تاثیر بی قراری بر واکنش های شناختی مثبت و منفی با نوسانات خلق و خوی روزانه

We used an experience sampling design to investigate the influence of dysphoria on positive and negative cognitive reactivity. Participants recorded their thoughts and mood four times per day on PDA devices for one week. We hypothesized that those higher in dysphoria would demonstrate a greater increase in negative thinking in response to negative mood, and a weaker increase in positive cognitions in response to positive mood. These hypotheses were largely supported. For those participants who reported higher initial dysphoria, there was a stronger association between negative mood and thinking and a weaker link between positive mood and thinking. Regression analyses indicated that positive and negative cognitive reactivity were independently related to dysphoria, suggesting that they represent distinct processes. Our results highlight the importance of understanding levels of both negative and positive cognitive reactivity and underscore the benefits of assessing mood and cognition with repeated measurements in “real-time,” in order to better understand the antecedent effects of mood on thinking.

Cognitive reactivity, defined as the degree of change in negative thinking in response to sad mood, has recently been investigated as a vulnerability factor for the development of depressive symptoms (Segal, Gemar, & Williams, 1999; Van der Does, 2002). Currently-depressed individuals and those with a history of depression are thought to react to negative affect with greater increases in dysfunctional thinking (Miranda, Gross, Persons, & Hahn, 1998; Miranda & Persons, 1988; Roberts & Kassel, 1996; Segal et al., 1999). To date, research on cognitive reactivity as a vulnerability factor has focused primarily on negativistic or depressive attitudes, without attention to the potentially important buffering effects of positive cognitive reactions. In other words, it is possible that psychological well-being entails not just a lack of negative thinking in response to negative moods, but also increases in positive thinking during periods of positive mood. Additionally, research in this area has been largely laboratory-based, and typically has relied on assessment of dysfunctional attitudes before and after a mood induction procedure ( Miranda et al., 1998; Miranda & Persons, 1988; Segal et al., 1999; Taylor & Ingram, 1999; Van der Does, 2005). Although such lab-based paradigms are promising in that they capture cognitive reactivity under controlled circumstances, these studies do not assess naturally occurring mood shifts and subsequent changes in thinking. In the present study, we used an experience-sampling design to investigate positive and negative cognitive reactivity to daily mood fluctuations in individuals with different levels of dysphoria. Cognitive reactivity and cognitive vulnerability to depression Dysfunctional attitudes play a central role in a cognitive conceptualization of depression: Individuals who endorse these rigid, absolute, all-or-nothing statements are thought to be more likely to develop and maintain depression. Beck (1967) proposed that groups of these attitudes constitute “schemas,” stable belief systems that are activated in depressive states or during times of stress. When active, the schemas are thought to bring about depressotypic self-statements, automatic thoughts about the self, the world, and the future that are reflexive and strongly negative (Beck, 1967; Ingram, Miranda, & Segal, 1998). Research has largely supported this theory. Depressed individuals typically show high levels of dysfunctional cognitions, which return to normal upon recovery (Haaga, Dyck, & Ernst, 1991; Simons, Garfield, & Murphy, 1984). However, researchers have found that among individuals who have recovered from depression, these negative cognitions are easily reactivated by negative affect (Miranda et al., 1998; Roberts & Kassel, 1996). For example, Miranda and Persons (1988) showed that participants with a previous history of depression reported a greater increase in dysfunctional attitudes following sad mood induction than those without a depressive history. These findings are consistent with their mood-state dependent hypothesis, in which reporting of dysfunctional attitudes depends upon current affect. If we ask a recovered depressed person to complete an assessment of dysfunctional attitudes under neutral affect, they might look similar to a non-depressed person. However, these schemas remain latent and may be quickly triggered when the individual is primed by sad mood. Research suggests, then, that static levels of dysfunctional attitudes do not tell the whole story with respect to vulnerability to depression, and that it is important to assess the ease and frequency with which these attitudes change in response to mood and stressors (cognitive reactions). This tendency to respond to negative mood inductions with negative cognitions also appears to be a significant risk factor for prediction of depressive relapse, independent of the trait level assessment of dysfunctional attitudes ( Segal et al., 1999). Positive cognitive reactivity The majority of research on cognitive vulnerability to depression and cognitive reactivity in particular has focused on negative thoughts and reactivity. That is, cognitive reactivity has traditionally been conceptualized as the degree of change in an individual's negative thinking, in response to negative mood. This model of cognitive reactivity does not address the likelihood that change in positive cognitions, in response to positive mood, might also be a protective factor against the development of depressive symptoms. For example, the ability to view oneself and the world in a positive manner on the occasions when one feels good could protect against the onset or maintenance of depression. In other words, it might be important that people “cognitively capitalize” on their good moments. One study, for example, showed that depressed individuals who experienced positive events and attributed those events to stable, global causes experienced a reduction in hopelessness and a corresponding decrease in depression ( Needles & Abramson, 1990). Psychological resilience, therefore, might entail more than just a lack of negative cognitive reactivity; positive thinking in response to positive moods might contribute to everyday well-being and therefore could decrease risk for depression. A growing body of research suggests that self-reported negative and positive thoughts (Ingram & Wisnicki, 1988) and negative and positive affective states (Larsen, McGraw, & Cacioppo, 2001; Schimmack, 2003; Schimmack, Bockenholt, & Reisenzein, 2002) are fairly distinct. This independence of positive and negative affect is particularly important in models of depression. There is strong evidence, for example, that low positive affect appears to distinguish depression from other psychological disorders, such as anxiety (Clark and Watson, 1991). In a related study, Gunthert, Cohen, and Armeli (2002) found that muted positive affective reactions in response to decreased stress levels was a specific feature of those high in depression, and not those high in anxiety. There is also evidence that positive affect might serve as a buffer against depression (Gross & Munoz, 1995) and that it might protect against the negative physiological repercussions of negative affect (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998). Positive and negative cognitive reactivity might also be distinct and should therefore be assessed independently of one another. For example, one aspect of cognitive vulnerability might be an increase in negative cognitions in response to negative mood, while a separate important vulnerability might be a lack of positive cognitions in response to positive mood. An inability to view the world through a positive lens, even when one feels good, might prohibit one from capitalizing on good times in one's life. A tendency to react negatively to negative mood and a lack of response to positive mood might therefore serve as a dual vulnerability. In our study, participants reported their negative and positive automatic thoughts, and negative and positive moods. This strategy enabled us to calculate levels of negative and positive cognitive reactivity, and to examine how these two types of reactivity relate to dysphoria. Cognitive reactivity: an experience sampling approach Another important consideration in evaluating current research on cognitive vulnerabilities concerns the heavy reliance on laboratory-based techniques to assess cognitive reactivity. These lab-based paradigms are informative; they have demonstrated that cognitive reactivity can be measured in response to experimental mood induction in a laboratory environment. It would be helpful, however, to capture this process of cognitive reactivity as it occurs in response to naturally occurring mood fluctuations. Is such “real-world” cognitive reactivity related to dysphoric symptoms? It is important to assess depressotypic cognitions as people encounter negative affect in their everyday lives, in order to obtain a more naturalistic picture of the association between cognitive reactivity and depression. When using laboratory procedures to manipulate mood, a central concern is the question of how realistic, powerful, or externally valid these techniques are. Typical methods of experimentally inducing sad mood include being instructed to recall and describe a sad event in one's life; listening to a sad piece of music while remembering a sad time in one's life; viewing a sad film clip; and reciting and concentrating on statements designed to produce a sad mood (Miranda et al., 1998; Miranda & Persons, 1988; Segal et al., 1999; Taylor & Ingram, 1999). Such mood challenges might not be very strong and some might not be personally relevant. In addition, Clark (1983) reported that as many as 30–50% of participants may fail to respond to certain mood induction procedures. Given these limitations, assessing thoughts in the context of real-world, self-relevant, emotionally linked events could be even more useful as an indicator of cognitive vulnerability (Ingram et al., 1998). Experience sampling methods, which entail repeated assessments of events, thoughts, and mood in “real-time,” are growing in popularity due to the availability of electronic recording devices, such as PDAs, and the ability of this approach to capture dynamic processes of stress, cognition, and emotion. Experience sampling allows measurement of changes in mood and automatic thoughts as an individual confronts his or her everyday stressors and attempts to resolve them. As such, we can understand how thinking changes within subjects, in response to daily mood fluctuations. In a sense, each participant serves as his or her own baseline, so we are better able to capture subtle shifts in participants’ mood and thinking. In the current study, we were interested in calculating each participant's distinctive relationship between his or her mood and subsequent automatic thoughts. In this case, this relationship becomes an index of cognitive reactivity. By measuring each participant's mood and thinking multiple times per day, we can begin to study antecedent effects that would be missed in more traditional, single administration designs. In other words, experience sampling will allow us to investigate temporal sequence between our variables of interest. Overview and hypotheses The aim of the current study was to evaluate the relationships between dysphoria and cognitive reactivity, both positive and negative, as individuals engage in their typical daily routines. At an initial visit to our laboratory, participants completed self-report measures of current dysphoria. They then used PDAs to complete assessments of thoughts and mood four times per day as they engaged in their normal routines over the course of the next week. We hypothesized that dysphoric symptoms would have a moderating effect on the relationship between mood and automatic thoughts. Specifically, we expected that: (a) participants higher in dysphoric symptoms would show greater increases in negative cognitions in response to negative mood than participants low in dysphoria (i.e., there would be a stronger positive within person association between negative mood and negative cognitions); (b) participants higher in dysphoria would show a weaker increase in positive cognitions in response to positive mood than those low in dysphoria; and (c) time-lag analyses would show that changes in mood precede changes in cognitions, and that these relationships between mood and subsequent cognitions would be moderated by dysphoria.