Threat cues and attentional bias in blood-injection-injury phobia and snake phobia / Señales de amenaza y sesgo atencional en la fobia a la sangre, inyecciones y heridas y en la fobia a las serpientes

The aim of this research was to study the effect of a cue signalling the upcoming of a phobic picture on the electrocortical activity provoked by the disorder-relevant stimulus in in blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia and snake phobia. A sample of 13 BII phobia participants, 12 snake phobia individuals and 14 non-phobic controls underwent an S1-S2 task, where S1 was a word that described the content of a subsequent picture (blood-related, snake and neutral) that appeared 2 seconds later (S2). We obtained the P200 and P300 ERP amplitudes provoked by the pictures. Our results reveal that P200 did not differentiate between picture contents in BII phobia while, in contrast, snake and blood-related pictures provoked the largest responses in snake phobia participants. Both blood-related and snake pictures provoked greater P300 amplitudes than neutral pictures in all the groups. Threat cues reduced the electrocortical reaction of the BII phobia participants, possibly by the elicitation of anticipatory or regulatory responses. These results are indicative of a low automatic, exogenous attention towards the feared stimuli in BII phobia, as revealed by P200, probably related to a lack of attentional bias to the phobic object.(AU)

El objetivo de esta investigación fue estudiar el efecto de una señal que indica la aparición de una imagen fóbica sobre la actividad electrocortical provocada por el estímulo fóbico en personas con fobia a la sangre, inyecciones y heridas (SIH) y en fóbicos a las serpientes. Una muestra de 13 participantes con fobia SIH, 12 con fobia a las serpientes y 14 controles no fóbicos se sometieron a una tarea S1-S2, donde S1 era una palabra que describía el contenido de una imagen posterior (relacionada con sangre, serpientes o neutra) que aparecía 2 segundos después (S2). Obtuvimos las amplitudes de los potenciales evocados P200 y P300 provocados por las imágenes. Nuestros resultados revelaronn que P200 no diferenciaba entre el contenido de las imágenes en la fobia SIH mientras que, por el contrario, las imágenes relacionadas con serpientes y con sangre provocaron las mayores respuestas en los participantes con fobia a las serpientes. Tanto las imágenes relacionadas con sangre como las relacionadas con serpientes provocaron amplitudes de P300 mayores que las imágenes neutras en todos los grupos. Las señales de amenaza redujeron la reacción electrocortical de los fóbicos SIH, posiblemente porque desencadenaron respuestas anticipatorias o reguladoras. Estos resultados indican una baja atención exógena hacia los estímulos temidos en la fobia SIH, como lo revela P200, probablemente relacionada con una pérdida del sesgo atencional hacia su objeto fóbico.(AU)

Does Social Content Influence the Subjective Evaluation of Affective Pictures?

This study explored the effect of the perceived social content of affective pictures on the subjective evaluation of affective valence and arousal. For this purpose, we established three categories of social content (pictures without people, with one person and with two or more people). A sample of 161 subjects rated 200 pictures varying in affective valence (unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant), arousal and social content. Results of two-factor analysis of variance, F(4, 157) = 71.7, p < .001, ηp2 = .31, showed that perceived social content influenced the ratings of affective valence, specially for unpleasant pictures, with the greatest social content (two or more people) leading subjects to rate unpleasant pictures with the lowest ratings (all pairwise comparisons' p < .001). Regarding arousal, F(4, 157) = 64.0, p < .001, ηp2 = .29), the higher the social content, the higher the arousal ratings, but only for pleasant (all pairwise comparisons' p < .007) and unpleasant (all pairwise comparisons' p < .001) pictures. Overall, this study demonstrated an effect of the perceived social content on the subjective evaluation of affective valence and arousal of emotional stimuli.

Does social content influence the subjective evaluation of affective pictures?

This study explored the effect of the perceived social content of affective pictures on the subjective evaluation of affective valence and arousal. For this purpose, we established three categories of social content (pictures without people, with one person and with two or more people). A sample of 161 subjects rated 200 pictures varying in affective valence (unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant), arousal and social content. Results of two-factor analysis of variance, F(4, 157) = 71.7, p < .001, ηp2 = .31, showed that perceived social content influenced the ratings of affective valence, specially for unpleasant pictures, with the greatest social content (two or more people) leading subjects to rate unpleasant pictures with the lowest ratings (all pairwise comparisons' p < .001). Regarding arousal, F(4, 157) = 64.0, p < .001, ηp2 = .29), the higher the social content, the higher the arousal ratings, but only for pleasant (all pairwise comparisons' p < .007) and unpleasant (all pairwise comparisons' p < .001) pictures. Overall, this study demonstrated an effect of the perceived social content on the subjective evaluation of affective valence and arousal of emotional stimuli

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Head Motion Elicited by Viewing Affective Pictures as Measured by a New LED-Based Technique.

The complex sensory input and motor reflexes that keep body posture and head position aligned are influenced by emotional reactions evoked by visual or auditory stimulation. Several theoretical approaches have emphasized the relevance of motor reactions in emotional response. Emotions are considered as a tendency or predisposition to act that depends on two motivational systems in the brain - the appetitive system, related to approach behaviours, and the defensive system, related to withdrawal or fight-or-flight behaviours. Few studies on emotion have been conducted employing kinematic methods, however. Motion analysis of the head may be a promising method for studying the impact of viewing affective pictures on emotional response. For this purpose, we presented unpleasant, neutral and pleasant affective pictures. Participants were instructed to view the pictures and to remain still. Two light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were attached to the foreheads of participants, and a Wii Remote controller, positioned 25 cm away, detected the position of the LEDs in the medial-lateral and anterior-posterior axes. We found more sway in response to unpleasant pictures. In addition, unpleasant pictures also provoked faster movements than both neutral and pleasant pictures. This response to unpleasant pictures, in contrast to pleasant ones, might reflect the readiness or predisposition to act. Our data also revealed that men moved faster than women, which is in accordance with previous findings related to gender differences.

Effects of social and affective content on exogenous attention as revealed by event-related potentials.

The social content of affective stimuli has been proposed as having an influence on cognitive processing and behaviour. This research was aimed, therefore, at studying whether automatic exogenous attention demanded by affective pictures was related to their social value. We hypothesised that affective social pictures would capture attention to a greater extent than non-social affective stimuli. For this purpose, we recorded event-related potentials in a sample of 24 participants engaged in a digit categorisation task. Distracters were affective pictures varying in social content, in addition to affective valence and arousal, which appeared in the background during the task. Our data revealed that pictures depicting high social content captured greater automatic attention than other pictures, as reflected by the greater amplitude and shorter latency of anterior P2, and anterior and posterior N2 components of the ERPs. In addition, social content also provoked greater allocation of processing resources as manifested by P3 amplitude, likely related to the high arousal they elicited. These results extend data from previous research by showing the relevance of the social value of the affective stimuli on automatic attentional processing.

Autonomic reactivity in blood-injection-injury and snake phobia.

OBJECTIVE: This research aimed to study the salivary flow and other autonomic reactions -heart rate (HR) and skin conductance response (SCR)- in blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia and snake phobia participants, under the assumption that exposure to blood-related pictures in BII phobia will provoke an increase in parasympathetic activity that, in turn, will lead to a greater saliva production than other affective contents. METHODS: We selected 18 BII phobia and 14 snake phobia participants along with 22 non-phobia individuals. All participants were exposed to 3 blocks of pictures (12 pictures per block) depicting either mutilations, snakes or neutral, household objects. Saliva samples were taken in the 2-min interval before and after each block. RESULTS: In comparison to other contents, blood-related pictures provoked an increase in salivary flow in BII phobia participants, as well as an increase in the number of SCRs. In the snake phobia group, snake pictures provoked HR acceleration, but the SCRs they elicited did not differ from the SCRs provoked by the blood-related pictures. CONCLUSION: BII phobia individuals react to their phobic object with a series of physiological changes resulting from a sympathetic-parasympathetic co-activation. This is in contrast with other specific phobias (e.g., small animal phobias) that usually show a sympathetically mediated, defensive reactivity when exposed to their disorder-relevant stimuli. These data support the use of therapeutic interventions in BII phobia that may differ in some respect from those used in other specific phobias.

Social stimuli increase physiological reactivity but not defensive responses.

Emotional reactions are crucial in survival because they provide approach and withdrawal behaviors. However, an unsolved question is whether the social content of the affective stimuli has a specific effect on emotional responses. We studied whether the social content of affective pictures influenced the defensive response and response mobilization. For this purpose, we recorded startle blink reflex (a defensive response) and skin conductance responses (a measure of unspecific physiological reactivity or arousal) in 73 participants while they viewed a series of 81 pictures of varying affective valence and social content. Our results revealed that defense response, as indicated by increases in the magnitude of the startle blink reflex, was mainly dependent on threatening or unpleasant cues, but was unrelated to the social content of the pictures. The social content, however, had an influence on pleasant stimuli, provoking an increase in resource mobilization, as reflected by changes in electrodermal activity. Hence, the social content of the affective stimuli may increase the physiological arousal elicited by pleasant stimuli, and it appears to be unrelated to the defense reactivity provoked by unpleasant stimuli.

Introduction: Adolescencia y desviación Social / Special Issue: Adolescence and Social Deviance

The goal of the present monograph is to bring together recent scholarship from teams of researchers across different developmental contexts to study predictors and correlates of adolescent maladjustment or deviance. These include intrapersonal factors, such as the Big Five personality construct, but also interpersonal factors, including family processes and relationships, and peer group relations. They also include larger structural characteristics, such as socioeconomic status or consequences of migratory processes, now prevalent and relevant across societies (AU)

El objetivo del este monográfico es reunir trabajos recientes de equipos de investigación de diferentes contextos centrados en el análisis de los predictores y los correlatos de la conducta inadaptada en la adolescencia. Entre estos se incluyen factores individuales, como la personalidad del adolescente, analizada con el modelo Big Five; factores interpersonales, incluyendo los procesos y las relaciones familiares o con el grupo de iguales. También se consideran factores estructurales amplios, como el nivel socioeconómico o las consecuencias de los procesos migratorios, tan relevantes en las sociedades actuales (AU)

Personalidad, estilos parentales y Desviación Social en Adolescentes Españoles / Personality, Parenting and Deviance among Spanish Adolescents

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las características de personalidad y los estilos de interacción entre padres e hijos que se relacionan con diferentes manifestaciones de conducta desviada en la adolescencia, como abuso de drogas y alcohol, vandalismo y robo. Así mismo, se analiza el papel moderador de los estilos de crianza de los progenitores en la relación entre personalidad y conducta antisocial. La muestra esta compuesta por 652 adolescentes, 282 chicos y 370 chicas, con una media de edad de 16.93 años (d.t.=1). Los resultados indican que, respecto a la personalidad, son las variables extraversión, amabilidad y conciencia las que se vinculan a las manifestaciones de conducta externalizada. Respecto a las prácticas de crianza, los estilos de interacción positivos se relacionan de forma negativa con la conducta antisocial mientras que el conflicto lo hace de forma positiva. Además, la percepción de conflicto modera el efecto de los constructos de personalidad del Big Five sobre la conducta desviada (AU)

The goal of this work is to analyze the personality characteristics and interactions between parents and children that are related to diverse manifestations of deviant behavior in adolescence, such as alcohol and drug abuse, vandalism, and theft. We also analyzed parenting as a moderator in the relationship between personality and antisocial behavior. The sample is made up of 652 adolescents, 282 boys and 370 girls, mean 16.93 years (SD = 1). The results indicate that extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are associated with different measures of deviance. As expected, positive parenting processes (closeness, communication) are negatively associated with deviance, while conflict is positively associated. In addition, perceived conflict moderated the effects by Big Five personality constructs on measures of deviance (AU)

Preattentive processing of feared stimuli in blood-injection-injury fearful subjects.

This research aimed to study the defence responses of blood-injection-injury (BII) fearful subjects elicited by the preattentive processing of their feared objects and by an abrupt acoustic stimulus. We selected 21 BII fearful subjects and 25 non-fearful controls from an initial sample of 128 women, according to their scores on the Fear Survey Scale (damage subscale) and the Mutilation Questionnaire. Subjects were exposed to a burst of white noise to promote a defence response, and to 48 pictures, depicting mutilations, as well as other affective contents, displayed through a backward masking procedure. Heart rate (HR), skin conductance response (SCR) and corrugator supercilii activity were continuously recorded throughout the task. Both groups showed similar SCRs, EMG activity and cardiac defence responses to the acoustic stimulus, though fearful subjects showed greater initial HR deceleration than controls. While BII fearful subjects displayed the usual defence response when exposed to a non-feared threatening stimulus, the preattentive processing of the pictures did not reveal autonomic differences between fearful subjects and controls. Mutilation pictures, however, evoked the greatest EMG activity, but only in the fearful group. These data further extend previous research on conscious perception of blood-related stimuli in BII fearful subjects, by showing a failure to recruit autonomic defence responses when blood-related pictures appear outside of conscious awareness.

Construcción de una escala para medir el arraigo en inmigrantes latinoamericanos / Construction of a scale to measure the rooting in Hispanic immigrants

El objetivo de este trabajo era construir un instrumento, breve y fácilmente manejable, que permitiera conocer el grado de arraigo, o vinculación con la sociedad de acogida, alcanzado por los inmigrantes latinoamericanos en España. En el estudio participaron un total de 692 inmigrantes (54.9% hombres y 45.1% mujeres) de entre 20 y 63 años de edad. Mediante el procedimiento aplicado, se construyó un instrumento que consta de 16 ítems con una alta consistencia interna (0.90). El análisis factorial concluyó con tres factores: arraigo cultural, arraigo ecológico y arraigo socio-laboral, también con buena consistencia interna, entre 0.73 y 0.89. De forma consistente con lo esperado los sujetos con mayor puntuación en la escala son varones, que residen legalmente en España, por un periodo mayor de siete años, que han solicitado la nacionalidad y que tienen vivienda propia (AU)

The aim of this work was to construct a concise, easily manageable tool to measure to what degree Hispanic immigrants in Spain were able to fit into the host society. In this study participated 692 Latino American immigrants (54.9% men and 45.1% woman) between 20 and 63 years old. A rooting scale made up of 16 items of good internal consistence (alpha=0.90) was developed. Factorial analysis led to three factors: cultural roots, ecological roots and social-labour roots again with good internal consistency, between 0.73 and 0.89. Consistent with expected subjects with higher scores on the scale are males who reside legally in Spain, have been there for over seven years, have applied for Spanish nationality and are house owners (AU)

Jessor's problem behavior theory: Cross-national evidence from Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States.

Jessor (2008) has recently called attention to description versus explanation in cross-cultural and cross-national comparative scholarship on adolescent development, particularly, the etiology of adolescent problem behaviors. In the current study, we were interested in testing to what extent problem behavior theory replicated in samples of 10,310 adolescents from 8 distinct developmental contexts, including Asian, Eastern and Western European, North American, and Eurasian/Muslim cultures. Path analyses by country samples as well as follow-up multigroup analyses provided evidence of great similarities across cultures in the links among two protective factor domains (controls protection and support protection), three risk factor domains (models risk, opportunity risk, and vulnerability risk), and the problem behavior syndrome, operationalized by vandalism, general deviance, school misconduct, theft, and assault measures. This evidence adds to a growing body of scholarship that provides support for similarities in explanation, despite many observed differences in description.

Psychophysiological, behavioral, and cognitive indices of the emotional response: a factor-analytic study.

Previous research on the components of the emotional response employing factor analytic studies has yielded a two-factor structure (Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993; Cuthbert, Schupp, Bradley, Birbaumer, & Lang, 2000). However, the startle blink reflex, a widely employed measure of the emotional response, has not been considered to date. We decided to include two parameters of the startle reflex (magnitude and latency) in order to explore further how this response fits into the two-factor model of emotion. We recorded the acoustic startle blink response, skin conductance response, heart rate, free viewing time, and picture valence and arousal ratings of 45 subjects while viewing 54 pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; 18 unpleasant, 18 neutral, and 18 pleasant). Factorizations of all measures gave a two-factor solution (valence and arousal) that accounted for 70% of the variance. Although some measurements, including heart rate change, did not behave as predicted, our results reinforce the two-dimension model of the emotion, and show that startle fits into the model.

The salience of the family in antisocial and delinquent behaviors among Spanish adolescents.

The authors examined the relations between self-report measures of parental support, communication, and psychological control and measures of antisocial and delinquent behavior in a sample of 641 Spanish adolescents (M age = 14.35 years, SD = 1.53 years). Findings revealed similarities in the relations between parenting processes and both measures of deviant behavior. The results also demonstrated the need for researchers to consider the parenting effects of mothers and fathers independently. Specifically, maternal support was a negative predictor of antisocial and delinquent behaviors of male adolescents, and maternal psychological control was a positive predictor of antisocial and delinquent behaviors of female adolescents. Paternal parenting efforts did not account for additional variability.

The effect of content and physical properties of affective pictures on emotional responses

The aim of this research was to study the influence of both the emotional content and the physical characteristics of affective stimuli on the psychophysiological, behavioral and cognitive indexes of the emotional response. We selected 54 pictures from the IAPS, depicting unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant contents, and used two picture sizes a sexperimental conditions (120 × 90 cm and 52 × 42 cm). Sixty-one subjects were randomly assigned to each experimental condition. We recorded the startle blink reflex, skin conductance response, heart rate, free viewing time, and picture valence and arousal ratings. In line with previous research (e.g., Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001), our data showed an effect of the affective content on all the measurements recorded.Importantly, effects of the size of the affective pictures on emotional responses were not found, indicating that the emotional content is more important than the formal properties of the stimuli in evoking the emotional response (AU)

El objetivo de esta investigación fue estudiar la influencia del contenido emocional y delas características físicas de los estímulos afectivos sobre los índices psicofisiológicos, conductuales y cognitivos de la respuesta emocional. Seleccionamos 54 imágenes delIAPS, representando contenidos desagradables, neutros y agradables y usamos dos tamaños de imagen como condiciones experimentales (120 × 90 cm y 52 × 42 cm). Los 61 sujetos que conformaban la muestra experimental se asignaron de forma aleatoria a cada condición experimental. Registramos el parpadeo reflejo de sobresalto, la respuesta de conductancia de la piel, la frecuencia cardiaca, el tiempo de visión y las estimaciones de valencia afectiva y arousal de las imágenes. De acuerdo con la investigación previa(p. ej., Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert y Lang, 2001), nuestros datos mostraron un efecto del contenido afectivo en todas las medidas registradas. Nuestros resultados no mostraron, sin embargo, efectos del tamaño de las imágenes afectivas sobre ninguna de las medidas registradas, lo que indica que el contenido afectivo es más importante que las propiedades formales de los estímulos para provocar respuestas emocionales (AU)