Inflexibility in Reasoning: Comparisons of Cognitive Flexibility, Explanatory Flexibility, and Belief Flexibility Between Schizophrenia and Major Depressive Disorder

Introduction: Inflexibility in reasoning has been suggested to contribute to psychiatric disorders, such as explanatory flexibility in depression and belief flexibility in schizophrenia. However, studies tended to examine only one of the flexibility constructs, which could be related to each other, within a single group of patients. As enhancing flexibility in thinking has become one of the psychological treatment goals across disorders, this study aimed to examine three constructs of flexibility (cognitive flexibility, explanatory flexibility, and belief flexibility) in two psychiatric groups.Methods: We compared three groups of participants: (i) 56 outpatients with a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder and active delusions, (ii) 57 outpatients with major depressive disorder and at least a moderate level of depression, and (iii) 30 healthy controls. Participants were assessed on symptom severity and flexibility, using the Trail-Making Task, the Attributional Style Questionnaire, the Maudsley Assessment of Delusions Scale (MADS) and the Bias Against Disconfirmatory Evidence (BADE) Task.Results: Cognitive flexibility was reduced in the two clinical groups compared to controls. Explanatory flexibility was comparable across groups. The three groups differed in belief flexibility measured by MADS but not by the BADE task. Response to hypothetical contradiction was reduced in the delusion group than the other two groups, and the ability to generate alternative explanations was reduced in the delusion group than healthy controls.Discussion: We found an effect of diagnosis on cognitive flexibility, which might be confounded by differences in intellectual functioning. Reduced belief flexibility tended to be specific to delusions.

Ansiedad y tristeza-depresión: Una aproximación desde la teoría de la indefensión-desesperanza

Anxiety and sadness-depression: An approximation from the perspective of the helplessness-hopelessness theory. The purpose of the study was to analyse the constructs of anxiety and sadness-depression from the perspective of the helplessness-hopelessness Theory. Two hundred twenty-nine adults completed five self-reported measures: The Anxiety Situations and Responses Inventory, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Tridimensional Depression Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Attributional Style Questionnaire. The results of correlation analysis and regression models showed strong associations between the different components of anxiety and depression. Moreover, negative attributional style significantly predicted anxiety and depression, especially the cognitive dimension of these constructs, for both female and male participants. We concluded that these emotions share a common element: a characteristic attributional style related to a broader construct, the “negative emotionality”, that includes both anxiety and depression. Keywords: Attributional style; helplessness; negative affect; emotionality. Resumen: El propósito del estudio fue analizar la ansiedad y la tristeza-depresión desde la teoría de la indefensión-desesperanza. Doscientos veintinueve adultos completaron cinco medidas de autoinforme: el Inventario de Situaciones y Respuestas de Ansiedad, el Cuestionario de Ansiedad Estado Rasgo, el Cuestionario Tridimensional para la Depresión, el Inventario de Depresión de Beck, y el Cuestionario de Estilo Atribucional. Los resultados de los análisis correlacionales y los modelos de regresión efectuados arrojaron asociaciones fuertes entre los diferentes componentes de la ansiedad y la depresión. Además, el estilo atribucional negativo predijo de manera significativa la ansiedad y la depresión, especialmente a nivel cognitivo, en mujeres y varones. Se concluyó que el elemento común a dichas emociones puede ser un estilo atribucional característico relacionado con un constructo más amplio, la “emocionalidad negativa”, que comprende tanto la ansiedad como la depresión. Palabras clave: Estilo atribucional; indefensión; afecto negativo; emocionalidad.

STUDI DESKRIPTIF GAYA EKSPLANATORI ANAK PENDERITA LEUKEMIA

This descriptive research conducted with 25 children under purposive sampling to obtain an overview of expanatory style of children with leukemia in the Foundation "X" Bandung. Measurement instrument is a modification of the Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire (CASQ) by Seligman (1990) which consists of 48 items forced choice. Explanatory style research showed that 60% respondents have a pessimistic, and the rest have an optimistic. There is a link between children's understanding of their significant person’s explanatory style, criticism from parents or the trustees, their crisis experience, as well as the stage of suffering from leukemia with the children with leukemia’s explanatory style. This research suggested further research with more sample sizes about children’s explanatory style in order to make normative constraints, also further investigate the factors that affect explanatory style and dimensions. It is also suggested that management of the Foundation "X" to design interventions that can improve children's explanatory style.

The Association Between Negative Attributional Style and Working Memory Performance

Introduction:It has been proposed that negative attributions contribute to impairment in cognitive task processing. However, it is still unknown whether negative attributions influence task processing in all cognitive tasks.Methods:To investigate this, 91 healthy participants completed attributional style questionnaire and performed three Working Memory (WM) tasks, which associated with different functions of WM (i.e. Central Executive System (CES) and visuospatial sketchpad).Results:The results demonstrated that negative attributions contribute to the impairment in cognitive tasks which is associated with spatial working memory rather than main central executive functions (i.e. switching and inhibition).Conclusions:It is concluded that negative attributions may selectively disrupt spatial working memory functions, thus a detrimental effect of negative attributions may be task specific.

Evaluating Optimism: Developing Children’s Version of Optimistic Attributional Style Questionnaire

People differ significantly in how they usually explain to themselves the reasons of events, both positive and negative, that happen in their lives. Psychological research shows that children who tend to think optimistically have certain advantages as compared to their pessimistically thinking peers: they are less likely to suffer from depression, establish more positive relationships with peers, and demonstrate higher academic achievements. This paper describes the process of creating the children’s version of the Optimistic Attributional Style Questionnaire (OASQ-C). This technique is based on the theory of learned hopelessness and optimism developed by M. Seligman, L. Abramson and J. Teas dale and is an efficient (compact) tool for measuring optimism as an explanatory style in children and adolescents (9-14 years). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that this technique is a two-factor structure with acceptable reliability. Validity is supported by the presence of expected correlations between explanatory style and rates of psychological well-being, dispositional optimism, positive attitude to life and its aspects, depression, and academic performance. The outcomes of this technique are not affected by social desirability. The developed questionnaire may be recommended to researchers and school counsellors for evaluating optimism (optimistic thinking) as one of the major factors in psychological well-being of children; it may also be used in assessing the effectiveness of cognitive oriented training for adolescents.