered DERS −16, RRQ and, soon after them, the Stroop task. Immediately after completing the Stroop task (T1), participants were exposed to a three-phase, baseline-stress-recovery experimental paradigm while their heart rate variability (HRV) was recorded. After completing the experimental paradigm, Stroop stimuli were presented for the second time (T2), in order to examine possible intra-individual differences between the two performances in the Stroop task. Our findings showed that rumination was higher in females than in males, but in men it appeared to be strongly associated with an overall impaired emotional regulation. However, no gender differences in rumination and emotion dysregulation were found when inspecting physiological data. The current study aims to contribute towards a better understanding which emotion regulation strategies and which physiological mechanisms are associated with rumination.