One-session treatment of specific phobias in youths: A randomized clinical trial.

Sixty children, ages 7-17 years, who fulfilled Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) diagnosis for various specific phobias were randomized to (a) 1-session exposure treatment alone, (b) 1-session treatment with a parent present, or (c) wait-list control group for 4 weeks. After the waiting period, the wait-list patients were rerandomized to the active treatments. The patients' phobias were assessed with behavioral approach tests (approach behavior, experienced anxiety, and physiological reactions), whereas general anxiety, depression, phobic tendencies, and anxiety sensitivity were assessed with self-report inventories. Assessments were done pre-, post-, and 1-year following treatment. Results showed that both treatment conditions did significantly better than the control condition, whereas the treatment groups did equally well on most measures, and the effects were maintained at follow-up. The implications of these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

One-session treatment of specific phobias in youth: A randomized clinical trial in the United States and Sweden.

One hundred and ninety-six youth, ages 7–16, who fulfilled Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) criteria for various specific phobias were randomized to a one-session exposure treatment, education support treatment, or a wait list control group. After the waiting period, the wait list participants were offered treatment and, if interested, rerandomized to 1 of the 2 active treatments. The phobias were assessed with semistructured diagnostic interviews, clinician severity ratings, and behavioral avoidance tests, whereas fears, general anxiety, depression, and behavior problems were assessed with self- and parent report measures. Assessments were completed pretreatment, posttreatment, and at 6 months following treatment. Results showed that both treatment conditions were superior to the wait list control condition and that 1-session exposure treatment was superior to education support treatment on clinician ratings of phobic severity, percentage of participants who were diagnosis free, child ratings of anxiety during the behavioral avoidance test, and treatment satisfaction as reported by the youth and their parents. There were no differences on self-report measures. Treatment effects were maintained at follow-up. Implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Anxiety disorders and phobias: A cognitive perspective.

Reviews the book, Anxiety disorders and phobias: A cognitive perspective by Aaron T. Beck, Gary Emery, and Ruth L. Greenberg (see record 2006-01301-000). Aaron Beck and colleagues have done an excellent job in their attempt to present a comprehensive cognitive model for understanding and treating anxiety disorders and phobias. The authors set out to present a comprehensive cognitive model for the understanding and treating of anxiety disorders and phobias. What they covered is presented with scholarly thoroughness and depth. What seems to be lacking in their presentation is an attempt to address the impact of interpersonal context. Thus, while the cognitive model promises to be an extremely helpful component to the understanding and treatment of anxiety disorders and phobias, a comprehensive treatment regimen will often require attention to additional aspects. The book is well written and richly illustrated with case histories and examples. It provides important perspectives in the understanding and treatment of anxiety disorders and phobias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The look of fear and anger: Facial maturity modulates recognition of fearful and angry expressions.

The current series of studies provide converging evidence that facial expressions of fear and anger may have co-evolved to mimic mature and babyish faces in order to enhance their communicative signal. In Studies 1 and 2, fearful and angry facial expressions were manipulated to have enhanced babyish features (larger eyes) or enhanced mature features (smaller eyes) and in the context of a speeded categorization task in Study 1 and a visual noise paradigm in Study 2, results indicated that larger eyes facilitated the recognition of fearful facial expressions, while smaller eyes facilitated the recognition of angry facial expressions. Study 3 manipulated facial roundness, a stable structure that does not vary systematically with expressions, and found that congruency between maturity and expression (narrow face-anger; round face-fear) facilitated expression recognition accuracy. Results are discussed as representing a broad co-evolutionary relationship between facial maturity and fearful and angry facial expressions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning.

An evolved module for fear elicitation and fear learning with 4 characteristics is proposed. (a) The fear module is preferentially activated in aversive contexts by stimuli that are fear relevant in an evolutionary perspective. (b) Its activation to such stimuli is automatic. (c) It is relatively impenetrable to cognitive control. (d) It originates in a dedicated neural circuitry, centered on the amygdala. Evidence supporting these propositions is reviewed from conditioning studies, both in humans and in monkeys; illusory correlation studies; studies using unreportable stimuli; and studies from animal neuroscience. The fear module is assumed to mediate an emotional level of fear learning that is relatively independent and dissociable from cognitive learning of stimulus relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The emotional impact of loss narratives: Event severity and narrative perspectives.

Out of the complex influences of event, narrative and listener characteristics on narrative emotions, this paper focuses on event severity, narrative perspectives, mood, and dispositions for emotion regulation and empathy. Event severity and perspective representation were systematically varied in sad autobiographical narratives to study their influence on quantity and quality of readers' emotional response. Each of three stories were manipulated to contain elaborated perspectives, only the past protagonists' perspective (dramatic narration), and very little perspectives at all (impersonal narration). We predicted that event severity influences the quantity of emotional response, while degree of perspective representation influences plausibility and whether emotional responses are sympathetic or interactional, that is, directed against the narrator. Hypotheses were confirmed except for plausibility, and perspective representation had an effect only on anger against and dislike of the narrator. In a second study, impersonal narration evoked anger at and negative evaluations of the narrator which were related to blaming the narrator for showing too little emotional involvement. The generalizability of findings across emotions and implications for sharing of emotions in everyday and clinical settings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The hawk/goose story: The classical ethological experiments of Lorenz and Tinbergen, revisited.

We present a historical account of the story behind the famous hawk/goose experiments of Lorenz and Tinbergen in a wider context of cognitive ethology. We discuss their significance, for ethological experimentation in general, and specifically for understanding innate constraints on cognition. As examples of the continuing significance of the hawk/goose paradigm of selective habituation, we discuss its relation to “exposure therapy” of human phobias and the use of hawk silhouettes as deterrents for songbirds. Finally we rephrase Uexküll's thesis of taxon-specific worlds (“Umwelten”) as a “Theory of World.” (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The construct of courage: Categorization and measurement.

The original courage scale developed by Woodard (2004) measured courage as the product of the willingness to take action and the fear experienced while taking the action. Recent findings suggest that fear may not be a necessary part of courageous action. Items from the original courage scale were reanalyzed using only the "willingness to act" scores. A four-factor structure--work/employment, patriotic/religion-based belief system, specific social-moral, and independent courage or family based--was found. This factor solution was replicated in a slightly revised version of the scale administered to a new participant sample. Interpretation of these factors suggested that courage may be classified by more complex, context-based situations. A revised version of the scale, the Woodard Pury Courage Scale-23, is included for further research and investigation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of specific emotions in children's responses to interparental conflict: A test of the model.

Mothers, fathers, and their 6-year-old children (N?=?164) participated in a study testing key tenets of the specific emotions model of marital conflict. Parents reported their marital conflict strategies, were observed interacting with their children, and rated children's behavioral adjustment. Children reported their emotional reactions to specific interparental conflicts. Results support the specific emotions model. Children's behaviors mirrored the marital or parental behaviors of same-gender parents. Indirect effects of marital aggression through parental behavior were detected, and marital and parental behaviors interacted to predict girls' externalizing. Girls' anger, sadness, and fear increased with fathers' marital aggression. Fear and the anger by fear interaction predicted girls' internalizing. Fathers' marital aggression interacted with anger to predict externalizing and interacted with fear to predict internalizing behavior in boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The roles of altitude and fear in the perception of height.

Previous research on perceiving spatial layout has found that people often exhibit normative biases in their perception of the environment. For instance, slant is typically overestimated and distance is usually underestimated. Surprisingly, however, the perception of height has rarely been studied. The present experiments examined the perception of height when viewed from the top (e.g., looking down) or from the bottom (e.g., looking up). Multiple measures were adapted from previous studies of horizontal extents to assess the perception of height. Across all of the measures, a large, consistent bias was found: Vertical distances were greatly overestimated, especially from the top. Secondary findings suggest that the overestimation of distance and size that occurs when looking down from a high place correlates with reports of trait- and state-level fear of heights, suggesting that height overestimation may be due, in part, to fear. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The voice conveys specific emotions: Evidence from vocal burst displays.

Studies of emotion signaling inform claims about the taxonomic structure, evolutionary origins, and physiological correlates of emotions. Emotion vocalization research has tended to focus on a limited set of emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, happiness, and for the voice, also tenderness. Here, we examine how well brief vocal bursts can communicate 22 different emotions: 9 negative (Study 1) and 13 positive (Study 2), and whether prototypical vocal bursts convey emotions more reliably than heterogeneous vocal bursts (Study 3). Results show that vocal bursts communicate emotions like anger, fear, and sadness, as well as seldom-studied states like awe, compassion, interest, and embarrassment. Ancillary analyses reveal family-wise patterns of vocal burst expression. Errors in classification were more common within emotion families (e.g., ’self-conscious,’ ’pro-social’) than between emotion families. The three studies reported highlight the voice as a rich modality for emotion display that can inform fundamental constructs about emotion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Leadership development: The current state and future expectations.

This article discusses the common themes in this special issue of Consulting Psychology Journal on "Leadership Development" and summarizes some of the current issues in leadership development. A particular focus is on using an integrated model or framework to guide leadership development efforts. Emphasis is also placed on assessment of leadership development programs. Finally, expectations for future research and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rumination, fear, and cortisol: An in vivo study of interpersonal transgressions.

The authors sought to examine whether rumination about psychologically painful, though nontraumatic, interpersonal transgressions is associated with increased salivary cortisol. They measured salivary cortisol, rumination about a transgression, fear and anger regarding the transgressor, perceived painfulness of the transgression, and positive and negative mood in 115 undergraduates who had experienced an interpersonal transgression during the previous 7 days. They obtained measurements on as many as 5 occasions separated by approximately 14 days each. On occasions when participants reported that they had been ruminating to a degree that was greater than was typical for them, they had higher levels of salivary cortisol than was typical for them. The rumination- cortisol association appeared to be mediated by fear of the transgressor. Rumination about even moderately painful but nontraumatic life events and associated emotions are related to biological changes that may subserve social goals such as avoiding social threats. Items from the rumination scale are appended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parenting at risk: New perspectives, new approaches.

In this lead paper for this special section, we advance the perspective that new insights into parenting at risk can be gained by focusing on the dynamic emotional processes that occur during parent–child exchanges, with special emphasis on parental emotions as experienced and their regulation of emotion and underlying cognitions, as well as the role of developmentally rooted cognitions in shaping these associations. We discuss the very few but germinal studies that embody this perspective and introduce work in this section that examines emotion dynamics during parenting in real time. We believe this perspective will move us beyond static conceptualizations of parenting at risk, broadens our understanding of parenting as a process, and accelerates our ability to identify the essential targets of intervention when parenting is at risk. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit theories of emotion: Affective and social outcomes across a major life transition.

The authors demonstrate that people differ systematically in their implicit theories of emotion: Some view emotions as fixed (entity theorists), whereas others view emotions as more malleable (incremental theorists). Using a longitudinal and multimethod design, the authors show that implicit theories of emotion, as distinct from intelligence, are linked to both emotional and social adjustment during the transition to college. Before entering college, individuals who held entity (vs. incremental) theories of emotion had lower emotion regulation self-efficacy and made less use of cognitive reappraisal (Part 1). Throughout their first academic term, entity theorists of emotion had less favorable emotion experiences and received decreasing social support from their new friends, as evidenced by weekly diaries (Part 2). By the end of freshman year, entity theorists of emotion had lower well-being, greater depressive symptoms, and lower social adjustment as indicated in both self- and peer-reports (Part 3). The emotional, but not the social, outcomes were partially mediated by individual differences in emotion regulation self-efficacy (Part 4). Together, these studies demonstrate that implicit theories of emotion can have important long-term implications for socioemotional functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Borderline personality features moderate the effect of a fear induction on impulsivity.

This study examined the effects of laboratory-induced fear on impulsivity among participants who were high (n = 28) or low (n = 44) in borderline personality (BP) features. Participants were randomly assigned to complete a laboratory measure of impulsivity (passive avoidance learning task) following either a neutral mood induction or a fear induction. BP features moderated the association of the emotion condition (fear vs. neutral) with impulsivity: High-BP participants, but not low-BP participants, committed a greater number of impulsive responses in the fear condition compared with the neutral condition. Findings indicated that impulsivity among persons with BP features may not be a trait-like deficit, but rather, depends on emotional context. These findings suggest that future research should examine impulsivity under differing emotional conditions, and that clinical interventions to reduce impulsivity among persons with BP features should focus on responses to emotional contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The ontogeny of fear-potentiated startle: Effects of earlier-acquired fear memories.

Research has shown that learned fear emerges in a response-specific sequence. For example, freezing is observed at a younger age than is potentiated startle (P. Hunt & B. A. Campbell, 1997). The present study shows that the age at which a specific learned fear response emerges is influenced by the animal's early experiences. Specifically, fear potentiation of startle emerges earlier in development if the rat is given prior fear conditioning to a different stimulus. Some constraints of this "facilitation" effect are determined in follow-up experiments. This facilitation effect may provide a novel way of testing the development of the neural circuits underlying learned fear. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Human amygdala activity during the expression of fear responses.

The initial learning and subsequent behavioral expression of fear are often viewed as independent processes with potentially unique neural substrates. Laboratory animal studies of Pavlovian fear conditioning suggest that the amygdala is important for both forming stimulus associations and for subsequently expressing learned behavioral responses. In the present article, human amygdala activity was studied during the autonomic expression of conditional fear in two differential conditioning experiments with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and concurrent recording of skin conductance responses (SCRs). Trials were classified on the basis of individual participants' SCRs. Significant amygdala responding was detected only during trials on which a signal both predicted shock and elicited significant conditional SCR. Conditional stimulus presentation or autonomic activity alone was not sufficient. These results indicate that amygdala activity may specifically reflect the expression of learned fear responses and support the position that this region plays a central role in the expression of emotional reactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

AIDS-related bereavement among gay men: The inadequacy of current theories of grief.

AIDS-related grief among gay men has specific and unique characteristics that differentiate it from other types of loss. To understand the phenomenon and address adequately the needs of grieving gay men, clinicians need to take into account several components of AIDS-related grief. They are (1) the adverse effects of multiple, cumulative loss; (2) the unique characteristics of the gay male subculture and the relevance of "gay grief"; (3) the shortcomings of popular grief models; and (4) the importance of finding meaning in ongoing adversity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The functional organization of preschool-age children’s emotion expressions and actions in challenging situations.

Although functional links between emotion and action are implied in emotion regulation research, there is limited evidence that specific adaptive actions for coping with a challenge are more probable when certain negative emotions are expressed. The current study examined this question among 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 113; M age = 47.84 months, SD = 6.19). Emotion expressions and actions were observed during 2 challenging tasks: children waited for a gift while the mother worked, and children worked alone to retrieve a prize from a locked box with the wrong key. Angry and happy expressions, compared with sad expressions, were associated with more actions. These actions varied with the nature of the task, reflecting appreciation of situational appropriateness. In addition, when waiting with the mother, happiness was associated with the broadest range of actions, whereas when working alone on the locked box, anger was associated with the broadest range of actions. Results are discussed in terms of the adaptive function of negative emotions and in terms of functional and dimensional models of emotion. Findings have implications for the development of emotion regulation and social–emotional competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)