Mood Induction Research Articles

The ChAMP App: A Scalable mHealth Technology for Detecting Digital Phenotypes of Early Childhood Mental Health.

Childhood mental health problems are common, impairing, and can become chronic if left untreated. Children are not reliable reporters of their emotional and behavioral health, and caregivers often unintentionally under- or over-report child symptoms, making assessment challenging. Objective physiological and behavioral measures of emotional and behavioral health are emerging. However, these methods typically require specialized equipment and expertise in data and sensor engineering to administer and analyze. To address this challenge, we have developed the ChAMP (Childhood Assessment and Management of digital Phenotypes) System, which includes a mobile application for collecting movement and audio data during a battery of mood induction tasks and an open-source platform for extracting digital biomarkers. As proof of principle, we present ChAMP System data from 101 children 4-8 years old, with and without diagnosed mental health disorders. Machine learning models trained on these data detect the presence of specific disorders with 70-73% balanced accuracy, with similar results to clinical thresholds on established parent-report measures (63-82% balanced accuracy). Features favored in model architectures are described using Shapley Additive Explanations (SHAP). Canonical Correlation Analysis reveals moderate to strong associations between predictors of each disorder and associated symptom severity (r = .51-.83). The open-source ChAMP System provides clinically-relevant digital biomarkers that may later complement parent-report measures of emotional and behavioral health for detecting kids with underlying mental health conditions and lowers the barrier to entry for researchers interested in exploring digital phenotyping of childhood mental health.

The effect of sadness on cognitive control: evidence from behaviour and ERPs

ABSTRACT Cognitive control, essential for daily functioning, is significantly influenced by emotional states. However, the specific impact of sadness on cognitive control, particularly its effects on the balance and shift between proactive and reactive control, has yet to be extensively explored in previous research. To address this gap, the current study improved the mood induction process, incorporated self-involvement into sadness, utilized physiological indicators to confirm the effect and duration of induced sadness, and examined its impact on cognitive control using the AX-CPT Task and ERPs. The results showed that neither sadness nor self-involved sadness significantly affected proactive or reactive control of behavioural performance. Intriguingly, self-involved sadness did disrupt cognitive control at the neural level, as evidenced by decreased CNV amplitude (indicative of proactive control) and increased N2 amplitude (indicative of reactive control). These findings offer valuable insights into the complex relationship between sadness and cognitive control .

Depressive symptoms and visual attention to others’ eyes in healthy individuals

BackgroundEye contact is a fundamental part of social interaction. In clinical studies, it has been observed that patients suffering from depression make less eye contact during interviews than healthy individuals, which could be a factor contributing to their social functioning impairments. Similarly, results from mood induction studies with healthy persons indicate that attention to the eyes diminishes as a function of sad mood. The present screen-based eye-tracking study examined whether depressive symptoms in healthy individuals are associated with reduced visual attention to other persons’ direct gaze during free viewing.MethodsGaze behavior of 44 individuals with depressive symptoms and 49 individuals with no depressive symptoms was analyzed in a free viewing task. Grouping was based on the Beck Depression Inventory using the cut-off proposed by Hautzinger et al. (2006). Participants saw pairs of faces with direct gaze showing emotional or neutral expressions. One-half of the face pairs was shown without face masks, whereas the other half was presented with face masks. Participants’ dwell times and first fixation durations were analyzed.ResultsIn case of unmasked facial expressions, participants with depressive symptoms looked shorter at the eyes compared to individuals without symptoms across all expression conditions. No group difference in first fixation duration on the eyes of masked and unmasked faces was observed. Individuals with depressive symptoms dwelled longer on the mouth region of unmasked faces. For masked faces, no significant group differences in dwell time on the eyes were found. Moreover, when specifically examining dwell time on the eyes of faces with an emotional expression there were also no significant differences between groups. Overall, participants gazed significantly longer at the eyes in masked compared to unmasked faces.ConclusionsFor faces without mask, our results suggest that depressiveness in healthy individuals goes along with less visual attention to other persons’ eyes but not with less visual attention to others’ faces. When factors come into play that generally amplify the attention directed to the eyes such as face masks or emotions then no relationship between depressiveness and visual attention to the eyes can be established.

The influence of negative urgency and mood inductions on alcohol cognitions.

Negative urgency (NU), the tendency to act rashly during negative emotional states, is a robust risk factor for alcohol misuse that is posited to function in part through alcohol-related cognitions. Nonetheless, relatively little research has examined mood-based fluctuations in such cognitions, which could help to explain how the trait of NU translates to impulsive alcohol-related behaviors. We examined how NU impacted several alcohol cognitions (positive/negative alcohol expectancies, positive/negative alcohol valuations, and alcohol craving for positive/negative emotional reinforcement) before and after negative, neutral, or positive mood inductions. We hypothesized that NU would predict greater and more favorable endorsement of alcohol and its effects following negative (vs. positive or neutral) mood induction. Participants (N = 428) were southern-midwestern college students recruited for an online experiment. Following the provision of consent, participants rated NU and preinduction alcohol cognitions, and were then randomly assigned to one of three (negative, neutral, or positive) mood inductions; subsequently, postinduction alcohol-cognition ratings were immediately obtained. We conducted six robust multilevel linear models (one per DV) examining NU's influence on within-person changes in alcohol cognitions across each mood induction. No three-way interactions were identified and only one two-way interaction involving NU was identified. There were main effects across mood induction conditions and time points for NU predicting greater endorsement of positive and negative alcohol outcome expectancies, and greater alcohol craving for positive and negative emotional reinforcement. Greater NU predicts greater perceived likelihood of alcohol's effects, alongside greater desire for mood improvement from alcohol. The absence of three-way interactive effects indicates NU's influence on mood-dependent fluctuations in alcohol cognitions may manifest over longer timescales (e.g., months and years), involve alternative cognitive processes (e.g., drinking motives and implicit alcohol cognitions), and apply more broadly to desires for mood improvement than purely negative emotional reinforcement.

Ultra-Brief Breath Counting (Mindfulness) Training Abolishes Negative Affect–Induced Alcohol Motivation in Hazardous Community Drinkers

ObjectivesMindfulness therapy improves drinking outcomes arguably by attenuating negative mood–induced drinking, but this mechanism has not been demonstrated in hazardous community drinkers. To address this, three studies tested whether a key ingredient of mindfulness, breath counting, would attenuate the increase in motivation for alcohol produced by experimentally induced negative mood, in hazardous community drinkers.MethodIn three studies, hazardous community drinkers were randomized to receive either a 6-min breath counting training or listen to a recited extract from a popular science book, before all participants received a negative mood induction. Motivation for alcohol was measured before and after listening to either the breath counting training or the control audio files, with a craving questionnaire in two online studies (n = 122 and n = 111), or an alcohol versus food picture choice task in a pub context in one in-person study (n = 62).ResultsIn Study 1, breath counting reduced alcohol craving. However, since the mood induction protocol did not increase craving, the effect of breath counting in reversing such increase could not be demonstrated. Online breath counting eliminated the increase in alcohol craving induced by negative mood (Study 2) and eliminated the stress-induced increase in alcohol picture choice in the pub environment (Study 3).ConclusionsBriefly trained breath counting attenuated negative mood–induced alcohol motivation in hazardous community drinkers. These results suggest that breath counting is a reliable and practical method for reducing the impact of negative emotional triggers on alcohol motivation.PreregistrationThese studies are not preregistered.

The influence of happiness and anxiety on emotional Stroop effect

The emotional Stroop effect is defined as a delay in reaction time or an increase in error rate while naming the color of emotional words compared to neutral words. The aim of this study was to examine how happiness and anxiety influence the emotional Stroop effect. According to the principle of emotion congruence, information processing is facilitated when its emotional valence matches the individual's mood. In the context of the emotional Stroop task, this implies that emotionally congruent words should be processed more easily, leading to a reduction or even elimination of the emotional Stroop effect. Conversely, processing incongruent stimuli should be more challenging and the impact of word meaning on color naming should be more pronounced. Based on these considerations, the hypothesis was proposed that emotional Stroop effect would be stronger when using stimuli incongruent with the participant's emotional state. We administered the emotional Stroop task with neutral, happy, and threatening words, music for mood induction, and the EmoS-15 questionnaire to assess mood induction effectiveness. The hypothesis was partially confirmed, as the emotional Stroop effect, assessed by error rates, was greater for stimuli incongruent with the emotional state.

An experimental investigation into the effect of negative affect on the behavioral economic demand for alcohol.

Influential theoretical models hypothesize that alcohol use is an especially potent reinforcer when used as a strategy to cope with negative affect. Although the evidence for this idea in observational data is weak, some experimental evidence suggests that the behavioral economic demand for alcohol increases immediately following a negative emotional event. Because existing studies testing the effect of negative mood inductions on the demand for alcohol have several methodological limitations and do not take inter- and intraindividual variability into account, we developed an improved experimental design to increase our confidence in any potential within-person effect of negative mood inductions on alcohol demand as well as to test whether this effect exhibits systematic inter- and intraindividual variability. We hypothesize that people will show a higher demand for alcohol following negative compared to neutral mood inductions and that this effect is stronger in heavy compared to light drinkers as well as stronger on days characterized by higher coping motives and negative urgency. Three hundred twenty college students will complete the alcohol purchase task (APT) after being subjected to 100 mood inductions (six negative, six neutral) on 20 separate days. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Duration of mood effects following a Japanese version of the mood induction task.

Researchers have employed a variety of methodologies to induce positive and negative mood states in study participants to investigate the influence that mood has on psychological, physiological, and cognitive processes both in health and illness. Here, we investigated the effectiveness and the duration of mood effects following the mood induction task (MIT), a protocol that combines mood-inducing sentences, auditory stimuli, and autobiographical memory recall in a cohort of healthy Japanese adult individuals. In Study 1, we translated and augmented the mood-inducing sentences originally proposed by Velten in 1968 and verified that people perceived the translations as being largely congruent with the valence of the original sentences. In Study 2, we developed a Japanese version of the mood induction task (J-MIT) and examined its effectiveness using an online implementation. Results based on data collected immediately after induction showed that the J-MIT was able to modulate the mood in the intended direction. However, mood effects were not observed during the subsequent performance of a cognitive task, the Tower of London task, suggesting that the effects did not persist long enough. Overall, the current results show that mood induction procedures such as the J-MIT can alter the mood of study participants in the short term; however, at the same time, they highlight the need to further examine how mood effects evolve and persist through time to better understand how mood induction protocols can be used to study affective processes more effectively.

Investigating mood-modification, withdrawal, and sensitization in compulsive sexual behaviour.

Compulsive Sexual Behaviour (CSB), defined as a persistent failure to control repetitive sexual impulses, has been discussed as a pathological phenomenon for centuries. Various terms, such as excessive sexual behaviour, hyper-sexuality, compulsive sexual behaviour disorder (CSBD), or sexual addiction (SA), have been used to describe it, contributing to ongoing debates about its theoretical framework. The following three studies aim to empirically assess whether CSB exhibits key elements of behavioural addiction (mood-modification, sensitization/tolerance, and withdrawal). Three studies, involving participants with and without CSB, were conducted. The mood-modification hypothesis was tested by exposing participants to short films inducing positive, negative, and emotionally neutral moods, followed by an evaluation of their craving for pornography. To test the sensitization hypothesis, participants viewed short films with varying levels of explicit sexual stimuli, and their level of actual wanting and liking were assessed through self-reports. For the withdrawal hypothesis, participants underwent a 10-day sexual abstinence, with self-reports of various symptoms, collected on pre-intervention, 3rd, 7th, and 10th days. Contrary to previous studies of addiction, CSB participants didn't show increased craving to mood induction and negative mood actually decreased craving for pornography. Secondly, they showed wanting to explicit sexual stimuli although it was not increased with explicitness. Finally, they demonstrated reduced withdrawal symptom during abstinence. The results of this study provide conflicting results concerning the model of behavioural addiction. There is supporting evidence for wanting in response to explicit pornography stimuli although it was not associated with increased explicitness. There is also evidence for reduced withdrawal during abstinence. Finally, there was no evidence that mood modification increases craving for pornography, negative mood actually decreased craving. Further research is needed to test the various models of CSB.

The smallest things make me emotional! Emotion reactivity in non-suicidal self-injury: trait, state, and physiological differences.

The current study sought to clarify the role of emotion reactivity in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) by examining three forms of emotion reactivity (physiological and self-reported trait and state reactivity) among a sample of young adults with or without a history of NSSI. Seventy-six adults (M age = 20.97, 73.7% female) participated in a semi-structured clinical interview to determine NSSI history and completed a measure of trait emotion reactivity. Participants then provided state emotion reactivity ratings before and after a social rejection task, recovery period, and positive mood induction while physiological data was continuously recorded. Although individuals with a history of NSSI perceived themselves to be more emotionally reactive, these participants were not more physiologically reactive, nor were their state reactivity ratings significantly different from individuals without a history of NSSI. Results suggest increased emotionality in response to a stressor is within normal bounds and not unique to individuals with a history of NSSI, and provide implications for future research on the etiology and treatment of NSSI.

Deciphering Decision Making: The Interplay of Mood States and Decision Styles

Recent theories of Decision- Making have advocated the role of emotions in the cognitive processes of decisions. One such approach is the EIC model (Lerner et al., 2015) which posits – mood to indirectly affect decision making by impacting current emotions, indicating individual’s overall emotional states to indirectly influence cognitive decision processes. The study aimed to understand the role of emotions on decision making and the nuances that underlie it. The 6 main hypothesis of the paper focused on evaluating whether incidental emotions via current emotions affect decision making significantly or do decision styles have a stronger significant effect on decision making. The paper used a mixed method design where the qualitative data was collected via interviews and thematic analysis and labels were attuned via open coding that helped in triangulation and pattern generation. Tools used were the YDMC, Mood induction videos of OPENLAV Database, Decision Style questionnaire (DSQ), Ryff’s well-being scale and an Interview schedule. A purposive sampling was done to obtain the sample (N=29) for the pre-test post-test design. Results for the quantitative data concluded that sad and angry incidental mood had significant effects on FR1 and FR2 (Resistance to Framing and Sunken costs) of YDMC and, that happy mood had no significant effect on risk perception. The decision styles that have been seen to dominate were Vigilant followed by Dependent and Spontaneous style. For qualitative data, based on the dominant responses for the entire sample an Interactive Hexagonal map was constructed. STB (Self -thoughts & Beliefs), FP (Futuristic perspective), CE (Current experiences), EE (Environmental ‌effects), and PEx (Past experiences) were the dominant pattern connections found for the current sample. Thus, Incidental Mood had a significant effect on Resistance to Framing and Sunken costs whereas had no significant effect on Consistency with Risk Perception. Future work on the nuances of mood on decision-making can help determine the affective, cognitive, and neuropsychological models of decision-making where neural correlates could help delve deeper in these higher cognitive and emotional processes.

Interindividual differences in anhedonia moderate antidepressant placebo responses on heart rate in healthy individuals

BackgroundAntidepressant placebos and, more generally, positive treatment expectations, have been shown to alter positive and negative affect in prior studies. However, much of this work has heavily relied on self-report measures which are prone to demand effects in the context of explicit expectation manipulations. In addition, there is little knowledge about personality variables which moderate antidepressant placebo responses and may help us identify individualized and targeted interventions. MethodsInert pills were administered to N=56 healthy participants and treatment expectations were manipulated by labeling each pill as either an inactive placebo or an active antidepressant. Thereafter, participants underwent an experimental induction of depressed mood with a musical Velten approach and their affective states were assessed via ratings and heart rate. Furthermore, trait anhedonia was measured as a depression-related personality variable which may moderate antidepressant placebo responses. ResultsWhile the depressed mood induction led to a general reduction of self-reported positive affect, antidepressant treatment expectations reduced cardiac slowing to depressed mood selectively in high vs. low anhedonic subjects. LimitationsNo main effects of expectation manipulation were revealed, but an interaction with regard to cardiac response involving trait anhedonia not paralleled by self-reports. ConclusionThe present findings suggest that individuals with higher levels of trait anhedonia may benefit more from antidepressant placebo effects than low anhedonic individuals, and stress the importance of investigating placebo responses beyond self-reports at the physiological level.

Effects of positive and negative affect inductions on interpretive and response bias

Affective states and interpretations of ambiguous stimuli are inherently related constructs, although effects of induced affective states on interpretive and response biases have not been comprehensively explored. The present study examined the relationship between induced affective states and interpretive and response bias in a sample of 189 undergraduates. Participants completed an online study in which they were randomized into one of two mood induction conditions and subsequently completed an interpretive bias task. Results demonstrated significant condition differences in affect after the mood induction; the positive induction condition demonstrated significantly more positive mood and the negative condition demonstrated more negative mood. A significant difference between conditions emerged with respect to positive interpretive bias for non-social scenarios, with the positive mood induction condition demonstrating more positive interpretive bias to non-social situations than the negative induction condition (p = .04). The negative induction condition demonstrated significantly greater negative response bias for social scenarios (p = .03) and, unexpectedly, a significantly higher positive response bias for non-social scenarios (p = .05). Findings offer some support for the notion that inducing positive affect may promote more positive interpretations of ambiguous scenarios.

Distress tolerance, coping motives, and alcohol craving and consumption: Two experiments testing momentary responses to a mood induction

BackgroundThe current studies examined the relationship between state and trait distress tolerance (DT), drinking-related variables (alcohol craving and consumption), and the moderating role of drinking to cope with negative affect (i.e., coping motives). MethodsStudy 1 was a laboratory-based experiment. Participants (n=71) completed measures of trait DT, craving, coping motives, and affect valence prior to a negative mood induction task. Post-mood induction, participants completed measures of affect valence, alcohol craving, and state DT. Next, participants completed an alcohol taste task, measuring alcohol consumption. Study 2 was completed online. Participants (n=592) completed the same pre- and post-mood induction measures as study 1, but were randomized to a mood condition (neutral, negative, or positive). Study 2 did not include alcohol consumption. ResultsNegative mood induction lowered reported affect in both studies. In study 1, higher coping motives predicted increased craving in response to negative mood induction but state and trait DT did not predict craving change alone. Contrary to our hypothesis, individuals with higher coping motives showed a positive relationship between trait DT and craving. Analyses predicting alcohol consumption were not significant. In study 2, lower trait DT predicted post-mood induction craving prior to inclusion of interactions in the model. Higher coping motives were the strongest and most consistent predictor of craving. Other predictors (state DT, mood condition) and interaction terms were not significant. ConclusionsFindings broadly align with previous research suggesting that coping motives are predictive of craving and indicate that trait DT may also impact craving.

Do you feel up when you go up? A pilot study of a virtual reality manic-like mood induction paradigm.

In order to understand the working mechanisms of mania, it is necessary to perform studies during the onset of manic (-like) mood states. However, clinical mania is difficult to examine experimentally. A viable method to study manic mood like states is mood induction, but mood induction tasks thus far show variable effectiveness. In this pilot study, a new paradigm to induce mood through virtual reality (VR) is examined. Both state characteristics, namely changes in emotion, and trait characteristics, such as high and low scores on the hypomanic personality scale (HPS), were measured in 65 students. These students participated in either a neutral VR mood induction or an activating VR mood induction in which excitement, goal directedness, and tension (being aspects of mania) were induced. All participants performed a risk-taking behavioural task, Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). The experimental VR task induced excitement and tension. In participants with higher sensitivity to hypomanic personality (HPS), irritation increased in response to activation whereas it decreased in the low HPS group, and excitement increased more steeply in the low HPS group. There were no effects on the behavioural task. The VR task is effective in inducing relevant state aspects of hypomania and is suitable as a paradigm for future experimental studies. Activation of dual affective states (excitement and tension) is an essential aspect in manic-like mood induction paradigms.

Presession mood induction in therapists: Effects on therapist empathy.

Previous studies show that therapist mood is associated with psychotherapy processes, but the observational nature of these studies does not allow for causal inference. It is also unclear if other therapist characteristics, such as therapist trait empathy, moderate the relation between therapist mood and process variables. Thirty-four therapists and volunteer client dyads participated in three weekly counseling sessions. Before each session, therapists were induced to experience one of three moods, elation, depression, or neutral, in a counterbalanced order, using a combination of music and the Velten method. After each session, clients rated therapist empathy and session quality, therapists rated session quality, and observers rated therapist empathy using videotapes. Electrocardiogram was collected from therapists and clients during the session to assess heart rate synchrony as an indicator of therapist empathy. Therapist trait empathy moderated the effect of mood induction on observer-rated therapist empathy, such that when induced to experience elation, therapists with high trait empathy were observed to be more empathic, whereas therapists with low trait empathy were observed to be less empathic. Therapists of different trait empathy levels did not differ on observer-rated empathy when induced to experience depression or neutral mood. No significant effect of mood induction was found for client-rated empathy, client- and therapist-rated session quality, or heart rate synchrony. The experimental design offers preliminary evidence that therapist presession mood may influence the psychotherapy process. The findings are explained in light of empathy amplification and empathy attenuation hypotheses in relation to positive emotion. Practice and research implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Mood fluctuations shift cost–benefit tradeoffs in economic decisions

Mood effects on economic choice seem blatantly irrational, but might rise from mechanisms adapted to natural environments. We have proposed a theory in which mood helps adapting the behaviour to statistical dependencies in the environment, by biasing the expected value of foraging actions (which involve taking risk, spending time and making effort to get more reward). Here, we tested the existence of this mechanism, using an established mood induction paradigm combined with independent economic choices that opposed small but uncostly rewards to larger but costly rewards (involving either risk, delay or effort). To maximise the sensitivity to mood fluctuations, we developed an algorithm ensuring that choice options were continuously adjusted to subjective indifference points. In 102 participants tested twice, we found that during episodes of positive mood (relative to negative mood), choices were biased towards better rewarded but costly options, irrespective of the cost type. Computational modelling confirmed that the incidental mood effect was best explained by a bias added to the expected value of costly options, prior to decision making. This bias is therefore automatically applied even in artificial environments where it is not adaptive, allowing mood to spill over many sorts of decisions and generate irrational behaviours.

Unveiling the neural roadmap: Using fMRI to examine the impacts of positive, negative, and neutral mood induction on driving behavior – A protocol

Introduction: The potential association between cognitive functions, mood states, and their effect on driving behavior is complex and has been previously studied in most cases suggesting mood and emotion as possible factors in high-risk driving behaviors. However, their outcome measures are subjective and prone to biases. In this study, we add objective physiological data to explore the physiological and behavioral background of the relevance of mood in high risk driving by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Methods: In this study, 28 male right-handed drivers, aged between 20 to 30 years will be randomly selected from records of drivers in the central traffic department and included in the study. Each participant will drive virtually in an fMRI-compatible driving simulator, after positive, negative, and neutral mood induction, and fMRI will be performed to explore driving-related brain activity alterations and the impact of mood state on these effects. All data analyses will be performed using MATLAB (MathWorks, Natick, MA) and the Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM12) software package. Results: This protocol study introduced a novel protocol to induce positive, negative, and neutral moods and study the impact of mood on driving. Conclusion: Comparing brain activity during driving after positive, negative, and neutral mood induction, this study will help to understand effects of different mood states on driving behavior. Furthermore, comparing the fMRI images of driving under different mood states will clarify the physiological foundation of the impact of mood states on driving behavior. The results of this study will help to introduce physiologically informed preventive or reinforcement strategies to control mood states while driving, and therefore might help to reduce a significant proportion of preventable car accidents.

Functional fantasies: the regulatory role of grandiose fantasizing in pathological narcissism.

Pathological narcissism is characterized by maladaptive efforts to maintain a bolstered but fragile sense of self. Clinical theory suggests that grandiose fantasizing may be one form of this self-regulation. However, no empirical research has directly assessed the regulatory function of grandiose fantasizing in narcissism. Here, we examine (1) whether people scoring higher in narcissism choose to engage in grandiose fantasizing to regulate themselves when they are feeling down and (2) whether grandiose fantasizing is a more efficacious self-esteem and affect regulator for people scoring higher in narcissism than it is for those scoring lower in narcissism. Adult participants (N = 189) completed a self-report measure of narcissism and were randomized to either a negative mood induction or filler task condition. Then, participants wrote about a future event to make themselves feel better, choosing between a positive affect word or a grandiose word to guide their writing. Throughout the study, participants reported their state positive and negative affect and self-esteem. A secondary sample (N = 128) of adult participants rated the future event writing of the original participants. Supporting the validity of the study design, grandiose future events significantly differed from positive future events (e.g., they were rated by independent raters as less plausible, more ambitious, more active, and occurring further in the future). Participants scoring higher in narcissism and participants who experienced larger increases in negative affect were more likely to choose to engage in grandiose fantasizing. Grandiose fantasizing was more effective at decreasing negative affect among participants scoring higher in narcissism than those scoring lower in narcissism, whereas positive future thinking was equally effective at decreasing negative affect across levels of narcissism. This study demonstrates that people scoring higher in narcissism are more likely to choose to engage in grandiose fantasizing to make themselves feel better. It further demonstrates that grandiose fantasizing is a more efficacious affect regulator for those scoring higher in narcissism.

No evidence from a negative mood induction fMRI task for frontal functional asymmetry as a suitable neurofeedback target

Frontal functional asymmetry (FA) has been proposed as a potential target for neurofeedback (NFB) training for mental disorders but most FA NFB studies used electroencephalography while the investigations of FA NFB in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are rather limited. In this study, we aimed at identifying functional asymmetry effects in fMRI and exploring its potential as a target for fMRI NFB studies by re-analyzing an existing data set containing a resting state measurement and a sad mood induction task of n = 30 participants with remitted major depressive disorder and n = 30 matched healthy controls. We applied low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF), fractional ALFF, and regional homogeneity and estimated functional asymmetry in both a voxel-wise and regional manner. We assessed functional asymmetry during rest and negative mood induction as well as functional asymmetry changes between the phases, and associated the induced mood change with the change in functional asymmetry. Analyses were conducted within as well as between groups. Despite extensive analyses, we identified only very limited effects. While some tests showed nominal significance, our results did not contain any clear identifiable patterns of effects that would be expected if a true underlying effect would be present. In conclusion, we do not find evidence for FA effects related to negative mood in fMRI, which questions the usefulness of FA measures for real-time fMRI neurofeedback as a treatment approach for affective disorders.