Bethany Teachman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Bethany Teachman

Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2019

Implicit cognitive processing is theorized to have a central role in many forms of psychopatholog... more Implicit cognitive processing is theorized to have a central role in many forms of psychopathology. In the current review, we focus on implicit associations, by which we mean evaluative representations in memory that are difficult to control and do not require conscious reflection to influence affect, cognition, or behavior. We consider definitional and measurement challenges before examining recent empirical evidence for these associations in anxiety, obsessive–compulsive, posttraumatic stress, depressive, and alcohol use disorders. This examination is framed by a brief review of the ways that prominent models of psychopathology represent biased implicit processing of disorder-relevant information. We consider to what extent models reflect more traditional automatic/implicit versus strategic/explicit dual-process perspectives or reflect more recent dynamical systems perspectives in which mental representations are iteratively reprocessed, evolving continuously. Finally, we consider...

Emotion (Washington, D.C.), Jan 12, 2018

Researchers and clinicians routinely rely on patients' retrospective emotional self-reports t... more Researchers and clinicians routinely rely on patients' retrospective emotional self-reports to guide diagnosis and treatment, despite evidence of impaired autobiographical memory and retrieval of emotional information in depression and anxiety. To clarify the nature and specificity of these impairments, we conducted two large online data collections (Study 1, = 1,983; Study 2, = 900) examining whether depression and/or anxiety symptoms would uniquely predict the use of self-reported episodic (i.e., remembering) and/or semantic (i.e., knowing) retrieval when rating one's positive and negative emotional experiences over different time frames. Participants were randomly assigned to one of six time frames (ranging from to ) and were asked to rate how intensely they felt each of four emotions, anxious, sad, calm, and happy, over that period. Following each rating, they were asked several follow-up prompts assessing their perceived reliance on episodic and/or semantic information ...

Biological Psychology, 2017

Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 2017

Maladaptive coping with failure can cause considerable distress and impairment. This study tested... more Maladaptive coping with failure can cause considerable distress and impairment. This study tested a novel cognitive strategy that induces participants to process both the value (“why”) and means (“how”) of reengaging in adaptive goal-pursuit after a failure. Students (N = 263) received bogus failure feedback on an academic test battery, and were randomly assigned to Why-only, How-only, or Combined (How+Why) goal-focused processing, or a “free-thinking” Control condition, before completing a second battery. Cognitive performance, rumination, and negative affect during both batteries were assessed. Trait rumination and an aggregate of emotion-related symptoms were examined as moderators. Results in the overall sample were mixed, with Combined and Control participants both showing some benefits from training. Notably, among high-ruminative and high-symptom participants, Combined training yielded the greatest improvement in reading comprehension and rumination, as expected. Results, tho...

Cognitive Therapy and Research, 2016

Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, Sep 1, 2016

Implicit associations are relatively uncontrollable associations between concepts in memory. The ... more Implicit associations are relatively uncontrollable associations between concepts in memory. The current investigation focuses on implicit associations in four mental health domains (alcohol use, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders) and how these implicit associations: a) relate to explicit associations and b) self-reported clinical symptoms within the same domains, and c) vary based on demographic characteristics (age, gender, race, ethnicity, and education). Participants (volunteers over age 18 to a research website) completed implicit association (Implicit Association Tests), explicit association (self + psychopathology or attitudes toward food, using semantic differential items), and symptom measures at the Project Implicit Mental Health website tied to: alcohol use (N = 12,387), anxiety (N = 21,304), depression (N = 24,126), or eating disorders (N = 10,115). Within each domain, implicit associations showed small to moderate associations with explicit associations and symp...

The current study investigated whether the speed at which individuals rate their current levels o... more The current study investigated whether the speed at which individuals rate their current levels of state affect moderates the relationship between state and trait affect reports. 1048 undergraduates completed an online version of Robinson and Clore’s (2002) emotion-rating judgment latency task, as well as a trait social anxiety and a trait depression inventory. Results indicated that slower reaction times when rating anxiety and sadness “at this moment” predicted a weaker relationship between participants’ self-reported trait anxiety and trait depression symptom scale scores and their state “anxiety” and “sadness” ratings, respectively (the latter at the level of a non-significant trend). These findings align with the proposal that longer reaction times, which allow for more deliberate processing of the episodic details of one’s current experience, might be linked to reduced influence of trait beliefs about one’s emotions on state affect judgments.

Off-task mind-wandering (i.e., internally generated thoughts that are unrelated to the assigned t... more Off-task mind-wandering (i.e., internally generated thoughts that are unrelated to the assigned task) can impair task performance and heighten emotional distress; thus, determining predictors of mind-wandering is important. Prior research implicates both working memory (WM) and current affective states in the occurrence of mind-wandering, but with some mixed results, suggesting the importance of examining moderators of these effects. Current attentional focus—in particular, the degree to which one’s attention is self-focused—is a theoretically plausible moderator of the effects of WM and current affective state on the occurrence of mind-wandering, given its potential role in diverting attentional resources from the task at hand to more emotionally salient, personally relevant internal thought contents. Thus, the present study examined the independent and interactive roles of WM, negative affective state (as indexed by state anxiety), and self-focused attention in predicting several ...

Biological Psychology, 2015

Few replicable genetic variants have been identified in the etiology of heritable anxiety disorde... more Few replicable genetic variants have been identified in the etiology of heritable anxiety disorders such as panic disorder. Endophenotypic measures that have reduced heterogeneity may provide more powerful targets for gene identification. We assessed hypersensitivity to carbon dioxide (a reliable endophenotype of panic and anxiety) in 174 Caucasian college students, who were genotyped on 26 polymorphic markers from 11 genes previously associated with panic/anxiety. Individual trajectories of respiratory and subjective anxiety response to carbon dioxide were measured and tested for association with these genetic markers. One marker in the acid-sensing ion channel 1 (ASIC1) gene, rs1108923, had a significant association with respiratory rate. No genes had a significant association with subjective anxiety response. Our findings support previously reported associations between ASIC1 and panic/anxiety, but not other genes previously associated with anxiety disorders. The use of endophenotypic markers is a promising avenue for gene identification in anxiety and other complex disorders.

Journal of Experimental Psychopathology, 2012

To examine the causal link between implicit associations and fear reduction, a conditioning parad... more To examine the causal link between implicit associations and fear reduction, a conditioning paradigm was used in an attempt to modify contamination-related implicit associations for individuals high in contamination fear. Individuals (N = 81) were assigned to a Positive, Neutral, or No Training condition. In the Positive training condition, individuals clicked on images of potential contaminants that were followed by images of the individual's smiling face or by an approach-related word. Positive training was hypothesized to result in decreased behavioral avoidance and emotional vulnerability ratings during subsequent behavioral avoidance tasks. In the Neutral training control condition, the images of potential contaminants were followed by an equal mix of the individual's smiling, disgusted, and fearful faces or an avoidance-related word. The No Training condition served as an additional control group. Contrary to expectations, training did not shift implicit associations, ...

The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Social Anxiety Disorder, 2014

Cognition & emotion, 2015

Prior findings are mixed regarding the presence and direction of threat-related interference bias... more Prior findings are mixed regarding the presence and direction of threat-related interference biases in social anxiety. The current study examined general inhibitory control (IC), measured by the classic colour-word Stroop, as a moderator of the relationship between both threat interference biases [indexed by the emotional Stroop (e-Stroop)] and several social anxiety indicators. High socially anxious undergraduate students (N = 159) completed the emotional and colour-word Stroop tasks, followed by an anxiety-inducing speech task. Participants completed measures of trait social anxiety, state anxiety before and during the speech, negative task-interfering cognitions during the speech and overall self-evaluation of speech performance. Speech duration was used to measure behavioural avoidance. In line with hypotheses, IC moderated the relationship between e-Stroop bias and every anxiety indicator (with the exception of behavioural avoidance), such that greater social-threat interferenc...

Cognitive Therapy and Research, 2014

Theoretical models of panic disorder posit a unique role for external anxiety-related control att... more Theoretical models of panic disorder posit a unique role for external anxiety-related control attributions (i.e., lack of perceived control over the onset and maintenance of one's anxiety symptoms) in predicting panic reactivity, even beyond well-established cognitive risk factors such as anxiety sensitivity. The present study examined whether anxiety-related control attributions would uniquely predict a range of anxious responses across multiple phases and sessions of a biological stressor. Undergraduate students (N = 317) completed measures of anxiety-related control attributions and anxiety sensitivity prior to undergoing a 7.5 % carbon dioxide (CO 2) challenge. A subset of these participants (N = 102) returned 1 week later for a second administration. Self-reported subjective distress, physical panic symptoms, and panicrelated threat cognitions were measured at baseline and again during several phases of the challenge procedure. Physiological measures of heart rate, skin conductance, and respiration rate were also recorded throughout the challenge. Consistent with theoretical models, higher external control attributions uniquely predicted greater reactivity on all self-report indices across challenge phases and sessions; findings were more mixed for the physiological indices, with higher external control attributions predicting higher heart rate but lower skin conductance, and no prediction for respiration rate. Implications for theory and treatment of panic pathology are discussed.

Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 2015

Carbon dioxide (CO2) hypersensitivity is hypothesized to be a robust endophenotypic marker of pan... more Carbon dioxide (CO2) hypersensitivity is hypothesized to be a robust endophenotypic marker of panic spectrum vulnerability. The goal of the current study was to explore the latent class trajectories of three primary response systems theoretically associated with CO2 hypersensitivity: subjective anxiety, panic symptoms, and respiratory rate (fR). Participants (n = 376; 56% female) underwent a maintained 7.5% CO2 breathing task that included three phases: baseline, CO2 air breathing, and recovery. Growth mixture modeling was used to compare response classes (1…n) to identify the best-fit model for each marker. Panic correlates also were examined to determine class differences in panic vulnerability. For subjective anxiety ratings, a three-class model was selected, with individuals in one class reporting an acute increase in anxiety during 7.5% CO2 breathing and a return to pre-CO2 levels during recovery. A second, smaller latent class was distinguished by elevated anxiety across all t...

Clinical Psychological Science, 2014

In this study, we investigated the specificity of implicit-shame associations across individuals ... more In this study, we investigated the specificity of implicit-shame associations across individuals diagnosed with body dysmorphic disorder ( n = 30), obsessive-compulsive disorder ( n = 30), and social anxiety disorder ( n = 29) and individuals in a mentally healthy control group ( n = 33). All participants completed a series of Implicit Association Tests that tapped into shame associated with each disorder. Planned contrasts indicated that compared with individuals in the other groups, individuals in the body dysmorphic disorder group had greater body-relevant implicit shame and those in the obsessive-compulsive disorder group had greater implicit shame tied to obsessive thoughts. The social anxiety disorder group did not differ significantly from the other groups on implicit performance-relevant shame, although in comparison with the other clinical groups, means were in the expected direction. Our comparative design adds to existing cognitive-behavioral conceptualizations of body dy...

Journal of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, 2013

We examined the predictive validity of explicit and implicit measures of threat overestimation in... more We examined the predictive validity of explicit and implicit measures of threat overestimation in relation to contamination-fear outcomes using structural equation modeling. Undergraduate students high in contamination fear (N = 56) completed explicit measures of contamination threat likelihood and severity, as well as looming vulnerability cognitions, in addition to an implicit measure of danger associations with potential contaminants. Participants also completed measures of contamination-fear symptoms, as well as subjective distress and avoidance during a behavioral avoidance task, and state looming vulnerability cognitions during an exposure task. The latent explicit (but not implicit) threat overestimation variable was a significant and unique predictor of contamination fear symptoms and self-reported affective and cognitive facets of contamination fear. On the contrary, the implicit (but not explicit) latent measure predicted behavioral avoidance (at the level of a trend). Res...

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2013

Background and Objectives-Prominent theories suggest that explicit and implicit cognitive biases ... more Background and Objectives-Prominent theories suggest that explicit and implicit cognitive biases are critical in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, studies evaluating implicit PTSD-related cognitive biases are rare, and findings are mixed. We developed two adaptions of the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the "traumatized self" IAT (evaluations of the self as traumatized vs. healthy) and the "dangerous memory" IAT (evaluations of remembering as dangerous vs. safe), and investigated their psychometric properties and relations to PTSD symptoms and trauma exposure. Methods-Participants were visitors to the Project Implicit research website. (Study 1: N = 347, Study 2: N = 501). They completed the IATs (Study 1: both IATs; Study 2: Traumatized Self IAT only), a trauma exposure measure, a PTSD symptom inventory, and explicit cognitive bias measures (Study 2 only). Results-Both IATs had good internal consistency, but only the traumatized self IAT was correlated with PSTD symptoms and identified participants meeting clinical cutoffs for PTSD symptoms. Study 2 focused on the traumatized self IAT and included explicit cognitive bias measures. The IAT correlated with PTSD symptoms and explicit cognitions, and predicted variance in PSTD symptoms above and beyond trauma exposure and explicit cognitions. Limitations-Study designs were cross-sectional; samples were unselected; and PTSD symptoms were self-reported. Conclusions-Despite these limitations, these studies provide preliminary validation of an implicit measure of PTSD-related cognitive bias-the traumatized self IAT-that is consistent with PTSD theories and may ultimately improve the identification and treatment of individuals with PTSD.