Most-Read CPS Articles in October 2015
Novel Models for Delivering Mental Health Services and Reducing the Burdens of Mental Illness
Is Homesickness a Mini-Grief? Development of a Dual Process Model
Positive Imagery-Based Cognitive Bias Modification as a Web-Based Treatment Tool for Depressed Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Read Article Pretraumatic Stress Reactions in Soldiers Deployed to AfghanistanRead ArticleReenvisioning Clinical Science: Unifying the Discipline to Improve the Public HealthRead ArticleSee the full list of most-read articles
Most-Cited CPS Articles as of November 1, 2015Novel Models for Delivering Mental Health Services and Reducing the Burdens of Mental Illness
Cognitive Bias Modification and Cognitive Control Training in Addiction and Related Psychopathology: Mechanisms, Clinical Perspectives, and Ways Forward
Using Mechanical Turk to Study Clinical Populations
The p Factor: One General Psychopathology Factor in the Structure of Psychiatric Disorders?
|
|
  Clinical Psychological Science |
The links below take you to the journal via the APS website. If not already logged in, you will be redirected to log-in using your last name (Garcia) and Member ID (81665).
|
|
New articles are now online.
|
|
Andrew D. Peckham and Sheri L. Johnson
Dopamine in the striatum -- an area of the brain involved in reward perception -- influences reward pursuit and response. Eye-blink rate has been found to be an indicator of striatal dopamine, leading researchers to ask whether eye-blink rate is also a marker for reward behavior. The eye-blink rate of participants with and without bipolar disorder was recorded while they anticipated, completed, and then were rewarded for their performance on an anagram task. Participants also completed measures of ambitious goal setting, reward-induced mania, mood state, and confidence. Eye-blink rate increased from baseline through receipt of reward for participants with and without bipolar disorder. Measures of confidence, ambitious goal setting, and reward-triggered mania were correlated with blink responses in people with bipolar disorder but not in those without it.The findings indicate that eye-blink rate can be used as an indicator of reward sensitivity.
|
|
Erika M. Manczak, Devika Basu, and Edith Chen
People vary in the amount of empathy -- the tendency to affectively experience and adopt the perspective of others -- they experience. Empathy is generally considered to be a positive and desirable trait, but are there circumstances in which empathy is harmful? The researchers examined parents and their adolescent children, assessing parents for their levels of dispositional empathy and positive parenting behaviors and adolescents for their levels of depressive symptoms. One year later, parents' blood was drawn and exposed to a bacterial stimulus to assess inflammatory response. Empathetic parents' immune response was positively related to their adolescent's level of depressive symptoms. In parents with low levels of empathy, this relationship was reversed. The researchers suggest that empathetic parents may be more sensitive to, and physiologically affected by, the mental health of their children.
|
|
Anthony D. Mancini, Heather L. Littleton, and Amie E. Grills
Can people experience psychological improvement after exposure to a trauma? Female Virginia Tech students who, as part of a sexual-victimization study, had completed assessments of anxiety, depression, and social support were assessed after the 2007 Virginia Tech campus shootings for depression, anxiety, interpersonal-resource gain, social support, and exposure to the event. Modeling revealed four responses to the shootings by participants: resilience, delayed distress, continuous distress, and improvement. Improvement following trauma was associated with increased social support and interpersonal resources, indicating that trauma can sometimes promote adjustment.
|
|
Thorsten Barnhofer, Julia M. Huntenburg, Michael Lifshitz, Jennifer Wild, Elena Antonova, and Daniel S. Margulies
Mindfulness meditation is a practice that encourages moment-to-moment monitoring of whatever experiences arise, be they bodily sensations, emotions, memories, or other thoughts. Studies have suggested that the practice of mindfulness mediation is associated with beneficial health outcomes. One specific treatment, called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) -- an intervention that combines aspects of cognitive therapy with intensive mindfulness-meditation training -- has produced promising results as a treatment for depression and the prevention of depression relapse. Specifically, research has indicated that mindfulness meditation is effective at altering the imbalanced connectivity and activation in the default-mode network (DMN) seen in those with depression and at risk for depression. Its action on the DMN is just one way in which MBCT has shown promise in helping people recognize, disengage from, and reappraise maladaptive thought patterns.
|
|
Katherine B. Carnelley, Lorna J. Otway, and Angela C. Rowe
Attachment theory suggests that people internalize the quality of early interactions with their primary caregivers, forming an attachment orientation that influences their perception of social interactions throughout their lives. Attachment insecurity has been associated with depression and anxiety; however, the evidence for this link is correlational. The researchers tested the causal relationships between attachment insecurity and depression and anxiety by priming participants with an anxious, avoidant, secure, or neutral attachment style and then testing them for depression and anxiety. Participants primed with an anxious attachment style reported higher depression, and participants primed with an avoidant attachment style reported more anxiety, than did participants primed with a secure attachment style. In a follow-up study, the researchers found that repeatedly priming attachment security led to decreases in anxiety in participants. According to the authors, these findings provide support for a causal link between attachment insecurity and depression and anxiety.
|
|
Madeline L. Pe, Ian H. Gotlib, Wim Van Den Noortgate, and Peter Kuppens
People with depression are often rejected by those they interact with, possibly because they induce negative affect in their interaction partners. To examine whether social contagion might lead people to reject depressed individuals, the researchers had participants take part in a series of 4-minute speed-dating sessions. After each interaction, participants reported their emotions and their evaluation of their speed-dating partner. Interaction partners' depression was found to be related to decreases in participants' positive affect rather than increases in their negative affect. Positive affect accounted for the relationship between interaction partners' depression and rejection by participants. Although this finding does not support the depression-contagion hypothesis, it does indicate that people do not tend to enjoy interactions with people with high levels of depression and therefore are more likely to reject them.
|
|
Jessica L. Jenness, Benjamin L. Hankin, Jami F. Young, and Andrew Smolen
The researchers sought to clarify the relationship between specific genetic profiles and biased attention to emotion -- a risk factor for the development of anxiety and depression -- by examining whether experiencing stressful life events (SLEs) influenced the relationship of genetic variants of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism and the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene to attention bias to emotional faces. Children and adolescents were assessed for attentional bias, anxiety, depression, and the number of SLEs they had experienced in the past 3 months. Youth with the S/S 5-HTTLPR genotype who had experienced recent stress demonstrated an attention bias to negative emotions, and youth with the val/val COMT allele demonstrated avoidance of positive emotion. These findings demonstrate the important role environmental stress plays in the link between genetic risk and attention biases.
|
|
|
Clinical Psychological Science is a publication of the Association for Psychological Science . Please contact APS by email or by telephone at +1 202.293.9300 with questions or comments.
|
|
|
