People are known to engage in behaviours aimed at replenishing social connectedness after their s... more People are known to engage in behaviours aimed at replenishing social connectedness after their sense of belonging is threatened. We explored whether the mental strategy of daydreaming about significant others could have similar effects by acting as an imaginary substitute when loved ones are unavailable. Following a loneliness induction, participants (N = 126) were asked to either daydream about a significant other, daydream about a non-social scenario or complete a control task. Social daydreamers showed significantly increased feelings of connection, love and belonging compared to non-social daydreamers and control participants. Consistent with the proposition that social daydreaming replenished connectedness, social daydreamers also behaved more pro-socially and expressed less of a desire to interact with others after daydreaming. These findings demonstrate that through imagination, social daydreaming can replenish connectedness providing a potential strategy for enhancing socio- emotional well-being.
Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood gluco... more Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood glucose levels. The present experiment investigated the hypothesis that the extent to which people's blood glucose levels decline during emotion regulation attempts is influenced by whether they believe themselves to be good or poor at emotion control. We found that although good and poor emotion regulators were equally able to achieve positive and negative moods, the blood glucose of poor emotion regulators was reduced after performing an affect-improving task, whereas the blood glucose of good emotion regulators remained unchanged. As evidence suggests that glucose is a limited energy resource upon which self-control relies, the implication is that good emotion regulators are able to achieve the same positive mood with less cost to their self-regulatory resource. Thus, depletion may not be an inevitable consequence of engaging in emotion regulation.
Augustine and Hemenover (2013) were right to state that meta-analyses should be accurate and gene... more Augustine and Hemenover (2013) were right to state that meta-analyses should be accurate and generalizable. However, we disagree that our meta-analysis of emotion regulation strategies (Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012) fell short in these respects. Augustine and Hemenover's concerns appear to have accrued from misunderstandings of our inclusion criteria or from disagreements with methodological decisions that are crucial to the validity of meta-analysis. This response clarifies the bases of these decisions and discusses implications for the accuracy and validity of meta-analyses. Furthermore, we show that our findings are consistent with theoretical predictions and previous reviews, and we present new evidence that the effect sizes that we obtained are generalizable. In particular, we demonstrate that our estimates of the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies reveal how well these strategies predict important emotional outcomes over 1 year.
Mind-wandering is closely connected with negative mood. Whether negative mood is a cause or conse... more Mind-wandering is closely connected with negative mood. Whether negative mood is a cause or consequence of mind-wandering remains an important, unresolved, issue. We sought to clarify the direction of this relationship by measuring mood before and after mind-wandering. We also measured the affective content, time-orientation and relevance of mind-wandering to current concerns to explore whether the link between mind-wandering and negative mood might be explained by these characteristics. A novel experience-sampling technique with smartphone application prompted participants to answer questions about mind-wandering and mood across 7 days. While sadness tended to precede mind-wandering, mind-wandering itself was not associated with later mood and only predicted feeling worse if its content was negative. We also found prior sadness predicted retrospective mind-wandering, and prior negative mood predicted mind-wandering to current concerns. Our findings provide new insight into how mood and mind-wandering relate but suggest mind-wandering is not inherently detrimental to well-being.
Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is a new indirect contact strategy for promot... more Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is a new indirect contact strategy for promoting tolerance and more positive intergroup relations. Despite its relatively recent inception, there have now been over 70 studies showing that imagining a positive interaction with an outgroup member can reduce prejudice and encourage positive intergroup behavior. With this meta-analysis, we provide the first quantitative review of imagined contact effects on four key measures of intergroup bias: attitudes, emotions, intentions and behavior. We also test for moderators arising from both group and study design characteristics. The analysis found that imagined contact resulted in significantly reduced intergroup bias across all four dependent variables (overall d+ = 0.35). The effect was significant for both published and unpublished studies, and emerged across a broad range of target outgroups and contexts. The effect was equally strong for explicit and implicit attitude measures, but was stronger on behavioral intentions than on attitudes, supporting the direct link between imagery and action proposedly underlying mental simulation effects. Most design characteristics had no significant impact, including valence of the imagined interaction, type of control condition, and time spent imagining contact. However, the more participants were instructed to elaborate on the context within which the imagined interaction took place, the stronger the effect. The imagined contact effect was also stronger for children than for adults, supporting the proposition that imagined contact is a potentially key component of educational strategies aiming to promote positive social change.
Augustine and Hemenover (2012) are right to state that meta-analyses should be accurate and gener... more Augustine and Hemenover (2012) are right to state that meta-analyses should be accurate and generalizable. However, we disagree that our meta-analysis of emotion regulation strategies (Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012) falls short in these respects. Augustine and Hemenover’s concerns appear to accrue from misunderstandings of our inclusion criteria or from disagreements with methodological decisions that are crucial to the validity of meta-analysis. This response clarifies the bases of these decisions and discusses implications for the accuracy and validity of meta-analyses. Furthermore, we show that our findings are consistent with theoretical predictions and previous reviews, and we present new evidence that the effect sizes that we obtained are generalizable. In particular, we demonstrate that our estimates of the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies reveal how well these strategies predict important emotional outcomes over one year.
The present review adopts an action control perspective on emotion regulation, contextualising th... more The present review adopts an action control perspective on emotion regulation, contextualising the gap between emotion control goals (e.g., I want to remain calm) and emotional outcomes (e.g., anger, anxiety, and aggression) in terms of the broader literature on goal pursuit. We propose that failure to effectively regulate emotions can result from difficulties with the self-regulatory tasks of (i) identifying the need to regulate, (ii) deciding whether and how to regulate, and (iii) enacting a regulation strategy. Next, we review evidence that a technique traditionally associated with regulating behavioural goals (forming implementation intentions or ‘if-then’ planning) can help to overcome these difficulties. Meta-analysis indicated that forming implementation intentions is effective in modifying emotional outcomes, with a large effect relative to no regulation instructions (k = 21, N = 1,306 d+ = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.61 to 1.20) and a medium-sized effect relative to goal intention instructions (k = 29, N = 1,208, d+ = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.42 to 0.65). Our conclusion is that research on emotion regulation might benefit from an action control perspective and the interventions that this perspective offers.
Objective: Rates of non-attendance for psychotherapy hinder the effective delivery of evidence-ba... more Objective: Rates of non-attendance for psychotherapy hinder the effective delivery of evidence-based treatments. Although many strategies have been developed to increase attendance, the effectiveness of these strategies has not been quantified. The aim of the present study was to undertake a meta-analysis of rigorously controlled studies to quantify the effects of interventions to promote psychotherapy attendance. Method: The inclusion criteria were that studies (1) concerned attendance at individual or group psychotherapy by adults, (2) used a randomised controlled trial design to test an attendance strategy, and (3) used an objective measure of attendance. Computerised literature searches and hand searching resulted in a total of 31 RCTs that involved 33 independent tests of strategies for reducing treatment refusal and premature termination (N = 4,422). Effect sizes from individual studies were meta-analysed and moderator analyses were conducted. Results: Interventions had a small-to-medium effect on attendance across studies (d+ = .38). Interventions to reduce treatment refusal and premature termination were similarly effective (d+ = .37 and .39, respectively). Choice of appointment time or therapist, motivational interventions, preparation for psychotherapy, informational interventions, attendance reminders, and case management were the most effective strategies. Diagnosis also moderated effect sizes; samples with a single diagnosis benefited more from attendance interventions than samples that had a variety of diagnoses. Conclusions: Interventions to increase attendance at adult psychotherapy are moderately effective. However, relatively few studies met the strict study inclusion criteria. Further methodologically sound and theoretically informed interventions geared at increasing attendance are required.
Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood gluco... more Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood glucose levels. The present experiment investigates the hypothesis that the extent to which people’s blood glucose levels decline during emotion regulation attempts is influenced by whether they believe themselves to be good or poor at emotion control. We found that although good and poor emotion regulators were equally able to achieve positive and negative moods, the blood glucose of poor emotion regulators was reduced after performing an affect-improving task, whereas the blood glucose of good emotion regulators remained unchanged. As evidence suggests that glucose is a limited energy resource upon which self-control relies, the implication is that good emotion regulators are able to achieve the same positive mood with less cost to their self-regulatory resource. Thus, depletion may not be an inevitable consequence of engaging in emotion regulation.
The present meta-analysis investigates the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process m... more The present meta-analysis investigates the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation in modifying emotional outcomes as indexed by experiential, behavioral, and physiological measures. A systematic search of the literature identified 306 experimental comparisons of different emotion regulation (ER) strategies. ER instructions were coded according to a new taxonomy and meta- analysis was used to evaluate the effectiveness of each strategy across studies. The findings revealed differences in effectiveness between ER processes; attentional deployment had no effect on emotional outcomes (d+ = 0.00), response modulation had a small effect (d+ = 0.16), and cognitive change had a small-to-medium effect (d+ = 0.36). There were also important within-process differences. Specifically, we identified seven types of attentional deployment, four types of cognitive change, and four types of response modulation; and these distinctions had a substantial influence on effectiveness. Whereas distraction was an effective way to regulate emotions (d+ = 0.27), concentration was not (d+ = -0.26). Similarly, while suppressing the expression of emotion proved effective (d+ = 0.32), suppressing the experience of emotion or thoughts of the emotion-eliciting event were not (d+ = -0.04 and -0.12, respectively). Finally, reappraising the emotional response proved less effective (d+ = 0.23) than reappraising the emotional stimulus (d+ = 0.36) or using perspective taking (d+ = 0.45). The review also identified several moderators of strategy effectiveness including factors related to the (a) to-be-regulated emotion, (b) frequency and intended purpose of the ER strategy, (c) study design, and (d) study characteristics.
Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) have been hypothesized to result from a distortion in percep... more Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) have been hypothesized to result from a distortion in perception, whereby top-down factors influence the process of body representation. Perceptual illusions provide a novel method of investigating this hypothesis. This study aimed to investigate whether self-reported unexplained symptoms are associated with altered experience of the rubber hand illusion (RHI). A non-clinical MUS group with high scores on the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ), and a control group with low scores on this scale, were exposed to the RHI. Illusion experience was measured by self-reports and by proprioceptive alteration. After controlling for somatosensory amplification and trait anxiety, the low-SDQ group responded significantly more strongly to the RHI on both questionnaire and proprioceptive measures of the illusion. In contrast, the high-SDQ group scored significantly higher on the Perceptual Aberrations Scale, a measure of bodily distortions in daily life. These findings support the proposed link between MUS and disturbances in body representation, and suggest that a decreased reliance on current sensory inputs may contribute to symptom experience in susceptible individuals.
Two experiments investigated whether forming an if–then plan or implementation intention could br... more Two experiments investigated whether forming an if–then plan or implementation intention could break the link between mood and risky behaviour. In Expt 1, participants planned how to deal with unpleasant moods. Next, as part of an ostensibly unrelated experiment, participants underwent a disguised mood induction before rating their willingness to perform a series of risky behaviours. Unpleasant mood increased subsequent risk willingness among participants who did not form a plan but did not influence risk willingness among participants who formed an implementation intention. In Expt 2, mood arousal was manipulated and participants then undertook a gambling task. One-half of the sample formed implementation intentions that focused attention on the odds of winning. Greater arousal led to more risky betting among control participants. However, forming an implementation intention promoted good risk awareness and, consequently, shielded participants’ task performance from the effects of arousal. Taken together, the findings suggest that people can strategically avoid the detrimental effect of unpleasant mood and arousal on risk by forming implementation intentions directed at controlling either the experience of mood or the risky behaviour.
It is well known that stimuli grab attention to their location, but do they also grab attention t... more It is well known that stimuli grab attention to their location, but do they also grab attention to their sensory modality? The modality shift effect (MSE), the observation that responding to a stimulus leads to reaction time benefits for subsequent stimuli in the same modality, suggests that this may be the case. If noninformative cue stimuli, which do not require a response, also lead to benefits for their modality, this would suggest that the effect is automatic. We investigated the time-course of the visuotactile MSE and the difference between the effects of cues and targets. In Experiment 1, when visual and tactile tasks and stimulus locations were matched, uninformative cues did not lead to reaction time benefits for targets in the same modality. However, the modality of the previous target led to a significant MSE. Only stimuli that require a response, therefore, appear to lead to reaction time benefits for their modality. In Experiment 2, increasing attention to the cue stimuli attenuated the effect of the previous target, but the cues still did not lead to a MSE. In Experiment 3, a MSE was demonstrated between successive targets, and this effect decreased with increasing intertrial intervals. Overall, these studies demonstrate how cue- and target-induced effects interact and suggest that modalities do not automatically capture attention as locations do; rather, the MSE is more similar to other task repetition effects.
Unexplained neurological symptoms (“somatoform dissociation”) are common in health care settings ... more Unexplained neurological symptoms (“somatoform dissociation”) are common in health care settings and associated with disproportionately high levels of distress, disability, and resource utilization. Theory suggests that somatoform dissociation is associated with disturbed attentional processing, but there is a paucity of research in this area and the available evidence is contradictory. We compared undergraduate participants (n=124) with high and low scores on the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ-20) on a tactile cueing paradigm measuring the time course of attention to touch, following either a neutral film or a film designed to simulate the emotional effects of trauma exposure. Following the neutral film, high SDQ-20 participants exhibited delayed disengagement from tactile cue stimuli compared to the low SDQ-20 group. Following the “trauma” film, however, the high SDQ-20 group showed attentional effects suggesting avoidance of the tactile stimuli in this condition. Early attention to tactile cues following the trauma film predicted film-related intrusive thoughts after the experiment. These findings suggest that both body vigilance and body avoidance may be involved in the expression of somatoform dissociation.
Peripheral cues are thought to facilitate responses to stimuli presented at the same location bec... more Peripheral cues are thought to facilitate responses to stimuli presented at the same location because they lead to exogenous attention shifts. Facilitation has been observed in numerous studies of visual and auditory attention, but there have been only four demonstrations of tactile facilitation, all in studies with potential confounds. Three studies used a spatial (finger versus thumb) discrimination task, where the cue could have provided a spatial framework that might have assisted the discrimination of subsequent targets presented on the same side as the cue. The final study circumvented this problem by using a non-spatial discrimination; however, the cues were informative and interspersed with visual cues which may have affected the attentional effects observed. In the current study, therefore, we used a nonspatial tactile frequency discrimination task following a non-informative tactile white noise cue. When the target was presented 150 ms after the cue, we observed faster discrimination responses to targets presented on the same side compared to the opposite side as the cue; by 1000 ms, responses were significantly faster to targets presented on the opposite side to the cue. Thus, we demonstrated that tactile attentional facilitation can be observed in a non-spatial discrimination task, under unimodal conditions and with entirely non-predictive cues. Furthermore, we provide the first demonstration of significant tactile facilitation and tactile inhibition of return within a single experiment.
People are known to engage in behaviours aimed at replenishing social connectedness after their s... more People are known to engage in behaviours aimed at replenishing social connectedness after their sense of belonging is threatened. We explored whether the mental strategy of daydreaming about significant others could have similar effects by acting as an imaginary substitute when loved ones are unavailable. Following a loneliness induction, participants (N = 126) were asked to either daydream about a significant other, daydream about a non-social scenario or complete a control task. Social daydreamers showed significantly increased feelings of connection, love and belonging compared to non-social daydreamers and control participants. Consistent with the proposition that social daydreaming replenished connectedness, social daydreamers also behaved more pro-socially and expressed less of a desire to interact with others after daydreaming. These findings demonstrate that through imagination, social daydreaming can replenish connectedness providing a potential strategy for enhancing socio- emotional well-being.
Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood gluco... more Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood glucose levels. The present experiment investigated the hypothesis that the extent to which people's blood glucose levels decline during emotion regulation attempts is influenced by whether they believe themselves to be good or poor at emotion control. We found that although good and poor emotion regulators were equally able to achieve positive and negative moods, the blood glucose of poor emotion regulators was reduced after performing an affect-improving task, whereas the blood glucose of good emotion regulators remained unchanged. As evidence suggests that glucose is a limited energy resource upon which self-control relies, the implication is that good emotion regulators are able to achieve the same positive mood with less cost to their self-regulatory resource. Thus, depletion may not be an inevitable consequence of engaging in emotion regulation.
Augustine and Hemenover (2013) were right to state that meta-analyses should be accurate and gene... more Augustine and Hemenover (2013) were right to state that meta-analyses should be accurate and generalizable. However, we disagree that our meta-analysis of emotion regulation strategies (Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012) fell short in these respects. Augustine and Hemenover's concerns appear to have accrued from misunderstandings of our inclusion criteria or from disagreements with methodological decisions that are crucial to the validity of meta-analysis. This response clarifies the bases of these decisions and discusses implications for the accuracy and validity of meta-analyses. Furthermore, we show that our findings are consistent with theoretical predictions and previous reviews, and we present new evidence that the effect sizes that we obtained are generalizable. In particular, we demonstrate that our estimates of the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies reveal how well these strategies predict important emotional outcomes over 1 year.
Mind-wandering is closely connected with negative mood. Whether negative mood is a cause or conse... more Mind-wandering is closely connected with negative mood. Whether negative mood is a cause or consequence of mind-wandering remains an important, unresolved, issue. We sought to clarify the direction of this relationship by measuring mood before and after mind-wandering. We also measured the affective content, time-orientation and relevance of mind-wandering to current concerns to explore whether the link between mind-wandering and negative mood might be explained by these characteristics. A novel experience-sampling technique with smartphone application prompted participants to answer questions about mind-wandering and mood across 7 days. While sadness tended to precede mind-wandering, mind-wandering itself was not associated with later mood and only predicted feeling worse if its content was negative. We also found prior sadness predicted retrospective mind-wandering, and prior negative mood predicted mind-wandering to current concerns. Our findings provide new insight into how mood and mind-wandering relate but suggest mind-wandering is not inherently detrimental to well-being.
Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is a new indirect contact strategy for promot... more Imagined intergroup contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) is a new indirect contact strategy for promoting tolerance and more positive intergroup relations. Despite its relatively recent inception, there have now been over 70 studies showing that imagining a positive interaction with an outgroup member can reduce prejudice and encourage positive intergroup behavior. With this meta-analysis, we provide the first quantitative review of imagined contact effects on four key measures of intergroup bias: attitudes, emotions, intentions and behavior. We also test for moderators arising from both group and study design characteristics. The analysis found that imagined contact resulted in significantly reduced intergroup bias across all four dependent variables (overall d+ = 0.35). The effect was significant for both published and unpublished studies, and emerged across a broad range of target outgroups and contexts. The effect was equally strong for explicit and implicit attitude measures, but was stronger on behavioral intentions than on attitudes, supporting the direct link between imagery and action proposedly underlying mental simulation effects. Most design characteristics had no significant impact, including valence of the imagined interaction, type of control condition, and time spent imagining contact. However, the more participants were instructed to elaborate on the context within which the imagined interaction took place, the stronger the effect. The imagined contact effect was also stronger for children than for adults, supporting the proposition that imagined contact is a potentially key component of educational strategies aiming to promote positive social change.
Augustine and Hemenover (2012) are right to state that meta-analyses should be accurate and gener... more Augustine and Hemenover (2012) are right to state that meta-analyses should be accurate and generalizable. However, we disagree that our meta-analysis of emotion regulation strategies (Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012) falls short in these respects. Augustine and Hemenover’s concerns appear to accrue from misunderstandings of our inclusion criteria or from disagreements with methodological decisions that are crucial to the validity of meta-analysis. This response clarifies the bases of these decisions and discusses implications for the accuracy and validity of meta-analyses. Furthermore, we show that our findings are consistent with theoretical predictions and previous reviews, and we present new evidence that the effect sizes that we obtained are generalizable. In particular, we demonstrate that our estimates of the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies reveal how well these strategies predict important emotional outcomes over one year.
The present review adopts an action control perspective on emotion regulation, contextualising th... more The present review adopts an action control perspective on emotion regulation, contextualising the gap between emotion control goals (e.g., I want to remain calm) and emotional outcomes (e.g., anger, anxiety, and aggression) in terms of the broader literature on goal pursuit. We propose that failure to effectively regulate emotions can result from difficulties with the self-regulatory tasks of (i) identifying the need to regulate, (ii) deciding whether and how to regulate, and (iii) enacting a regulation strategy. Next, we review evidence that a technique traditionally associated with regulating behavioural goals (forming implementation intentions or ‘if-then’ planning) can help to overcome these difficulties. Meta-analysis indicated that forming implementation intentions is effective in modifying emotional outcomes, with a large effect relative to no regulation instructions (k = 21, N = 1,306 d+ = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.61 to 1.20) and a medium-sized effect relative to goal intention instructions (k = 29, N = 1,208, d+ = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.42 to 0.65). Our conclusion is that research on emotion regulation might benefit from an action control perspective and the interventions that this perspective offers.
Objective: Rates of non-attendance for psychotherapy hinder the effective delivery of evidence-ba... more Objective: Rates of non-attendance for psychotherapy hinder the effective delivery of evidence-based treatments. Although many strategies have been developed to increase attendance, the effectiveness of these strategies has not been quantified. The aim of the present study was to undertake a meta-analysis of rigorously controlled studies to quantify the effects of interventions to promote psychotherapy attendance. Method: The inclusion criteria were that studies (1) concerned attendance at individual or group psychotherapy by adults, (2) used a randomised controlled trial design to test an attendance strategy, and (3) used an objective measure of attendance. Computerised literature searches and hand searching resulted in a total of 31 RCTs that involved 33 independent tests of strategies for reducing treatment refusal and premature termination (N = 4,422). Effect sizes from individual studies were meta-analysed and moderator analyses were conducted. Results: Interventions had a small-to-medium effect on attendance across studies (d+ = .38). Interventions to reduce treatment refusal and premature termination were similarly effective (d+ = .37 and .39, respectively). Choice of appointment time or therapist, motivational interventions, preparation for psychotherapy, informational interventions, attendance reminders, and case management were the most effective strategies. Diagnosis also moderated effect sizes; samples with a single diagnosis benefited more from attendance interventions than samples that had a variety of diagnoses. Conclusions: Interventions to increase attendance at adult psychotherapy are moderately effective. However, relatively few studies met the strict study inclusion criteria. Further methodologically sound and theoretically informed interventions geared at increasing attendance are required.
Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood gluco... more Previous studies have found that acts of self-control like emotion regulation deplete blood glucose levels. The present experiment investigates the hypothesis that the extent to which people’s blood glucose levels decline during emotion regulation attempts is influenced by whether they believe themselves to be good or poor at emotion control. We found that although good and poor emotion regulators were equally able to achieve positive and negative moods, the blood glucose of poor emotion regulators was reduced after performing an affect-improving task, whereas the blood glucose of good emotion regulators remained unchanged. As evidence suggests that glucose is a limited energy resource upon which self-control relies, the implication is that good emotion regulators are able to achieve the same positive mood with less cost to their self-regulatory resource. Thus, depletion may not be an inevitable consequence of engaging in emotion regulation.
The present meta-analysis investigates the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process m... more The present meta-analysis investigates the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation in modifying emotional outcomes as indexed by experiential, behavioral, and physiological measures. A systematic search of the literature identified 306 experimental comparisons of different emotion regulation (ER) strategies. ER instructions were coded according to a new taxonomy and meta- analysis was used to evaluate the effectiveness of each strategy across studies. The findings revealed differences in effectiveness between ER processes; attentional deployment had no effect on emotional outcomes (d+ = 0.00), response modulation had a small effect (d+ = 0.16), and cognitive change had a small-to-medium effect (d+ = 0.36). There were also important within-process differences. Specifically, we identified seven types of attentional deployment, four types of cognitive change, and four types of response modulation; and these distinctions had a substantial influence on effectiveness. Whereas distraction was an effective way to regulate emotions (d+ = 0.27), concentration was not (d+ = -0.26). Similarly, while suppressing the expression of emotion proved effective (d+ = 0.32), suppressing the experience of emotion or thoughts of the emotion-eliciting event were not (d+ = -0.04 and -0.12, respectively). Finally, reappraising the emotional response proved less effective (d+ = 0.23) than reappraising the emotional stimulus (d+ = 0.36) or using perspective taking (d+ = 0.45). The review also identified several moderators of strategy effectiveness including factors related to the (a) to-be-regulated emotion, (b) frequency and intended purpose of the ER strategy, (c) study design, and (d) study characteristics.
Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) have been hypothesized to result from a distortion in percep... more Medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) have been hypothesized to result from a distortion in perception, whereby top-down factors influence the process of body representation. Perceptual illusions provide a novel method of investigating this hypothesis. This study aimed to investigate whether self-reported unexplained symptoms are associated with altered experience of the rubber hand illusion (RHI). A non-clinical MUS group with high scores on the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ), and a control group with low scores on this scale, were exposed to the RHI. Illusion experience was measured by self-reports and by proprioceptive alteration. After controlling for somatosensory amplification and trait anxiety, the low-SDQ group responded significantly more strongly to the RHI on both questionnaire and proprioceptive measures of the illusion. In contrast, the high-SDQ group scored significantly higher on the Perceptual Aberrations Scale, a measure of bodily distortions in daily life. These findings support the proposed link between MUS and disturbances in body representation, and suggest that a decreased reliance on current sensory inputs may contribute to symptom experience in susceptible individuals.
Two experiments investigated whether forming an if–then plan or implementation intention could br... more Two experiments investigated whether forming an if–then plan or implementation intention could break the link between mood and risky behaviour. In Expt 1, participants planned how to deal with unpleasant moods. Next, as part of an ostensibly unrelated experiment, participants underwent a disguised mood induction before rating their willingness to perform a series of risky behaviours. Unpleasant mood increased subsequent risk willingness among participants who did not form a plan but did not influence risk willingness among participants who formed an implementation intention. In Expt 2, mood arousal was manipulated and participants then undertook a gambling task. One-half of the sample formed implementation intentions that focused attention on the odds of winning. Greater arousal led to more risky betting among control participants. However, forming an implementation intention promoted good risk awareness and, consequently, shielded participants’ task performance from the effects of arousal. Taken together, the findings suggest that people can strategically avoid the detrimental effect of unpleasant mood and arousal on risk by forming implementation intentions directed at controlling either the experience of mood or the risky behaviour.
It is well known that stimuli grab attention to their location, but do they also grab attention t... more It is well known that stimuli grab attention to their location, but do they also grab attention to their sensory modality? The modality shift effect (MSE), the observation that responding to a stimulus leads to reaction time benefits for subsequent stimuli in the same modality, suggests that this may be the case. If noninformative cue stimuli, which do not require a response, also lead to benefits for their modality, this would suggest that the effect is automatic. We investigated the time-course of the visuotactile MSE and the difference between the effects of cues and targets. In Experiment 1, when visual and tactile tasks and stimulus locations were matched, uninformative cues did not lead to reaction time benefits for targets in the same modality. However, the modality of the previous target led to a significant MSE. Only stimuli that require a response, therefore, appear to lead to reaction time benefits for their modality. In Experiment 2, increasing attention to the cue stimuli attenuated the effect of the previous target, but the cues still did not lead to a MSE. In Experiment 3, a MSE was demonstrated between successive targets, and this effect decreased with increasing intertrial intervals. Overall, these studies demonstrate how cue- and target-induced effects interact and suggest that modalities do not automatically capture attention as locations do; rather, the MSE is more similar to other task repetition effects.
Unexplained neurological symptoms (“somatoform dissociation”) are common in health care settings ... more Unexplained neurological symptoms (“somatoform dissociation”) are common in health care settings and associated with disproportionately high levels of distress, disability, and resource utilization. Theory suggests that somatoform dissociation is associated with disturbed attentional processing, but there is a paucity of research in this area and the available evidence is contradictory. We compared undergraduate participants (n=124) with high and low scores on the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ-20) on a tactile cueing paradigm measuring the time course of attention to touch, following either a neutral film or a film designed to simulate the emotional effects of trauma exposure. Following the neutral film, high SDQ-20 participants exhibited delayed disengagement from tactile cue stimuli compared to the low SDQ-20 group. Following the “trauma” film, however, the high SDQ-20 group showed attentional effects suggesting avoidance of the tactile stimuli in this condition. Early attention to tactile cues following the trauma film predicted film-related intrusive thoughts after the experiment. These findings suggest that both body vigilance and body avoidance may be involved in the expression of somatoform dissociation.
Peripheral cues are thought to facilitate responses to stimuli presented at the same location bec... more Peripheral cues are thought to facilitate responses to stimuli presented at the same location because they lead to exogenous attention shifts. Facilitation has been observed in numerous studies of visual and auditory attention, but there have been only four demonstrations of tactile facilitation, all in studies with potential confounds. Three studies used a spatial (finger versus thumb) discrimination task, where the cue could have provided a spatial framework that might have assisted the discrimination of subsequent targets presented on the same side as the cue. The final study circumvented this problem by using a non-spatial discrimination; however, the cues were informative and interspersed with visual cues which may have affected the attentional effects observed. In the current study, therefore, we used a nonspatial tactile frequency discrimination task following a non-informative tactile white noise cue. When the target was presented 150 ms after the cue, we observed faster discrimination responses to targets presented on the same side compared to the opposite side as the cue; by 1000 ms, responses were significantly faster to targets presented on the opposite side to the cue. Thus, we demonstrated that tactile attentional facilitation can be observed in a non-spatial discrimination task, under unimodal conditions and with entirely non-predictive cues. Furthermore, we provide the first demonstration of significant tactile facilitation and tactile inhibition of return within a single experiment.
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Papers by Eleanor Miles
Method: The inclusion criteria were that studies (1) concerned attendance at individual or group psychotherapy by adults, (2) used a randomised controlled trial design to test an attendance strategy, and (3) used an objective measure of attendance. Computerised literature searches and hand searching resulted in a total of 31 RCTs that involved 33 independent tests of strategies for reducing treatment refusal and premature termination (N = 4,422). Effect sizes from individual studies were meta-analysed and moderator analyses were conducted.
Results: Interventions had a small-to-medium effect on attendance across studies (d+ = .38). Interventions to reduce treatment refusal and premature termination were similarly effective (d+ = .37 and .39, respectively). Choice of appointment time or therapist, motivational interventions, preparation for psychotherapy, informational interventions, attendance reminders, and case management were the most effective strategies. Diagnosis also moderated effect sizes; samples with a single diagnosis benefited more from attendance interventions than samples that had a variety of diagnoses.
Conclusions: Interventions to increase attendance at adult psychotherapy are moderately effective. However, relatively few studies met the strict study inclusion criteria. Further methodologically sound and theoretically informed interventions geared at increasing attendance are required.
non-predictive cues. Furthermore, we provide the first demonstration of significant tactile facilitation and tactile inhibition of return within a single experiment.
Method: The inclusion criteria were that studies (1) concerned attendance at individual or group psychotherapy by adults, (2) used a randomised controlled trial design to test an attendance strategy, and (3) used an objective measure of attendance. Computerised literature searches and hand searching resulted in a total of 31 RCTs that involved 33 independent tests of strategies for reducing treatment refusal and premature termination (N = 4,422). Effect sizes from individual studies were meta-analysed and moderator analyses were conducted.
Results: Interventions had a small-to-medium effect on attendance across studies (d+ = .38). Interventions to reduce treatment refusal and premature termination were similarly effective (d+ = .37 and .39, respectively). Choice of appointment time or therapist, motivational interventions, preparation for psychotherapy, informational interventions, attendance reminders, and case management were the most effective strategies. Diagnosis also moderated effect sizes; samples with a single diagnosis benefited more from attendance interventions than samples that had a variety of diagnoses.
Conclusions: Interventions to increase attendance at adult psychotherapy are moderately effective. However, relatively few studies met the strict study inclusion criteria. Further methodologically sound and theoretically informed interventions geared at increasing attendance are required.
non-predictive cues. Furthermore, we provide the first demonstration of significant tactile facilitation and tactile inhibition of return within a single experiment.