Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry
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J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry · Mar 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialThe influence of patients' preference/attitude towards psychotherapy and antidepressant medication on the treatment of major depressive disorder.
Preferences and attitudes patients hold towards treatment are important, as these can influence treatment outcome. In depression research, the influence of patients' preference/attitudes on outcome and dropout has mainly been studied for antidepressant medication, and less for psychological treatments. We investigated the effects of patients' preference and attitudes towards psychological treatment and antidepressant medication on treatment outcome and dropout, and tested specificity of effects. ⋯ Patients' preferences and attitudes towards depression treatments influence dropout from ADM, and moderate the short-term difference in effectiveness between BA and ADM. The fact that dropout from BA was not affected by preference/attitude speaks for its acceptability among patients.
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J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry · Mar 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialHypervigilance and avoidance in visual attention in children with social phobia.
Attentional bias towards threat in socially anxious adults is well documented; however, research on this bias in children with social phobia is rather scarce. The present study investigates whether the hypervigilance-avoidance hypothesis also applies to children with social phobia. ⋯ Cognitive biases in elementary school children (between 8 and 12 years) relate to hypervigilant rather than to avoidant information processing. Attentional distribution varies over time. Differences between clinical anxious and healthy children seem to be modified by anxiety induction, symptom severity and contextual stimuli, such as the emotional valence of a face and the context in which the threat stimulus appears.
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J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry · Mar 2014
Implicit versus explicit measures of self-concept of self-control and their differential predictive power for spontaneous trait-relevant behaviors.
Low trait self-control constitutes a core criterion in various psychiatric disorders. Personality traits such as low self-control are mostly indexed by self-report measures. However, several theorists emphasized the importance of differentiating between explicit and implicit indices of personality traits, Therefore, the present study examined the unique predictive validity of an implicit measure of trait self-control for spontaneous dysfunctional behavior. ⋯ As predicted, the implicit measure of trait self-control showed superior predictive power for spontaneous trait-related behavior. This finding points to the relevance of complementing the routinely used self-report measures with implicit measures of trait self-control.
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J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry · Mar 2014
Attention bias for chocolate increases chocolate consumption--an attention bias modification study.
The current study examined experimentally whether a manipulated attention bias for food cues increases craving, chocolate intake and motivation to search for hidden chocolates. ⋯ These findings demonstrate further evidence for a link between attention for food and food intake, and provide an indication about the direction of this relationship.
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J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry · Mar 2014
Difficulty in disengaging attention from threatening facial expressions in anxiety: a new approach in terms of benefits.
Recent work suggests that the ability to disengage attention from threatening information is impaired in anxiety. The present study compared the difficulty to disengage from angry, fearful and neutral faces in Low Trait Anxious individuals (LTA) versus High Trait Anxious individuals (HTA) at two stages of facial expression processing (i.e., initial and later face processing). ⋯ LTA individuals can benefit from the emotional processing (i.e., from 200 to 500 ms) to make a rapid attentional shift and engagement to the target stimuli whereas HTA individuals did not and continue to process the threatening facial expression. These results also point out the role of top down processes on the regulation of disengagement from threatening information in anxiety.