Psychology

Background: Recently in Positive Psychology, far eastern concepts have been investigated in search of factors that make life appear more valuable. Mindful self-compassion is one of these concepts that received increased attention especially in the exploration of well-being and a stressful life. This protective trait with buddhistic roots includes the facets self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. Thus, it describes an attitude to oneself in demanding life situations that is characterized by the openness to painful feelings with the intention to care for oneself instead of self-criticizing one's own mistakes or failures. To date, associations with increased mental health and reduced negative affect have already repeatedly been demonstrated. However, little is known about how these relations are mediated. Initial findings suggest that mindful self-compassion influences the choice of coping strategies and stress perception. Method: In this cross-lagged panel study (N= 702) we examined whether mindful self-compassion attenuates stress and leads to an increased use of adaptive coping strategies, which ultimately increases well-being. Results: The sample (500 females, 194 males, 8 others; age: M = 27.86, SD = 9.88) consists mainly of students (67,2%). So far, the cross-sectional data has already been evaluated by means of correlation and regression analyses. To evaluate the independent influence of mindful self-compassion on stress processing, all effects were controlled for neuroticism and conscientiousness as they are key traits in stress regulation. Discussion: Our results have already shown the importance of mindful self-compassion in stress processing. Further studies should additionally prove the stability of the construct in order to finally establish it as an independent trait in stress research.

In the present study, we investigated the beneficial effects of trait self-compassion (SC) on perceived stress, shame, and the use of coping strategies in reaction to a socio-evaluative stressor while controlling for the effects of neuroticism (N) and conscientiousness (C). Participants (N = 105) performed a mental-arithmetic task with immediate in-person feedback. SC predicted less perceived stress and shame immediately after the stressor. Additionally, SC predicted less shame after a short recovery phase. This effect was fully mediated by less use of denial. Furthermore, SC buffered the effect of N on the use of denial, and C on shame after recovery. SC also predicted more use of positive reframing. Thus, SC may make a socio-evaluative stressor less threatening and may thwart a shame-inducing conception of the stressor by promoting clearer processing. Furthermore, SC may be especially beneficial for those vulnerable to dysfunctional coping and negative self-conscious emotions. This study contributes to the understanding of how trait self-compassion beneficially influences the processing of stressful situations. 1.1. Trait SC and reacting to and coping with stress Research has shown that trait SC attenuates the reaction to negative events (e.g. Leary, Tate, Adams, Allen, & Hancock, 2007). For example, trait SC was negatively associated with anxiety assessed directly after answering typical job interview questions in a group experiment (Neff et al., 2007). In addition, self-compassionate people may make more use of effective coping strategies (Allen & Leary, 2010). More specifically, in students coping with an unsatisfactory grade, trait SC was positively associated with acceptance and positive reinterpretation and negatively associated with denial (Neff, Hsieh, & Dejitterat, 2005). The same pattern was found for coping with chronic illness (Sirois, Molnar, & Hirsch, 2014). Furthermore, numerous studies have already revealed the buffering effect of SC on perceived stress (e.g. Arch et al., 2014; Sirois et al., 2014).

Zusammenfassung Alkoholauffällige Kraftfahrer gehören zu einer Risikogruppe, die sich nur schwer für frühzeitige Rehabilitationsmaßnahmen akquirieren lässt. In der Regel erfolgt eine Teilnahme unter repressiven Bedingungen oder hohem Leidensdruck lange Zeit nach dem Delikt. Die vorliegende Studie hatte angesichts der geringen Partizipationsraten an präventiv wirksamen und frühzeitig einsetzenden Interventionsmaßnahmen das Ziel, die Bedingungen der frühzeitigen Teilnahme zu analysieren und gleichzeitig durch ein pro-aktives Vorgehen die Bereitschaft zur frühzeitigen Teilnahme an Beratungsmaßnahmen zu erhöhen. Auf der Grundlage des Transtheoretischen Modells der Verhaltensänderung [24] wurde ein Check-Up-Frage- bogen entwickelt und erprobt, der in einfacher Anwendung das Problembewusstsein von Trunkenheitsfahrern erfasst. Darüber hinaus wurde über ein experimentelles Versuchsdesign der Einfluss frühzeitiger Information der Delinquenten und kostenloser Beratungsangebote überprüft. Die ...

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. All in-text references underlined in blue are added to the original document and are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately. This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues.

Dense sensor event-related brain potentials were measured in participants with spider phobia and nonfearful controls during viewing of phobia-relevant spider and standard emotional (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral) pictures. Irrespective of the picture content, spider phobia participants responded with larger P1 amplitudes than controls, suggesting increased vigilance in this group. Furthermore, spider phobia participants showed a significantly enlarged early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) during the encoding of phobia-relevant pictures compared to nonfearful controls. No group differences were observed for standard emotional materials indicating that these effects were specific to phobia-relevant material. Within group comparisons of the spider phobia group, though, revealed comparable EPN and LPP evoked by spider pictures and emotional (unpleasant and pleasant) picture contents. These results demonstrate a temporal unfolding in perceptual processing from unspecific vigilance (P1) to preferential responding (EPN and LPP) to phobia-relevant materials in the spider phobia group. However, at the level of early stimulus processing, these effects of increased attention seem to be related to emotional relevance of the stimulus cues rather than reflecting a fear-specific response.

The current study investigated the neural networks activated during the anticipation of potentially threatening body symptoms evoked by a guided hyperventilation task in a group of participants reporting either high or low fear of unexplained somatic sensations. 15 subjects reporting high and 14 subjects reporting low fear of somatic symptoms first learned that one of two cues predicted the occurrence of a hyperventilation task reliably producing body symptoms in all participants that were rated as more intense and unpleasant in the high fear group. During anticipation of unpleasant symptoms, high fear participants reported more intense body symptoms and showed potentiation of the startle reflex. After this learning session, participants were taken into the fMRI where the same cues either predicted the occurrence of hyperventilation or normoventilation, although the task was never performed in the scanner. During anticipation of hyperventilation all participants showed an increased activation of anterior insula/orbitofrontal cortex and rostral parts of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dACC/dmPFC). Brain activation of high compared to low fear participants differed in two ways. First, high fear participants showed an overall stronger activation of this network during threat and safe conditions indexing stronger anxious apprehension during the entire context. Second, while low fear participants no longer responded with stronger activation to the threat cue after experiencing that the hyperventilation challenge did not follow this cue, high fear participants continued to show stronger activation of the network to this cue. Activation of the rostral dACC/ dmPFC was significantly correlated with reported fear of somatic symptoms. These data demonstrate that anticipation of interoceptive threat activates the same network that has been found to be active during anticipation of exteroceptive threat cues. Thus, the current paradigm might provide an innovative method to study anxious apprehension and treatment effects in patients with panic disorder.

To study defensive mobilization elicited by the exposure to interoceptive arousal sensations, we exposed highly anxiety sensitive students to a symptom provocation task. Symptom reports, autonomic arousal, and the startle eyeblink response were monitored during guided hyperventilation and a recovery period in 26 highly anxiety sensitive persons and 22 controls. Normoventilation was used as a non-provocative comparison condition. Hyperventilation led to autonomic arousal and a marked increase in somatic symptoms. While high and low anxiety sensitive persons did not differ in their defensive activation during hyperventilation, group differences were detected during early recovery. Highly anxiety sensitive students exhibited a potentiation of startle response magnitudes and increased autonomic arousal after hyper-as compared to after normoventilation, indicating defensive mobilization evoked by the prolonged presence of feared somatic sensations.

The present study explored anxious apprehension in panic disorder patients and controls in two threat conditions, darkness and threat of shock. Autonomic arousal and startle eyeblink reflexes were recorded in 26 panic disorder patients and 22 controls during adaptation, a safe condition, threat of shock, and darkness. Exposure to darkness resulted in a clear potentiation of the startle reflex. Panic patients but not controls responded with an increase in heart rate that was positively related to severity of agoraphobic avoidance. Threat of shock resulted in a startle potentiation that tended to be stronger in panic patients without comorbid depression than controls and attenuated in those patients who suffered from severe depression. These data suggest that only panic patients without depression belong to the fear disorders spectrum whereas panic patients with comorbid depression might rather belong to the distress disorders profile.

The present study used behavioral and electrophysiological measures to investigate the processes mediating long-term recognition memory for emotional and neutral pictures. The results show enhanced memory recollection for emotional arousing pictures compared to neutral low arousing pictures. In accordance with the behavioral data, we observed enhanced old/new effects in the ERPs for emotionally arousing pictures in the recollection-sensitive old/new component at centro-parietal sites (500-800 ms). Moreover, early old/new effects were present over frontal and parietal sites (300-500 ms) irrespective of picture contents. Analysis of the subjective awareness, indexed by the confidence ratings, showed that the late parietal old/new effect was increased for high confidence responses whereas the early component (300-500 ms) was mainly driven by low confidence responses, an indication for familiarity based recognition processes.

The purpose of the study was to contrast first panic attacks (PAs) of patients with panic disorder (PD) with vs. without agoraphobia and to explore differences between first PAs leading to the development of PD and those that remain isolated. Data were drawn from a community survey (N = 2260 including 88 isolated PAs and 75 PD cases). An additional sample of 234 PD patients was recruited in a clinical setting. A standardized interview assessed the symptoms of the first PA, context of its occurrence and subsequent coping attempts. Persons who developed PD reported more severe first PAs, more medical service utilization and exposure-limiting coping attempts than those with isolated PAs. The context of the first PA did not differ between PD and isolated PAs. PD with agoraphobia was specifically associated with greater symptom severity and occurrence of first attacks in public. Future research should validate these findings using a longitudinal approach.

Unexpected, recurrent panic attacks and anxious apprehension are two distinct emotional phenomena that constitute the core symptoms for diagnosing panic disorder. Taking a neuroscience perspective the current review paper presents both epidemiological and experimental psychophysiological evidence suggesting that panic attacks can be conceptualized as an unconditioned circa defense response pattern to intense internal threat stimuli, characterized by strong autonomic surge and escape behavior and abnormal plastic changes of the brain. Anxious apprehension develops after the experience of such severe panic attacks as conditioned responses to mild body symptoms. Theoretically these conditioned fear responses can be considered as post-encounter defense characterized by increased selective attention, increased threat appraisal and defensive freezing and startle potentiation evidencing altered brain circuits evoked by mild body symptoms. Agoraphobic avoidance starts very early during the ...

This study systematically investigated the sensitivity of the phobic attention system by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) in spider-phobic and non-phobic volunteers in a context where spider and neutral pictures were presented (phobic threat condition) and in contexts where no phobic but unpleasant and neutral or only neutral pictures were displayed (phobia-irrelevant conditions). In a between-group study, participants were assigned to phobia-irrelevant conditions either before or after the exposure to spider pictures (pre-exposure vs post-exposure participants). Additionally, each picture was preceded by a fixation cross presented in one of three different colors that were informative about the category of an upcoming picture. In the phobic threat condition, spider-phobic participants showed a larger P1 than controls for all pictures and signal cues. Moreover, individuals with spider phobia who were sensitized by the exposure to phobic stimuli (i.e. post-exposure participa...