Posts Tagged ‘Research’
Sunday, October 10th, 2010
You would think that if we remembered an event to which an emotion was attached (episodic memory) to it that every time we remembered that event the memory would evoke the same emotions. For example if we had a frightening, fearful or anxiety inducing experience like a car accident, you might expect that every time you recall the accident you would get similar emotional recall as well.
I am in the middle of a literary review for my next book and I came across this little gem of a paper which turns the assumption that emotions evoked during recall will be similar whenever we recall that particular memory. However a couple of studies conducted at University of Utah, USA by Pasupathi show that the emotion evoked during recall will differ depending on the context within which it is being recalled.
The two main factors that appear to have an effect on the emotions evoked during memory recall are the gender of the person / people listening and even more importantly the reactions of the listeners. If the listeners respond in a way that is in line with the original emotion (say fear or fright) then the individual recalling the event will experience that emotion. However if the listeners are in agreement with each other but at odds with the original emotion of the event then this will have an impact on the emotion experienced by the talker.
For example if the person recalls a frightening event and the listeners all respond with laughter, the individual recalling the memory is very likely to report humorous emotions as opposed to the previously experienced fear related emotions. The same can happen the other way around where positive emotions become negative on recall where the listeners react with horror when told the story.
This has implications for emotional resilience in that the context, particularly the reactions of others around us, is quite likely to determine the reaction of the individual to any situation particularly resilience in situations that involve elements of recall of previous or past situations.
Pasupathi, M. (2003) Emotion regulation during social remembering: Differences between emotions elicited during an event and emotions elicited when talking about it. Memory, Volume 11, Issue 2 2003 , pages 151 - 163
Tags: emotional regulation, emotional resilience, Fear, humor, humour, Memory, recall, Research
Posted in Anxiety research, Emotional Resilience Research, Fear, Memory, anxiety, emotion regulation, emotional resilience, humor, humour | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
A paper released this month* shows the results of an interesting study comparing the methods we use on The Fear Course (CBT/DBT) with a drug based therapy, in this case naltrexone. It was found that our methods were significantly more effective in helping drug addicted patients develop greater emotional resilience / emotional regulation, increase tolerance to distress and improve social functioning than a course of the drug. Not only that but it reduced the likely hood that the patient would return to drug abuse.
*Azizi, A. Et al (2010). The Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Training and Cognitive Therapy on the Emotional and Addictional Problems of Substance Abusers. IJoP. 2010;2(5) : 60-65
Tags: emotional regulation, emotional resilience, Research, The Fear Course
Posted in Emotional Resilience Research, Fear Course News, emotion regulation, emotional resilience | No Comments »
Sunday, June 20th, 2010
Some colleagues at UCL are starting a fMRi study into emotional resilience in 10 - 14 year olds and have put a call out for participants:
WHO WE ARE: We are a group of researchers in the Department of Psychology at University College London (UCL) recruiting 10-14 year olds to participate in a study investigating emotional resilience in children. Our research aims to better understand how those children who have experienced early adversity develop emotional resilience, particularly in terms of brain mechanisms that underpin emotional regulation.
We are recruiting children from schools and youth clubs across London. The study has full ethical approval and all researchers have current CRB checks.
WHAT IT INVOLVES FOR THE CHILD: If a child and their parents are interested in taking part, we will provide them with information sheets and consent forms that will give them full details about the study. If they volunteer we would invite them to our scanner facility in central London (travel expenses reimbursed). Testing usually takes place on Saturdays or during the school summer holidays. The child will complete some questionnaires, play some computer games and have a 35minute fMRI brain scan, during which they will complete 3 simple computer games (e.g. pressing the left or right response key depending on whether they see a male or female face on the screen). While the child is in the scanner, their parent will be asked to complete a few brief questionnaires about their child and the family.
As a thank you, the child will receive a CD with pictures of their brain on it, a t-shirt with a picture of a brain on it, a book about the brain and a generous lunch allowance for themselves and a parent.
WHAT YOU CAN DO: If you are a teacher based in London and think this is something your pupils might want to participate in, or if you have any questions then please contact me, Helen Maris, by phone on 02076 791051 or by e-mail at h.maris@ucl.ac.uk.
Tags: emotional resilience, Research
Posted in Fear Course News | No Comments »
Saturday, June 19th, 2010
One of the points I often have to make when I am doing talks / consultancy about emotional resilience / emotional regulation is that it is not about cutting off from your emotions. People who cut off are usually damaged people and not just emotionally but also neurophysiologically. Emotional resilience requires that our empathy remains intact. I have seen the results of disaster managers and emergency service workers who have been so traumatised by their experiences that they have reacted by essentially cutting off emotionally. They make very poor managers, unable to see the situation from others points of view, they frequently don’t notice things (particularly identifying the reactions of others) in the situation they are dealing with and normally alienate people around them.
Jean Decety and his team at the University of Chicago have been conducting a series of fMRI studies looking at empathy and emotional self-regulation. In the studies they have been showing subjects (adolescent boys between 16 to 18) a series of videos depicting either accidental pain, such as someone stubbing their toe and or pain induced on purpose, for example someone being punched. The findings are fascinating. They have discovered that in boys that have been diagnosed with aggressive disorders (aggression indicates levels of a lack of empathy by definition) that the reward areas of the brain are stimulated when they see others in pain. Even more interesting is, when compared with the control group of ‘normal’ boys, those with aggressive disorders lack any activity in the areas of the brain connected to self-regulation and and moral reasoning. These together appear to inhibit the empathetic neural regions of the brain. (Decety, J., & Michalska, K.J. (2010). Neurodevelopmental changes in the circuits underlying empathy and sympathy from childhood to adulthood. Developmental Science, )
Emotional resilience does not mean cutting off from ones emotions, empathy is a core human attribute and this is no-less so for managers!
Tags: emotional, emotional regulation, empathy, Research
Posted in Emotional Resilience Research, emotion regulation, emotional resilience, empathy | No Comments »
Friday, June 18th, 2010
I am just in the process of analysing some research I have been conducting on websites offering help with anxiety related issues. The results are a bit of a shocker. Here is one of the preliminary results:
Of the 84 sites I examined, (the top 84 Google hits for the search term “anxiety help”) that are offering (paid) help with anxiety and fear related issues 47 of the sites had no contact details what-so-ever so I couldn’t even determine even who the author was or what qualifications they had. I tried to contact the site owners via their whois information and only one replied saying the site was run by someone else.
Of the remaining 37 sites with contact details posted, 12 owners didn’t reply to the repeated requests for information about their qualifications and experience.
The remaining people who did reply eight had no further qualifications or experience beyond having attended a course, often in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) or Hypnosis but hadn’t actually practiced face-to-face with clients.
Only 17 sites of the 84 examined (20.24%) were actually run and designed by experienced and qualified practitioners in the field who had face-to-face clients. That’s 1 in 5 sites.
Basically you have an 80% chance of picking an online therapeutic intervention for your nerves and anxieties designed by heaven knows who.
More results soon…
Tags: anxiety help websites, Research
Posted in Fear Course News | No Comments »
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