The Role of a Positive Attention Bias in Resiliency to Negative Mood States
Date
2014-06-27
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Abstract
Psychological resiliency refers to the positive and protective characteristics in an individual's response to stress and adversity while maintaining mental well-being in terms of an absence of psychopathology. Current models of psychopathology suggest a role of attention in determining vulnerability and resiliency to emotional disorders such as depression and anxiety. For example, recent studies in mood research have shown that whereas enhanced attention toward negative emotional information is associated with greater self-reported depression and anxiety, attention toward positive emotional information may play a role in mood repair. Little is known, however, as to whether or not a positive attention bias serves a protective function against negative mood states. To address this question, studies were conducted to validate a measure of psychological resilience in an undergraduate student population (study 1) and to investigate relationships among trait resiliency, selective attention to emotional information, and mood in response to a negative emotional stressor (studies 2, 3 and 4). The results of this set of studies showed that whereas low trait resiliency was associated higher levels of anxiety and depression, enhanced orienting toward negative emotional information, and slower orienting and faster disengagement away from positive emotional information, high trait resiliency was associated with greater mental well-being, and faster orienting toward and slower disengagement away from positive emotional information. Thus, whereas low trait resiliency individuals demonstrated poorer mental well-being along with attention biases toward negative emotional information and away from positive emotional information, high trait resiliency individuals demonstrated better mental well-being and preferentially attended positive emotional information. Finally, although high and low trait resiliency individuals differed in their attention for positive and negative emotional information, high trait resiliency individuals did not differ from low trait resiliency individuals in their self-reported experience of negative mood in response to an emotional stressor. The results of the present studies provide novel evidence for selective attention processing of emotional information in trait resiliency.
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Keywords
Psychology--Cognitive, Psychology--Personality
Citation
Arndt, J. (2014). The Role of a Positive Attention Bias in Resiliency to Negative Mood States (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28319