Achtsamkeit wird mit vielen positiven Effekten für das psychische Wohlbefinden assoziiert, wobei Fähigkeiten wie Emotionsregulation (ER) und soziale Kognition (SC) zu den wichtigsten Mechanismen gehören. In der vorliegenden Doktorarbeit wurde die Beziehung zwischen Achtsamkeit, ER und SC mit verschiedenen methodischen Ansätzen untersucht. In Studie I wurde mithilfe von Literatur und empirischen Modellen die Beziehung zwischen Achtsamkeit und ER ausgearbeitet und verschiedene psychologische und neurokognitive Mechanismen diskutiert. Studie II zielte darauf ab den ER-Mechanismus bei „Trait-Achtsamkeit“ zu entschlüsseln. Hier zeigte sich, dass es sowohl bei Probanden mit einer Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung als auch bei gesunden Teilnehmern einen mediierenden Effekt von Selbstmitgefühl gab, der Achtsamkeit mit ER-Merkmalen verband. Studie III untersuchte den Zusammenhang zwischen ER und SC mit Hilfe von Verhaltens- und Neuroimaging-Experimenten, mit Fokus auf dem Konzept der sozialen ER (die Fähigkeit, die Emotionen anderer zu modulieren). Es zeigte sich, dass bei der Regulierung der Emotionen anderer der eigene Stress reduziert wird, wobei wichtige "soziokognitive" Hirnregionen (z.B. Precuneus) an der Vermittlung dieser Effekte beteiligt sind. Studie IV untersuchte im Rahmen einer Neuroimaging-basierten randomisierten Kontrollstudie ER-Mechanismen während einer achtsamkeitsbasierten Intervention (MBI). Die Studie zeigte eine durch die MBI induzierte ER-Verhaltensplastizität im Gehirn, sowohl für die Eigen- als auch für die soziale ER. Ein Effekt im Vergleich zu SC (kognitive und emotionale Empathie) wurde nicht gezeigt. Unter Einbezug aller Ergebnisse wurde ein Modell postuliert, das den Austausch und die Regulierung von Emotionen im Kontext von sozialen Interaktionen integriert. Die Dissertation bietet neue Einblicke in die ER-Mechanismen der Achtsamkeit und beleuchtet die individuellen Determinanten sozialer Prozesse durch das Zusammenbringen von ER und SC. / Mindfulness, the capacity to fully attend to the present experience, has been linked to a myriad of mental health benefits, being abilities such as emotion regulation (ER) and social cognition (SC) of the main potential active mechanisms. The current doctorate thesis investigated the relationship between mindfulness and ER and SC using a range of methodological approaches from trait level individual differences to behavioral and brain mechanisms. Study one explored the relationship between mindfulness and ER by examining the diverse literature and empirical models, discussing different psychological and neuro-cognitive mechanisms. Study two intended to unravel the ER mechanism of trait mindfulness, showing in both borderline personality and healthy subjects the mediating effect of self-compassion linking mindfulness and ER traits. Study three further investigated the link between ER and SC using behavioral and neuro-imaging experiments, addressing the notion of social ER (the capacity to modulate others’ emotions). It showed that when regulating others’ emotions, an individual’s own distress is reduced, being key ‘sociocognitive’ brain regions (i.e. precuneus) engaged in mediating these effects. Study four investigated the fine-grained ER mechanisms of a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI), comparing the MBI with a reading group (READ), in the context of a neuroimaging-based randomized controlled trial. This study revealed ER brain behavioral plasticity induced by the MBI, for both self and social ER. It also showed a lack of effect over SC (cognitive and emotional empathy). Articulating overall findings, a model that integrates exchanges and regulation of emotions in the context of social interactions is proposed. The dissertation offers new insights into mindfulness’ ER mechanisms, from dispositions to neuro-behavioral levels, and also sheds light onto individual level determinants of social processes, linking ER and SC.

Diese experimentelle Arbeit untersucht den Effekt der Bindungseinstellung gesunder Erwachsener auf die automatische Wahrnehmung emotionaler Reize. Die Bindungseinstellung einer Person ist ein relativ stabiles Muster aus kognitiven Einstellungen, Strategien der Affektregulation und Verhalten bezüglich enger Beziehungen zu anderen Menschen. Sie wird in der Kindheit geprägt und ist ein gewichtiger Faktor für die psychische und allgemeine Gesundheit während des Erwachsenenalters. 106 Probanden ohne psychische Vorerkrankungen wurde ein affektives Priming-Experiment mit positiv- und negativ-valenten Adjektiven vorgegeben. Die Primes wurden für nur 50 Millisekunden präsentiert und waren maskiert. Affektive Primingeffekte belegen die unkontrollierte Wahrnehmung minimaler Reize und dienen als Maß für automatische Bewertungsprozesse. Sie wurden auf Grundlage der Reaktionszeiten berechnet. Neben der emotionalen Valenz wurde die Selbst-Andere-Relevanz (Peeters 1983) der Reize berücksichtigt. Die Ausprägung der individuellen Bindungsorientierung, sowie weitere psychologische Kontrollvariablen wurden mittels etablierter Selbstbeurteilungsinstrumente erfasst. Die Ergebnisse belegen einen moderaten Effekt von Bindungsangst und Bindungsvermeidung auf die automatische Verarbeitung emotionaler Stimuli bei Frauen, jedoch nicht bei Männern. Die Daten erbringen außerdem starke Evidenz für die automatische Differenzierung der Selbst-Andere-Relevanz (Peeters, 1983) von lexikalen Reizen. Der Einfluss der Bindungsorientierung auf die automatische emotionale Wahrnehmung manifestierte sich nur für andere-relevante Reize. Das komplexe Muster der Interaktion von Bindungsorientierung, Geschlecht, Selbst-Andere-Relevanz und automatischer Wahrnehmung wird vor dem Hintergrund aktueller Theorien der bindungsabhängigen Emotionsregulation diskutiert.:1. Einführung 1 1.1. Vorbemerkungen 1 1.2. Das Bindungssystem 2 1.2.1. Grundlagen 2 1.2.2. Emotionsregulation 6 1.2.3. Klinische Relevanz 11 1.3. Automatische Kognition 13 1.3.1. Priming und affektives Priming 14 1.3.2. Selbst-Andere-Relevanz 16 1.3.3. Bindungsorientierung und Wahrnehmung emotionaler Reize 18 2. Aufgabenstellung 24 2.1. Fragestellung 24 2.2. Methodischer Ansatz 24 2.3. Hypothesen 25 2.3.1. Hypothese 1 25 2.3.2. Hypothese 2 26 2.3.3. Hypothese 3 26 2.3.4. Einfluss des Geschlechtes 27 3. Methoden 29 3.1. Stichprobe 29 3.2. Versuchsablauf, Fragebögen und Testverfahren 29 3.2.1. Bochumer Bindungsfragebogen (BoBi) 31 3.2.2. Beck Depressions-Inventar (BDI) 32 3.2.3. State-Trait Angst-Inventar (STAI) 33 3.2.4. Emotionsregulationsfragebogen (ERQ) 34 3.2.5. Mehrfachwahl-Wortschatz-Intelligenztest (MWT-B) 34 3.3. Priming Experiment 35 3.3.1. Untersuchungsdesign 36 3.3.2. Durchführung und Aufbau 37 3.3.3. Stimuli 38 4. Ergebnisse 41 4.1. Kontrollvariablen 41 4.2. Autodeskriptive Bindungseinstellung - BoBi 41 4.2.1. Deskriptive und vergleichende Statistik 41 4.2.2. Bindungseinstellung und Geschlecht 43 4.2.3. Korrelationen mit weiteren Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen und Intelligenz 43 4.3. Ergebnisse des Priming-Experiments 44 4.3.1. Fehlerraten 44 4.3.2. Reaktionszeiten 44 4.3.3. Affektives Priming 46 4.3.4. Affektives Priming und Geschlecht 47 4.3.5. Affektives Priming und Bindungseinstellung 48 4.3.6. Relevanz-Priming 51 4.3.7. Relevanz-Priming und Geschlecht 52 4.3.8. Relevanz-Priming und Bindungseinstellung 52 4.3.9. Interaktion affektives Priming und Relevanz-Priming 53 4.4. Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse 55 5. Diskussion 56 5.1. Vergleichende Einordnung der Ergebnisse 56 5.1.1. Bindungseinstellung 56 5.1.2. Reaktionszeiten 57 5.1.3. Affektives Priming 58 5.2. Überprüfung der Hypothesen 59 5.2.1. H1: Effekt der Bindungsorientierung auf die automatische Wahrnehmung von emotionalen Reizen 59 5.2.2. H2: Automatische Verarbeitung der Selbst-Andere-Relevanz von emotionalen Reizen 62 5.2.3. H3: Differentieller Effekt der Bindungsorientierung auf die automatische Wahrnehmung von selbst- und andere-relevanten Reizen 64 5.2.4. Geschlechterunterschiede 65 5.3. Stärken und Limitationen 67 5.4. Klinische Implikationen 69 6. Zusammenfassung 70 7. Literatur 733 8. Eigenständigkeitserklärung 799 9. Lebenslauf 80 10. Danksagung 811

Background: The construct of alexithymia implies a deficit in symbolization for emotional, somatic, and mental states. However, the etiologic factors for alexithymia have not yet been fully elucidated. The present study investigated the use of mentalizing language, i.e. the utterance of internal states, from a developmental perspective according to attachment organization and disorganization. Methods: A longitudinal design across 4 time points was applied to a volunteer sample of 42 children. At 12 months, children were tested with the strange situation procedure, the standard measure of attachment at the optimal age, and attachment classifications were taken of videotapes. At ages 17, 23, 30 and 36 months, mother and child were observed in simplified separation episodes of 30 min duration. Transcripts of the sessions were subject to coding of internal state words. Results: During the investigated span, securely attached children rapidly acquired emotion, physiology, cognition and emotion-regulatory language, whereas insecurely attached and disorganized children either completely lacked internal state language or displayed a considerable time lag in the use of emotion and cognition vocabulary. Conclusion: The results raise the possibility that alexithymia might be a consequence of deficits in the development of internal state language in the context of insecure or disorganized childhood attachment relationships. / Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.

Happiness, anger, surprise, irritation… if we note down the emotions that we go through on a given day, the list will most probably be quite long. A surge of studies on the bidirectional interaction between emotion and cognition suggests that we need emotional appraisals in order to lead a successful life and maintain our personal, social and economic integrity (Bechara, 2005; Damasio, 1994; Fox, 2008; Gross & Thompson, 2007; Walter, 2005). And yet, we seldom ‘just’ experience emotions, but often try to influence them to best fit our current goals. Based on the assumption that emotional reactions entail changes on various levels, and that these changes happen in- or outside of our awareness, affective science has adopted emotion regulation as one of its major research topics (Beauregard, Levesque, & Paquette, 2004; Gross, 1999; Ochsner, 2007). In fact, neural (e.g. amygdala activation) and behavioral (e.g. feeling of negativity) correlates of emotional reactions are effectively reduced by top-down processes of explicit and implicit control (Drabant, McRae, Manuck, Hariri, & Gross, 2009; Levesque, et al., 2003; Ochsner, Ray, et al., 2004). Furthermore, evidence from studies investigating voluntary thought control suggests that control strategies may have lasting and paradoxical consequences (Abramowitz, Tolin, & Street, 2001; Wegner, 2009). In a very recent investigation, lasting effects of regulation were also shown after the cognitive control of emotions: the activation timecourse of the amygdala was significantly increased immediately following regulation, and this difference was also related to the activation of the amygdala to the same stimuli a few minutes later (Walter, et al., 2009). Aside from these contextual or qualitative influences, emotional processing also differs between individuals: genetic variation within the serotonergic system for instance is known to affect emotional reactivity both on the behavioral and on the neural level (Hariri, et al., 2005; Hariri, et al., 2002; Lesch, et al., 1996). In the present work, the temporal dynamics of volitional emotion regulation were investigated in three studies. It was hypothesized that both the subjective experience of negativity and the amygdala activation can be attenuated by the detachment from negative emotions, which in turn leads to an immediate neural aftereffect after the offset of regulation. Furthermore, volitional emotion regulation was expected to be capable of reducing or even obliterating genetically mediated amygdala hyperreactivity to negative emotional cues. Similar to previous investigations (Walter, et al., 2009), pictures of aversive or neutral emotional content were presented while participants were instructed to react naturally to half of the pictures, and to regulate their emotional response upon the other half of the stimuli. The first two studies of the present work were designed to further characterize the immediate aftereffect of volitional regulation in the amygdala: Study 1 included behavioral ratings of negativity at picture offset and at fixation offset in order to provide behavioral measures of experiential changes, while in Study 2, participants continued to experience or regulate their emotions during a “maintain” phase after picture offset. The primary goal of Study 3 was to evaluate whether volitional emotion regulation can reduce genetically mediated amygdala hyperreactivity to aversive emotional material in individuals with the short variant of the serotonin transporter genotype (Hariri, et al., 2005; Hariri, et al., 2002), and whether the immediate aftereffect is also influenced by the serotonin transporter genotype. In all three studies, the amygdala was significantly activated by aversive versus neutral stimuli, while cognitive emotion regulation attenuated the activation in the amygdala and increased the activation in a frontal-parietal network of regulatory brain regions. This neural effect was complemented by the behavioral ratings which show that the subjective experience of negativity was also reduced by detachment (Study 1). Also in all three studies, an immediate aftereffect was observed in the amygdala following the end of regulation. Moreover, the preoccupation with the previously seen pictures after the scanning session varied across the experimental conditions (Studies 2 and 3). Volitional regulation proved effective in reducing amygdala activation to negative stimuli even in 5-HTTLPR short allele carriers that show an increased reactivity to this type of cue. At the same time, functional coupling of the ventrolateral and medial orbital prefrontal cortex, the subgenual and the rostral anterior cingulate with the amygdala was higher in the s-group. However, in Study 3 the immediate aftereffect was found only in l/l-homozygote individuals following the regulation of fear. Taken together, the results of the three studies clearly show that volitional regulation is effective in reducing behavioral and neural correlates of the experience of negative emotions (Levesque, et al., 2003; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002; Ochsner, Ray, et al., 2004), even in the case of a genetically mediated hyperreactivity to such materials. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that conscious will can effectively counteract genetic determinants of emotional behavior. Moreover, the present results suggest that the temporal dynamics of volitional emotion regulation are characterized by a paradoxical rebound in amygdala activation after regulation, and that the immediate aftereffect is a marker of the efficiency of the initial and the sustained effects of emotion regulation (Walter, et al., 2009). In summary, the successful replication of the immediate aftereffect of emotion regulation in all three studies of this dissertation opens up exciting new research perspectives: a comparison of the short- and long-term effects of different regulatory strategies, and the investigation of these effects also in positive emotions would complement the present results, since the neural mechanisms involved in these processes show some characteristic differences (Ochsner, 2007; Staudinger, Erk, Abler, & Walter, 2009). A comprehensive characterization of this neural marker and its implications for emotional experience might also be useful with respect to clinical applications. The detailed examination of the various time scales of emotional regulation might for instance inform the diagnostic and therapeutic interventions in affective disorders that are associated with emotional dysfunctions (Brewin, Andrews, & Rose, 2000; Johnstone, van Reekum, Urry, Kalin, & Davidson, 2007). Ultimately, we might thus come to understand the neural underpinnings of what the feelings we have today have to do with the feelings we had yesterday – and with the feelings with might have tomorrow.

In our daily lives, we encounter a multitude of emotional challenges in various contexts, necessitating the use of diverse emotion regulation strategies for adaptive responses (Aldao et al., 2015; Bonanno and Burton, 2013). These strategies require cognitive control, making them cognitively demanding processes (Gross, 2015b; Ochsner et al., 2012). Yet, it remains unknown whether different strategies impose different levels of cognitive effort. This thesis aims to address this gap in the literature by conducting a comparative analysis of the cognitive effort required for specific emotion regulation strategies. Our research takes a comprehensive approach to evaluating effort, utilizing physiological and subjective measures. In the field of emotion regulation choice, the role of effort remains less explored. We seek to deepen the understanding by not only investigating the self-reported reasons behind participants’ choice behaviour, but also by employing rigorous statistical analyses to identify the factors that influence these choices. Prior studies on the determinants of emotion regulation choice have faced certain limitations. While some determinants favouring specific strategies have been identified, there is a lack of information regarding the strategies that are not chosen. Additionally, it is unclear to what extent individuals prefer their chosen strategy over other available options. These issues can be addressed by assigning subjective values to all choice options, as these values are central to the decisionmaking process. This thesis has developed and validated a novel paradigm that measures the individual subjective values associated with emotion regulation strategies. We not only examined whether these values can effectively predict actual choice behaviour, but also delved into the variables that predict these subjective values, offering a holistic perspective on the complex interplay between cognitive effort and emotion regulation choice. To enhance comprehension on the impact of cognitive effort on emotion regulation, Study 1 and Study 2 aimed to compare the necessary effort between the two emotion regulation strategies distancing and expressive suppression. To our knowledge, this was the first work striving to comprehensively examine effort during emotion regulation by assessing it through various means. Two studies were carried out to examine the impact of cognitive effort on emotion regulation choice. Specifically, it was explored whether decision-making behaviour is more influenced by the cognitive effort required to implement the strategy or the effectiveness of the strategy. To answer these research questions, cognitive effort and effectiveness of distancing and suppression were quantified through subjective (ratings) and physiological (pupillometry, heart rate) measures. To explore choice behaviour, participants were instructed to finally employ either of the strategies again. Our findings highlight that the strategies did not differ substantially in terms of physiological effort, yet they did exhibit substantial disparities in the subjectively perceived effort. These differences between strategies also manifested in their choice behaviour: Two thirds of the participants opted for suppression once again, despite its lower effectiveness. Participants cited lower effort as the reason for their choice. By measuring effort through various means, these two studies provide a comprehensive understanding of the cognitive effort involved in emotion regulation. Furthermore, the results on the determinants of emotion regulation choice not only enrich research, but also provide starting points for practical applications. Paradigms commonly employed in emotion regulation choice research - as in Study 1 and Study 2 - suffer from a drawback as they entail a loss of information, providing only binary data concerning whether or not a strategy was chosen. However, it is unclear to what extent the favoured strategy was preferred compared to the alternative options. In Study 3, a registered report, the objective was to develop a novel paradigm to determine the subjective values attributed to each emotion regulation strategy at hand. The cognitive effort discounting paradigm by Westbrook et al. (2013) provided the foundation, but was developed and extended further. Participants completed an emotion regulation paradigm whereby they were prompted to employ three strategies - distraction, distancing, and expressive suppression. Next, we conducted our novel discounting paradigm to determine the subjective value of each strategy. In our study, we were not only able to show that subjective values predict subsequent choice behaviour, but that, in addition to self-assessed utility, subjective effort in particular was predictive of subjective values. Our innovative paradigm has extensive potential applications, even beyond the field of emotion regulation. By utilising this paradigm, it becomes feasible to ascertain subjective values of demand levels that lack any objective effort hierarchy. In summary, the present thesis makes an important contribution to deepen the understanding of the role of cognitive effort in emotion regulation and emotion regulation choice. Cognitive effort and regulatory success were comprehensively examined by assessing trait measures (questionnaires), subjective ratings and peripheral physiological measures (pupillometry, electromyography, electrocardiogram). Our main finding, which could be replicated across three pre-registered studies, shows that the use of strategies is associated with different levels of subjective effort for individuals. This leads to the majority of individuals choosing the strategy that is associated with less effort for them, rather than the strategy that is more effective. Finally, the thesis outlines a novel paradigm that enables the calculation of individual subjective values attributed to emotion regulation strategies. This facilitates a more comprehensive evaluation of the determinants of emotion regulation choice, as well as the strength of their preference for such strategies. Thus, it adds to the expanding literature on the field of emotion regulation flexibility by presenting starting points for assessing individuals’ flexibility and adaptability.:Contents Summary Preface 1. Theoretical Background 1.1. Fundamentals of emotions and emotion regulation 1.1.1. Emotions 1.1.2. Emotion regulation 1.2. The cognitive control of emotions 1.2.1. Cognitive control and cognitive effort 1.2.2. Cognitive effort and emotion regulation 1.3. Peripheral physiological consequences of intentional emotion regulation 1.4. Flexible emotion regulation 1.4.1. The extended process model of emotion regulation 1.5. Emotion regulation choice 1.5.1. A conceptual framework of emotion regulation choice 1.5.2. Determinants of emotion regulation choice 2. Scope of the thesis and study overview 3. Effort beats effectiveness in emotion regulation choice: Differences between suppression and distancing in subjective and physiological measures (Study 1 and 2) 3.1. Theoretical Background 3.1.1. Effort and emotion regulation 3.1.2. The present study 3.2. Study 1 3.2.1. Method 3.2.2. Results 3.3. Study 2 3.3.1. Method 3.3.2. Results 3.4. Exploratory analyses 3.4.1. Statistics 3.4.2. Results 3.5. Discussion 3.5.1. Effort plays a crucial role in the selection of an ER strategy 3.5.2. Individual differences in personality traits do not explain individual differences in arousal and effort 3.5.3. Subjective arousal and effort are not reflected in physiological arousal and effort 3.6. Limitations 3.7. Conclusion 4. Estimating individual subjective values of emotion regulation strategies 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Method 4.2.1. Ethics information 4.2.2. Pilot data 4.2.3. Design 4.2.4. Sampling plan 4.2.5. Analysis plan 4.3. Results 4.3.1. Participants and descriptive statistics 4.3.2. Confirmatory analyses 4.3.3. Exploratory analyses 4.4. Discussion 4.4.1. Ecological validity of subjective values of emotion regulation strategies 4.4.2. Trait character of subjective values 4.4.3. Limitations 4.4.4. Conclusion 5. General Discussion 5.1. Summary of results 5.2. The role of cognitive effort in emotion regulation 5.2.1. Effects of effort in the selection stage 5.2.2. Effects of effort in the implementation stage 5.2.3. Post-regulation effects of effort 5.3. Regulatory goals in emotion regulation 5.3.1. The interaction of regulatory goals and cognitive effort 5.4. Individual subjective values of choice options 5.4.1. Factors influencing subjective values 5.4.2. Subjective values: States or traits? 5.5. Methodological considerations 5.5.1. Experimental design 5.5.2. Assessment of physiological effort and arousal 5.6. Future directions 5.7. Conclusion References Appendix A. Supplementary Information Study 1 and Study 2 Appendix B. Supplementary Information Study 3 List of Figures List of Tables List of Abbreviations Erklärung

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The choice of a meaningful baseline condition is a crucial issue for each experimental design. In the case of cognitive emotion regulation, it is common to either let participants passively view emotional stimuli without any further specific instructions or to instruct them to actively attend to and permit any arising emotions, and to contrast one of these baseline conditions with a regulation condition. While the “view” strategy can be assumed to allow for a more spontaneous emotional response, the “permit” strategy may result in a more pronounced affective and cognitive response. As these conceptual differences may be associated with differences both in subjective emotional experience and neural activation, we compared these two common control conditions within a single functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, during which participants were instructed to either passively view a set of unpleasant and neutral pictures or to actively permit any emotions arising in response to the unpleasant pictures. Trial-by-trial ratings confirmed that participants perceived the unpleasant pictures as more arousing than the neutral pictures, but also indicated higher subjective arousal during the “permit negative” as compared to the “view negative” and “view neutral” conditions. While both the “permit negative” and “view negative” conditions led to increased activation of the bilateral amygdala when contrasted with the passive viewing of neutral pictures, activation in the left amygdala was increased in response to the “permit” instruction as compared to the “view” instruction for unpleasant pictures. The increase in amygdala activation in both the “permit” and “view” conditions renders both strategies as suitable baseline conditions for studies of cognitive emotion regulation. Conceptual and activation differences, however, indicate that these two variants are not exchangeable and should be chosen depending on the experimental context.

Objective: Binge-eating disorder (BED) is characterized by recurrent episodes of binge eating and is associated with eating disorder and general psychopathology and overweight/obesity. Deficits in cognitive and emotional functioning for eating disorders or obesity have been reported. However, a systematic review on cognitive and emotional functioning for individuals with BED is lacking. Method: A systematic literature search was conducted across three databases (Medline, PubMed, and PsycINFO). Overall, n = 57 studies were included in the present review. Results: Regarding cognitive functioning, individuals with BED consistently demonstrated higher information processing biases compared to obese and normal-weight controls in the context of disorder-related stimuli (i.e., food and body cues), whereas cognitive functioning in the context of neutral stimuli appeared to be less affected. Thus, results suggest disorder-related rather than general difficulties in cognitive functioning in BED. With respect to emotional functioning, individuals with BED reported difficulties similar to individuals with other eating disorders, with a tendency to show less severe difficulties in some domains. In addition, individuals with BED reported greater emotional deficits when compared to obese and normal-weight controls. Findings suggest general difficulties in emotional functioning in BED. Thus far, however, investigations of emotional functioning in disorder-relevant situations are lacking. Discussion: Overall, the cross-sectional findings indicate BED to be associated with difficulties in cognitive and emotional functioning. Future research should determine the nature of these difficulties, in regards to general and disorder-related stimuli, and consider interactions of both domains to foster the development and improvement of appropriate interventions in BED.

Objective: Weight bias internalization (WBI) is associated with eating disorder psychopathology and non-normative eating behaviors among individuals with overweight and obesity, but has rarely been investigated in prebariatric patients. Based on findings demonstrating a relationship between emotion dysregulation and eating behavior, this study sought to investigate the association between WBI and eating disorder psychopathology as well as non-normative eating behaviors (i.e., food addiction, emotional eating, and eating in the absence of hunger), mediated by emotion dysregulation. Method: Within a consecutive multicenter study, 240 prebariatric patients were assessed using self-report questionnaires. The mediating role of emotion dysregulation was examined using structural equation modeling. Results: The analyses yielded no mediational effect of emotion dysregulation on the association between WBI and eating disorder psychopathology. However, emotion dysregulation fully mediated the associations between WBI and emotional eating as well as eating in the absence of hunger. Further, emotion dysregulation partially mediated the relationship between WBI and food addiction symptoms. Discussion: Prebariatric patients with high levels of WBI are at risk for non-normative eating behaviors, especially if they experience emotion regulation difficulties. These findings highlight the importance of interventions targeting WBI and improving emotion regulation skills for the normalization of eating behavior in prebariatric patients.

Die Arbeit gliedert sich in fünf Teile. An ein Überblickskapitel, in welchem aktuelle Modelle und Verfahren zur Erfassung Emotionaler Intelligenz vorgestellt werden, schließen sich drei empirische Studien (englischsprachig) an. In diesen werden Zusammenhänge von Fähigkeitstests und Selbstberichtverfahren zur Erfassung emotionaler Fähigkeiten in Bezug auf sozial relevante Faktoren wie Lebenszufriedenheit, Konfliktlösefähigkeiten und Freundschaft untersucht. Darüber hinaus wird geprüft, inwieweit sich Patienten verschiedener Störungsbilder von einer psychisch gesunden Kontrollgruppe als auch untereinander in ihren gezeigten emotionalen Fähigkeiten unterscheiden. Die Arbeit endet mit einer Integration der Ergebnisse dieser drei Studien. Insbesondere wird dabei auf die Probleme aktueller Verfahren zur Erfassung Emotionaler Intelligenz mittels Selbstbericht und Fähigkeitstest eingegangen. Aufgrund der konzeptionellen Nähe von Sozialer Intelligenz und Emotionaler Intelligenz werden mögliche Integrationspunkte dieser beiden Forschungsfelder benannt. Ebenso werden mögliche alternative Erfassungsmethoden aufgezeigt. / This dissertation is devided into five parts. An introductory chapter explains actual self-report questionnaires and ability tests to assess emotional intelligence. The following three chapters present empirical data looking at relations between self-report measures and ability tests and important variables of social functioning like life satisfaction, conflict-management abilities, and friendship. Moreover, in another study we looked at differences between and within inpatients with different kinds of mental disorders and a clinically healthy control group. The final chapter integrates findings and conclusions focusing on the problems assessing emotional intelligence with self-report questionnaires and ability tests. As social intelligence and emotional intelligence are conceptionally related possible areas of collaborative work are discussed. Furthermore, alternative ways of assessing emotional abilities are highlighted.