Browsing by Subject "psychophysiology"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
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    Early Interpersonal Antecedents of Physiological Reactivity in Adult Romantic Relationships
    (2014-05) Raby, Kenneth
    The current study drew on prospective, longitudinal data in order to investigate the long-term significance of early parent-child relationship experiences for adults' physiological responses in romantic relationships. Autonomic nervous system activity was recorded for 37 adults (ages 34-37 years) during a baseline task and while they were discussing a relationship conflict with their romantic partners. Results indicated that (a) observed maternal emotional support during childhood and early adolescence predicted lower skin conductance reactivity, a sign of inhibition and anxiety, and (b) maternal emotional support and infant attachment security predicted lower heart rate reactivity, a psychophysiological marker of behavioral approach, during romantic relationship interactions. Moreover, the predictive effects of early parent-child relationship experiences were not accounted by covariates related to child characteristic and early socioeconomic factors or indicators of adults' concurrent relationship quality. Results of more exploratory analyses regarding the role of adult attachment states of mind in mediating the predictive effects of early parent-child relationship experiences for adults' physiological responses were inconclusive. Altogether, the results of the current study indicate that interpersonal experiences with parents during childhood and adolescence assist in organizing adults' physiological responses during close relationship contexts. Findings are discussed with respect to our understanding of the long-term predictive effects of early interpersonal experiences for social and emotional development across the life-course.
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    Normative and Pathological Personality Predictors of Generalized Conditioned Fear, Instrumental Avoidance, and the Covariation of Generalized Fear and Avoidance
    (2019-08) Cooper, Samuel
    Mechanistic conditioning models of human anxiety pathology have established overgeneralization of classically conditioned fear as a maladaptive correlate of clinical anxiety (e.g., anxiety disorders). These models have also, until recently, largely discounted the pathological contribution of instrumental avoidance of feared stimuli. This is in stark contrast to clinically-based models of anxiety pathology, which establish that the most severe forms of clinical anxiety involve excessive avoidance that results in loss of valued activity and opportunity to extinguish fear, and links this avoidance to individual differences in a variety of personality traits. Recent mechanistic work has partially addressed this gap and investigated the relationship between generalized fear and generalized avoidance, but has largely not incorporated individual difference variables. The current investigation furthers the merging of mechanistic conditioning and clinical models in this area by testing how broadband individual differences (e.g., personality traits) ranging from normative to pathological can improve prediction of instrumental avoidance from generalized fear. Candidate personality variables include those related to Conscientiousness and Extraversion, both traits that are linked to learning and approach systems. The method for this investigation involved lab-based assessment using established conditioning paradigms with behavioral and psychophysiological indicators, as well as multidimensional self-report inventories and a multilevel modeling analytic approach to facilitate more precise testing of personality-related hypotheses. Results indicate that 1) multiple measures of pathological negative affect are related to increased fear generalization and facilitate a maladaptive fear-avoidance relations; 2) Extraversion-related variables generally buffer against fear-avoidance covariation, whereas pathologically low Extraversion (detachment) facilitates the fear-avoidance relation; 3) Conscientiousness-related variables both facilitate and inhibit the fear-avoidance relation, depending on context; and 4) the relationship between the personality variables, generalized fear, and avoidance depends partially on how the fear metric is operationalized (e.g., physiologically or behaviorally). These results are discussed within a framework of improving methodology for future investigations that combine conditioning and individual differences approaches and, eventually, using this type of work to inform translational efforts to further refine and personalize treatments for anxiety and trauma-related psychopathology.