Shame and Guilt-Proneness as Mediators of Associations Between General Causality Orientations and Depressive Symptoms

Assessing the Link Between General Causality Orientations and Problem Gambling, and the Mediational Role of Nonattachment, Greed, and Anhedonia

Gambling is common in the US, yet nearly one in three players experience gambling-related problems. Using Self-Determination Theory, this study explores how three causality orientations-autonomous, controlled, and impersonal-affect the severity of problem gambling. The study further investigates the mediating roles of nonattachment, dispositional greed, and anhedonia to illuminate how these orientations relate to problem gambling. The data from 675 participants (59% male; Mean age = 40.4 years, SD = 12.9) via Amazon's Mechanical Turk were collected following a screening procedure to identify at-risk players. Findings showed that dispositional greed mediated the impact of a controlled orientation on problem gambling severity, while anhedonia mediated the effect of impersonal orientation. Unexpectedly, nonattachment did not explain the effect of autonomous orientation on problem gambling, though a negative association was still observed. This research enhances understanding of how individual differences and causality orientations contribute to problem gambling behavior. The implications are discussed.

Procrastination, depression and anxiety symptoms in university students: a three-wave longitudinal study on the mediating role of perceived stress

BACKGROUND

It is generally assumed that procrastination leads to negative consequences. However, evidence for negative consequences of procrastination is still limited and it is also unclear by which mechanisms they are mediated. Therefore, the aim of our study was to examine the harmful consequences of procrastination on students' stress and mental health. We selected the procrastination-health model as our theoretical foundation and tried to evaluate the model's assumption that trait procrastination leads to (chronic) disease via (chronic) stress in a temporal perspective. We chose depression and anxiety symptoms as indicators for (chronic) disease and hypothesized that procrastination leads to perceived stress over time, that perceived stress leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time, and that procrastination leads to depression and anxiety symptoms over time, mediated by perceived stress.

METHODS

To examine these relationships properly, we collected longitudinal data from 392 university students at three occasions over a one-year period and analyzed the data using autoregressive time-lagged panel models.

RESULTS

Procrastination did lead to depression and anxiety symptoms over time. However, perceived stress was not a mediator of this effect. Procrastination did not lead to perceived stress over time, nor did perceived stress lead to depression and anxiety symptoms over time.

CONCLUSIONS

We could not confirm that trait procrastination leads to (chronic) disease via (chronic) stress, as assumed in the procrastination-health model. Nonetheless, our study demonstrated that procrastination can have a detrimental effect on mental health. Further health outcomes and possible mediators should be explored in future studies.

Guilt in alcohol use: A systematic review

For decades, alcohol use disorder has been investigated in an attempt to understand its processes and implications. However, among all of the factors involved in alcohol use disorder, the role of guilt in alcohol use remains poorly explained, with many contradictory results. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to conduct a systematic analysis of the literature from 1990 to 2022 to review the studies investigating the link between guilt and alcohol consumption. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method, 31 studies were included in this review. The results of this work enable to highlight the plurality of guilt that has been studied in the literature. Grouped in two categories: state guilt and trait guilt, they seem to have diverse implications towards alcohol use or misuse. Guilt proneness seems to act as a protective factor towards alcohol use, except for the few studies conducted on a clinical population. Numerous studies indicated that state guilt is deleterious toward alcohol use, even if some results are contradictory. Furthermore, this work allows us to shed light on the limits of the studies currently carried out, and thus to propose new directions for future studies.

Shame-Proneness Uniquely Predicts Social Evaluative Symptoms: Considering the Sociometer Theory of Shame

Introduction: Whereas the act-person model of shame emphasizes negative self-appraisals, the sociometer theory roots shame in real or imagined social evaluation. If so, shame might increase vulnerability to psychosocial stressors and manifest in social anxiety specifically. We investigated how shame-proneness predicted concurrent symptoms and responses to daily interpersonal stressors. Method: A total of 159 participants (including those meeting anxiety/depression criteria in clinical interviews; n = 58) completed baseline measures of shame- and guilt-proneness, trait negative affect (NA), and social anxiety, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder symptoms, followed by stressor diaries for 5 weeks (1,923 diaries). Results: Even with NA and guilt-proneness controlled, shame-proneness uniquely predicted concurrent social anxiety and prospectively predicted experiencing social evaluation. Unique links to depression and nonspecific anxiety and worry were less consistent. Discussion: Specificity in shame-social evaluation links supported sociometer theory, Results have implications both for shame theory and clinical practice with shame-prone individuals.

Role of Causality Orientations in Predicting Alcohol Use and Abstinence Self-Efficacy

In the present study, we examined the ability of Self-Determination Theory's causality orientations to predict alcohol use and abstinence self-efficacy. We also provided suggestions for counselors supporting client and student autonomy in clinical practice. Objectives: This study sought to answer the following questions: (a) Does a person's causality orientation (autonomy, control, and impersonal) predict their alcohol use? (2) Does a person's causality orientation (autonomy, control, and impersonal) predict their temptation to use drugs and alcohol? (3) Does a person's causality orientation (autonomy, control, and impersonal) predict their confidence to use drugs and alcohol? Method: We utilized Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a crowdsourced online labor market approach to collect data from a community sample. Results: The results suggest heightened impersonal orientation was predictive of increased alcohol use and increased temptation to use while control orientation was also predictive of increased temptation. Higher autonomous orientation was predictive of increased confidence to not use while impersonal and controlled were not. Conclusion: This study's findings underline the importance of SDT in substance use prevention, initiation, and treatment, and open the door to more empowering interventions. Through the intentional use of SDT, individuals may feel more empowered to set and achieve goals, feel a greater sense of control in their lives, strengthening their overall autonomy.

Emotional Reactivity, Emotion Regulation, and Social Emotions in Affective Disorders

Abstract. Affective disorders, specifically Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorders, show high prevalence, relapse rates, and a high likelihood to develop a chronic course. For the past two decades, research has investigated the neural correlates of emotion processing and emotion regulation in patients with affective disorders. Putative underlying causal mechanisms of dysregulated affect have been informed by knowledge from the intersection of neuroimaging and clinical psychology. More recent investigations also consider processing the role of mostly negative, self-blaming social emotions, which have been linked to treatment resistance and, hence, provide a prolific target for intervention. Several psychotherapeutic treatment approaches already focus on emotion, and here specific knowledge about the mechanisms underlying persistent changes in affect bears the potential to improve the treatment of affective disorders. In this narrative review, we delineate why and how our insights into the neural correlates of emotion processing and regulation can be applied to the treatment of patients with affective disorders.

Guilt, shame and their associations with chronic diseases in Czech adults

The interest in the association between feelings of guilt and shame and psychological health is growing. However, less attention so far has been paid to the associations with chronic disease. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore whether feelings of guilt and shame are related to physical health in chronic disease and in selected ones. A nationally representative sample of Czech adults (n = 1000, age = 46.0 ± 17.3 years, 48.6% men) participated in the survey. Feelings of guilt and shame (items from The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) and health problems in selected chronic diseases were measured. Respondents with higher feelings of guilt - but not of shame - were more likely to suffer from a chronic disease; we found this in arthritis, back pain, cardiovascular disease, asthma, cancer and depression or anxiety. The association was strongest in the case of cancer with odds ratios (OR) 5.83 (95% confidence interval (CI) 2.27-16.69). There were no significant associations in case of diabetes and stroke. Feelings of shame were not related to chronic diseases. Our findings suggest that feelings of guilt are associated with worse physical health. Further research is needed in this area.

Feelings of guilt in the general adult population: prevalence, intensity and association with depression

To feel guilty can motivate for prosocial behavior but may also lead to negative health-related outcomes. The aim of this study was to provide epidemiological information on guilt feelings in the German general adult population. Based on findings from a nation-wide telephone survey (n=1,003 adultsaged 18+ years), we calculated weighted point prevalence rates for guilt feelings and used multivariable logistic regression analyses to evaluate the association between the guilt feelings and covariates. Prevalence of current guilt feelings was 10.6% (95%-CI=8.7-12.6). About one fourth of the adults with current guilt feelings rated the intensity of their feelings as 'rather strong' or 'very strong'. To feel guilty was unrelated to age, sex and education, but significantly associated with depression. The weighted prevalence of guilt feelings in adults with major depression was 37.4% (95%-CI=26.2-48.7) compared to 8.1% (95%-CI=6.4-9.9) in adults without. A substantial part of the German adult population is confronted with guilt feelings. Feeling guilty seems to be less dependent on rather global socio-demographic characteristics than on others factors like depression. More efforts have to be made to identify those specific circumstances, under which feelings of guilt lead to adverse health-related outcomes and to provide corresponding treatment approaches.

Dispositional shame and guilt as predictors of depressive symptoms and anxiety among adults with lung cancer: The mediational role of internalized stigma

PURPOSE

The current study investigated whether dispositional tendencies to experience shame and guilt (i.e., shame- and guilt- proneness) were associated with higher levels of internalized stigma and, in turn, higher depressive symptoms and anxiety in adults with lung cancer.

METHOD

Participants (N = 50, 56.0% female) were men and women who received a clinical consultation for lung cancer and completed validated questionnaires. Mediation modeling using bootstrapping was used to characterize relationships between shame- and guilt-proneness, lung cancer stigma, depressive symptoms, and anxiety.

RESULTS

Higher guilt-proneness was associated significantly with higher anxiety (b = 0.69, SE=0.28, 95% CI [0.13, 1.26]) and higher shame-proneness was associated significantly with higher depressive symptoms (b = 0.56, SE = 0.19, 95% CI [0.18, 0.93]), beyond sociodemographic, medical, and smoking-related characteristics. Higher lung cancer stigma also significantly mediated the relationship between guilt-proneness and anxiety (indirect effect = 0.43, SE = .20, 95% CI [0.08, 0.89]) but not between shame-proneness and depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS

Shame- and guilt-proneness are associated significantly with depressive symptoms and anxiety, respectively, and the relationship between guilt-proneness and anxiety is explained in part by internalized stigma in a sample of newly diagnosed lung cancer patients. Findings carry implications for the early identification of lung cancer patients in need of additional supportive care services and highlight internalized stigma as a target for psychosocial intervention.

Validation of the Chinese version General Causality Orientation Scale-Clinical Population and causality orientations assessing in major depressions

INTRODUCTION

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Chinese version General Causality Orientation Scale-Clinical Population (GCOS-CP) and assessed the causality orientations in patients with major depression disorders (MDDs).

METHOD

The psychometric properties of the Chinese GCOS-CP were tested in an adults group (study 1). And then, the Chinese GCOS-CP was given to individuals with and without MDD (study 2).

RESULTS

The Chinese GCOS-CP provided good reliability and validity. MDD showed lower autonomy but higher impersonal orientations relative to healthy controls.

DISCUSSION

The GCOS-CP is suitable for the assessment of motivation in patients with mental disorders in Chinese setting.