Disengagement Processes Research Articles

Attentional disengagement from emotional information predicts future depression via changes in ruminative brooding: A five-month longitudinal eye-tracking study

Brooding is considered a maladaptive form of emotion regulation linking adverse events to increases in depressive symptoms. The “Impaired Disengagement Hypothesis” (Koster, De Lissnyder, Derakshan & De Raedt, 2011) proposes that attentional disengagement processes are a main mechanism involved in the emergence and maintenance of brooding responses. In this study we tested prospective predictions derived from this framework, relying on eye-tracking to assess direct processes of attentional disengagement from emotional faces (i.e., time to move gaze away from either positive or negative faces when prompted to fixate a different face). A sample of undergraduates (n = 89) completed measures of depression, brooding, and the attentional disengagement task at baseline (beginning of the semester) and five months later (immediately after a stressful period: examination). The results supported a moderated mediation model where slower disengagement from positive faces at baseline (predictor) predicted decreases in brooding during the follow-up period (mediator), indirectly predicting decreased depressive symptoms at follow-up (outcome) in individuals encountering more adverse events during the follow-up period (moderator). Furthermore, analyses also supported a moderation model where more habitual brooding at baseline (predictor) predicted slower disengagement from negative faces at follow-up (outcome) in individuals encountering more adverse events (moderator). Our findings support bidirectional influences between attentional disengagement and brooding and highlight protective attention patterns with implications for the development of efficient strategies for the prevention of depression.

Young people, school engagement and perceptions of support: a mixed methods analysis

ABSTRACTAs levels of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) remain high in the UK, there is growing concern about processes of school disengagement. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data, we explore some factors that lead young people to disengage from – and potentially re-engage with – schooling. The research employed a sequential design with a quantitative survey of students, followed by two rounds of interviews with a sub-sample of young people. Statistical analysis of our survey confirmed that, for our respondents, school engagement is mediated through perceptions of support. Through longitudinal qualitative data, we consider which sources of support appear to be most important for participants, how changes in perceptions of support affect levels of engagement and how these may change over time. We aim to contribute to the literature by showing that increasing perceptions of support can positively influence school engagement. Drawing on theories of social capital, we illustrate how complex and dynamic interplays between diffuse actors can provide access to differentiated resources, including economic, social and cultural capital, with varied outcomes for school engagement. We also show how fluid and dynamic processes of engagement and the interplay with support can provide opportunities for promoting positive educational outcomes.

The effect of benign and malicious envies on desire to buy luxury fashion items

This study explores consumers’ desire for purchase of luxury fashion motivated by envy. Strong benign and malicious envies are psychological forces leading to action in various human endeavors including the purchase of products. Luxury fashion purchase and use in social settings motivated by envy is an attempt by some consumers to demonstrate social status and to claim success by targeting, matching, or exceeding the envied others. The conceptual models developed to guide this study enable comparing the influences of benign and malicious envies through the processes of admiration, affiliation and moral disengagement leading to the desire to purchase luxury fashion. Data collected from 202 shoppers in a mall intercept in Lisbon indicate that benign envy, as compared to malicious envy, is a stronger predictor of desire to purchase luxury fashion items and is a motivation to improve social image, project success and allow positive comparison with the desired social status. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Beyond binary retention in HIV care: predictors of the dynamic processes of patient engagement, disengagement, and re-entry into care in a US clinical cohort.

Studies examining engagement in HIV care often capture cross-sectional patient status to estimate retention and identify predictors of attrition, which ignore longitudinal patient care-seeking behaviors. We describe the cyclical nature of (dis)engagement and re-entry into HIV care using the state transition framework. We represent the dynamic patterns of patient care-retention using five states: engaged in care, missed one, two, three, or more expected visits, and deceased. Then we describe various care-seeking behaviors in terms of transitioning from one state to another (e.g. from disengaged to engaged). This analysis includes 31 009 patients enrolled in the Center for AIDS Research Network of Integrated Systems (CNICS) in the United States from 1996 to 2014. Multistate models for longitudinal data were used to identify barriers to retention and subgroups at higher risk of falling out of care. The initial 2 years following primary engagement in care were a crucial time for improving retention. Patients who had not initiated antiretroviral therapy, with lower CD4 cell counts, higher viral load, or not having an AIDS-defining illness were less likely to be retained in care. Beyond the individual patient characteristics typically used to characterize retention in HIV care, we identified specific periods of time and points in the care continuum associated with elevated risk of transitioning out of care. Our findings can contribute to evidence-based recommendations to enhance long-term retention in CNICS. This approach can also be applied to other cohort data to identify retention strategies tailored to each population.

Bystander passivity in health care and school settings: Moral disengagement, moral distress, and opportunities for moral education

ABSTRACTBystander passivity has received increased attention in the prevention of interpersonal harm, but it is poorly understood in many settings. In this article we explore bystander passivity in three settings based on existing literature: patient abuse in health care; bullying among schoolchildren; and oppressive treatment of students by teachers. Throughout the article we develop a theoretical approach that connects Obermann's unconcerned and guilty bystanders to theories of moral disengagement and moral distress respectively. Despite differences between the three settings, we show striking similarities between processes of disengagement, indicators of distress, and the constraints for intervention that bystanders identify. In relation to this, we discuss moral educational efforts that aim to strengthen bystanders’ moral agency in health care and school settings. Many efforts emphasize shared problem descriptions and collective responsibilities. As challenging as such efforts may be, there can be much to gain in terms of welfare and justice.

Police officers’ perspectives on state (police) violence: A sociomoral and psychological-driven study on disengagement

This paper comprises a theoretical and empirical incursion into the phenomenon of state violence, namely police violence. Although extensively explored in different perspectives within and outside academia, police violence is complex and has not been sufficiently problematized yet. In our understanding, this phenomenon requires a dialectical and dynamic discussion wherein both the development of state powers (macro-perspective) and how these powers affect the subjectification of those who act on their behalf (micro-perspective) are articulated into a critical analysis. In more concrete terms, the present study contributes to such analysis by shedding light on the main processes of moral disengagement (cf. Bandura, 1990, 1999, 2004) disclosed in the internal perspectives of six Portuguese police officers about common daily work-related situations. To legitimize the resort to police violence, police officers rely heavily on different mechanisms of moral disengagement. For instance, sanitizing language (anchored in a police technical jargon) is typically used as a linguistic mechanism to disguise violent actions; advantageous comparisons with other law enforcement agencies or with the recipient’s conduct are typically employed; non-lethal violence is usually minimized and portrayed as innocuous; and the recipient of violence is usually dehumanised and seen as responsible for the acts of violence. The findings are discussed based on the moral disengagement theory (Bandura, 1990, 1999, 2004); on the denial approach (Cohen, 2001, 2003); and on the impact of organizational, legal and socio-cultural dimensions of police organization (e.g., Fassin, 2011; Huggins, Haritos-Fatouros, & Zimbardo, 2002).

ERPs Reveal Disengagement Processes Related to Condom Use Embarrassment in Intention-Behavior Inconsistent Young Adults

The use of barrier protections such as condoms has consistently been reported to reduce the acquisition of sexually transmitted infections. However, it has also been reported that the association between condom use intentions and behavior is, at best, often weak. Furthermore, embarrassment associated with purchasing condoms and negotiating their use has been shown to negatively impact the frequency of condom use. Using electroencephalography to analyze P300 event-related potential components known to measure early attention allocation, we examined electrophysiological evidence of early attention disengagement for embarrassing health information. Forty young adults—34 females and six males—participated in an adapted version of Posner’s visual cueing paradigm. All were high in intention to use condoms, but half were intention-behavior consistent and half were intention-behavior inconsistent. Compared to intention-behavior consistent participants, those with intention-behavior inconsistency showed a reduced P300 component when attending to a visual target opposite to the field in which embarrassing self-relevant health information was presented, indicating more efficient early attention disengagement from such embarrassing health information. In conclusion, our electrophysiological data suggest that high intention alone may be not sufficient to predict adolescents’ condom use behavior.

Beyond binary retention in HIV care: Predictors of the dynamic processes of patient engagement, disengagement, and re-entry into care in a US clinical cohort

Beyond binary retention in HIV care: Predictors of the dynamic processes of patient engagement, disengagement, and re-entry into care in a US clinical cohort

Étude clinique des processus sous-jacents de l’attention conjointe de très jeunes enfants avec trouble du spectre autistique

ObjectivesSymptoms in autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder, appear at an early age. Research consensus shows impairments in communication and especially joint attention, defined as the capacity to intentionally share attention between two persons or a person and an object. Recent studies in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) focus on infants’ processes associated to joint attention, such as visual and auditive regulation, attentional engagement and social motivation. The present research's objective is to examine the role of these factors in joint attention. MethodsA group of 50 children with ASD, aged 21 to 50 months, were selected. They went through a clinical assessment which included evaluations of development and symptoms, a scale measuring auditive and visual regulation; a grid elaborated to quantify motivation behavior towards a person and an object in two different engagement states: alone or with an adult and finally a measure of the child's capacity to disengage from an object. A joint attention score was obtained with the Early Communication Scale for Children (ECSC). Results show: (1) an effect of visual regulation on joint attention, (2) a relation between visual regulation and joint attention partially mediated by motivation. Our results clarify the nature of the relationship between visual regulation and joint attention, with motivation modulating visual regulation in its relation to joint attention, (3) a relation between attentional disengagement and joint attention. Visual regulation, social and non-social motivation and attentional disengagement are all associated to joint attention. A clinical measure of motivation behaviors for children with ASD has been created and can be applied in clinical settings, as it is adapted to young children with ASD symptomatology and enriches diagnosis. ConclusionsStatistical analyses of our clinical observations suggest a mediation model highlighting the influence of motivation in the mechanisms underlying joint attention. The measurement of processes and mechanisms associated with social communicative skills at a very early age, here motivation and attentional disengagement processes associated with joint attention, help include these factors in early intervention programs.

Older adults' attentional deployment: Differential gaze patterns for different negative mood states

Background and objectivesOlder adults are characterized by an attentional preference for positive over negative information. Since this positivity effect is considered to be an emotion regulation strategy, it should be more pronounced when emotion regulation is needed. In contrast to previous studies that focused on the effects of sad mood on attention, we used a stressor to activate emotion regulation and evaluate the effects of different types of mood state changes. Moreover, we evaluated mood effects on attentional processes using a paradigm that allows disentangling between different attentional engagement and disengagement processes. MethodsSixty older adults were randomly assigned to receive a stressor or a control task. Before and after this manipulation, mood state levels (happy, sad, nervous, calm) were assessed. Next, attentional processing of happy, sad, and angry faces was investigated using an eye-tracking paradigm in which participants had to either engage their attention towards or disengage their attention away from emotional stimuli. ResultsChanges in different mood state levels were associated with different attentional disengagement strategies. As expected, older adults who increased in sad mood level showed a larger positivity effect as evidenced by a longer time to disengage attention from happy faces. However, older adults who received the tension induction and who decreased in calm mood level were characterized by longer times to disengage attention from sad faces. LimitationsThe stressor was only partially effective as it led to changes in calm mood, but not in nervous mood. ConclusionsThese results suggest that older adults may deploy a positivity effect in attention (i.e., longer times to disengage from positive information) in order to regulate sad mood, but that this effect may be hampered during the confrontation with stressors.

Let it go: Depression facilitates disengagement from unattainable goals

Background and objectivesPrevious studies have demonstrated that clinging to unattainable goals is linked to the onset of depression. The present study investigated whether symptoms of a clinical depression are adaptive in that they facilitate disengagement from unattainable goals. MethodsA group of depressive inpatients (n = 40) was compared to a non-depressive control group (n = 38) in regard to how much time they spent on unsolvable anagrams, while controlling for group differences in the time spent on solvable anagrams. ResultsIn line with our hypothesis, depressive inpatients spent less time on unsolvable anagrams. There was no group difference in the time needed to solve the solvable anagrams. LimitationsOur study tested disengagement from anagram tasks in the lab in a sample of depressive inpatients and thus may not be representative for contexts of disengagement from personal goals outside the lab or for people with milder or briefer forms of depression. Follow-up questions thus concern the development of goal disengagement processes in everyday life during the course of a major depressive episode. ConclusionsOur findings provide evidence for the view that clinical depression, although pathological, might also serve an adaptive function. We discuss possible implications of our findings for psychotherapy.

Modèle de l’engagement et de l’abandon de traitement de l’adolescent avec trouble de personnalité limite

Objectives More than half of suicidal adolescents, a large proportion of which manifest borderline personality disorder (BPD), drop out from treatment. The consequences of their premature termination are cause for concern given the recurrence of their suicidal attempts and that they present elevated risk for major mental disorders during adulthood. The study sought to gain a broader appreciation of processes involved in the treatment dropout among adolescents with BPD.Method A constructivist grounded theory was chosen using a multiple-case research design. Twelve cases were examined. Three groups of informants were recruited (adolescents, parents, and therapists involved in the treatment) and 34 interviews were conducted to document the cases. Theoretical sampling and the different stages of analysis specific to grounded theory were performed according to the iterative process of constant comparative analysis.Results Various dropout vulnerabilities specific to adolescents with BPD and their parents, including psychological characteristics, help-seeking context and perception of mental illness and mental healthcare were identified. Care-setting response including management of accessibility problems, adaptation of services to needs of adolescents with BPD, preparation for treatment, and consideration for the health professional's disposition to treat were also found to be determinant to their engagement to treatment. The processes of disengagement from treatment have also been specified. Negative perceptions regarding treatment, clinicians and receiving treatment have been shown to generate emotional activation. The aforementioned lead to counterproductive attitudes that evolve into outright disengagement behaviours. In this context, responses from the care-setting, such as an insufficient regulation of the engagement, therapeutic faux pas and paradoxical demands, precipitate premature treatment termination. Finally, the processes involved in the abandonment of treatment were formalized in the Model of engagement and treatment dropout for adolescent with BPD. This theoretical model highlights two key milestones that may lead to treatment completion or to dropout during care. It illustrates that distinct processes characterize the premature and late dropouts of adolescents with BPD. The early terminations result from the failure of the care-setting to take advantage of the impetus for help seeking to engage the adolescent and the parent at that first critical moment in the care trajectory. On the other hand, the late dropouts translate failures of the care-setting to adopt corrective measures to maintain the patient in treatment at a second critical moment indicated by their disengagement.Conclusion The termination rate of those adolescent treatments could be diminished by a system of care-setting that recognizes the inherent difficulties related to the treatment of those specific patients, is proactive to solve problems of disengagement, integrates support systems for clinicians and promotes a reflexive practice.

Visual attentional bias for food in adolescents with binge-eating disorder

Evidence suggests that adults with binge-eating disorder (BED) are prone of having their attention interfered by food cues, and that food-related attentional biases are associated with calorie intake and eating disorder psychopathology. For adolescents with BED experimental evidence on attentional processing of food cues is lacking. Using eye-tracking and a visual search task, the present study examined visual orienting and disengagement processes of food in youth with BED. Eye-movement data and reaction times were recorded in 25 adolescents (12–20 years) with BED and 25 controls (CG) individually matched for sex, age, body mass index, and socio-economic status. During a free exploration paradigm, the BED group showed a greater gaze duration bias for food images than the CG. Groups did not differ in gaze direction biases. In a visual search task, the BED group showed a greater detection bias for food targets than the CG. Group differences were more pronounced for personally attractive than unattractive food images. Regarding clinical associations, only in the BED group the gaze duration bias for food was associated with increased hunger and lower body mass index, and the detection bias for food targets was associated with greater reward sensitivity. The study provided first evidence of an attentional bias to food in adolescents with BED. However, more research is needed for further specifying disengagement and orienting processes in adolescent BED, including overt and covert attention, and their prospective associations with binge-eating behaviors and associated psychopathology.

The long arm of the state? Transnationalism, Islam, and nation-building: the case of Turkey and Morocco

From the moment the first Turkish and Moroccan workers migrated to Europe in the early 1960s, the Turkish and Moroccan states have been concerned with how to bind emigrated citizens to their country of origin. In this article, we focus on Islam as a multi-dimensional binding mechanism. Religion is a broad register that links emotion, affect, and senses of belonging and binds individuals to political and cultural projects of collective actors and states. As we will demonstrate, it is a field in which both states and migrants have developed a variety of activities and initiatives, but it is difficult to single out what pertains to the state and what not. We argue that although state involvement in these two cases differs markedly, there are some intriguing parallels when we concentrate on religion. In both cases, religious affiliation is a very complex source of binding and of fission. State-monitored transnational networks have been tools of binding, but the same networks have engendered processes of disengagement from the state.

Coping With Athlete Endorsers’ Immoral Behavior: Roles of Athlete Identification and Moral Emotions on Moral Reasoning Strategies

Athlete endorsers’ transgressions pose a dilemma for loyal fans who have established emotional attachments toward the individual. However, little is known regarding how fans maintain their support for the wrongdoer. Drawing on moral psychology and social identity theory, the current study proposes and examines a conceptual model incorporating athlete identification, moral emotions, moral reasoning strategies, and consumer evaluations. By using an actual scandal involving an NFL player (i.e., Ray Rice), the results show that fan identification suppresses the experience of negative moral emotions but facilitates fans’ moral disengagement processes, which enables fans to support the wrongdoer. Moreover, negative moral emotions motivate the moral coupling process. Findings contribute to the sport consumer behavior literature that highly identified fans seem to regulate negative emotions but deliberately select moral disengagement reasoning strategies to maintain their positive stance toward the wrongdoer and associated brands.

Moral Disengagement: Insights from the Malevolent Leader Dyad of Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick

Scholars have begun calling for broader conceptualizations of moral disengagement processes that reflect the interaction of dispositional and situational antecedents to a predilection to morally di...

The danger of “new norms” and the continuing relevance of IHL in the post-9/11 era

AbstractIn the post-9/11 era, the label “asymmetric wars” has often been used to question the relevance of certain aspects of international humanitarian law (IHL); to push for redefining the combatant/civilian distinction; and to try to reverse accepted norms such as the bans on torture and assassination. In this piece, we focused on legal and policy discussions in the United States and Israel because they better illustrate the dynamics of State-led “norm entrepreneurship”, or the attempt to propose opposing or modified norms as a revision of IHL. We argue that although these developments are to be taken seriously, they have not weakened the normative power of IHL or made it passé. On the contrary, they have made it more relevant than ever. IHL is not just a complex (and increasingly sophisticated) branch of law detached from reality. Rather, it is the embodiment of widely shared principles of morality and ethics, and stands as a normative “guardian” against processes of moral disengagement that make torture and the acceptance of civilian deaths more palatable.

Toward a New Science of Academic Engagement

I wish that we take seriously the possible dark side of engagement and the bright side of disengagement integrating the engagement and disengagement processes into the same picture. I present some examples which are based on longitudinal studies during the key educational transitions. Our study revealed that about one out of four high school students experienced high levels of both schoolwork engagement and school burnout simultaneously (engaged-disengaged profile). This pattern of exhaustive engagement was related to short-term high academic performance but later on to most harmful experiences such as depression and later experience of high burnout, with low later levels of engagement.

Editorial: Behavioral and physiological bases of attentional biases: paradigms, participants, and stimuli.

Editorial: Behavioral and physiological bases of attentional biases: paradigms, participants, and stimuli.

‘Who are you, and what are you doing here’: methodological considerations in ethnographic Health and Physical Education research

In the pursuit of understanding declining levels of participation from scholastic Health and Physical Education (HPE), ethnographic research has been increasingly utilised as a tool to explore the intersubjective and intrasubjective meaning-making processes that concurrently invite or dissuade participation. Despite the ostensible epistemological benefits of deploying ethnographic research as a vehicle for better understanding contextual HPE (dis)engagement processes and meanings, a critical methodological discussion of the actual implementation and positionality of these methods is largely absent in the extant literature. Reflecting on an ethnographic study conducted with adolescent boys at a Canadian elementary school, this paper provides HPE ethnographers with a series of methodological deliberations, and reflexive points of departure for consideration in the design and implementation of ethnographic research. Specifically, this paper elucidates the process of rapport building with teachers/students, the omnipresent tensions, ethical dilemmas and triumphs that can emerge during ethnography, and the various socio-contextual interview factors that can influence data generation.