scholarly journals No Evidence for the Involvement of Cognitive Immunisation in Updating Beliefs About the Self in Three Non-Clinical Samples

Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Julia Anna Glombiewski

Abstract Background Cognitive immunisation against disconfirmatory evidence (i.e., devaluing expectation-disconfirming information through cognitive mechanisms) has recently been discussed as an obstacle to the revision of dysfunctional beliefs in mental disorders such as depression. Yet, it is unclear whether cognitive immunisation is also involved in belief updating in non-clinical samples. Methods Using a three-group modulation protocol (promotion vs. inhibition of cognitive immunisation vs. control group), we examined how cognitive immunisation influences belief updating in response to performance feedback in three non-clinical samples. In Experiments 1 (N = 99) and 2 (N = 93), participants received unexpectedly negative feedback, whereas participants from Experiment 3 (N = 118) received unexpectedly positive feedback. Depressive symptoms and dispositional optimism were examined as additional predictors of belief updating. Results In all experiments, participants adjusted their expectations in line with the feedback received, but this effect was not influenced by the cognitive immunisation manipulation. In Experiment 3, expectation change remained stable over 2 weeks. Depressive symptoms were associated with a reduced integration of positive feedback, but not with an increased sensitivity to negative feedback. Conclusions Whereas previous research has shown that cognitive immunisation contributes to persistent beliefs in clinical populations, the present findings suggest that it does not affect belief updating in non-clinical samples.

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Lukas Kirchner ◽  
Thomas Gärtner ◽  
Julia Anna Glombiewski

Abstract Background In two experimental studies, we tested the hypothesis that negative mood would hinder the revision of negative beliefs in response to unexpectedly positive information in depression, whereas positive mood was expected to enhance belief updating. Methods In study 1 (N = 101), we used a subclinical sample to compare the film-based induction of sad v. happy mood with a distraction control group. Subsequently, participants underwent a well-established paradigm to examine intra-individual changes in performance-related expectations after unexpectedly positive performance feedback. In study 2, we applied the belief-updating task from study 1 to an inpatient sample (N = 81) and induced sad v. happy mood via film-clips v. recall of autobiographic events. Results The results of study 1 showed no significant group differences in belief updating; the severity of depressive symptoms was a negative predictor of belief revision, though, and there was a non-significant trend suggesting that the presence of sad mood hindered belief updating in the subgroup of participants with a diagnosed depressive episode. Study 2 revealed that participants updated their expectations significantly less in line with positive feedback when they underwent the induction of negative mood prior to feedback, relative to positive mood. Conclusions By indicating that the presence of negative mood can hinder the revision of negative beliefs in clinically depressed people, our findings suggest that learning from new experiences can be hampered if state negative mood is activated. Thus, interventions relying on learning from novel positive experiences should aim at reducing state negative mood in depression.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Lukas Kirchner ◽  
Gunnar Lemmer ◽  
Julia Glombiewski

Aberrant belief updating has been linked to psychopathology, e.g., depressive symptoms. While previous research used to treat belief-confirming vs. -disconfirming information as binary concepts, the present research varied the extent to which new information deviates from prior beliefs and examined its influence on belief updating. In a false feedback task (Study 1; N = 379) and a social interaction task (Study 2; N = 292), participants received slightly positive, moderately positive or extremely positive information in relation to their prior beliefs. In both studies, new information was deemed most reliable if it was moderately positive. Yet, differences in the positivity of new information had only small effects on belief updating. In Study 1, depressive symptoms were related to difficulties in generalizing positive new learning experiences. The findings suggest that, contrary to traditional learning models, the larger the differences between prior beliefs and new information, the more beliefs are not updated.


2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 359-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas P. Sawyer ◽  
Lisa A. Hollis-Sawyer ◽  
Amanda Pokryfke

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationships between select personality dimensions, social-evaluative anxieties, and rating discomfort. Undergraduate students were told they would be giving test performance feedback to a confederate and were instructed on how to give this feedback, to some degree, based on condition. Correlation and regression analyses revealed some interesting patterns. Neuroticism was found to be significantly related to feelings of discomfort only under the positive feedback condition, while extraversion was found to be significantly related to feelings of discomfort only under the negative feedback condition. A significant inverse relationship was also found between both agreeableness and conscientiousness levels, and in reaction to giving positive feedback. Additional findings and implications are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Julia Glombiewski

People update their beliefs selectively in response to good news and disregard bad news, referred to as the optimism bias. Yet, the precise cognitive mechanisms underlying this asymmetry in belief updating are largely unknown. In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that cognitive immunisation against new information contributes to optimistic belief updating (e.g. through questioning the reliability of new information). In each study, participants received new information in relation to their prior beliefs, and we examined the influence of cognitive immunisation on belief updating by using a three-group modulation protocol: In one group, cognitive immunisation against new information was promoted; in another group, cognitive immunisation was inhibited; and a control group received no manipulation. This modulation protocol was applied to beliefs about the self, i.e. performance expectations (Experiment 1&2; N=99 and N=93), and beliefs about climate change (Experiment 3; N=227) as an example of factual beliefs. The results of Experiments 1&2 showed that the cognitive immunisation manipulation had no influence on the update of performance-related expectations. In Experiment 3, we did find significant group differences in belief updating, and this effect interacted with participants’ general attitudes towards climate change: people who were sceptical about man-made climate change lowered their estimates of the projected temperature rise particularly if they perceived scientific information on climate change as being fraught with uncertainty. These findings suggest that the importance of cognitive immunisation in belief updating may depend on the content of beliefs (i.e. self-related vs. factual) and participants’ attitudes to the subject in question.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Lukas Kirchner ◽  
Thomas Gärtner ◽  
Julia Glombiewski

Background: In two experimental studies, we tested the hypothesis that negative mood would hinder the revision of negative beliefs in response to unexpectedly positive information in depression, whereas positive mood was expected to enhance belief updating. Methods: In Study 1 (N = 101), we used a subclinical sample to compare the film-based induction of sad vs. happy mood with a distraction control group. Subsequently, participants underwent a well-established paradigm to examine intra-individual changes in performance-related expectations after unexpectedly positive performance feedback. In Study 2, we applied the belief-updating task from Study 1 to an inpatient sample (N = 81) and induced sad vs. happy mood via film-clips vs. recall of autobiographic events. Results: The results of Study 1 showed no significant group differences in belief updating; the severity of depressive symptoms was a negative predictor of belief revision, though, and there was a non-significant trend suggesting that the presence of sad mood hindered belief updating in the subgroup of participants with a diagnosed depressive episode. Study 2 revealed that participants updated their expectations significantly less in line with positive feedback when they underwent the induction of sad mood prior to feedback, relative to positive mood. Conclusions: By indicating that the presence of sad mood can hinder the revision of negative beliefs in clinically depressed people, our findings suggest that learning from new experiences can be hampered if state negative mood is activated. Thus, interventions relying on learning from novel positive experiences should aim at reducing state negative mood in depression.


1992 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 323-331
Author(s):  
Jo Ann Lee ◽  
M. Bridget Whitford

This study investigated the effects of performance feedback on self-evaluations with a similar task. 212 first-year female teachers from a large Southeastern school district completed two brief classroom-management tasks and rated their own performance on these tasks. Each task included five questions pertaining to specific problems of classroom management. Subjects rated themselves as solving the tasks either “well” or “poorly.” Feedback for the first task was manipulated so that half of those who rated themselves as performing well were given either positive or negative feedback. Similarly, half of those who rated themselves as performing poorly were given either negative or positive feedback. As hypothesized, type of feedback for the first task significantly affected the teachers' self-evaluations on the second task. Implications of these results are discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 40-45
Author(s):  
Andreea Amănălăchioaie ◽  
Loredana Diaconu-Gherasim

This research explores the relation between social comparison and self-criticism on a group of participants with elevated rates of depressive symptoms. In addition, the study investigated whether the type of feedback could moderate the relation between social comparison and self-criticism. The sample included 36 psychology students in the first year (N = 28 women, M age = 24.6, SD = 4.66) with high depressive symptoms. Results show that higher rates of negative social comparison are correlated with higher levels of self-criticism. Participants that received negative feedback reported an increase level of self-criticism compared to those from positive feedback condition. The type of feedback moderated the relation between social comparison and self-criticism. Our findings are discussed from the perspective of their practical implications for young adults experiencing high levels of depressive symptoms.


2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina M. Lempert ◽  
Elizabeth Tricomi

Whereas positive feedback is both rewarding and informative, negative feedback can be construed as either punishing (because it is indicative of poor performance) or informative (because it may lead to goal attainment). In this neuroimaging experiment, we highlighted the informational value of negative feedback by intermixing trials with and without feedback. When performance feedback is expected, positive feedback triggers an increase in striatal activity, whereas negative feedback elicits a decrease in striatal activity. We predicted that, in contrast, when feedback receipt is unpredictable, the striatal response to negative feedback would increase. Participants performed a paired-associate learning task during fMRI scanning. In one condition (“blocked feedback”), the receipt of feedback was predictable—participants knew whether or not they would receive feedback for their responses. In another condition (“mixed feedback”), the receipt of feedback was unpredictable—on a random 50% of trials, participants received feedback, and they otherwise received no feedback. Negative feedback in the mixed feedback condition elicited more striatal activity than negative feedback in the blocked feedback condition. In contrast, feedback omission evoked more striatal activity when feedback delivery was expected, compared to when it was unpredictable. This pattern emerged from an increase in caudate activity in response to negative feedback in the mixed feedback condition and a decrease in ventral striatal activity in response to no feedback in this condition. These results suggest that, by emphasizing the informational value of negative feedback, an unpredictable feedback context alters the striatal response to negative feedback and to the omission of feedback.


Author(s):  
Yael Arbel ◽  
Isabel Fitzpatrick ◽  
Xinyi He

Purpose Intervention provided to school-age children with developmental language disorder often relies on the provision of performance feedback, yet it is unclear whether children with this disorder benefit from feedback-based learning. The study evaluates the effect of performance feedback on learning in children with developmental language disorder. Method Thirteen 8- to 12-year-old children with developmental language disorder and 14 age- and gender-matched children with typical language development completed two learning tasks whose objective was to pair nonword novel names with novel objects. The two tasks differed in the presence of performance feedback to guide learning. Learning outcomes on immediate and follow-up tests were compared between the feedback-based and feedback-free tasks. Additionally, an electrophysiological marker of feedback processing was compared between children with and without developmental language disorder. Results Children with developmental language disorder demonstrated poorer learning outcomes on both tasks when compared with their peers, but both groups achieved better accuracy on the feedback-free task when compared with the feedback-based task. Within the feedback-based task, children were more likely to repeat a correct response than to change it after positive feedback but were as likely to repeat an error as they were to correct it after receiving negative feedback. While children with typical language elicited a feedback-related negativity with greater amplitude to negative feedback, this event-related potential had no amplitude differences between positive and negative feedback in children with developmental language disorder. Conclusions Findings indicate that 8- to 12-year-old children benefit more from a feedback-free learning environment and that negative feedback is not as effective as positive feedback in facilitating learning in children. The behavioral and electrophysiological data provide evidence that feedback processing is impaired in children with developmental language disorders. Future research should evaluate feedback-based learning in children with this disorder using other learning paradigms.


Author(s):  
Alain R. Trudel ◽  
M. Trudel

AirfugeR (Beckman) direct ultracentrifugation of viral samples on electron microscopy grids offers a rapid way to concentrate viral particles or subunits and facilitate their detection and study. Using the A-100 fixed angle rotor (30°) with a K factor of 19 at maximum speed (95 000 rpm), samples up to 240 μl can be prepared for electron microscopy observation in a few minutes: observation time is decreased and structural details are highlighted. Using latex spheres to calculate the increase in sensitivity compared to the inverted drop procedure, we obtained a 10 to 40 fold increase in sensitivity depending on the size of particles. This technique also permits quantification of viral particles in samples if an aliquot is mixed with latex spheres of known concentration.Direct ultracentrifugation for electron microscopy can be performed on laboratory samples such as gradient or column fractions, infected cell supernatant, or on clinical samples such as urine, tears, cephalo-rachidian liquid, etc..


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