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Emotion dysregulation and threat-related attention bias variability

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Abstract

Although theory suggests that a bias for attending to threat information (ABT) may be a biobehavioral process underlying the transdiagnostic vulnerability factor of emotion dysregulation, there is a paucity of empirical evidence showing direct associations between emotion dysregulation and ABT. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relation between ABT and emotion dysregulation. Participants (N = 200) completed a battery of self-report questionnaires and a modified dot-probe task with both neutral and threat stimuli and four stimulus presentation durations. Task response times were used to examine traditionally calculated ABT scores, as well as attention bias variability (ABV). As predicted, those with greater emotion dysregulation exhibited greater ABV. Importantly, emotion dysregulation was not associated with response time variability on trials for which only neutral stimuli were presented, thus increasing confidence that emotion dysregulation-related ABV is specific to the presence of threat stimuli and not merely a function of general variability in response times. Results suggest that those with greater emotion dysregulation exhibit attentional dyscontrol in the presence of perceived threat that is characterized by dynamic shifts between vigilance and avoidance.

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Notes

  1. Some evidence suggests that six items of the DERS representing a lack of awareness of emotions may not belong to the same higher-order construct as the remaining 30 items (Bardeen et al. 2012; Fowler et al. 2014). As noted by Clark and Watson (1995), when deciding whether to use an overall score versus subscale scores it is important to “establish that all of the items—regardless of how they are placed in the various subscales—define a single general factor” (p. 318). As such, we repeated our analyses with a modified DERS total score (i.e., removing items from the Awareness subscale from the total score) as recommended by Bardeen et al. (2012). Results were consistent with our initial analysis; statistically significant findings remained significant and nonsignificant findings were unchanged.

  2. Regarding our examination of potential covariates, some potentially interested significant correlations were observed. Females, compared to males, exhibited greater ABV at the 500 ms stimulus presentation duration, whereas males exhibited greater attention to threat (static ABT) at the earlier presentation duration of 150 ms. In addition, both female and Hispanic and/or non-White participants had significantly longer response times (compared to male and non-Hispanic White participants) on trials for which only neutral stimuli were presented.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Joseph R. Bardeen & J. Benjamin Hinnant

  2. Westfield State University, Westfield, MA, USA

    Thomas A. Daniel

  3. Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL, USA

    Holly K. Orcutt

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  1. Joseph R. Bardeen
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  2. Thomas A. Daniel
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  3. J. Benjamin Hinnant
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  4. Holly K. Orcutt
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Correspondence to Joseph R. Bardeen.

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Bardeen, J.R., Daniel, T.A., Hinnant, J.B. et al. Emotion dysregulation and threat-related attention bias variability. Motiv Emot 41, 402–409 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-017-9604-z

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