Negative Affectivity Moderates the Relationship between Attentional Control and Focused Skin Picking.

Very little is known about the cognitive functioning of people with body-focused repetitive behaviours and the few existing studies provide mixed findings. The aim of this study was to investigate the interplay between attentional control, negative affectivity, and focused skin picking. We hypothesized that the control of attention is associated with focused style of skin picking and that this relationship is moderated by negative affectivity. The final sample consisted of 273 non-clinical subjects (79% women) aged 18 to 54 years; study variables were assessed using questionnaires. Moderation analysis was conducted, followed by a simple slope analysis, and the Johnson-Neyman technique was used to probe the interaction effect. We found that at the low level of negative affectivity, the relationship between attentional control and focused skin picking is negative, but not at the higher levels of this trait. Interestingly, when negative affectivity reaches very high intensity, the association between attentional control and skin picking becomes positive. This relationship seems to be quite complex and may depend on the way that cognitive abilities are used by the individual, as well as on the stage of cognitive processing that they are applied to. Further studies using behavioural measures of attention are needed to better understand this issue.

Validation and Psychometric Properties of the Polish Version of the Skin Picking Scale-Revised.

The Skin Picking Scale-Revised (SPS-R) is an 8-item self-report measure of skin picking behaviors. It includes two subscales related to skin picking symptom severity and picking-related impairments. The study aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the SPS-R in a sample of adults reporting skin picking. The sample of 764 participants was recruited from the general population through an online survey. Among them, 159 meet the criteria of pathological skin picking applied in the original SPS-R validation study, and 57 endorsed all of the DSM-5 criteria for excoriation disorder. The SPS-R was back-translated into Polish. Factor structure, reliability, convergent and divergent validity, and diagnostic accuracy were assessed. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed a two-factor structure of the scale. High internal consistency and convergent and divergent validity were confirmed for the total score as well as for the subscales. High prognostic ability of the SPS-R total score was also demonstrated using ROC analysis: ≥5 was accepted as an optimal cut-off point for distinguishing skin picking sufferers from healthy controls. The Polish version of the SPS-R shows good psychometric properties and appears to be a reliable measure of skin picking symptoms and picking-related impairment.

The role of expressive suppression in hallucinatory-like and delusion-like experiences. Findings in a non-clinical sample.

INTRODUCTION: Previous works concerning emotion regulation in psychosis highlighted the relationship between expressive suppression and negative psychotic symptoms, as well as between expressive suppression and auditory hallucinations. However, a direct association between suppression and delusions has not been observed. In the study we examined whether expressive suppression is associated with psychotic-like experiences and whether it may influence delusion-like experiences by changing the impact of cognitive biases on delusional beliefs. METHODS: Two hundred and twenty-one healthy individuals never diagnosed with psychiatric disorders completed self-report questionnaires measuring: delusion-like experiences, hallucinatory-like experiences, cognitive biases and expressive suppression. Regression and moderation analyses were performed. RESULTS: Regression analyses revealed that the overall level of suppression predicts hallucinatory-like experiences, but not delusion-like experiences. Suppression of anxiety and suppression of sadness were significant predictors of hallucinatory-like experiences, whereas suppression of anxiety predicted delusion-like experiences. A moderation analysis indicated that both the overall level of suppression and suppression of sadness moderate the relationship between belief inflexibility and delusion-like experiences in such a way that belief inflexibility increases delusion-like experiences only among individuals reporting a low level of suppression. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings confirmed that expressive suppression has a direct impact on hallucinatory-like experiences and suggest that the use of suppression may influence delusion-like experiences by moderating the impact of belief inflexibility on delusional thinking.