Biomedical subjects

Graham C L Davey

Publications and source records attributed to Graham C L Davey.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

What ends a worry bout? An analysis of changes in mood and stop rule use across the catastrophising interview task.

This paper reports the results of two experiments designed to test predictions from the mood-as-input hypothesis about the factors that contribute to the ending of a worry bout. Experiment 1 looked at changes in self-reported mood across a catastrophising interview task. Experiment 2 investigated whether there were any changes in stop rule deployment between the beginning and end of a catastrophising interview task. Experiment 1 demonstrated that worriers tended to show increases in negative mood and decreases in positive mood over the course of catastrophising. In Experiment 2, participants exhibited a significant shift away from endorsing the use of 'as many as can' stop rules and a significant increasing tendency to endorse the use of 'feel like continuing' stop rules over the course of catastrophising. These results suggest that worriers exhibit increases in negative mood across the worry bout, but shift from the use of 'as many as can' to 'feel like continuing' stop rules. Mood-as-input hypothesis predicts that if high worriers ask the question "do I feel like continuing?" in the context of increasing negative mood, this will imply that the activity is no longer enjoyable or profitable and should be terminated. The results are discussed in the context of mood-as-input accounts of pathological worrying and the therapeutic implications of these findings are reviewed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Successful differential evaluative conditioning using simultaneous and trace conditioning procedures in the picture-picture paradigm.

This paper describes a study designed to investigate the efficacy of two traditional classical conditioning procedures in generating evaluative conditioning (EC) in the picture-picture paradigm in human participants. Differential EC was found using both simultaneous and trace conditioning procedures. In addition, the use of a block-subblock (BSB) nonpaired control condition and full counterbalancing of conditioned stimulus-unconditioned stimulus (CS-UCS) pairings across participants indicated that the observed EC effects were the result of associative learning. Examination of whether successful conditioning could take place with or without conscious awareness of CS-UCS contingencies was inconclusive. The results provide evidence for EC as an associative process and also provide some insight into the possible conditioning parameters that might successfully generate EC.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Experienced disgust causes a negative interpretation bias: a causal role for disgust in anxious psychopathology.

This paper reports the results of an experiment investigating the effect of induced disgust on interpretational bias using the homophone spelling task. Four groups of participants experienced a disgust, anxiety, happy or neutral mood induction and then completed the homophone spelling task which requires the participant to interpret ambiguous words presented through headphones. Both the disgust and anxiety groups interpreted significantly more threat/neutral homophones as threat than both the happy and neutral groups; the disgust group also interpreted significantly fewer positive/neutral homophones as positive than the happy group. These findings are consistent with the view that induced disgust causes a negative interpretational bias which is similar to that reported for anxiety. The results could not be interpreted in terms of the disgust induction concurrently raising levels of self-reported anxiety, but could be interpreted in terms of disgust maintaining existing levels of anxiety. The effect of disgust was to facilitate negative interpretations rather than emotional interpretations regardless of valence. These findings provide the basis for a causal role for disgust in anxious psychopathology. Because the effect is a non-specific emotion-congruent one, elevated disgust levels will result in a predisposition to interpret information in a threatening way across a broad range of anxious- and threat-relevant domains.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Using controlled comparisons in disgust psychopathology research: the case of disgust, hypochondriasis and health anxiety.

The present paper describes the results of a study investigating the relationship between measures of disgust and measures of hypochondriasis and health anxiety. The results indicated that (1) there were highly significant correlations between measures of trait disgust and disgust sensitivity and measures of hypochondriasis and health anxiety, (2) the relationship between disgust sensitivity measures and hypochondriasis and health anxiety were still significant even when levels of trait anxiety were controlled for, but (3) controlled comparisons revealed that the measures of disgust also predicted scores on measures of disgust-irrelevant control psychopathologies (claustrophobia and height phobia)--even after trait anxiety had been partialled out. In addition, the series of multiple regressions carried out clearly indicated that trait anxiety and disgust sensitivity appear to be independent constructs each of which have relationships with anxious psychopathologies over and above the effect of the other. The discussion explores the nature of the possible relationships between disgust, hypochondriasis and health anxiety, and also looks at the implications for disgust psychopathology research of using controlled comparisons which indicate the existence of significant relationships between measures of disgust and anxious psychopathologies that, a priori, would be considered to be disgust irrelevant.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

A mood-as-input account of perseverative checking: the relationship between stop rules, mood and confidence in having checked successfully.

The present paper reports the results of two experiments designed to test predictions from the mood-as-input account of perseverative checking. Using an analogue checking task, both experiments showed that perseveration, as indicted by a range of measures relevant to compulsive checking, was affected by the configuration of the stop rule for the task and mood at the outset of checking. Perseveration was most significant in the condition that most closely resembled the characteristics of obsessive-compulsive checkers (negative mood combined with a stop rule that specifies that the task should be done as thoroughly as possible--namely, an 'as many as can' stop rule). The studies also indicated that confidence at having completed the checking task successfully was (1) significantly related to the use of 'as many as can' stop rules at the outset of checking, (2) mood ratings at the end of checking, and (3) checking perseveration generally. These findings provide support for a mood-as-input explanation of perseverative psychopathologies such as compulsive checking, and begin to cast some light on how anxiety-reduction and 'confidence' models of compulsive checking, might be explained within broader mechanisms of perseveration.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Inflated responsibility and perseverative checking: the effect of negative mood.

This article reports the results of 2 experiments designed to test predictions from the mood-as-input hypothesis on the role of inflated responsibility in perseverative checking. Through the use of an analog checking task in both experiments, the authors showed that perseveration, as indicated by a range of measures relevant to compulsive checking, was affected by a combination of the level of inflated responsibility and the valency of mood at the outset of checking. In particular, inflated responsibility significantly facilitated checking perseveration only in the context of a negative mood and was not a sufficient condition for checking perseveration to occur. These effects of the various configurations of inflated responsibility and mood valency are predicted by the mood-as-input hypothesis.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Differential aversive outcome expectancies for high- and low-predation fear-relevant animals.

There is now considerable evidence that phobic responding is associated with a bias towards expecting aversive or traumatic outcomes following encounters with the phobic stimulus (e.g. Behavioural Brain Sci. 18 (1995) 289-325; Phobias: A Handbook of Theory, Research and Treatment. Wiley, Chichester, 1997). In terms of conditioning contingencies, this can be described as a bias towards expecting an aversive unconditioned stimulus (UCS) following a phobic conditioned stimulus (CS). The disease-avoidance model of animal fears (Anxiety Res. 4 (1992a) 314; Matchett and Davey, 1991) suggests that common animal fears may be mediated by at least two kinds of selective associations: (1) a bias towards expecting physically harmful consequences associated with predatory animals, and (2) a bias towards expecting disgust or disease-relevant consequences associated with animals that are fear-relevant (FR) but normally physically harmless. The present study investigated this model of selective associations by comparing the UCS expectations elicited by high-predation FR, low-predation FR and safe (fear-irrelevant) animals. The results indicate that high-predation animals are selectively associated with a pain relevant UCS, whilst low-predation animals are selectively associated with a disgust-relevant UCS. Safe animals were not strongly associated with either class of UCS. These findings provide evidence for a possible associative mechanism by which changes in nonspecific levels of disgust sensitivity may directly affect levels of fear to low-predation FR animals.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

The perseveration of checking thoughts and mood-as-input hypothesis.

This paper describes two experiments designed to investigate how a current model of task perseveration, the mood-as-input hypothesis, might be applied to activities relevant to compulsive checking. The mood-as-input hypothesis predicts that perseveration at an open-ended task will be determined by a combination of the "stop rules" adopted for the task, and the valency of the mood state in which the task is conducted. Experiment 1 required participants to generate items that should be checked for safety/security if they were leaving their home unattended. Experiment 2 used an analogue recall task, in which participants were asked to recall items from a comprehensive list of items that should be checked if they were to leave their home safe/secure. Both experiments found that perseveration at the tasks was determined by particular configurations of mood and stop rules for the task. Of most relevance to compulsive checking was the fact that facilitated perseveration occurred when participants were asked to undertake the tasks in a negative mood using "as many as can" stop rules. Implications for the factors that develop and maintain compulsive checking are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

'Nonspecific' rather than 'nonassociative' pathways to phobias: a commentary on Poulton and Menzies.

This commentary attempts to clarify the nature of contemporary associative accounts of phobias, and to describe how they might contribute to the explanation of the diversity of phobic aetiologies. It is argued that conditioning-equivalent associations underpin all phobic conditions, and that the role of experimental psychopathology research is to determine how these associations are acquired. The commentary then proceeds to discuss some of the theoretical problems with the nonassociative account of phobias as it is currently described by Poulton and Menzies, and to suggest that some interpretations of their retrospective and prospective data may not be incompatible with contemporary associative accounts. The outcome of this is that it may be more suitable to describe the fourth pathway to phobia acquisition described by Poulton and Menzies as a 'nonspecific' rather than a 'nonassociative' pathway.

Conditioning, Psychological↗