Phan Y. Hong

TEMPERAMENT AS A PROSPECTIVE PREDICTOR OF SELF-INJURY AMONG PATIENTS WITH BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

This study examined the association of novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and reward dependence with different types (suicide attempts vs. nonsuicidal self-injury) and aspects (medical risk, impulsiveness, suicide intent) of self-injury over a 12-month period. Fifty-five female patients with borderline personality disorder enrolled in clinical trials completed Cloningers Temperament and Character Inventory at pretreatment as well as the Suicide Attempt Self-Injury Interview at four-month intervals starting from the pretreatment assessment. Regression analyses indicated that the reward dependence subscale of attachment, a protective factor, was most consistently and uniquely associated with aspects of self-injury, including prestudy and prospective nonsuicidal self-injury and suicide intent, and prospective suicide attempts. After controlling for prestudy self-injury, few temperament variables predicted prospective self-injury. Higher scores on both the novelty seeking subscale of impulsiveness and the reward dependence attachment subscale were associated with lower prospective suicide intent even after controlling for pre-study suicide intent.

Evaluating the Relation Between Psychopathy and Affective Empathy Two Preliminary Studies

It is widely believed that impairment in an ability to experience affective empathy for others is a central feature of psychopathy. The authors tested this assumption by covertly manipulating and measuring state experiences of emotional contagion and empathic concern in college undergraduates and male forensic inpatients. Surprisingly, they found little evidence of a negative association between psychopathy and affective empathy in either sample. In those instances in which associations were found, they tended to indicate that higher psychopathy was associated with increased affective empathy. Follow-up analyses also revealed that psychopathy was positively associated with pervasive experiences of sadness, anger, and fear, and negatively associated with pervasive experiences of happiness among nonforensic individuals. This research raises questions about existing conceptualizations of interpersonal affect in psychopathy and offers suggestions for advancing future understanding of the role-played by emotional processes in psychopathy.

The Effect of a Mindfulness Practice and Dispositional Mindfulness on Affective Forecasting

ABSTRACT A field experiment was conducted to evaluate whether mindfulness produces higher affective forecasting accuracy. Participants were randomized into a mindfulness-task, control-task, or baseline condition and then forecasted their positive and negative affect upon completion of an exam and upon receiving the exam grade. They also predicted their exam score. Those in the mindfulness-task condition more accurately predicted positive and negative affect upon exam completion and more accurately predicted negative affect and exam performance upon receiving their actual exam grade. Dispositional mindfulness predicted more accuracy in forecasting negative affect upon exam completion. Results suggest that mindfulness produces higher affective forecasting accuracy, particularly for negative affect. However, evidence was more mixed when considering the dispositional mindfulness results and for positive affect.