Negative Schemas Research Articles

Effects of Experimentally Adopted Sexual Schemas on Vaginal Response and Subjective Sexual Arousal: A Comparison Between Women with Sexual Arousal Disorder and Sexually Healthy Women

The present study evaluated and compared the effects of experimentally adopted sexual schemas on vaginal response, subjective sexual arousal, and affect in 17 women with Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD) and 17 sexually healthy women. Positive and negative cognitive schemas were presented to participants before viewing sexually explicit video segments. They were asked to temporarily adopt both schemas, and vaginal response, subjective sexual arousal, and affect were measured in each schema condition. Participants in both groups had significantly greater vaginal response and reported more subjective sexual arousal in the positive schema condition than in the negative schema condition. Sexually healthy women demonstrated significantly higher subjective sexual arousal than women with FSAD, but there were no significant group differences in vaginal response. Moreover, participants in both groups reported higher levels of Positive Affect and Vigor in the positive schema condition than in the negative schema condition but higher levels of Negative Affect, Tension-Anxiety, and Anger-Hostility in the negative schema condition than in the positive schema condition. These findings demonstrate the impact of cognitions on sexual arousal, which has important implications for addressing cognitions in the treatment of FSAD. Moreover, these findings have implications for the conceptualization of FSAD, which may be best characterized as a complex, heterogeneous cluster of symptoms.

Childhood Onset Conduct Problems: A Preliminary Investigation into the Role of Mothers' Interpersonal Schemas and their Relationship to Parenting Behaviour

Childhood onset conduct problems present some of the most significant challenges to mental health and public services today. Parent management training is among the most effective treatments for conduct problems, and yet a significant proportion of families do not benefit from this approach. This may be because key elements of parenting, such as parental cognitions, are not directly addressed in such interventions. This study investigated the role of mothers' interpersonal schemas in the maintenance of conduct problems and their relationship to parenting behaviour. It examined whether mothers of 7 to 11-year-old boys with conduct problems would have more negative child-related interpersonal schemas (Hill and Safran, 1994), and related negative parenting behaviours, observed during two parent-child interaction tasks, than mothers in a comparison group. The findings showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups in both maternal Negativity and Warmth and child-related interpersonal schemas. However, no relationship was found between parenting behaviour and child-related interpersonal schemas. The results suggest that targeting maternal cognitions in addition to negativity and warmth may enhance interventions for childhood onset conduct problems. However, more research needs to be done to ascertain which kinds of cognitions relate most closely to parenting behaviour in stressful situations.

Patients’ written life stories: A gateway for understanding

Objective. To explore how statements drawn from patients’ written life stories can help general practitioners understand their patients’ maladaptive thought patterns and their negative schemata. Design. Qualitative study of written life stories. Setting. General practice in Copenhagen, Denmark. Subjects. A total of 22 consecutive patients aged 23–49 years, who were invited by their GP to participate in cognitive therapy owing to depressive or anxiety-related disorders, including unexplained bodily symptoms. Theoretical frame of reference. Beck's information-processing model of anxiety. Results. Analysis of the written life stories disclosed aspects of negative expectations of life, the self, or the values and capabilities of others or of the patient him- or herself. Three main beliefs were identified: (1) the world is evil, (2) only the perfect is of value, and (3) emotions are dangerous. The patients describe events and experiences in negative terms that others might have interpreted as neutral or positive. For some this translated into a sort of all-or-nothing kind of thinking. Anger and other strong feelings were forbidden. Responsibility for the life of others was a dominant feature. Conclusions. Written life stories reveal knowledge of the patient's dysfunctional thought patterns. This may be a useful shortcut in therapy.

Neuroticism and affective priming: Evidence for a neuroticism-linked negative schema

Neuroticism has been hypothesized to systematically relate to semantic memory networks favoring negative affect, but no studies using affective priming tasks have established this link. The present two studies, involving 145 undergraduate participants, sought to provide initial evidence along these lines. Study 1 used a task in which participants were asked to judge their emotions in the past, whereas Study 2 used a perceptual identification task in which participants merely had to identify the word in question. In both studies, neuroticism was positively correlated with negative affective priming, but not positive affective priming. The studies suggest that neuroticism systematically relates to the inter-connectivity of negative affect within semantic memory systems, whether involving the self-concept (Study 1) or not (Study 2). These results are novel and important in understanding individual differences in neuroticism and their affective processing correlates.

Cognitive, emotional, and social processes in psychosis: refining cognitive behavioral therapy for persistent positive symptoms.

Psychosis used to be thought of as essentially a biological condition unamenable to psychological interventions. However, more recent research has shown that positive symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations are on a continuum with normality and therefore might also be susceptible to adaptations of the cognitive behavioral therapies found useful for anxiety and depression. In the context of a model of cognitive, emotional, and social processes in psychosis, the latest evidence for the putative psychological mechanisms that elicit and maintain symptoms is reviewed. There is now good support for emotional processes in psychosis, for the role of cognitive processes including reasoning biases, for the central role of appraisal, and for the effects of the social environment, including stress and trauma. We have also used virtual environments to test our hypotheses. These developments have improved our understanding of symptom dimensions such as distress and conviction and also provide a rationale for interventions, which have some evidence of efficacy. Therapeutic approaches are described as follows: a collaborative therapeutic relationship, managing dysphoria, helping service users reappraise their beliefs to reduce distress, working on negative schemas, managing and reducing stressful environments if possible, compensating for reasoning biases by using disconfirmation strategies, and considering the full range of evidence in order to reduce high conviction. Theoretical ideas supported by experimental evidence can inform the development of cognitive behavior therapy for persistent positive symptoms of psychosis.

A preliminary investigation of cognitive flexibility for emotional information in major depressive disorder and non-psychiatric controls.

Clinical research suggests that individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) are cognitively inflexible, exhibiting ruminative, rigid, and automatic thoughts within a negative schema. However, existing neuropsychological research on cognitive flexibility in this population has not employed emotional stimuli. Because research suggests that the performance of individuals with MDD is modulated when emotional stimuli are used, this study investigates the impact of emotional stimuli on cognitive flexibility performance through a novel emotional modification of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Controls were less flexible when stimuli were positive and individuals with MDD were less flexible when stimuli were negative relative to the controls. These divergent styles of responding to emotional information may contribute to the relative risk or protection from depressed mood.

The Warpy Thoughts Scale: a New 20‐Item Instrument to Measure Dysfunctional Attitudes

Cognitive theories of psychopathology propose that specific negative cognitive schema held by individuals can increase their likelihood of experiencing depressive episodes. While it has been argued that such dysfunctional attitudes are state measures that occur primarily during periods of depression, a range of research has supported the view that holding dysfunctional attitudes is ongoing, persisting prior to and following depressive episodes. To date, the need for a parsimonious measure of dysfunctional attitudes has not been well addressed. Using data provided by 4545 participants in a free on‐line cognitive behavioural therapy program, MoodGYM, we have developed the Warpy Thoughts Scale (WTS), a 20‐item instrument measuring dysfunctional attitudes. This scale provides 3 first order factors (Relationships, Achievements and Entitlements) and a higher order factor, Warpy Thoughts, from which a Warpy Thoughts score can be obtained. Confirmatory factor analyses on this model indicated that it provides robust results for men and women and for individuals in a wide range of ages. WTS scores were moderately correlated with levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms (0.39 and 0.40, respectively) and explained up to one‐fifth of the variance of these mental health measures. Further validation of the WTS against other measures of dysfunctional thoughts is required.

Effects of Depressive Symptoms and Experimentally Adopted Schemas on Sexual Arousal and Affect in Sexually Healthy Women

The present study examined the effects of depressive mood symptoms and experimentally adopted sexual schemas on women's sexual arousal and affect. Women's vaginal response, subjective sexual arousal, and affect were measured in response to sexually explicit visual material in a laboratory setting. At baseline on a self-report measure, women with depressive mood symptoms (n = 28) reported significantly lower sexual desire than women with normal mood (n=28), but no significant differences in arousal, orgasm, satisfaction, or pain. Participants were asked to adopt both a positive and negative sexual self-schema prior to viewing erotic stimuli. Women in both mood groups demonstrated significantly greater subjective sexual arousal, vaginal response, and positive affect in the positive schema condition than in the negative schema condition when controlling for anxiety. There were no main effects for mood symptoms. These findings support an information processing conceptualization of sexual arousal and suggest that an acute dose of cognitive sexual schemas can significantly impact subsequent sexual and affective responses. Implications of findings for the assessment and treatment of sexual dysfunction are noted.

Self-Reported Everyday Memory and Depression in Patients With Multiple Sclerosis

Depression and memory difficulties are among the most common complaints voiced by patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Nevertheless, little is known about how depression might affect patients’ perceptions of their memory difficulties. The present investigation was designed to explore this issue. Results supported a model that integrates aspects of Beck’s theory of depression and the concept of depressive realism. Consistent with the depressive realism literature, nondepressed MS patients significantly overestimated their everyday memory compared with their actual performance on verbal memory and attention/concentration indices, whereas moderately depressed patients’ everyday memory ratings mirrored their actual neuropsychological performance. Supporting Beck’s negative cognitive schema notion, mildly depressed patients significantly overestimated their memory difficulties. Implications for the treatment of memory problems among MS patients are discussed.

Processing of emotional information in seasonal depression across different cognitive measures.

This study examined memory for emotional material, endorsement of emotional adjectives, and negative attributional style (NAS) in seasonal affective disorder (SAD). SAD patients showed elevated NAS and increased endorsement of negative self-referent adjectives, but no memory bias for negative material, when compared with never-depressed controls. Longitudinal analyses revealed that none of these cognitive measures significantly predicted later symptom levels independent of initial symptom levels, in the SAD patients. The cross-sectional findings for adjective endorsement and memory were replicated in a second experiment. These data provide further evidence that depression-related memory effects in SAD are different from those found in nonseasonal depression. Accounts of these differences involving putative mood-repair processes and/or an absence of dysfunctional negative schemas in SAD are discussed.

Cognitive vulnerability in remitted depressed children and adolescents

The cognitive model by Beck predicts that formerly depressed individuals remain vulnerable for future depressive episodes due to the existence of stable negative schemas. Activation of those schemas may explain high relapse rates in depression. The present study investigated cognitive vulnerability in remitted depressed children and adolescents. A sample of 44 in-patient youngsters was assigned to three groups after completing the CDI at two different times: a never depressed group, a currently depressed group and a remitted depressed group. All participants received a mood induction before they were given a self-referent encoding task. The results indicated that the currently and the remitted depressed groups rated more negative words as self-descriptive than the never depressed group. On the recall task, the never depressed group showed positive information processing compared to the currently depressed and the remitted depressed groups. The currently depressed group also showed a negative recall bias compared to the never depressed group. Implications and limitations of the findings are discussed.

The contribution of negative and positive illness schemas to depression in patients with end-stage renal disease.

This research examined the role of negative and positive illness schemas as predictors of depression in 109 ESRD patients who were recruited from dialysis clinics throughout the San Diego area. Specifically, the model evaluated whether negative and positive illness schemas would mediate the relationship between disease severity and depression, and social support and depression, in a cross-sectional design. The model was tested with the Cognitive Depression Inventory (CDI), derived from the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the full Beck as criterion variables. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis employing path-analytic procedures revealed that while disease severity was unrelated to depression, negative illness schema contributed to higher BDI and CDI scores, and positive illness schema contributed to lower BDI and CDI scores. Furthermore, positive illness schema mediated the relationship between social support and depression in both the BDI and CDI models. The results illustrate the important contribution of illness schemas to depression in this life-threatening disease.

Parental perceptions, early maladaptive schemas, and depressive symptoms in young adults

Cognitive models of depression propose that negative schemas contribute to depressive symptoms. Early experiences, particularly parenting, have been proposed to influence cognitive schemas and have also been shown to correlate with depression. This study explores the concurrent relationship between retrospective reports of parenting, Early Maladaptive Schemas (EMSs) described by J. E. Young (1994), and symptoms of depression in a sample of undergraduate students (N = 194). The EMSs of defectiveness/shame, insufficient self-control, vulnerability, and incompetence/inferiority were associated with perceptions of parenting and depressive symptomatology. There was evidence that these four EMSs partially mediate the relationship between parental perceptions and depressive symptomatology. Results are discussed in relation to previous findings, theory, and the measurement of EMSs.

Prejudice Versus Discrimination in the Employment Interview: We may Hire Equally, but Our Memories Harbour Prejudice

The effects of applicant race and applicant quality on recall errors and on decision making in the employment interview were examined. Eighty-eight white undergraduates in the mid-Western United States reviewed paper credentials and then interviewed a high or low quality black or white applicant in a controlled experimental setting. Results showed that, although the interviewers hired the black and white applicants in equal proportion, one week later they recalled the answers to the interview questions given by the black applicants as having been significantly less intelligent then those of whites - when in fact the actual interview content in the two race conditions was identical. Presumably, the participants of this study had negative schemas towards blacks that they were able to suppress when making hiring decisions, but that were revealed when unobtrusive measures were used.

Cognitive Model of Eating Disorders

Cognitive behavior Therapy (CBT) has been shown to be more effective or at least as effective as other psychotherapies in the treatment of bulimia nervosa with change being maintained 5 years after the end of treatment. Additionally, empirical studies demonstrate that CBT is superior to antidepressant medications in the treatment of bulimia nervosa. Less is known about CBT for anorexia nervosa but initial research suggests it may play a prominent role in treatment. CBT can influence changes in negative thoughts and schemas in anorexia nervosa as well as influence core eating disorder psychopathology and alter depressed mood. CBT may prevent relapse in the treatment of anorexia nervosa. More research is needed on the use of CBT in anorexia nervosa.

Dysphoric interpersonal schemata and preadolescents' sensitization to negative events

Addresses the hypothesis that interpersonal schemata sensitize dysphoric youngsters to negative social information and contribute to the application of depressive symptoms. Sensitization was conceptualized as involving multiple components, including heightened anticipation, selective focus, and rapid information processing. Four studies with separate samples of preadolescents and early adolescents were conducted. Results from 3 laboratory-based studies indicated that depressed and dysphoric youngsters evince relatively negative interpersonal schemata, and that these schemata are related to the 3 components of sensitization. A short-term-prospective study examined the hypothesis that dysphoric interpersonal schemata moderate the emotional impact of a normative social stressor, the transition to high school. Results indicated that youngsters who entered the transition with relatively negative schema experienced the transition as more stressful than youngsters with relatively positive schema, and that negative interpersonal schema amplified the effects of stress on depressive symptoms.

The Situation � Trait Adaptive Response (STAR) Model of Drug Use, Effects, and Craving

This review examines situational and trait factors that influence drug use, craving, and the affect-modulating effects of drugs. Situation- and personality-dependent cognitive, emotional, and biological effects of psychoactive drugs are addressed within the context of the recently developed Situation by Trait Adaptive Response (STAR) model. It is argued that drugs do not have inherent (situation- and trait-independent) effects on emotion and related affective processes. Emotion modulation is accomplished by three overall mechanisms: (1) enhanced goal achievement via cognitive performance enhancement; (2) alteration of cognitive capacity and/or attentional processes; and (3) cognitive-affective information priming/biasing towards positive associations and away from negative schemas. Further, the lateralized neural network hypothesis of the STAR model is extended from previous formulations to provide an integrative framework for understanding relationships of cognitive, affective, and learning mechanisms underlying drug use urges and behaviour. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Depressed and anxious moods mediate relations among perceived socialization, self-focused attention, and dysfunctional attitudes.

This study examined three factors that may influence cognitive vulnerability to depression and anxiety: (1) subjects' perceptions of their relationships with their parents and the climate in their family of origin (socialization); (2) self-focused attention (focusing attention inwardly, on the self); and (3) current symptoms of depression and anxiety. Subjects were 173 university undergraduates. Perceptions of unfavorable socialization and public self-consciousness were related to dysfunctional attitudes. However, nearly all these relations disappeared when depression and anxiety were controlled statistically. These results suggest that memories of negative experiences in one's family of origin, self-focused attention, depression and anxiety, and dysfunctional attitudes all may be indicators of latent negative schemas that have been activated, perhaps by recent stress.

The psychological impact of sexual abuse: content analysis of interviews with male survivors.

Autobiographical interviews with 26 adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim and content analyzed to identify common psychological themes. Approximately equal numbers of men were abused by male and female perpetrators, almost half came from disrupted or violent homes and a majority had a history of substance abuse. Fifteen psychological themes were identified: Anger, Betrayal, Fear, Homosexuality Issues, Helplessness, Isolation and Alienation, Legitimacy, Loss, Masculinity Issues, Negative Childhood Peer Relations, Negative Schemas about People, Negative Schemas about the Self, Problems with Sexuality, Self Blame/Guilt and Shame/Humiliation. The themes are discussed and illustrated with examples drawn from the transcripts.

The psychological impact of sexual abuse: Content analysis of interviews with male survivors

AbstractAutobiographical interviews with 26 adult male survivors of childhood sexual abuse were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim and content analyzed to identify common psychological themes. Approximately equal numbers of men were abused by male and female perpetrators, almost half came from disrupted or violent homes and a majority had a history of substance abuse. Fifteen psychological themes were identified: Anger, Betrayal, Fear, Homosexuality Issues, Helplessness, Isolation and Alienation, Legitimacy, Loss, Masculinity Issues, Negative Childhood Peer Relations, Negative Schemas about People, Negative Schemas about the Self, Problems with Sexuality, Self Blame/Guilt and Shame/Humiliation. The themes are discussed and illustrated with examples drawn from the transcripts.