Dissociative detachment experiences (e.g., derealization, absorption) underpin much psychopathology and are often researched in relation to co-occurring affective states such as shame, the latter being known to occur in situations involving actual or perceived negative social evaluation. The association between shame and dissociative detachment may also be moderated by individual differences in people's need to belong. The goal of the present study was to experimentally investigate the effects of social exclusion on shame and dissociative detachment depending on perceivers' need to belong.

This study was conducted to identify the characteristics of attentional bias of individuals with Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) and how Attention Bias to Threat (ABT) changes when feedback was provided in attention training.

People sometimes re-experience traumatic events via intrusive memories that spontaneously and unintentionally intrude into consciousness (i.e., intrusions). Such intrusions can be experienced without explicit awareness (i.e., meta-awareness). However, we do not know whether intrusions with and without meta-awareness differ in how people experience them (i.e., characteristics) or react to them via maladaptive responses (i.e., suppression, negative interpretations), and therefore whether they are important to differentiate. To investigate this issue, we asked participants to watch a trauma analogue film and-during a subsequent unrelated reading task-intermittently probed them to capture and assess one film-related intrusion. Intrusion meta-awareness positively correlated with intrusion negativity, re-experiencing, and suppression, but not with how people interpreted the meaning of their intrusion. Our findings suggest intrusions with and without meta-awareness can differ in how they are experienced and associated with thought suppression-highlighting the importance of considering both types of intrusions in theory and practice.

Using multiple emotion regulation strategies in response to a single stressor-known as polyregulation-is an understudied but common event. The role of polyregulation in psychological disorders characterized by repetitive negative thinking (RNT) is unexplored, despite well-documented difficulties in emotion regulation and strong urges to avoid and escape one's intrusive thoughts in RNT.

Emotion goals (desired affect) have been theorized to play an essential role in a person's emotional experiences, guiding emotion regulation processes toward experiencing desired states. Hence, understanding whether and which emotion goals are associated with reduced negative states is crucial for individuals struggling to regulate these states, such as persons with depression. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), we examined the relationship between momentary desired positive affect and subsequent depressive affect in daily life, as well as future depressive symptoms, among individuals with depressive disorders.

Clinical practice reveals that individuals with autism characterized by the absence of cognitive impairment (High Functioning Autism-HFA) show difficulty in sharing attention with unfamiliar people. We hypothesized that this difficulty could affect cognitive control by selectively impairing stimulus-encoding or response-selection.

The Inhibitory Retrieval Approach to exposure therapy for fears and anxiety emphasizes prediction error as one of several strategies for improving outcomes. Prediction error depends on disconfirmation of expectancies for the feared outcome, and thus exposure strategies that derive from inhibitory retrieval approaches emphasize expectancy violation during exposure. However, research studies examining expectancy violation in exposure therapy have treated expectancy as a stable characteristic, assuming that expectancy following an exposure exercise remains constant over time. This brief report outlines two different uses of a methodology for using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to assess between-session expectancy following exposure during treatment for anxiety, and reports on pilot trial results.

Excessive reassurance-seeking in OCD has been linked to the maintenance of OCD, functioning as a type of checking ritual. Current treatments recommend the imposition of the extinction of seeking and providing reassurance; however, this is not well tolerated. Although it has been suggested that the provision of support may provide a more helpful alternative, there is no empirical evidence for this. In the present study, 36 participants with OCD engaged with two personalised semi-idiographic scenarios in which they imagined seeking and receiving reassurance and seeking and receiving emotional support in counterbalanced order. The primary outcome measure was anticipated urge to seek reassurance, which was found to significantly decrease in the imagined support condition relative to the imagined reassurance condition regardless of order of presentation. Emotional support was perceived as significantly more acceptable when compared to imagining reassurance in terms of higher ratings of perceived helpfulness in managing emotions, feelings of calmness and closeness, and the sense that they were fighting OCD together. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the value of encouraging the seeking and giving of emotional support as an alternative to reassurance. Implications for clinical work and further research are discussed.

A proposed strategy for attenuating the return of fear is conducting exposure therapy in multiple contexts (e.g., different locations), which is believed to enhance the generalizability of safety learning. Although conducting exposure in multiple contexts can be differentiated from conducting exposure with multiple stimuli, the two strategies are often conflated. Furthermore, researchers have not yet determined whether one of these strategies, or a combination thereof, is most effective in attenuating fear renewal.

Previous research has not established a consensus on the ability of higher socially anxious individuals to detect facial expressions. The purpose of this study was to examine this issue using Signal Detection Theory (SDT) as a framework.

Cognitive models of OCD posit that dysfunctional beliefs contribute to the maintenance of symptoms. In addition to well-established belief domains, beliefs about losing control has been identified as a novel cognitive domain which may influence OCD phenomena, including other dysfunctional beliefs. However, the exact nature of these relationships and whether such relationships are influenced by OCD symptoms is unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between appraisals of losing control and other OCD-relevant appraisals in individuals scoring high and low on OCD symptoms.

Despite documented alterations in future thinking in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), our understanding of how individuals with PTSD make future-oriented decisions is limited. We tested the hypothesis that increased discounting in association with PTSD reflects failure to spontaneously envision future rewarding situations.

Repeated checking results in large reductions in metamemory variables (confidence, details, and vividness). It has been suggested that the underlying mechanism is gradual automatization. At the same time, individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are reluctant to automatize routine processes. The aim was to investigate whether high responsibility for potential harm, typical of OCD, would attenuate the effects of repeated checking on metamemory variables and automatization.

Consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is a global public health issue. Consequently, there is strong interest in advancing understanding of the cognitive mechanisms that underpin excessive SSB consumption. This work proposes that selective interrogation of taste-based characteristics (e.g., flavour), rather than health-based characteristics (e.g., sugar content), of beverages is associated with greater SSB choice and consumption.

Depression is usually characterized by impairments in reward function, and shows altered motivation to reward in reinforcement learning. This study further explored whether task difficulty affects reinforcement learning in college students with and without depression symptom.

Ecological momentary assessment is a popular method for monitoring symptoms in real-time. Especially for fleeting experiences, such as intrusions, real-time assessments may be more accurate than retrospective estimates. However, there are concerns regarding reactivity effects associated with real-time assessments and, conversely, the reliance on bias-prone retrospective assessments in clinical science and practice. In this study we used a between-groups design to examine whether real-time intrusion assessments influence retrospective reports (aim 1). Then, we investigated whether real-time and retrospective assessments systematically differed within individuals (aim 2).

The conditioned-intrusion paradigm was designed to provide insight into the relationship between fear conditioning and intrusive memory formation, which is relevant to understanding posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and treatment. However, boundary conditions of this new paradigm have not been explored and it is currently not known whether findings from this work are valid in a clinical context.

Inhibitory Learning Theory (ILT) framework implies that in-session distress variability may promote extinction learning and thereby enhance exposure therapy efficacy. Thus far, research has mainly focused on in-session distress reduction. The aim of the current study was to assess whether in-session distress variability predicts next session PTSD symptom decline in PTSD patients receiving prolonged exposure (PE).

Sadistic pleasure - gratuitous enjoyment from inflicting pain on others - has devastating interpersonal and societal consequences. The current knowledge on non-sexual, everyday sadism - a trait that resides within the general population - is scarce. The present study therefore focussed on personality correlates of sadistic pleasure. It investigated the relationship between the Dark Triad traits, and both dispositional and state-level sadistic pleasure.

Depression exerts significant negative impacts across various life domains, including social interactions, occupational functioning, and economic well-being. These effects permeate both personal and interpersonal spheres. However, it seems that character strengths, time perspective, and self-awareness play a critical role in promoting mental well-being. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of positivity training on character strengths, time perspective, and self-awareness in depressed women.

Eating disorders are often linked to the internalization of the thin-ideal and weight stigma. The present exploratory study investigates the effects of plus-sized fashion media on weight-related attitudes in bulimia nervosa (BN).

Poor sleep quality is a known contributor to suicidal thoughts and behaviors. This study examines whether sleep quality modulates the effect of an individual's stress response and risk/reward-based decision making on suicide risk.

Transdiagnostic approaches have been promoted as a means of maximising preventative effects across multiple problems with depression and anxiety suitable targets as they appear to have highly interconnected systems in pathology development and maintenance. This study investigated long-term effects of two universal school-based programs, Emotion Regulation (ER) and Behavioral Activation (BA), that sought to prevent depression and anxiety by targeting worry (a transdiagnostic feature) to promote resilience.

Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) is an impulsive aggression disorder with self-control problems. However, the mechanisms underpinning the self-control problems in IED have not been clearly investigated. Therefore, this study examined the nature of self-control problems and their types, including cognitive inhibition, behavioral inhibition, and emotional interference in IED.

Social anxious individuals show attention bias towards emotional stimuli, this phenomenon is considered to be an important cause of anxiety generation and maintenance. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a standard psychotherapy for social anxiety disorder. CBT decreases attention biases by correcting the maladaptive beliefs of socially anxious individuals, but it is not clear whether CBT alters neurophysiological features of socially anxious individuals at early automatic and/or late cognitive strategy stage of attentional processing.

Residual symptoms represent risk factor for relapse. Attention bias modification (ABM) may reduce clinical and sub-clinical depressive symptoms, indicating that is may be of relevance when preventing relapse. Current evidence suggests that executive functions may moderate the outcome of interventions targeting depressive symptoms.

Children of parents with an anxiety disorder are at elevated risk for developing an anxiety disorder themselves. According to cognitive theories, a possible risk factor is the development of schema-related associations. This study is the first to investigate whether children of anxious parents display fear-related associations and whether these associations relate to parental anxiety.

ImRs, a technique targeting distressing mental images, has shown promise in adult psychiatric treatment. Initial research indicates positive outcomes in children, with potential for reducing mental health care burden. This pilot study examined the use of Imagery Rescripting (ImRs) as an intervention for children who have experienced negative life events. We aimed to assess short-term emotional changes, participant satisfaction, and the feasibility of a larger-scale ImRs intervention for children.

Perfectionism has been linked to self-criticism, procrastination, and psychological disorders. In a previous study, an exposure-based treatment for perfectionism (ETP), which included exposures targeted at concern over mistakes, showed positive outcomes when compared to waitlist. The aim of this study was to further investigate ETP by comparing it to a stress-management condition and assessing durability of treatment effects by conducting a one-month follow-up assessment.