Individual Differences in Auditory, Pain, and Motor Stimulation
Abstract. Augmenting/reducing is a personality dimension related to the processing of sensory stimuli. Augmenters are assumed to augment the impact of stimuli leading to stimulation-avoidant behavior and lower pain tolerance. Reducers are assumed to attenuate sensory stimuli leading to stimulation-seeking behavior and higher pain tolerance. Augmenting/reducing can be assessed by the method of evoked potentials or - as in this study - by questionnaire. Two studies were conducted to examine associations between augmenting/reducing as assessed by questionnaire and stimulus intensity modulation. Study 1 found reducers (n = 24, 12 females) to more frequently consume psychoactive substances and …
Trait anxiety and autonomic indicators of the processing of threatening information: a cued S1-S2 paradigm.
Abstract The aim of this study was to use autonomic parameters in a cued S1–S2 task to examine associations between the processing of threatening information and trait anxiety in normal individuals. Forty-six student volunteers were designated high- or low-anxious due to pre-defined cutoff scores on the STAI. A cued S1–S2 task was presented in which the type of warning signal (S1) was consistently related to either threatening or non-threatening pictures (S2). Ten threat and 10 non-threat pictures were randomly presented. Heart rate and electrodermal activity were recorded in the time interval between S1 and S2. Results indicated deeper heart rate decelerations on threatening trials in high…
Behavioural Cardiology at the Department of Psychology, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany
Abstract. We provide a short overview of the research in Behavioural Cardiology at the Department of Psychology at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz focussing on two lines of research: Studies of psychosocial variables that might enhance or attenuate cardiovascular risk in healthy individuals and studies of psychosocial variables and health behaviours that might impact the health status of patients listed for heart transplantation. Our studies so far suggest that psychosocial factors like anxiety and repressive coping impact information processing and cardiovascular responses to stress. Moreover, we examine the impact of health-protective resource variables including self-efficacy an…
Gibt es einen Zusammenhang zwischen Bewegungsaktivität und psychischem Befinden im Alltag?
Mit diesem Beitrag wollen wir illustrieren, wie mit Hilfe der Technik des ambulanten Monitoring gesundheitspsychologische Fragestellungen im Alltag untersucht werden können. Dazu wurde der Zusammenhang von körperlicher Aktivität und Wohlbefinden im Alltag analysiert. Mit Hilfe von Beschleunigungssensoren wurden Bewegungsdaten über einen Zeitraum von 12 Stunden an 124 Probanden zwischen 18 und 73 Jahren aufgezeichnet. Energetische Aktiviertheit/positiver Affekt (EA/PA) und Anspannung/negativer Affekt (WA/NA) wurden etwa stündlich mittels Pocketcomputer erfasst. Die Daten wurden mit Mehrebenenmodellen ausgewertet. Bewegungsepisoden, die vor der Befindensabfrage auftraten, waren positiv mit EA…
Repressive Coping Style and the Significance of Verbal-Autonomic Response Dissociations
Self-esteem fluctuations and cardiac vagal control in everyday life
It has been proposed that self-esteem buffers threat-responding. The same effect is ascribed to the vagus nerve, which is a primary nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system. Consequently, it has been suggested that self-esteem and cardiac vagal tone are interconnected on a trait, as well as on a state, level. In this study, we examined the relationship of vagal cardiac control and self-esteem fluctuations across a single day using ecological momentary assessment. Eighty-four participants were recruited, and self-esteem, negative affect, and vagal tone were recorded throughout a 22-hour period. Men provided higher self-esteem ratings than women, but the negative relationship between self-…
A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2021, corrected publication 2022
Lymphadenomatous carcinoma of the sublingual gland: report of a first case in an unusual localization.
Background. Lymphadenomatous carcinoma of the salivary gland is a very rare tumor, which hitherto occurred exclusively in the parotid gland. This report describes a case of lymphadenomatous carcinoma of the sublingual gland, which is thought to be the first report of this special entity. Methods and Results. A 36-year-old man was seen with slowly growing mass on his right floor of mouth. Upon surgical removal, the mass was well encapsulated. Microscopic exami- nation revealed a biphasic appearance with islands of neoplas- tic epithelial cells presenting against a dense lymphoid stroma, while the epithelial compartment showed features of malig- nancy. During 30-months of close follow-up, the…
Predicting autonomic reactivity to public speaking: don't get fixed on self-report data!
The study focused on the prediction of autonomic reactivity to public speaking by using self-report and objective data (other-ratings and behavioral data) of task-induced nervousness and task engagement. Forty-one individuals participated in the study. Heart rate and electrodermal activity were recorded during baseline and speech delivery. Stepwise multiple regression analyses indicated that self-report data of task engagement and nervousness largely failed in predicting psychophysiological reactivity to the speech task. After controlling for baseline values, demographic variables, and self-report data objective variables, however, were strong predictors of autonomic reactivity. Heart rate …
Digit ratio (2D:4D) is associated with traffic violations for male frequent car drivers
Digit ratio (2D:4D) is a putative marker of prenatal hormone exposure. A lower digit ratio has been suggested as an index of higher testosterone relative to estrogen exposure during prenatal development. Digit ratio has been associated with a variety of psychological sex-dimorphic variables, including spatial orientation, aggression, or risk-taking behavior. The present study aimed to relate digit ratio to traffic violations for a male sample (N = 77) of frequent car drivers. Digit ratio was assessed via printout scans of the hand, and traffic offense behavior was assessed via self-reported penalty points as registered by the Central Register of Traffic Offenders in Germany. In addition, so…
The time line of threat processing and vagal withdrawal in response to a self-threatening stressor in cognitive avoidant copers: evidence for vigilance-avoidance theory.
Using a spatial cueing paradigm with emotional and neutral facial expressions as cues, we examined early and late patterns of information processing in cognitive avoidant coping (CAV). Participants were required to detect a target that appeared either in the same location as the cue (valid) or in a different location (invalid). Cue–target onset asynchrony (CTOA) was manipulated to be short (250 ms) or long (750 ms). CAV was associated with early facilitation and faster disengagement from angry faces. No effects were found for happy or neutral faces. After completing the spatial cueing task, participants prepared and delivered a public speech and heart rate variability (HRV) was recorded. Di…
Verbal-autonomic response dissociations as traits?
Dissociations between subjective and physiological responses to stress are of central interest in coping research. However, little is known about their stability across situations and time. Two experimental sessions - separated by 1 year - were conducted to examine cross-situational consistency and longterm-stability of HR-derived and SCL-derived dissociation scores. In year 1, a speech stressor, the cold pressor and a video stressor (viewing of the speech video) were applied. In year 2, mental arithmetics, anagrams and a torture video were presented. Thirty-five students participated and HR, SCL and negative affect were recorded. For each stressor, standardized changes in negative affect w…
Interactive effects of avoidant coping and parental hypertension on Rate Pressure Product reactivity in women
Background: Previous research suggests that personality, situational context variables, and genes might interact to potentiate cardiovascular stress responses.Purpose: Our purpose is to examine interactive effects of dispositional avoidant coping and parental hypertension on cardiovascular reactivity to three different laboratory stressors.Method: Participants were 63 healthy female students. Stressors were an evaluated videotaped speech, the cold pressor, and viewing of the speech video. Heart rate and blood pressure were continuously recorded during baselines and tasks.Results: After controlling for age, body mass index, smoking status, reported exercise, alcohol consumption, oral contrac…
Using text messages to bridge the intention-behavior gap? A pilot study on the use of text message reminders to increase objectively assessed physical activity in daily life
Sedentarism is a serious health concern in industrialized countries throughout the world. We examined whether a text message-based intervention, targeted at increasing daily levels of physical activity, would be more effective than a standard psychoeducational intervention and a control condition. Sixty-three individuals (43 women) with a mean age of 23.7 years participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to a psychoeducational standard intervention; an augmented intervention with additional short text messages sent to the mobile phones to remind participants of their action plans, and a control condition. Objectively assessed physical activity and self-efficacy were assessed pre-…
Temporal stability of the implicit association test-anxiety.
The Implicit Association Test-Anxiety (IAT-Anxiety; Egloff & Schmukle, 2002) provides an indirect assessment of anxiety by measuring associations of self (vs. other) with anxiety-related (vs. calmness-related) words. In 3 studies (using 3 independent samples), we examined the temporal stability of the IAT-Anxiety. In Study 1, 65 participants responded twice to the IAT-Anxiety with a time lag of 1 week. The test-retest correlation was .58. In Study 2 (N = 39), we extended the time interval between test and retest to 1 month and this yielded a stability coefficient of .62. In Study 3 (N = 36), we examined the long-term stability (time lag: 1 year) of the IAT-Anxiety and this showed a correlat…
Depressive symptoms and attenuated physiological reactivity to laboratory stressors.
There is evidence that depressive symptoms are associated with attenuated physiological reactivity to active stressors. However, it is not known whether blunted reactivity in depressed individuals is stressor-specific. We examined cardiovascular and electrodermal reactivity in non-clinical participants with varying levels of depressive symptoms to different active and passive stressors. Depressive symptoms were inversely related to both blood pressure and skin conductance reactivity during a public speaking task and the viewing of the speech video. However, no effects were found during a cold pressor task. Together these findings suggest that depressive symptoms are related to attenuated sy…
Second to fourth digit ratio (2D:4D) of the right hand is associated with nociception and augmenting-reducing
The ratio of the length of the second and fourth fingers (2D:4D) represents an individual difference variable putatively related to prenatal testosterone exposure. Previous research found significant associations between this variable and sexually dimorphic and other sex-hormone mediated traits like fertility, masculinity, spatial ability and sensation seeking. The present study aimed to relate digit ratio to pain perception using electric pain stimuli. 131 volunteers (69 females) participated. Two electric stimuli of different intensity were applied to the forearm. Digit ratio was obtained from the left and right hands and pain tolerance was assessed by means of visual analog scales. Addit…
Augmenting–reducing paradox lost? A test of Davis et al.'s (1983) hypothesis
Abstract The aim of the experiment was to test Davis et al.'s [Davis, C., Cowles, M., & Kohn, P. (1983). Strength of the nervous system and augmenting–reducing: paradox lost. Personality and Individual Differences, 4, 491–498.] hypothesis, that Petrie-style reducers become evoked potential (EP) augmenters at high intensities. Central, autonomic, and subjective responses to auditory stimuli of five intensities from 65 to 105 dB(A) were recorded in subjects classified as augmenters/reducers according to the Vando reducer–augmenter scale (RAS). Forty-five white noise stimuli of each intensity were presented. EEG, ECG, EDA, subjective and behavioral data were recorded. It was hypothezised that …
Tears evoke the intention to offer social support: A systematic investigation of the interpersonal effects of emotional crying across 41 countries
Tearful crying is a ubiquitous and likely uniquely human phenomenon. Scholars have argued that emotional tears serve an attachment function: Tears are thought to act as a social glue by evoking social support intentions. Initial experimental studies supported this proposition across several methodologies, but these were conducted almost exclusively on participants from North America and Europe, resulting in limited generalizability. This project examined the tears-social support intentions effect and possible mediating and moderating variables in a fully pre-registered study across 7007 participants (24,886 ratings) and 41 countries spanning all populated continents. Participants were prese…
Selbstwirksamkeit und sozialer Abwärtsvergleich bei Darmkrebspatienten
Zusammenfassung. Persönliche Ressourcen und Copingstile spielen in der Bewältigung von lebensbedrohlichen Erkrankungen eine wichtige Rolle. In der vorliegenden längsschnittlich angelegten Studie wurde an 160 Darmkrebspatienten untersucht, welchen Einfluss generelle Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung (SWE) und sozialer Abwärtsvergleich (SA) auf das subjektive Wohlbefinden von Krebspatienten haben. Die Daten wurden während der onkologischen Reha (t1) und 6 Monate später (t2) über Fragebögen schriftlich erfasst. Zusätzlich wurde an einer Kontrollgruppe von 160 Personen erfasst, ob es einen Unterschied in der SWE zu den Darmkrebspatienten gibt. Im Gegensatz zur Kontrollgruppe zeigte die Patientengrup…
Comparing indirect methods of digit ratio (2D:4D) measurement.
The ratio of the lengths of the second and fourth finger (2D:4D) has been proposed to index prenatal exposure to androgens. Different methods have been utilized to measure digit ratio, however, their measurement precision and economy have not been systematically compared yet. Using different indirect methods (plastic ruler, caliper, computer software), three independent raters measured finger lengths of 60 participants. Generally, measurement precision (intraclass correlation coefficient, technical error of measurement, and relative technical error of measurement) was acceptable for each method. However, precision estimates were highest for the computer software, indicating excellent measur…
Avoidant coping, verbal-autonomic response dissociation and pain tolerance
Higher autonomic reactivity relative to self-reported discomfort, often found in repressors and avoidant copers might be associated with a diminished perception of bodily symptoms. This study aimed at relating such so-called verbal-autonomic response dissociation to pain tolerance. Eighty-five volunteers underwent a public speaking task and a cold pressor test. Heart rate and negative affect in response to the speech, and pain ratings and facial muscle responses for the cold pressor were obtained. A dissociation score was calculated for each individual in response to speech, thereby subtracting standardized changes in negative affect from standardized changes in heart rate. Response dissoci…
Momentary Affect Predicts Bodily Movement in Daily Life: An Ambulatory Monitoring Study
There is converging evidence that physical activity influences affective states. It has been found that aerobic exercise programs can significantly diminish negative affect. Moreover, among healthy individuals, moderate levels of physical activity seem to increase energetic arousal and positive affect. However, the predictive utility of affective states for bodily movement has rarely been investigated. In this study, we examined whether momentarily assessed affect is associated with bodily movement in everyday life. Using a previously published data set (Schwerdtfeger, Eberhardt, & Chmitorz, 2008), we reanalyzed 12-hr ecological momentary assessment (EMA) data from 124 healthy volunteer…