Abstract
Self-criticism is known to contribute to the development and maintenance of various psychological disorders. Previous research has identified positive correlations between anxiety and attentional control, making the connection between self-criticism and attentional control likely. Mentalization, defined as an ability to make sense of ourselves and others, has been shown to reduce symptoms of psychological distress and increase tolerance to difficult thoughts and feelings. One dimension of mentalization, mentalized affectivity, is a form of emotional regulation that can be further broken down as identifying, processing, and expressing emotions. This study first examined the relationship between self-criticism and attentional control, and then investigated the indirect effect of mentalization, or more specifically mentalized affectivity, on that relationship. Participants (N = 215) completed measures of mentalization, self-criticism, and attentional control. Mediation analysis revealed that one dimension of mentalized affectivity, processing ability, produced a statistically significant partial indirect effect. When looking more specifically at attentional control, shifting attention produced a full indirect effect, whereas focusing attention maintained a partial effect. Our study highlights the role of processing emotion in maintaining self-criticism and affecting cognitive strategies. The current research bears important clinical implications, potentially how addressing mentalized affectivity may ameliorate self-critical thinking and, subsequently, attentional deficits.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abasi, I., Mohammadkhani, P., Pourshahbaz, A., & Dolatshahi, B. (2017). The psychometric properties of attentional control scale and its relationship with symptoms of anxiety and depression: A study on iranian population. Iranian journal of psychiatry, 12(2), 109.
Badoud, D., Rüfenacht, E., Debbané, M., & Perroud, N. (2018). Mentalization-based treatment for adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: A pilot study. Research in Psychotherapy: Psychopathology Process and Outcome, 21(3), https://doi.org/10.4081/ripppo.2018.317.
Baião, R., Gilbert, P., McEwan, K., & Carvalho, S. (2015). Forms of self-criticising/attacking & self‐reassuring scale: Psychometric properties and normative study. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory Research and Practice, 88(4), 438–452. https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12049.
Bateman, A. W., & Fonagy, P. E. (2010). Mentalization based treatment for borderline personality disorder. World psychiatry: official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 9(1), 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2051-5545.2010.tb00255.x.
Bateman, A. W., & Fonagy, P. E. (2012). Handbook of mentalizing in mental health practice. American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.
Beck, A. T., Epstein, N., & Harrison, R. (1983). Cognitions, attitudes and personality dimensions in depression. British Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy.
Beck, E., Sharp, C., Poulsen, S., Bo, S., Pedersen, J., & Simonsen, E. (2017). The mediating role of mentalizing capacity between parents and peer attachment and adolescent borderline personality disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation, 4(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40479-017-0074-4.
Brosch, T., Scherer, K. R., Grandjean, D. M., & Sander, D. (2013). The impact of emotion on perception, attention, memory, and decision-making. Swiss medical weekly, 143, w13786. https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2013.13786.
Cha, E. J., & Hyun, M. H. (2021). Mediating Effects of Attentional Control in the Relationship between Neuroticism and repetitive negative thinking. Korean Journal of Clinical Psychology, 40(2), 167–175. https://doi.org/10.15842/kjcp.2021.40.2.005.
Cox, B. J., Rector, N. A., Bagby, R. M., Swinson, R. P., Levitt, A. J., & Joffe, R. T. (2000). Is self-criticism unique for depression? A comparison with social phobia. Journal of affective disorders, 57(1–3), 223–228. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-0327(99)00043-9.
Daros, A. R., & Ruocco, A. C. (2021). Which emotion regulation strategies are most Associated with trait emotion dysregulation? A transdiagnostic examination. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 43(3), 478–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-020-09864-x.
Derryberry, D., & Reed, M. A. (2002). Anxiety-related attentional biases and their regulation by attentional control. Journal of abnormal psychology, 111(2), 225. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.111.2.225.
Derryberry, D., & Rothbart, M. K. (1988). Arousal, affect, and attention as components of temperament. Journal of personality and social psychology, 55(6), 958. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.55.6.958.
Dimitrijević, A., Hanak, N., Dimitrijević, A., A., & Jolić Marjanović, Z. (2018). The mentalization scale (MentS): A self-report measure for the assessment of mentalizing capacity. Journal of personality assessment, 100(3), 268–280.
Donald, F., Lawrence, K. A., Broadbear, J. H., & Rao, S. (2019). An exploration of self- compassion and self-criticism in the context of personal recovery from borderline personality disorder. Australasian Psychiatry, 27(1), 56–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/1039856218797418.
Donges, U. S., Kersting, A., Dannlowski, U., Lalee-Mentzel, J., Arolt, V., & Suslow, T. (2005). Reduced awareness of others’ emotions in unipolar depressed patients. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 193(5), 331–337. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.nmd.0000161683.02482.19.
Eysenck, M. W., Derakshan, N., Santos, R., & Calvo, M. G. (2007). Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory. Emotion, 7(2), 336. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.336.
Fergus, T. A., & Wheless, N. E. (2018). The attention training technique causally reduces self- focus following worry provocation and reduces cognitive anxiety among self-focused individuals. Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry, 61, 66–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2018.06.006.
Fox, E., Dutton, K., Yates, A., Georgiou, G. A., & Mouchlianitis, E. (2015). Attentional control and suppressing negative thought intrusions in pathological worry. Clinical Psychological Science, 3(4), 593–606. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702615575878.
Gilbert, P. (2014). Social mentalities: Internal ‘social’conflict and the role of inner warmth and compassion in cognitive therapy. Genes on the couch (pp. 128–160). Routledge.
Gilbert, P., Clarke, M., Hempel, S., Miles, J. N., & Irons, C. (2004). Criticizing and reassuring oneself: An exploration of forms, styles and reasons in female students. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 43(1), 31–50. https://doi.org/10.1348/014466504772812959.
Greenberg, D. M., Kolasi, J., Hegsted, C. P., Berkowitz, Y., & Jurist, E. L. (2017). Mentalized affectivity: A new model and assessment of emotion regulation. PloS one, 12(10), e0185264. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185264.
Halamová, J., Kanovský, M., Gilbert, P., Troop, N. A., Zuroff, D. C., Hermanto, N., Petrocchi, N., Sommers-Spijkerman, M., Kirby, J. N., Shahar, B., Krieger, T., Matos, M., Asano, K., Yu, F., Basran, J., & Kupeli, N. (2018). The Factor Structure of the Forms of Self-Criticising/Attacking & Self-Reassuring Scale in Thirteen Distinct Populations. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 40 (4), 736–751(4), 736–751. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-018-9686-2.
Harlé, K. M., Shenoy, P., & Paulus, M. P. (2013). The influence of emotions on cognitive control: Feelings and beliefs—where do they meet?. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 7, 508. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00508.
Hayes, S., Hirsch, C., & Mathews, A. (2008). Restriction of working memory capacity during worry. Journal of abnormal psychology, 117(3), 712. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012908.
Holmes, A. J., & Pizzagalli, D. A. (2008). Spatiotemporal dynamics of error processing dysfunctions in major depressive disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 65(2), 179-188.
Hsieh, S., & Lin, S. J. (2019). The dissociable effects of induced positive and negative moods on cognitive flexibility. Scientific reports, 9(1), 1126.
Judah, M. R., Grant, D. M., Mills, A. C., & Lechner, W. V. (2014a). https://doi.org/10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2007.19.
Judah, M. R., Grant, D. M., Mills, A. C., & Lechner, W. V. (2014b). Factor structure and validation of the attentional control scale. Cognition & emotion, 28(3), 433–451. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.835254.
Jurist, E. (2005). Mentalized affectivity. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 22(3), 426. https://doi.org/10.1037/0736-9735.22.3.426.
Luyten, P., & Blatt, S. J. (2013). Interpersonal relatedness and self-definition in normal and disrupted personality development: Retrospect and prospect. American Psychologist, 68(3), 172. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032243.
Luyten, P., Sabbe, B., Blatt, S. J., Meganck, S., Jansen, B., De Grave, C., & Corveleyn, J. (2007). Dependency and self-criticism: Relationship with major depressive disorder, severity of depression, and clinical presentation. Depression and anxiety, 24(8), 586–596. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.20272.
Luyten, P., Campbell, C., Allison, E., & Fonagy, P. (2020). The mentalizing approach to psychopathology: State of the art and future directions. Annual review of clinical psychology, 16, 297–325. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-071919-015355.
McLaren, V., & Sharp, C. (2020). What Is Mentalizing? In Adolescent Suicide and Self-Injury. (pp. 1–15). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42875-4_1.
Mills, A. C., Grant, D. M., Judah, M. R., White, E. J., Taylor, D. L., & Frosio, K. E. (2016). Trait attentional control influences the relationship between repetitive negative thinking and psychopathology symptoms. Psychiatry Research, 238, 277–283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2016.02.055.
Rinaldi, T., Castelli, I., Greco, A., Greenberg, D. M., Jurist, E., Valle, A., & Marchetti, A. (2021). The Mentalized Affectivity Scale (MAS): Development and validation of the italian version. Plos one, 16(4). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257989.
Rothschild-Yakar, L., Stein, D., Goshen, D., Shoval, G., Yacobi, A., Eger, G., & Gur, E. (2019). Mentalizing self and other and affect regulation patterns in anorexia and depression. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 2223. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02223.
Rubin, D. C., & Berntsen, D. (2009). The frequency of voluntary and involuntary autobiographical memories across the life span. Memory & Cognition, 37(5), 679–688. https://doi.org/10.3758/37.5.679.
Santoro, G., Midolo, L. R., Costanzo, A., & Schimmenti, A. (2021). The vulnerability of insecure minds: The mediating role of mentalization in the relationship between attachment styles and psychopathology. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 85(4), 358–384. https://doi.org/10.1521/bumc.2021.85.4.358.
Schwarzer, N. H., Nolte, T., Fonagy, P., & Gingelmaier, S. (2021). Mentalizing and emotion regulation: Evidence from a nonclinical sample. In International forum of psychoanalysis (Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 34–45). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2021.1873418.
Shahar, G. (2015). Erosion: The psychopathology of self-criticism. Oxford University Press.
Shahar, B., Carlin, E. R., Engle, D. E., Hegde, J., Szepsenwol, O., & Arkowitz, H. (2012). A pilot investigation of emotion-focused two‐chair dialogue intervention for self‐criticism. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 19(6), 496–507. https://doi.org/10.1002/cpp.762.
Shaw, P., Stringaris, A., Nigg, J., & Leibenluft, E. (2014). Emotion dysregulation in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 171(3), 276–293. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2013.13070966.
Stets, J. E., & Trettevik, R. (2014). Emotions in identity theory. Handbook of the sociology of emotions: Volume II (pp. 33–49). Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9130-4_3
Thew, G. R., Gregory, J. D., Roberts, K., & Rimes, K. A. (2017). The phenomenology of self- critical thinking in people with depression, eating disorders, and in healthy individuals. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory Research and Practice, 90(4), 751–769. https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12137.
Tyng, C. M., Amin, H. U., Saad, M. N., & Malik, A. S. (2017). The influences of emotion on learning and memory. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 1454. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01454.
Wadlinger, H. A., & Isaacowitz, D. M. (2011). Fixing our focus: Training attention to regulate emotion. Personality and social psychology review, 15(1), 75–102. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868310365565.
Wang, Y., Chen, J., & Yue, Z. (2017). Positive emotion facilitates cognitive flexibility: An fMRI study. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 1832.
Webb, T. L., Miles, E., & Sheeran, P. (2012). Dealing with feeling: A meta-analysis of the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation. Psychological bulletin, 138(4), 775. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027600.
Weschelblatt, T., Gurnick, G., & Simon, R. (2000). Autonomy and relatedness in the development of anorexia nervosa: A clinical case series using grounded theory. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 64(1). PMID: 10695162.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by grants from the Rollins College Student Faculty Collaborative Scholarship Program, the Elizabeth Morse Genius SFCS Fund, and the Edward W. and Stella C. Van Houten Memorial Fund. There are no conflicts of interest. Both authors were fully involved in the completion of the research study, with equal contributions to data collection and analysis. The first draft of the manuscript was primarily written by Anna Voicu, with significant edits and additional material written by Andrew Luchner. The data that supports our findings is available at the following link: https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/175261/version/V1/view.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Ethics approval
The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board and conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of the college.
Consent to participate
Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Voicu, A., Luchner, A. The indirect effect of mentalized affectivity on the relationship between self-criticism and attentional control. Curr Psychol 43, 9933–9943 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05122-x
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05122-x