Rick E. Ingram

On the self-serving function of social anxiety: Shyness as a self-handicapping strategy.

We tested the hypothesis that socially anxious or shy individuals use their anxiety symptoms as a strategy to control attributions made about their performances in social-evaluative settings (i.e., self-handicapping strategies). Specifically, we predicted that trait-socially anxious or shy persons would report more symptoms of social anxiety in an evaluative setting in which anxiety or shyness could serve as an excuse for poor performance than would individuals in (a) an evaluative setting in which shyness was precluded as an excuse or (b) a nonevaluative setting. Furthermore, we predicted that this self-protective pattern of symptom reporting would not occur for individuals who were not trait-socially anxious because these persons would not commonly use such symptoms as a self-handicapping strategy. Results supported these predictions for male subjects, but not for female subjects. Sex differences in the strategic use of shyness are discussed in relation to other research on sex differences in the etiology and correlates of social anxiety.

Facial affect processing and depression susceptibility: cognitive biases and cognitive neuroscience.

Facial affect processing is essential to social development and functioning and is particularly relevant to models of depression. Although cognitive and interpersonal theories have long described different pathways to depression, cognitive-interpersonal and evolutionary social risk models of depression focus on the interrelation of interpersonal experience, cognition, and social behavior. We therefore review the burgeoning depressive facial affect processing literature and examine its potential for integrating disciplines, theories, and research. In particular, we evaluate studies in which information processing or cognitive neuroscience paradigms were used to assess facial affect processing in depressed and depression-susceptible populations. Most studies have assessed and supported cognitive models. This research suggests that depressed and depression-vulnerable groups show abnormal facial affect interpretation, attention, and memory, although findings vary based on depression severity, comorbid anxiety, or length of time faces are viewed. Facial affect processing biases appear to correspond with distinct neural activity patterns and increased depressive emotion and thought. Biases typically emerge in depressed moods but are occasionally found in the absence of such moods. Indirect evidence suggests that childhood neglect might cultivate abnormal facial affect processing, which can impede social functioning in ways consistent with cognitive-interpersonal and interpersonal models. However, reviewed studies provide mixed support for the social risk model prediction that depressive states prompt cognitive hypervigilance to social threat information. We recommend prospective interdisciplinary research examining whether facial affect processing abnormalities promote-or are promoted by-depressogenic attachment experiences, negative thinking, and social dysfunction.

Cognitive, affective and social mechanisms in depression risk: Cognition, hostility, and coping style

Although some research has assessed cognitive variables in individuals at risk for depression, few studies have specifically assessed the role of automatic thinking, and virtually no studies have assessed anger and coping in this group. The current study compared measures of these variables in a high-risk group that was defined on the basis of a previous episode of depression, and a control group comprised of low-risk/never depressed individuals. Even though neither group evidenced depressive symptoms at the time of assessment, group comparisons and regression analyses indicated that high-risk individuals reported more negative automatic thoughts than did low-risk participants and that social support seeking, self-blame, and avoidance emerged as coping predictors of risk as did higher levels of anger and hostility. These data thus suggest patterns of interpersonal, behavioural, and cognitive variables that may characterise depression risk.

A meta-analytic review of mood-congruent implicit memory in depressed mood

In studies of explicit memory, researchers have reliably demonstrated that mood-congruent, depressive information is especially likely to be recalled by individuals exhibiting depressed mood. Results from studies of implicit mood-congruent memory in depressed mood, however, have been largely discrepant. The current research reviews 20 studies of implicit mood-congruent memory for emotionally valenced words in the context of dysphoria and clinical depression. Meta-analytic techniques were used to summarize this research. Results indicated that depressive groups exhibited preferential implicit recall of negative information and nondepressed groups exhibited preferential implicit recall of positive information. Also, depressive implicit mood-congruent memory for negative information was associated with recall and encoding tasks that matched with regard to the perceptual versus conceptual processes required. Furthermore, self-relevance emerged as an important moderator for implicit recall in analyses that compared clinically depressed groups to nondepressed groups. These results provide partial support both for the transfer appropriate processing framework of memory and cognitive theories of depression that emphasize self-relevant information. Finally, certain participant characteristics, particularly age and severity of depressive symptoms, emerged as important moderators of the effect of group status on depressive implicit recall biases.

Pupil response to negative emotional information in individuals at risk for depression

Using pupil dilation as a physiological gauge of cognitive and emotional load, currently depressed individuals have previously shown sustained processing of negative emotional information. In this study, pupil dilation data from 24 recovered-depressed individuals were compared to those of 25 never-depressed individuals during a task in which they labelled the valence of emotional words before and after a negative mood-state induction. Before the mood induction, recovered-depressed participants evidenced more sustained pupil dilation in response to negative stimuli than did never-depressed participants. However, after the mood induction, sustained dilation to negative stimuli decreased for recovered participants in comparison to never-depressed participants. These findings suggest that, for people at risk for depression, small amounts of negative information are highly salient and yield increased physiological responses. However, larger amounts of negative information lead to decreased reactions potentially associated with emotional and cognitive blunting.

Company motivates the miserable: The impact of consensus information on help seeking for psychological problems.

Based on an attribution theory analysis, it was predicted that normal individuals (people who do not evidence a particular target problem) would be least motivated to seek help for a psychological problem when they believe that the problem is actuarially common (i.e., high consensus). Based on an analysis of how target problem people evaluate their psychological problem, however, it was predicted that such individuals (unlike normal individuals) should be maximally motivated to seek help when they believe that the problem is common. To test these predictions, target problem and normal individuals (high vs. average test anxious females) were given feedback that they possessed a problem (test anxiety). Individuals were then told that their problem was either common, uncommon, or given no consensus information. As predicted, the higher consensus information led to the least help-seeking behavior for the normal individuals and to the most help-seeking behavior for the target problem individuals.

Information Processing: Attention and Memory

Publisher Summary Information processing literature as defined by memory and attention offers little in the way of new treatment insights, but reinforces the underlying rationale for current treatment approaches for depression. Attention and memory are among numerous cognitive factors that may play a role in the risk process. They are the basic building blocks of cognition and lay the foundation for all cognitive approaches to depression. This chapter serves to validate important aspects of cognitive models, but also offers promise for helping to identify risk variables that might be targeted in prevention efforts. Treatments that target the modification of constructs such as schemas must by necessity alter the information processing that is associated with schemas. The foremost reason to understand risk factors is so that future, or first, onsets can be prevented, or their impact diminished. The methodologies are available and, to the extent that vulnerability researchers are willing to adopt them, much can be understood about the mechanisms underlying schemas and how these mechanisms function in the onset, course, treatment, and prevention of depression.

Situational specificity of self-focused attention in dysphoric states

Although research has shown that heightenedself-focused attention characterizes dysphoria, fewstudies have examined what factors are linked toincreases in this process. The current study examinedwhether mood states affect the elevation of selffocused attention among dysphoric individuals. A sampleof individuals with elevated dysphoria was compared witha control sample after either a negative or a positive mood induction. Dysphoric individuals showedhigher self-focus than control participants after bothmood conditions. These data suggest a generalizedself-focusing responsivity among dysphoric individuals that may contribute to the intensity andduration of the dysphoria.

Unique and Shared Aspects of Affective Symptomatology: The Role of Parental Bonding in Depression and Anxiety Symptom Profiles

Prior research has found an association between parental bonding and depression and anxiety. Specifically, low levels of care and high levels of overprotection have been associated with increased risk for developing depression and anxiety. However little research has explored the relationship between factors of parental bonding and specific aspects of depression and anxiety. The present study investigated these relationships in a sample of undergraduate students (nxa0=xa0680) who reported a range of affective symptomatology. Lower levels of maternal care were associated with negative beliefs about the self, negative interactions with others and fatigue; lower levels of maternal and paternal care were associated with generalized fear. Maternal overprotection was associated with physical symptoms of anxiety and a fear of dying, whereas paternal overprotection was a significant predictor of negative beliefs about the self and difficulty maintaining steadiness when anxious. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the role of parenting in the development of vulnerability to affective symptomatology.

Biased processing of sad faces: An ERP marker candidate for depression susceptibility

Depression has been associated with task-relevant increased attention toward negative information, reduced attention toward positive information, or reduced inhibition of task-irrelevant negative information. This study employed behavioural and psychophysiological measures (event-related potentials; ERP) to examine whether groups with risk factors for depression (past depression, current dysphoria) would show attentional biases or inhibitory deficits related to viewing facial expressions. In oddball task blocks, young adult participants responded to an infrequently presented target emotion (e.g., sad) and inhibited responses to an infrequently presented distracter emotion (e.g., happy) in the context of frequently presented neutral stimuli. Previous depression was uniquely associated with greater P3 ERP amplitude following sad targets, reflecting a selective attention bias. Also, dysphoric individuals less effectively inhibited responses to sad distracters than non-dysphoric individuals according to behavioural data, but not psychophysiological data. Results suggest that depression risk may be most reliably characterised by increased attention toward others depressive facial emotion.