Attentional mechanisms linking rejection to hostile reactivity: the role of "hot" versus "cool" focus

Threat effects on attention networks in individuals with a history of externalizing behaviors

Research identifying the biobehavioral processes that link threat exposure to cognitive alterations can inform treatments designed to reduce perpetration of stress-induced aggression. The present study attempted to specify the effects of relatively predictable versus unpredictable threat on two attention networks, attentional alerting and executive control. In a sample of adults (n = 74, 35 % identifying as women, Mage = 32.85) with high rates of externalizing behaviors (e.g., substance use, criminal/legal system involvement, aggressivity), we measured event-related brain activity during an attention network test that manipulated cognitive systems activation under relatively unpredictable and predictable threat conditions. Results showed that threat exposure alters attentional alerting and executive control. The predictable threat condition, relative to unpredictable threat, increased visual alerting (N1 amplitude to alert vs. no alert cue conditions) and decreased attention to the task (P3 amplitude to subsequent task-relevant flankers, but these effects did not survive adjusting for multiple tests. In contrast, overall threat and unpredictable threat conditions were associated with faster response time to alert cue (versus no cue) and poorer conflict processing, operationalized as flanker N2 reductions and slower response time to incongruent (versus congruent) flanker trials. These results expand what is known about threat-related modulation of cognition in a sample of individuals with histories of externalizing behaviors.

The mechanism of body–mind integration in the formation of destination attachment: A comparison of first-time and repeat tourists

By constructing a person-body–mind-place framework of destination attachment, this study explores the physical and mental formation mechanism of destination attachment and examines its dynamics between first-time and repeat tourists. The present study found that multisensory impressions can, directly and indirectly, affect destination attachment through emotional and cognitive psychological mediation. There are differences between first-time tourists and repeat tourists in terms of this mediation path. As the frequency of travel increases, the influence of multisensory impressions gradually increases. The formation of destination attachment is dominated by emotion for first-time tourists, whereas it is dominated by cognition for repeat tourists. Based on these findings, theoretical and practical implications are presented.

A distanced perspective reduces negative affective responses through rational view in recalling and writing angry experience

Previous research demonstrates that self-distancing helps in regulating negative emotions. Furthermore, adopting a distanced perspective when referring to the self has been shown to be a simple and effective way to regulate emotion. Moreover, previous research has demonstrated several mechanisms whereby the distanced perspective eventually leads to the decrease in negative emotions. Building on this literature, the present research proposed that a rational point of view induced by adopting a distanced perspective would play a critical role in this process. The results from two studies supported the proposition. Specifically, in recalling (Study 1) and writing (Study 2) about anger-provoking events, those who adopted a distanced perspective were more likely to take a rational point of view when reflecting on the event than did those who adopted a self-immersed perspective. Furthermore, such differences in the rational perspective were associated with the corresponding differences in negative affect.

The role of cognitive appraisals in parental burnout: a preliminary analysis during the COVID-19 quarantine

Counter-intuitively, sociodemographic characteristics account for a small proportion of explained variance in parental burnout. The present study conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic asks whether (i) sociodemographic characteristics are more predictive of parental burnout than usual in a situation of lockdown, (ii) situational factors, that is, the specific restrictive living conditions inherent in the context of lockdown, predict parental burnout better than sociodemographic characteristics do, and (iii) the impact of both sociodemographic and situational factors is moderated or mediated by the parents' subjective perception of the impact that the health crisis has had on their parenting circumstances. Results show that, within the context of lockdown, both sociodemographic and situational factors explain a negligible proportion of variance in parental burnout. By contrast, parents' cognitive appraisals of their parenthood within the context of the health crisis were found to play both a crucial mediating and moderating role in the prediction of parental burnout.

The Rejection Sensitivity Model as a Framework for Understanding Sexual Minority Mental Health

Sexual minorities are disproportionately affected by mental health problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, suicidality). Minority stress theory and the psychological mediation framework have become the predominant conceptual models used to explain these disparities, and they have led to substantial advances in research on stigma-related stress and mental health. However, the field's reliance on these models has limited the extent to which other theories have been considered as potential frameworks for further advancing our understanding of sexual minority mental health. In this article, I discuss how the rejection sensitivity (RS) model can be used to complement and extend minority stress theory and the psychological mediation framework by: (1) emphasizing the role of perception in stigma-related experiences; (2) acknowledging the unique consequences of different anticipatory emotions; (3) describing additional mechanisms linking proximal minority stressors to mental health; and (4) further specifying the temporal order of these processes. I conclude by discussing the importance of attending to developmental processes in research on sexual orientation-related RS and describing important directions for future research.

Spontaneous Violent and Homicide Thoughts in Four Homicide Contexts

Although homicide remains an important topic of research, the majority of the research has focused on homicidal behavior and not homicide thoughts. Yet research into homicidal thoughts provides valuable insights into issues such as premeditation. In three experiments, we instructed participants to imagine different scenarios describing a situation where homicide and violence actually take place, but that do not contain violence or homicidal actions. We used both explicit and implicit methods to measure homicide and violent ideation. The evidence from these experiments indicates that when people imagine homicide scenarios, they think about violence at a substantial rate, but rarely consider homicide. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

Effortful Control, Rejection Sensitivity, and Borderline Personality Disorder Features in Adulthood

This investigation examined the moderating role of effortful control (EC) in the association between rejection sensitivity (RS) and its subsequent interpersonal distress (IP-distress) on borderline personality disorder (BPD) features. In total, 625 multicultural undergraduates (Study 1) and 562 community international adults (Study 2) completed scales evaluating EC, RS, IP-distress, and BPD features; Study 2 participants also self-reported both anxious and angry expectations of rejection. In both samples, EC moderated the mediating effect of IP-distress in the link between RS and BPD-related psychopathology. The extent to which RS was associated with BPD symptoms through increased IP-distress was greater for individuals with low EC and less so for those with high EC. Thus, low self-regulatory abilities may foster the association between RS and BPD by magnifying interpersonal distress. The implications and limitations of findings are discussed.

Tactical Differences in Coping With Rejection Sensitivity: The Role of Prevention Pride

Prevention pride reflects a person’s subjective history of success in preventing negative outcomes, leading to a strategic avoidance of errors of commission (e.g., explicit mistakes) in new situations. Two studies examined the impact of prevention pride on the strategies that highly rejection sensitive (HRS) people use to cope with the anxiety of anticipated rejection and the negative feelings elicited by perceived rejection. It was hypothesized that prevention pride orientation would lead HRS people toward covert and passive rather than overt and active forms of negative coping. Results indicated that HRS individuals who were also high in prevention pride reported increased use of self-silencing, presumably to prevent rejection. When rejection was perceived, however, they expressed hostility passively, by reducing positive behavior (e.g., withdrawing love and support) while inhibiting direct, active acts of hostility (e.g., yelling).

Social-cognitive, physiological, and neural mechanisms underlying emotion regulation impairments: understanding anxiety in autism spectrum disorder

Anxiety is one of the most common clinical problems among children, adolescents, and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet we know little about its etiology in the context of ASD. We posit that emotion regulation (ER) impairments are a risk factor for anxiety in ASD. Specifically, we propose that one reason why anxiety disorders are so frequently comorbid with ASD is because ER impairments are ubiquitous to ASD, stemming from socio-cognitive, physiological, and neurological processes related to impaired cognitive control, regulatory processes, and arousal. In this review, we offer a developmental model of how ER impairments may arise in ASD, and when (moderating influences) and how (meditational mechanisms) they result in anxiety.

Monitoring emotion through body sensation: a review of awareness in Goenka's Vipassana

Awareness is one of the two most important abilities cultivated in Goenka's Vipassana meditation, which refers to sensitivity to subtle bodily sensations and the associated psychological processes. This sensitivity and its derived function of monitoring emotion are not of notable concern in modern mindfulness-based psychotherapies. Evidence supports that Vipassana meditation truly enhances sensitivity to bodily sensations, but further study is required to assess the awareness of psychological processes. The value of monitoring mental processing has been widely accepted in psychology, as has enhanced sensitivity along with the potential dangers to mental health. Implications for practice and future studies are discussed.

Separate neural representations for physical pain and social rejection

Current theories suggest that physical pain and social rejection share common neural mechanisms, largely by virtue of overlapping functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activity. Here we challenge this notion by identifying distinct multivariate fMRI patterns unique to pain and rejection. Sixty participants experience painful heat and warmth and view photos of ex-partners and friends on separate trials. FMRI pattern classifiers discriminate pain and rejection from their respective control conditions in out-of-sample individuals with 92% and 80% accuracy. The rejection classifier performs at chance on pain, and vice versa. Pain- and rejection-related representations are uncorrelated within regions thought to encode pain affect (for example, dorsal anterior cingulate) and show distinct functional connectivity with other regions in a separate resting-state data set (N = 91). These findings demonstrate that separate representations underlie pain and rejection despite common fMRI activity at the gross anatomical level. Rather than co-opting pain circuitry, rejection involves distinct affective representations in humans.

Not as good as you think? Trait positive emotion is associated with increased self-reported empathy but decreased empathic performance

How is positive emotion associated with our ability to empathize with others? Extant research provides support for two competing predictions about this question. An empathy amplification hypothesis suggests positive emotion would be associated with greater empathy, as it often enhances other prosocial processes. A contrasting empathy attenuation hypothesis suggests positive emotion would be associated with lower empathy, because positive emotion promotes self-focused or antisocial behaviors. The present investigation tested these competing perspectives by examining associations between dispositional positive emotion and both subjective (i.e., self-report) and objective (i.e., task performance) measures of empathy. Findings revealed that although trait positive emotion was associated with increased subjective beliefs about empathic tendencies, it was associated with both increases and decreases in task-based empathic performance depending on the target’s emotional state. More specifically, trait positive emotion was linked to lower overall empathic accuracy toward a high-intensity negative target, but also a higher sensitivity to emotion upshifts (i.e., shifts in emotion from negative to positive) toward positive targets. This suggests that trait positive affect may be associated with decreased objective empathy in the context of mood incongruent (i.e., negative) emotional stimuli, but may increase some aspects of empathic performance in the context of mood congruent (i.e., positive) stimuli. Taken together, these findings suggest that trait positive emotion engenders a compelling subjective-objective gap regarding its association with empathy, in being related to a heightened perception of empathic tendencies, despite being linked to mixed abilities in regards to empathic performance. (Word count: 242).

Learning biases underlying individual differences in sensitivity to social rejection

People vary greatly in their dispositions to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and strongly react to social rejection (rejection sensitivity [RS]) with implications for social functioning and health. Here, we examined how RS influences learning about social threat. Using a classical fear conditioning task, we established that high compared to low individuals displayed a resistance to extinction of the conditioned response to angry faces, but not to neutral faces or nonsocial stimuli. Our findings suggest that RS biases the flexible updating of acquired expectations for threat, which helps to explain how RS operates as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Self-reported methods of cessation of adult male child abusers: a pilot study

This pilot study explored the pre-arrest self-selected cessation attempts of sexual offenders (N = 109) who abused children and often others. Four participants were dropped because of invalid responding (N = 104). While 74.3% of sample participants reported attempts to decrease or stop their sexual offending prior to arrest, 56% out of 100 who responded to the cessation question reported that they were able to do so. Self-efficacy was examined as a potential predictive variable of cessation attempts and success of attempts; however, no relationship was found between self-efficacy and attempts. Practice and research implications are discussed.

Stranger situations: Examining a self-regulatory model of socially awkward encounters

A self-regulatory systems model of socially awkward situations was assessed through a mixed-methods analysis of an ecologically valid simulation. Specific hypotheses were that introducing social novelty and inducing explicit social attention would increase reported feelings of social awkwardness. Participant awkwardness ratings, recorded from continuous measurement devices operated by participants viewing taped simulations, were analysed and results were consistent with hypotheses. Further exploratory analysis revealed that events associated with extreme increases in awkwardness ratings included non- and counter-normative situations and behaviors, negative social judgments, and events that made social processes explicit. Events associated with extreme decreases in awkwardness ratings included social acts that emphasized common, shared or familiar interests, helping behaviors, acts of positive social evaluation, and acts that diffused social awkwardness through humor. These findings were interpreted as offering general support for the model and suggesting its utility in distinguishing dispositional and situational factors involved in alienated social functioning.

Adding insult to injury: effects of interpersonal rejection types, rejection sensitivity, and self-regulation on obsessive relational intrusion

This study tested the I(3) model [Finkel, 2007; 2008] of intimate partner violence as applied to obsessive relational intrusion (ORI) to assess the relation among self-regulation, rejection, rejection sensitivity (RS), and stalking-related aggression. In Study 1, participants (N=221) read one of three vignettes: no relationship termination, an "internal" rejection (involves an internal attribution to the rejected as cause of relationship ending), or an "external" rejection (external attributions for relationship demise). Next, participants experienced one of two conditions manipulating self-regulation (no depletion vs. depletion). Finally, participants rated their likelihood of engaging in ORI (e.g. unwanted pursuit and/or aggression). Consistent with predictions, participants receiving an internal rejection reported higher aggression than participants experiencing an external rejection, especially when depleted of self-regulation. Study 2 extended the design of Study 1 by adding in a screening survey of RS. Internal rejections still yielded more aggression than other conditions, but this was especially so when rejection-sensitive persons were depleted of self-regulation. In addition to providing support for the I(3) model of aggression, this research shows that not all types of rejection are created equal.

When the ends outweigh the means: mood and level of identification in depression

Research in healthy controls has found that mood influences cognitive processing via level of action identification: happy moods are associated with global and abstract processing; sad moods are associated with local and concrete processing. However, this pattern seems inconsistent with the high level of abstract processing observed in depressed patients, leading Watkins (2008, 2010) to hypothesise that the association between mood and level of goal/action identification is impaired in depression. We tested this hypothesis by measuring level of identification on the Behavioural Identification Form after happy and sad mood inductions in never-depressed controls and currently depressed patients. Participants used increasingly concrete action identifications as they became sadder and less happy, but this effect was moderated by depression status. Consistent with Watkins' (2008) hypothesis, increases in sad mood and decreases in happiness were associated with shifts towards the use of more concrete action identifications in never-depressed individuals, but not in depressed patients. These findings suggest that the putatively adaptive association between mood and level of identification is impaired in major depression.

Asymmetry in resting intracortical activity as a buffer to social threat

Social rejection can create powerful changes in people's brains and bodies. In the study reported here, we examined brain-based individual differences associated with buffering against cardiovascular threat responses to social rejection. Using EEG source-localization techniques, we examined differences in intracortical asymmetry. We predicted that individuals with greater left relative to right dorsolateral prefrontal activity would show a more approach-motivated response to social rejection. Eighty-four female participants were randomly assigned to one of three stressful situations: social rejection, social evaluation without rejection, or self-evaluation. Among participants assigned to the social-rejection condition, greater left relative to right prefrontal intracortical activity at baseline was associated with more adaptive cardiovascular profiles and more self-reported approach-oriented emotions. Participants in the other conditions did not show these relationships. Our data are the first to show that social context matters when attempting to link individual differences in cortical asymmetry with approach-related cardiovascular and emotional outcomes.

Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain

How similar are the experiences of social rejection and physical pain? Extant research suggests that a network of brain regions that support the affective but not the sensory components of physical pain underlie both experiences. Here we demonstrate that when rejection is powerfully elicited--by having people who recently experienced an unwanted break-up view a photograph of their ex-partner as they think about being rejected--areas that support the sensory components of physical pain (secondary somatosensory cortex; dorsal posterior insula) become active. We demonstrate the overlap between social rejection and physical pain in these areas by comparing both conditions in the same individuals using functional MRI. We further demonstrate the specificity of the secondary somatosensory cortex and dorsal posterior insula activity to physical pain by comparing activated locations in our study with a database of over 500 published studies. Activation in these regions was highly diagnostic of physical pain, with positive predictive values up to 88%. These results give new meaning to the idea that rejection "hurts." They demonstrate that rejection and physical pain are similar not only in that they are both distressing--they share a common somatosensory representation as well.

Effects of oxytocin on recollections of maternal care and closeness

Although the infant-caregiver attachment bond is critical to survival, little is known about the biological mechanisms supporting attachment representations in humans. Oxytocin plays a key role in attachment bond formation and maintenance in animals and thus could be expected to affect attachment representations in humans. To investigate this possibility, we administered 24 IU intranasal oxytocin to healthy male adults in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover designed study and then assessed memories of childhood maternal care and closeness--two features of the attachment bond. We found that the effects of oxytocin were moderated by the attachment representations people possess, with less anxiously attached individuals remembering their mother as more caring and close after oxytocin (vs. placebo) but more anxiously attached individuals remembering their mother as less caring and close after oxytocin (vs. placebo). These data contrast with the popular notion that oxytocin has broad positive effects on social perception and are more consistent with the animal literature, which emphasizes oxytocin's role in encoding social memories and linking those memories to the reward value of the social stimulus.

Neurophysiological markers for child emotion regulation from the perspective of emotion-cognition integration: current directions and future challenges

Neuroscientific research on emotion regulation suggests that the interplay between emotion and cognition may be fundamental to the ability to adaptively regulate emotions. Although emotion and cognition have historically been considered to be in opposition, more recent research suggests that they are also integrated, coordinated, and complementary. In this article, I review studies showing that scalp-recorded event related potentials (ERPs) reflecting emotion-cognition integration can be used as clinically meaningful indices of emotion regulation in children and adults, and have the potential to serve as biomarkers for emotion regulation and risk for specific affective disorders. Drawing on neuroscience and behavioral research, I propose a model in which ERP measures of emotion-cognition integration rather than opposition is the guiding principle for detecting neural markers for emotion regulation. Suggestions for a future research agenda are then presented.

Deficits in attention to emotional stimuli distinguish youth with severe mood dysregulation from youth with bipolar disorder

Studying attention in the context of emotional stimuli may aid in differentiating pediatric bipolar disorder (BD) from severe mood dysregulation (SMD). SMD is characterized by chronic irritability, arousal, and hyper-reactivity; SMD youth frequently receive a BD diagnosis although they do not meet DSM-IV criteria for BD because they lack manic episodes. We compared 57 BD (14.4 +/- 2.9 years old, 56% male), 41 SMD (12.6 +/- 2.6 years old, 66% male), and 33 control subjects (13.7 +/- 2.5 years old, 52% male) using the Emotional Interrupt task, which examines how attention is impacted by positive, negative, or neutral distracters. We compared reaction time (RT) and accuracy and calculated attention interference scores by subtracting performance on neutral trials from emotional trials. Between-group analyses indicated that SMD subjects had significantly reduced attention interference from emotional distracters relative to BD and control subjects. Thus, attention in SMD youth was not modulated by emotional stimuli. This blunted response in SMD youth may contribute to their affective and behavioral dysregulation.

The Endocrinology of Exclusion

Social exclusion can have profound effects on a vast array of motivated psychological processes, from social withdrawal and aggression to prosocial behavior and social affiliation. The current studies examined motivationally tuned endocrinological consequences of exclusion by measuring the release of progesterone, a hormone that reflects an individual’s level of social-affiliative motivation. Results from two experiments indicate that release of progesterone following social exclusion depends on people’s levels of social anxiety and rejection sensitivity. Individuals high in social anxiety displayed a drop in progesterone in response to exclusion, a pattern consistent with a lack of affiliative motivation. In contrast, individuals high in rejection sensitivity displayed an increase in progesterone when given an opportunity to reaffiliate, a change consistent with a desire for compensatory social contact. These findings provide new insight into the immediate biological changes precipitated by social exclusion—changes that could initiate a range of motivated social responses.

Hostility, cigarette smoking, and responses to a lab-based social stressor

High-trait hostility is associated with persistent cigarette smoking. To better understand mechanisms that may account for this association, we examined the effects of acute smoking abstinence and delayed versus immediate smoking reinstatement on responses to a social stressor among 48 low hostile (LH) and 48 high hostile (HH) smokers. Participants completed two laboratory sessions, one before which they had smoked ad lib and one before which they had abstained for the prior 12 hr. During each session, participants completed a stressful speaking task and then smoked immediately after the stressor or after a 15-min delay. The effect of immediate versus delayed smoking reinstatement on recovery in negative mood was significantly moderated by hostility. When reinstatement was delayed, HH participants showed significant increases in negative mood over time, whereas LH participants showed little change. When reinstatement was immediate, HH and LH smokers showed similar significant decreases in negative mood. Smoking abstinence did not moderate hostility effects. Cigarette smoking may prevent continuing increases in negative mood after social stress in HH smokers, which may partially explain their low rates of quitting.

Rejection sensitivity moderates the impact of rejection on self-concept clarity

Self-concept clarity (SCC) refers to the extent to which self-knowledge is clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and temporally stable. Research shows that SCC can be undermined by failures in valued goal domains. Because preventing rejection is an important self-relevant goal for people high in rejection sensitivity (RS), it is hypothesized here that failures to attain this goal would cause them to experience diminished SCC. Study 1, an experimental study, showed that high-RS people's SCC was undermined following rejection but not following an aversive experience unrelated to rejection. Study 2, a daily diary study of couples in relationships, used occurrence of partner conflicts to operationalize rejection. Replicating the findings in Study 1, having a conflict on any given diary day predicted a greater reduction in the SCC of high- compared to low-RS people on the following day. The implications for understanding the conditions under which rejection negatively affects the self-concept are discussed.

Reflective and ruminative processing of positive emotional memories in bipolar disorder and healthy controls

Recent evidence suggests that reflective (i.e., distanced-why), as compared to ruminative (i.e., immersed-why), processing of negative memories is associated with reductions in negative affect. The present study extended this line of work by examining the effect of these two processing conditions on positive memories among persons with bipolar disorder (BD; n = 27) and a healthy control group (CT; n = 27). After a resting baseline period, participants were instructed to recall a happy autobiographical memory. Using a within-subjects design, participants were asked to process the happy memory in two different experimental conditions (reflective, ruminative) while their experiential, behavioral, and autonomic responses were measured. Consistent with hypotheses, reflective processing was associated with lower self-reported positive affect, positive thoughts, and heart rate compared to ruminative processing for all participants. When current symptoms were controlled for, BD participants reported greater positive affect across both conditions relative to CT participants. Prospective studies are needed to test the extent to which processing of positive emotion contributes to the course of symptoms in bipolar disorder.

Cold and Lonely

Metaphors such as icy stare depict social exclusion using cold-related concepts; they are not to be taken literally and certainly do not imply reduced temperature. Two experiments, however, revealed that social exclusion literally feels cold. Experiment 1 found that participants who recalled a social exclusion experience gave lower estimates of room temperature than did participants who recalled an inclusion experience. In Experiment 2, social exclusion was directly induced through an on-line virtual interaction, and participants who were excluded reported greater desire for warm food and drink than did participants who were included. These findings are consistent with the embodied view of cognition and support the notion that social perception involves physical and perceptual content. The psychological experience of coldness not only aids understanding of social interaction, but also is an integral part of the experience of social exclusion.

Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought

The author reviews research showing that repetitive thought (RT) can have constructive or unconstructive consequences. The main unconstructive consequences of RT are (a) depression, (b) anxiety, and (c) difficulties in physical health. The main constructive consequences of RT are (a) recovery from upsetting and traumatic events, (b) adaptive preparation and anticipatory planning, (c) recovery from depression, and (d) uptake of health-promoting behaviors. Several potential principles accounting for these distinct consequences of RT are identified within this review: (a) the valence of thought content, (b) the intrapersonal and situational context in which RT occurs, and (c) the level of construal (abstract vs. concrete processing) adopted during RT. Of the existing models of RT, it is proposed that an elaborated version of the control theory account provides the best theoretical framework to account for its distinct consequences.

Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought

The author reviews research showing that repetitive thought (RT) can have constructive or unconstructive consequences. The main unconstructive consequences of RT are (a) depression, (b) anxiety, and (c) difficulties in physical health. The main constructive consequences of RT are (a) recovery from upsetting and traumatic events, (b) adaptive preparation and anticipatory planning, (c) recovery from depression, and (d) uptake of health-promoting behaviors. Several potential principles accounting for these distinct consequences of RT are identified within this review: (a) the valence of thought content, (b) the intrapersonal and situational context in which RT occurs, and (c) the level of construal (abstract vs. concrete processing) adopted during RT. Of the existing models of RT, it is proposed that an elaborated version of the control theory account provides the best theoretical framework to account for its distinct consequences.

Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought

The author reviews research showing that repetitive thought (RT) can have constructive or unconstructive consequences. The main unconstructive consequences of RT are (a) depression, (b) anxiety, and (c) difficulties in physical health. The main constructive consequences of RT are (a) recovery from upsetting and traumatic events, (b) adaptive preparation and anticipatory planning, (c) recovery from depression, and (d) uptake of health-promoting behaviors. Several potential principles accounting for these distinct consequences of RT are identified within this review: (a) the valence of thought content, (b) the intrapersonal and situational context in which RT occurs, and (c) the level of construal (abstract vs. concrete processing) adopted during RT. Of the existing models of RT, it is proposed that an elaborated version of the control theory account provides the best theoretical framework to account for its distinct consequences.

How attributional ambiguity shapes physiological and emotional responses to social rejection and acceptance

The authors examined White and Black participants' emotional, physiological, and behavioral responses to same-race or different-race evaluators, following rejecting social feedback or accepting social feedback. As expected, in ingroup interactions, the authors observed deleterious responses to social rejection and benign responses to social acceptance. Deleterious responses included cardiovascular (CV) reactivity consistent with threat states and poorer performance, whereas benign responses included CV reactivity consistent with challenge states and better performance. In intergroup interactions, however, a more complex pattern of responses emerged. Social rejection from different-race evaluators engendered more anger and activational responses, regardless of participants' race. In contrast, social acceptance produced an asymmetrical race pattern--White participants responded more positively than did Black participants. The latter appeared vigilant and exhibited threat responses. Discussion centers on implications for attributional ambiguity theory and potential pathways from discrimination to health outcomes.

The assessment of present-moment awareness and acceptance: the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale

The purpose of this project was to develop a bidimensional measure of mindfulness to assess its two key components: present-moment awareness and acceptance. The development and psychometric validation of the Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale is described, and data are reported from expert raters, two nonclinical samples (n = 204 and 559), and three clinical samples including mixed psychiatric outpatients (n = 52), eating disorder inpatients (n = 30), and student counseling center outpatients (n = 78). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support a two-factor solution, corresponding to the two constituent components of the construct. Good internal consistency was demonstrated, and relationships with other constructs were largely as expected. As predicted, significant differences were found between the nonclinical and clinical samples in levels of awareness and acceptance. The awareness and acceptance subscales were not correlated, suggesting that these two constructs can be examined independently. Potential theoretical and applied uses of the measure are discussed.

Neural dynamics of rejection sensitivity

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the tendency to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to explore whether individual differences in RS are mediated by differential recruitment of brain regions involved in emotional appraisal and/or cognitive control. High and low RS participants were scanned while viewing either representational paintings depicting themes of rejection and acceptance or nonrepresentational control paintings matched for positive or negative valence, arousal and interest level. Across all participants, rejection versus acceptance images activated regions of the brain involved in processing affective stimuli (posterior cingulate, insula), and cognitive control (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex; medial frontal cortex). Low and high RS individuals' responses to rejection versus acceptance images were not, however, identical. Low RS individuals displayed significantly more activity in left inferior and right dorsal frontal regions, and activity in these areas correlated negatively with participants' self-report distress ratings. In addition, control analyses revealed no effect of viewing negative versus positive images in any of the areas described above, suggesting that the aforementioned activations were involved in rejection-relevant processing rather than processing negatively valenced stimuli per se. Taken together, these findings suggest that responses in regions traditionally implicated in emotional processing and cognitive control are sensitive to rejection stimuli irrespective of RS, but that low RS individuals may activate prefrontal structures to regulate distress associated with viewing such images.

Alcohol-aggression expectancies and dispositional rumination moderate the effect of alcohol consumption on alcohol-related aggression and hostility

Alcohol consumption increases aggression, but only in some drinkers. This study extends previous work to show how expectancies for alcohol-induced aggression and dispositional rumination moderate the link between alcohol consumption and alcohol-related aggression and hostility in a sample of 285 men and women. Alcohol-aggression expectancies and quantity of alcohol interacted to predict alcohol-related hostility and aggression. Trait rumination moderated the effect of alcohol consumption on aggressive acts. Finally, women who ruminated were more likely to report alcohol-related aggression than were men who ruminated. These results suggest that alcohol expectancies for aggression and rumination constitute two important cognitive facilitators of alcohol-related aggression and hostility, and that gender plays an important role in these relations.

Individual differences in cognitive reappraisal: experiential and physiological responses to an anger provocation

Effective emotion regulation is widely seen as vital for healthy adaptation. There remains considerable uncertainty, however, as to what constitutes effective emotion regulation. One promising emotion regulation strategy is cognitive reappraisal, which involves reframing emotional events so as to decrease their emotional impact. This strategy is useful because it seems to enable individuals to down-regulate negative feelings without the physiological costs that are associated with other forms of emotion regulation. It remains unknown, however, whether individual differences in the use of reappraisal are associated with experiential and physiological responses to anger-inducing situations. To examine this question, individuals either high or low in reappraisal were made angry in the laboratory while emotion experience and cardiovascular responses were assessed. Results indicated that compared to low reappraisers, high reappraisers had a more adaptive profile of emotion experience and cardiovascular responding. Specifically, across baseline and provocation periods, high reappraisers reported less anger, less negative emotion, and more positive emotion, showed greater cardiac output and ventricular contractility, and lesser total peripheral resistance. These findings suggest that reappraisers are successful at down-regulating negative emotions, even in the context of a potent negative emotion such as anger.

When Asking "Why" Does Not Hurt Distinguishing Rumination From Reflective Processing of Negative Emotions

Two experiments examined the psychological operations that enable individuals to process negative emotions and experiences without increasing negative affect. In Study 1, type of self-perspective (self-immersed vs. self-distanced) and type of emotional focus (what vs. why) were experimentally manipulated following the recall of an anger-eliciting interpersonal experience. A why focus on emotions from a self-distanced perspective (distanced-why strategy) was expected to enable "cool," reflective processing of emotions, in which individuals can focus on their experience without reactivating excessive "hot" negative affect. Findings were consistent with this hypothesis. Study 2 replicated these findings and furthermore demonstrated that (a) the degree to which individuals construe their recalled experience in abstract versus concrete terms mediates the effect of the distanced-why strategy and (b) the status of the recalled experience (resolved vs. unresolved) does not moderate the effectiveness of the distanced-why strategy. These findings help disentangle the mechanisms that may allow adaptive working through from those that lead to rumination.

Close relationships and the working self-concept: implicit and explicit effects of priming attachment on agency and communion

Two studies investigated how contextually activating attachment relationships influences the working self-concept in terms of agency and communion. In Study 1, 245 participants were primed with a secure, avoidant, or anxious-ambivalent relationship and the implicit accessibility of agency and communion was assessed using word fragments. Activating a secure relationship increased the accessibility of communion, whereas activating an anxious-ambivalent relationship increased the accessibility of agency. In Study 2, 123 participants were primed with a secure, preoccupied, avoidant-dismissive, or avoidant-fearful relationship and explicit self-perceptions of agency and communion traits were assessed using the Extended Personality Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ). Gender interacted with the attachment prime, such that men primed with a secure relationship reported higher communion than did men primed with an avoidant (dismissive or fearful) relationship, whereas women primed with an anxious (preoccupied or fearful) relationship reported higher agency than did women primed with a secure relationship.