Biomedical subjects

Bethany A Teachman

Publications and source records attributed to Bethany A Teachman.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Development of social anxiety: social interaction predictors of implicit and explicit fear of negative evaluation.

Little is known about how to predict which individuals with known temperament vulnerabilities will go on to develop social anxiety problems. Adolescents (N = 185) were followed from age 13 to 18 to evaluate psychosocial, prospective predictors of social anxiety symptoms and fears of negative evaluation (FNE), after accounting for pre-existing social withdrawal symptoms. Results from structural equation modeling suggest that lack of perceived social acceptance predicts subsequent explicit social anxiety and FNE, whereas the emotional intensity of close peer interactions predicts subsequent implicit FNE. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of peer interaction in the development of social anxiety, and the value of measuring both implicit and explicit FNE.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Implicit cognitive processes in psychopathology: an introduction.

Implicit or automatic processes are important in understanding the etiology and maintenance of psychopathological problems. In order to study implicit processes in psychopathology, measures are needed that are valid and reliable when applied to clinical problems. One of the main topics in this special issue concerns the development and validation of new or modified implicit tests in different domains of psychopathology. The other main topic concerns the prediction of clinical outcomes and new ways to directly influence implicit processes in psychopathology. We summarize the contributions to this special issue and discuss how they further our knowledge of implicit processes in psychopathology and how to measure them.

Association↗

PubMed2006

Evaluating implicit spider fear associations using the Go/No-go Association Task.

The Go/No-go association task (GNAT) [Nosek, B.A., & Banaji, M.R. (2001). The Go/No-go Association Task. Social Cognition, 19, 625-666], which measures automatic associations in memory, was administered to participants who were high (N=17) versus low (N=17) in spider fear along with other established fear measures to validate the tool as a proxy measure for fear schemata. The GNAT involves participants classifying stimuli into superordinate categories and looking at speed of categorization when categories match, versus contradict, participants' hypothesized implicit fear associations. Results showed that the GNAT successfully differentiated the fear groups, indicating its convergent validity, and there was no group difference on a GNAT control fear task, supporting its discriminant validity. In addition, the GNAT spider fear task was associated with questionnaire measures of spider fear, self-reported anxiety during a behavioral avoidance test (approaching a live spider), and whether or not participants touched the spider during the behavioral test, supporting the task's predictive validity. Findings suggest the GNAT provides an effective, single-target measure of involuntary fear associations.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Explicit and implicit cognition: a preliminary test of a dual-process theory of cognitive vulnerability to depression.

Two studies were conducted to test a dual-process theory of cognitive vulnerability to depression. According to this theory, implicit and explicit cognitive processes have differential effects on depressive reactions to stressful life events. Implicit processes are hypothesized to be critical in determining an individual's immediate affective reaction to stress whereas explicit cognitions are thought to be more involved in long-term depressive reactions. Consistent with hypotheses, the results of study 1 (cross-sectional; N=237) showed that implicit, but not explicit, cognitions predicted immediate affective reactions to a lab stressor. Study 2 (longitudinal; N=251) also supported the dual-process model of cognitive vulnerability to depression. Results showed that both the implicit and explicit measures interacted with life stress to predict prospective changes in depressive symptoms, respectively. However, when both implicit and explicit predictors were entered into a regression equation simultaneously, only the explicit measure interacted with stress to remain a unique predictor of depressive symptoms over the five-week prospective interval.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Linking obsessional beliefs to OCD symptoms in older and younger adults.

There are many open questions about the phenomenology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in the elderly, and theories about the development of OCD have rarely been applied to older populations. The current study uses structural equation models to evaluate the relationship between obsessional beliefs and OCD symptoms across young and older adult age groups in a large community sample (aged 18-93; N=335), and to examine whether subjective concerns about cognitive decline partially mediate this relationship. Results support partial mediation, and follow-up analyses suggest that the pattern of relationships among subjective cognitive concerns, obsessional beliefs and OCD symptoms is invariant for younger and older adults, but older adults report relatively greater levels of subjective cognitive concerns.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Aging and negative affect: the rise and fall and rise of anxiety and depression symptoms.

The relationship between aging and negative affect is dynamic and complex. Although prior studies have often cited lower prevalence rates of anxiety and mood disorders among older individuals, these studies may miss the dynamic relationship between symptoms and aging. To evaluate a nonlinear model of the relationship between aging and negative affect, the author examined measures of neuroticism, anxiety, and depression symptoms in a cross-sectional, community sample (N = 335), ages 18 to 93. Results indicated a curvilinear relationship, with mean symptom levels increasing during early adulthood (until the mid-30s) and then showing a small decline until older adulthood (the mid-70s), when symptoms again increase with age.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Implicit and explicit appraisals of the importance of intrusive thoughts.

To evaluate cognitive theories of obsessions, the current study experimentally manipulated appraisals of the importance of intrusive thoughts. Undergraduate students (N = 156) completed measures of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms and beliefs and were primed with a list of commonly reported unwanted thoughts. Participants were then informed that unwanted thoughts are either (1) significant and indicative of their personal values, or (2) meaningless, or participants (3) received no instructions about unwanted thoughts. Participants then completed implicit and explicit measures of self-evaluation and interpretations of their unwanted thoughts. Results indicated that the manipulation shifted implicit appraisals of unwanted thoughts in the expected direction, but not self-evaluations of morality or dangerousness. Interestingly, explicit self-esteem and beliefs about the significance of unwanted thoughts were associated with measures of OCD beliefs, whereas implicit self-evaluations of dangerousness were better predicted by the interaction of pre-existing OCD beliefs with the manipulation. Results are discussed in terms of divergent predictors of implicit and explicit responses to unwanted thoughts.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: the impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy.

Three studies investigated implicit biases, and their modifiability, against overweight persons. In Study 1 (N = 144), the authors demonstrated strong implicit anti-fat attitudes and stereotypes using the Implicit Association Test, despite no explicit anti-fat bias. When participants were informed that obesity is caused predominantly by overeating and lack of exercise, higher implicit bias relative to controls was produced; informing participants that obesity is mainly due to genetic factors did not result in lower bias. In Studies 2A (N = 90) and 2B (N = 63), participants read stories of discrimination against obese persons to evoke empathy. This did not lead to lower bias compared with controls but did produce diminished implicit bias among overweight participants, suggesting an in-group bias.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Automatic processing in spider phobia: implicit fear associations over the course of treatment.

This study evaluates the cognitive model of anxiety by investigating treatment-related changes in automatic associations to evaluate schematic processing. Spider-phobic participants (n = 31) and healthy controls (n = 30) completed fear-based Implicit Association Tests (IATs), which are reaction-time measures that tap implicit associations without requiring conscious introspection. The specific tasks involved classifying pictures of snakes and spiders along with semantic categorizations (good vs.bad, afraid vs. unafraid, danger vs. safety, and disgusting vs. appealing). Phobic individuals were assessed before and after group-based exposure treatment and 2 months later, controls were assessed at matched time points. Results supported clinical applications for implicit fear associations, including prediction of phobic avoidance, and treatment sensitivity of the fear- and disgust-specific automatic associations.

Adolescent↗