abstract: This study investigated father-child Activation Theory and the impact of activative fathering on children's dysregulation and social skills. The sample followed 145 families of typically developing children across ages 4 to 6. Fathering and mothering behaviors were coded via naturalistic observations at child age 4, children's dysregulation was coded during a laboratory puzzle task at age 5, and children's social skills were rated by parents and teachers at age 6. Results found support for a constellation of activative fathering behaviors unique to father-child interactions. Activative fathering, net of mothering behaviors, predicted decreased behavioral dysregulation one year later. Support was not found for moderation of the relation between activative fathering and children's dysregulation by paternal warmth, nor was support found for children's dysregulation as a mediator of the relation between activative fathering and children's social skills. These results suggest that parenting elements of father-child activation are unique to fathering and may be more broadly observable in naturalistic contexts not limited to play activities alone. Additionally, activative fathering appears to uniquely influence children's self-regulatory abilities above and beyond identical mothering behavior. In the present work, paternal warmth was not a necessary for activative fathering to positively contribute to children's regulatory abilities nor did children's dysregulation link activative fathering to social skills. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Psychology 2014

While several studies have analyzed the impact of mother-child attachment security on the child’s emotion regulation abilities, few studies have proposed interventions to help children improve emotion regulation abilities in the presence of an insecure mother-child attachment. This current study extends previous findings about the influence of mother-child attachment on the child’s emotion regulation abilities and contributes new research in determining whether an older sibling can moderate this effect. This study predicts that across points of assessments: 18 months, 5 years, 10 years, and 15 years, the quality of mother-child attachment security will influence the child’s performance on an emotion regulation task, such that securely attached children will demonstrate the most persistence and least distress, children with Anxious-Avoidant attachment will demonstrate the least persistence, and children with Anxious-Ambivalent will demonstrate the most distress. If, at any point, the child develops an insecure relationship with the mother and a secure relationship with the older sibling, the child’s persistence is expected to increase and the child’s distress is expected to decrease. In this way, the older sibling will serve as a surrogate attachment figure. These research findings have important implications for parenting behaviors as well as clinical practices.

Apesar das evidências a favor da automaticidade no processamento de estímulos aversivos, especialmente na amígdala, a sua resposta parece ser dependente da disponibilidade de re- cursos atentivos. Dessa forma, a atenção pode atuar como um mecanismo de regulação emocional, importante para a compreensão de uma série de distúrbios psiquiátricos em que este mecanismo está prejudicado. Nesse estudo, investigamos o processo do regulação e- mocional pela atenção sob uma condição de grande demanda atentiva e com estímulos altamente aversivos. Imagens funcionais por ressonância magnética foram adquiridas de 22 voluntários saudáveis enquanto figuras emocionais (IAPS - International Afective Picture System), neutras e aversivas (corpos mutilados) eram apresentadas enquanto eles realiza- vam três tarefas diferentes, em que a atenção era manipulada. As imagens foram apresenta- das no centro do campo visual, enquanto apareciam duas barras, uma de cada lado da figu- ra. As três tarefas atentivas correspondiam a reconhecer: (1) a valência emocional da figura, (2) a semelhança na orientação das duas barras com diferenças de 0º ou 90º (tarefa fácil) e (3) a semelhança das mesmas com diferença de 0º ou apenas 6º (tarefa muito difícil). Nas análises de regiões de interesse (ROIs) observamos um padrão de regulação emocional, com dimuição da amplitude do sinal BOLD estimado, nas regiões da amígdala, ínsula ante- rior, cíngulo posterior e córtex pré-frontal medial, ventrolateral e orbitofrontal na tarefa fácil. Já na tarefa difícil, esse comportamento se manteve, com excessão do sinal da ínsula e do orbitofrontal, que voltou a subir, talvez, por um efeito de estresse. Verificamos uma maior amplitude do sinal BOLD na região dos córtices pré-frontal dorsolateral, parietal superior e área motora suplementar quando a atenção foi alocada para as tarefas de barras, supostamente, por um efeito da demanda maior de atenção. Nestes resultados, todo um conjunto de estruturas envolvidas no processamento emocional foi regulado pela manipu- lação da atenção nas tarefas. Também observamos uma correlação entre o traço de afeto positivo dos sujeitos e a estimativa do sinal BOLD da amígdala sob a regulação emocional. Estas evidências indicam que, mesmo para estímulos extremamente negativos, a disponibi- lidade de recursos de atenção e, talvez, mecanismos inibitório de controle cognitivos sobre a amígdala sejam fatores condicionantes da resposta emocional. / Because of the biological significance of motional stimuli, their processing is considered largely automatic. However, there are also evidences that processing of emotional stimuli requires some level of attention. Higher attention demands in a task may limit emotional processing which can be interpreted as an emotion regulation strategy. Our experiments utilized highly demanding attention task while also highly aversive and arousing visual stimuli comprising mutilated bodies is presented. The experiment employed a single task, which consisted of determining whether two peripheral bars were like oriented or not, such to evaluate further brain mechanisms involved in emotion regulation by functional mag- netic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our results revealed that task-irrelevant unpleasant images slowed reaction time during the performance of the main easy task, but not at highly de- manding one which is suggesting of emotion suppression. Such modulatory effect was also revealed by ROI analysis showing that many brain regions, including regions of amygdala, anterior insula, posterior cingulate, and medial, ventrolateral and orbitofrontal prefrontal cortex have their processing of emotional visual stimuli reduced by attentional manipula- tions while there were BOLD signal increases in dorsolateral prefrontal and superior parie- tal cortex respective to attention demand. These results suggest that attentional manipula- tions that more fully consume attentional resources in order to demonstrate that the proc- essing of emotional stimuli is limited.

O presente trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar se o treino de meditação da atenção focada promoveria melhoras em variáveis emocionais e cognitivas. Foram realizadas duas intervenções de diferentes durações, as quais foram avaliadas antes e depois através de um paradigma experimental que permitiu analisar a interferência emocional e o controle cognitivo, assim como de medidas de autorrelato avaliando variáveis de ansiedade, afeto, dificuldades de regulação emocional e atenção concentrada. A primeira intervenção compreendeu um ensaio randomizado de seis semanas, com encontros semanais e com dois grupos controle - relaxamento progressivo e lista de espera. A segunda compreendeu um ensaio de cinco dias consecutivos, com apenas um grupo controle de lista de espera. Os resultados de ambas intervenções indicaram que a meditação da atenção focada pode ajudar na modulação da interferência emocional, no controle cognitivo, assim como na melhora de aspectos emocionais, tal como redução de ansiedade e afeto negativo, e melhora na atenção concentrada. Além disso, estes resultados foram superiores àqueles observados nos grupos controle. Ressalta-se que apesar de complementares, os achados da intervenção mais curta foram menos robustos, indicando que um treino curto já pode produzir mudanças, mas que estas ganham maior magnitude à medida que o tempo de prática aumenta. Discute-se o papel da interrelação entre as variáveis investigadas para a regulação emocional, sugerindo-se que a meditação pode ser caracterizada como um tipo particular de estratégia regulatória. / The present work aimed to evaluate whether a focused attention meditation training would promote enhancements in emotional and cognitive variables. Two interventions with distinct durations were carried out, which were evaluated before and afterwards through an experimental paradigm that allowed the analysis of emotion intereference and cognitive control, as well self-report measures assessing variables such as anxiety, affect, difficulties in emotion regulation, and concentrated attention. The first intervention comprised of a six-week randomized trial, with weekly meetings and two control groups - progressive relaxation and wait list control. The second comprised a five-consecutive-day randomized trial, with only a wait list control group. Results from both interventions indicated that focused attention meditation can help modulating emotion interference, enhance cognitive control, as well as improve emotional aspects, such as reducing anxiety, negative affect, and increasing concentrated attention. In addition, these findings were superior to those observed in the control groups. We highlight that despite being complementary, the results from the short intervention were less robust, indicating that a short-term training can already promote some changes, but that the extent of their magnitude seems to be related to the amount of practice. We discuss the role of the interrelationship between the investigated variables for emotion regulation, suggesting that meditation can be considered a particular type of regulatory strategy.

Emotions have a remarkable capacity to mobilize an individual and shape a person’s behavior in order to ultimately lead to a higher wellbeing. The importance of emotions is further emphasized by pathological cases of people who suffer from an inability to normally regulate their emotional life, such as people who suffer from major depression disorder (MDD), eating disorders, or borderline personality disorder. Given the central role emotions play in our lives, it is very easy to understand the great interest cognitive neuroscientists have in this research field. Emotions have been approached in the last decades from different angles and as such, distinct theories arose. The goal of this study is to give a comprehensive overview of the emotion theories that exist, with a focus on three of the fastest developing cognitive theories of emotions: Frijda’s action-readiness, Russell’s core affect and the communicative theory. Additionally, the neural correlates of emotions will be discussed, focusing on the role of amygdala in the negative emotion of fear. Neuroimaging studies that reveal a correlation between the amygdala and emotions, fear in particular, will be described. Given that the ability of self-regulation is crucial for the achievements of our aims and goals, fMRI studies designed to investigate neural the underpinnings of emotion regulation will be presented. The process of cognitive reappraisal will be used to point towards the brain regions that act as down-regulators for the activity of amygdala while processing negatively valenced stimuli.

Stanovich and West (2008) explored if measures of cognitive ability ignored some important aspects of thinking itself, namely that cognitive ability alone is not enough to generally prevent biased thinking. In this thesis a series of decision making (DM) tasks is tested to see if emotion regulation (ER) is a factor for the decision process and therefore should be a measured in decision making competence. A set of DM tasks was compiled involving both affective and cognitive dimensions. 400 participants completed an online web-survey. The results showed that ER ability was significantly associated with performance in various DM tasks that involved both heuristic and biased thinking. These findings suggest that ER can be a factor in decision making competence.

Background: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has the potential to compromise the socioemotional development of the victim resulting in an increased vulnerability to difficulties regulating emotions and one’s sense of self. Emotion is thought to play a key part in a number of psychological disorders which CSA survivors are at increased risk of developing. A better understanding of the basic emotions experienced in this population and emotion regulation will inform current treatment. Aims: This research aimed to develop a better understanding of the emotions experienced by survivors of CSA and the relationship between “implicit” and explicit emotions and psychopathology. Method: Two empirical studies were conducted. Study 1 employed a cross-sectional consecutive case series design involving 109 survivors of CSA. Participants completed a set of measures relating to basic emotions, emotion regulation and symptoms. Exploratory factor analyses were conducted on the Basic Emotions scale (BES). Regression analyses were used to explore the relationship between emotions experienced, emotion regulation strategies and psychological symptoms. Study 2 examined basic emotions, “implicit disgust self-concept” and psychopathology in a population of CSA survivors (n=26) and a group of individuals currently receiving psychological therapy who reported that they had not experienced childhood trauma (n=25). Participants completed self-report measures pertaining to emotion, emotion regulation, symptoms and cognitive fusion. Participants also completed an implicit association test. Results: Exploratory factor analyses supported the structure of three versions of the BESWeekly, General, and Coping in a sample of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. In all three versions of the scale, disgust explained the largest proportion of variance. The basic emotions of sadness, fear and disgust as well as external dysfunctional coping strategies appear to predict PTSD symptomatology in this sample. The results of Study 2 also support the finding that self-reported disgust is prominent in the emotion profile of CSA survivors. Implicit disgust self-concept was not significantly correlated with other emotions or psychopathology. However, implicit disgust self-concept was found to be significantly associated with cognitive fusion. Discussion: Psychotherapeutic approaches for survivors of childhood sexual abuse should address the emotional experience of this population. In particular, these findings suggest that sadness and disgust should be targeted in therapy.

Aggression and violence are social behaviors that exact a significant toll on human societies. Individuals with aggressive tendencies display deficits in effortful control, particularly in affectively charged situations. However, not all individuals with poor effortful control are aggressive. This study uses event-related potentials (ERPs) to decompose the chronology of cognitive functions underlying the link between effortful control and aggression. Specifically, this study investigates which ERPs moderate the effortful control - aggression association. We examined three successive ERP components (P2, N2 and P3) for stimuli that required effortful control. Results indicated that N2 activation, but not P2 or P3 activation, moderated the relationship between effortful control and aggression. These effects were present in negative and neutral contexts. This moderating effect was consistent with previous studies linking neural processing efficiency with reduced activation during cognitive control tasks. Our results suggest that efficient cognitive processing moderates the association between effortful control and aggression.

No description available.

The work within this thesis examined aspects of emotion processing among non-clinical females who varied in levels of eating-related psychopathology. Five studies employed a quantitative approach in order to assess potential deficits in both the control and experience of emotion. To examine the experience of emotion, Studies 1, 2 and 3 assessed the attentional processing of emotional stimuli in those with high and low levels of eating-related psychopathology. In Studies 1 and 2, specific components of attention bias including orientation, disengagement and avoidance were assessed in order to explore their role in contributing to disordered eating behaviour. Findings from these studies did not reveal any differences in attentional orienting between those with high and low levels of eating-related psychopathology. However, when primed with happy faces, those with high levels of disordered eating were significantly quicker than those with low levels to disengage from threat-relevant words. This finding could be interpreted in terms of emotional arousal with happy facial displays providing a protective function against subsequently presented stimuli. With regards to emotional avoidance, those with higher levels of eating-related psychopathology were more likely to avoid emotional displays relative to those with lower levels. In fact, a higher drive to achieve thinness was shown to predict a greater avoidance of both angry and happy facial expressions. Interestingly, depression, anxiety and alexithymia were all shown to impact upon attentional processing. In Study 3, the efficacy of attention training in reducing attentional biases towards threat in women with varying levels of disordered eating was examined. Importantly, a single session of attention training was found to be successful in modifying previously observed attentional biases towards threat. However, eating-related psychopathology was shown to have only a partial influence on participants attention processing. These findings suggest that the success of attention training may be independent of disordered eating. To examine the control of emotion within a non-clinical population, Study 4 utilised self-report questionnaires to explore associations between deficits in emotional functioning and severity of eating-related psychopathology. The data obtained from this questionnaire-based investigation are reported in a series of three short studies. Specifically, Study 4.1 of this chapter examined the relationship between difficulties in the regulation of emotion within eating-related psychopathology. Furthermore, Studies 4.2 and 4.3 set out to explore some of the factors which may influence emotion processing, such as pessimistic attitudes regarding emotional expression. Across all studies, the role of depression, anxiety and alexithymia as potential confounding factors was considered. Findings revealed a significant relationship between eating-related psychopathology and difficulties regulating emotion. Dysfunctional or negative attitudes towards the expression of emotion were also linked to a greater number of eating disorder-related concerns and behaviours. However, many of the associations between eating-related psychopathology and impaired emotional functioning were no longer apparent when depression, anxiety and alexithymia had been statistically accounted for. These findings not only support previous research, but highlight the importance of mood and alexithymia in contributing to the emotional deficits observed. Finally, Study 5 aimed to explore the potential consequences of inadequate emotion processing within eating-related psychopathology. Self-report measures were utilised to assess the frequency of eating-related intrusive thoughts in those with high levels of eating-related psychopathology. As predicted, those with greater levels of disordered eating reported experiencing a higher frequency of thoughts or intrusions relating to eating. This may point towards a failure to successfully process emotional experience in this group. Taken together, this body of work enhances the current understanding of the role of emotion processing in contributing to both the onset and maintenance of disordered eating. These findings also emphasise the key role of mood and alexithymia in influencing the relationship between emotional functioning and eating-related psychopathology. Therefore further research examining emotion processing within disordered eating must acknowledge the potential contribution of depression, anxiety and alexithymia. Furthermore, the present findings provide clear support for the development of a model of cognitive-emotion processing within eating-related psychopathology. The implications of these findings for both eating disorder treatment and prevention are discussed. Possible directions for future research are also identified.