Attention biases in perfectionism: Biased disengagement of attention from emotionally negative stimuli

An experimental investigation of biased attention in non-suicidal self-injury: The effects of perfectionism and emotional valence on attentional engagement and disengagement

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Theoretical models of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) propose that individuals who self-injure may find their attention more strongly captured by negative emotion, and that this intensifies distress which leads to episodes of NSSI. Elevated perfectionism is associated with NSSI, and when an individual is highly perfectionistic, a focus on perceived flaws/failures may increase risk of NSSI. We explored how history of NSSI and trait perfectionism are associated with different types of attention bias (engagement vs. disengagement) to stimuli that differ in emotional valence (negative vs positive) and perfectionism relevance (relevant vs irrelevant).

METHODS

Undergraduate university students (N = 242) completed measures of NSSI, perfectionism, and a modified dot-probe task to measure attentional engagement with and disengagement from both positive and negative stimuli.

RESULTS

There were interactions between NSSI and perfectionism in attention biases. Amongst individuals who engage in NSSI, those with elevated trait perfectionism exhibit speeded responding to and disengagement from emotional stimuli (both positive and negative). Furthermore, individuals with a history of NSSI and elevated perfectionism were slower to respond to positive stimuli, and faster to negative stimuli.

LIMITATIONS

This experiment was cross-sectional in design so does not provide information about temporal ordering of these relationships, and given the use of a community sample, would benefit from replication in clinical samples.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings lend support to the emerging idea that biased attention plays a role in how perfectionism is associated with NSSI. Future studies should replicate these findings using other behavioural paradigms and diverse samples.

Coming of age: A reflection of the first 21 years of cognitive behaviour therapy for perfectionism

It has been 21 years since the publication of the cognitive behavioural model of clinical perfectionism that underpins cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for perfectionism. The notion of clinical perfectionism and CBT for perfectionism has been controversial. Despite 15 randomised controlled trials which have demonstrated the efficacy of CBT for perfectionism in reducing perfectionism and symptoms of anxiety, depression and eating disorders, strong responses to this work continue to appear in the literature. In this article, we examine the evolution and controversy surrounding clinical perfectionism, the efficacy of CBT for perfectionism, and future directions for the concept of perfectionism and its treatment. Future research should aim to provide independent evaluations of treatment efficacy, compare CBT for perfectionism to active treatments, conduct dismantling trials to examine the effective components of treatment, and examine the causal processes involved in perfectionism. We provide recommendations for future pathways to support innovation in theory, understanding, and treatment of perfectionism with a view towards improving clinical outcomes.

Influences of Emotional Information on Response Inhibition in Gaming Disorder: Behavioral and ERP Evidence from Go/Nogo Task

BACKGROUND

Gaming disorder (GD) may impair executive functions such as response inhibition. According to the tripartite neurocognitive model, the interoceptive system generates a state of craving that exacerbates the dysfunction of GD. We speculate that emotional information may play an important role in the mechanism, which leads to impaired response inhibition in people with GD.

METHODS

A three-factor mixed experimental design was adopted in this go/nogo task. The between-subject factor was group (GD or control group), and the within-subject factors were two types of emotional information, task relevance (related or unrelated) and emotional valence (negative or positive).

RESULTS

The GD group had lower nogo accuracies than the control group in the task-unrelated condition and also in the negative condition. Parallelly, the GD group showed faster reactions and lower accuracy in the go trials than the control group under task-unrelated negative conditions. At the neural level, the GD group had smaller amplitudes of nogo-N2 and larger amplitudes of nogo-P3 than the control group in the task-unrelated condition.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings prove the hypothesis of this study that emotional information could be a factor leading to impaired response inhibition in GD individuals. The response inhibition abilities of GD are weakened when processing task-unrelated or negative information, which may be caused by failure of behavioral inhibition and weakened conflict control, resulting in more cognitive resources to complete response suppression under specific conditions. This study provides evidence for weaker response inhibition in GD individuals from the perspective of cognitive-emotional interaction and provides more detailed information for interventions for GD.

How is circadian preference associated with cyber-victimization? A moderated mediation model of hostile recognition and online self-disclosure in Chinese early adolescent students

Although circadian preference is widely accepted to be a risk factor in the increase of adolescents’ negative experiences, little is known about its association with cyber-victimization. The current study sought to examine whether eveningness was significantly related to adolescents’ negative experiences. We further examined in-victimization events and whether hostile recognition and online self-disclosure played a vital role in eveningness and adolescents’ cyber-victimization. Study participants included 583 adolescents from four middle schools in China who completed questionnaires regarding their circadian preference, hostile recognition, online self-disclosure, and experience with cyber-victimization. Results indicated that adolescents with a high level of eveningness were more likely to experience cyber-victimization. Hostile recognition significantly mediated the relationship between eveningness and adolescents’ cyber-victimization. Furthermore, online self-disclosure moderated the indirect relationship between eveningness and cyber-victimization. Specifically, the paths from eveningness to hostile recognition and from hostile recognition to cyber-victimization became strengthened when adolescents experienced high levels of online self-disclosure. The results imply that researchers should pay more attention to remote factors, such as adolescents’ circadian preference and their relationship with cyber-victimization, to help them adapt to school requirements and reduce the frequency of victimization.

Perfectionism, Prolonged Stress Reactivity, and Depression: A Two-Wave Cross-Lagged Analysis

Perfectionism is a vulnerability factor for a wide array of psychopathology. Despite much evidence suggesting dysregulated stress response as an intermediary process that links perfectionism to psychopathology, the lack of a cross-lagged examination deterred researchers from making causal interpretations. This study examined the directionality of effects among perfectionism dimensions, stress reactivity, and depression. A total of 189 participants at time 1 and 94 at time 2 completed an online survey that consisted of measures of perfectionism, stress reactivity, and depression, one month apart. Cross-lagged analysis results showed that personal standards perfectionism predicted later prolonged stress reactivity but not depression at time 2. Self-critical perfectionism predicted later depression but not prolonged stress reactivity at time 2. Rather, prolonged stress reactivity at time 1 predicted self-critical perfectionism at time 2. Findings suggest that perfectionism dimensions are distinct in creating a dysregulated stress process. Future studies could incorporate other stress-related variables (e.g., coping) to further explicate the stress-generation process, in conjunction with stress reactivity.

Attachment Security Priming Delayed Negative Information-Related Attentional Disengagement Among Anxiously Attached Individuals: Evidence From Behavioral and Functional MRI Experiments

Although attachment security has been found to attenuate people’s experience of unpleasant information, how it modulates the attentional process toward such information remains unknown. The present study examined this issue by employing the dot-probe task in functional MRI. After completing the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised questionnaire (ECR-R), 39 participants were asked to complete the dot-probe task in two conditions: the attachment security priming condition and neutral priming condition. The behavioral results revealed that individuals with high level of attachment anxiety exhibited larger attention disengagement from negative traits in the security priming condition than in the control condition. Correspondingly, the brain regions involved in attention regulation and shifting, such as the posterior cingulate and bilateral parietal area, were less activated among high anxiously attached individuals in the security priming condition. These results suggest a role of attachment security priming in regulating the emotional response in anxiously attached individuals during the attentional stage.

Modeling pathways to non‐suicidal self‐injury: The roles of perfectionism, negative affect, rumination, and attention control

Objective

Using the Emotional Cascade Model as a theoretical framework, this study tested whether the relationship between perfectionism and non‐suicidal self‐injury (NSSI) operates through rumination and negative affect. Additionally, we tested whether the associations between perfectionism and both rumination and negative affect are moderated by attention control.

Methods

Using a correlational cross‐sectional design, adults aged 18–25 with (N = 197) and without (N = 271) a history of NSSI completed measures of perfectionism, rumination, negative affect, attention control, and NSSI.

Results

Perfectionism was directly associated with increased odds of NSSI, and indirectly associated with odds of NSSI through rumination and negative affect. The relationship between perfectionism and rumination was moderated by attention focusing, such that the relationship was stronger for individuals who were higher in attention focusing.

Conclusion

Integrating perfectionism and attention with existing models of NSSI may improve understanding of the factors contributing to NSSI and offers insights into future clinical directions.

Attentional Bias for Imperfect Pictures in Perfectionism: An Eye-Movement Study

Background

Although dot-probe paradigms have been widely used in previous studies to investigate the attentional bias of perfectionists, the exact characteristics of this bias are still unclear.

Methods

In this study, eye-tracking technology was used to compare the attentional patterns of high perfectionists (HP) and low perfectionists (LP). The HP and LP groups (n = 39 vs 34) completed a visual attention task in which they observed perfect vs imperfect picture pairs, during which their eye movements (EMs) were recorded automatically using an EM tracking system.

Results

Both the HP and LP groups showed an overall attentional bias toward imperfect pictures, as indicated by the criteria of initial visual attention orientation and attentional maintenance. There were no significant differences between the HP and LP groups during the early and middle phases of attention: both groups exhibited a longer total fixation duration on imperfect pictures than on perfect pictures. However, during the late phase of attention, the participants in the HP group diverted their attention away from the imperfect pictures and began to pay more attention to the perfect pictures. By contrast, the participants in the LP group consistently exhibited longer fixation times for imperfect pictures than the HP group during the entire duration of the stimulus.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that the participants in the HP group tended to avoid imperfect stimuli during the late phase of attention; this may indicate that avoidance plays an important role in maintaining perfectionism. This study also shows that eye-tracking is a useful methodology for measuring the attentional biases of perfectionists.