Cognitive and Emotional Appraisal of Motivational Interviewing Statements: An Event-Related Potential Study.

Karen Y L Hui,Andrew M H Siu,Chetwyn C H Chan,Tatia M C Lee,Clive H Y Wong

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2021.727175

Abstract

The counseling process involves attention, emotional perception, cognitive appraisal, and decision-making. This study aimed to investigate cognitive appraisal and the associated emotional processes when reading short therapists' statements of motivational interviewing (MI). Thirty participants with work injuries were classified into the pre-contemplation (PC, n = 15) or readiness stage of the change group (RD, n = 15). The participants viewed MI congruent (MI-C), MI incongruent (MI-INC), or control phrases during which their electroencephalograms were captured. The results indicated significant Group × Condition effects in the frontally oriented late positive complex (P600/LPC). The P600/LPC's amplitudes were more positive-going in the PC than in the RD group for the MI congruent statements. Within the PC group, the amplitudes of the N400 were significantly correlated (r = 0.607–0.649) with the participants' level of negative affect. Our findings suggest that the brief contents of MI statements alone can elicit late cognitive and emotional appraisal processes beyond semantic processing.

Highlights

The goal of counseling is to help clients learn new ways of being and to develop new memories and connections, facilitating the change to desirable behavior (Ivey et al, 2017)
No significant between-group differences were found in the scores of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and Chinese version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (C-STAI)
As N400 reflects cognitive evaluation of the stimulus contents, the results suggest that participants, regardless of their readiness stages, would have regarded the motivational interviewing (MI) consistent words as value-inconsistent than the control words

Summary

Introduction

The goal of counseling is to help clients learn new ways of being and to develop new memories and connections, facilitating the change to desirable behavior (Ivey et al, 2017). There are four different components in counseling, namely: attention, emotion perception, cognitive evaluation, and decision-making. Attention is regarded as a prerequisite, enabling the client to focus on interacting with the therapist (Field et al, 2015) and is essential in driving the effect of the counseling process, enhancing learning, memory, and change (Ivey et al, 2017). Emotion perception and cognitive evaluation are separate processes but may be sequential or concurrent (Hundrieser and Stahl, 2016). Clients may need to access their long-term memory and make conscious decisions to feel, think, and act differently (Miller and Taylor, 2016)

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