Depression is not related to deficits in emotional reasoning skills

Background: Several lines of research have examined whether people with depressive symptoms have deficits in social-cognitive abilities, such as emotional reasoning skills. While many patients report having such deficits, it is less clear whether depressive symptoms are related to actual objective performance deficits.Methods: Following recent methodological recommendations, we performed a so-called “mini meta-analysis” of 11 studies conducted in our lab to examine the relationship between depressive symptoms as assessed with the Beck’s Depression Inventory II and emotional reasoning skills as assessed with a well-established performance test (i.e., TEMINT). Data were analysed from 1,503 participants with varying levels of depression – from healthy people without depressive symptoms to clinical samples with a diagnosed major depressive disorder and high symptom burden.Results: Using a random effects approach, we found a small but significant correlation between depressive symptoms and TEMINT performance (mean r = .065), indicating that depressive symptoms were associated with higher emotional reasoning skills.Conclusions: Depression is unrelated to deficits in emotional reasoning according to the present findings. If anything, depressive symptoms are associated with improved performance in the TEMINT. These findings point to a discrepancy between depressed people’s self-evaluation of their abilities (as shown in previous research) and their actual performance. Accordingly, therapists may focus on modifying patients’ negative views on themselves, rather than on improving their skills.

Thinking Style and Paranormal Belief: The Role of Cognitive Biases

This study investigated the degree to which cognitive bias mediated the relationship between thinking style and belief in the paranormal. A sample of 496 participants completed the Revised Paranormal Belief Scale (RPBS), the Belief in Science Scale (BISS), the Cognitive Biases Questionnaire for Psychosis, and the reality testing subscale of the Inventory of Personality Organization (IPO-RT). The BISS and IPO-RT served as proxy indices of preferred thinking style; the BISS assessed rational-analytical (objective) processing, and the IPO-RT intuitive-experiential (subjective) processing. Cognitive biases (Jumping to Conclusions, Intentionalising, Catastrophising, Emotional Reasoning, and dichotomous thinking) correlated positively with belief in the paranormal. Mediation using path analysis indicated that Emotional Reasoning and Catastrophising exerted indirect effects in relation to BISS, IPO-RT and RPBS. Direct relationships existed between IPO-RT and RPBS, and BISS and RPBS. Of the biases, only Emotional Reasoning and Catastrophising predicted RPBS. The contribution of Emotional Reasoning and Catastrophising to belief in the paranormal were consistent with previous research and the cognitive model of psychosis, which asserts that there are strong relationships between defective reality testing, emotional reasoning and delusional beliefs.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AS A SUCCESS FACTOR

The paper addresses the development of emotional intelligence and its impact on the employees' success. It links soft skills with emotional intelligence and contains the review of the theory of basic emotions proposed by Robert Plutchik, methods of its use and its relevance in HR management for managers and workforce. The paper describes the properties of emotions and emotional reasoning, role and importance of the employees' emotional competence, as well as ways to trigger necessary emotions in the audience. It analyses the development of emotional intelligence studies of foreign and national researchers and determines two emotion management approaches.

Correlates of “Coddling”: Cognitive Distortions, Believing Words Can Harm, and Intuitive Thinking Predict Safetyism Beliefs

In their book, The Coddling of the American Mind, Lukianoff and Haidt (2018) contend that the rise of “safetyism” – cultures that treat safety as a sacred value – is hindering college students’ socioemotional development. One of their most controversial claims was that college students’ safetyism beliefs are rooted in and supported by cognitively distorted thinking (e.g., emotional reasoning). However, no empirical work has substantiated an association between cognitive distortions and safetyism beliefs. In a large (N = 786), ethnically and economically diverse sample of college students, we conducted the first examination of the relationship between these variables. Aligning with Lukianoff and Haidt’s assertions, we found that students’ self-reported prevalence of cognitive distortions positively predicted their endorsement of safetyism beliefs, even when controlling for other relevant demographic and psychological predictors. The belief that words can harm and intuitive thinking were also robust, positive predictors of safetyism beliefs. Considering our results, we argue that greater empirical scrutiny of safetyism-inspired practices (e.g., broad use of trigger warnings) is warranted before such customs become more widely adopted.

Emotional Reasoning and Psychopathology

One of the several ways in which affect may influence cognition is when people use affect as a source of information about external events. Emotional reasoning, ex-consequentia reasoning, and affect-as-information are terms referring to the mechanism that can lead people to take their emotions as information about the external world, even when the emotion is not generated by the situation to be evaluated. Pre-existing emotions may thus bias evaluative judgments of unrelated events or topics. From this perspective, the more people experience a particular kind of affect, the more they may rely on it as a source of valid information. Indeed, in several studies, it was found that adult patients suffering from psychological disorders tend to use negative affect to estimate the negative event as more severe and more likely and to negatively evaluate preventive performance. The findings on this topic have contributed to the debate that theorizes the use of emotional reasoning as responsible for the maintenance of dysfunctional beliefs and the pathological disorders based on these beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to explore this topic by reviewing and discussing the main studies in this area, leading to a deeper understanding of this phenomenon.

AFFECTIVE THEORY OF MIND IN PEOPLE WITH ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

Background: In recent years, interest has been growing in cognitive and affective ToM functioning in individuals suffering from neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the affective ToM has been less investigated. Objective: This study aims to compare affective ToM performance in persons with mild to moderate AD and healthy older controls (HOC), and its relationship with cognition. Methods: A cross-sectional study of 97 mild to moderate AD individuals and 40 HOC. To assess affective ToM, participants were administered a task that examines ability to comprehend the emotional situation nature along with the appropriate emotional state that one would experience in that situation. Assessments of cognition, dementia severity, functionality, awareness of disease and neuropsychiatric symptoms were completed for AD group. Results: Analyses of emotional reasoning indicated a group effect on performance. There was a significant difference between the AD and HOC groups in terms of their ability to understand situations of sadness, surprise, anger, and happiness, with the moderate AD showing the worst performance for all emotional situations. Ability to appropriately name the emotional state was significantly different for surprise, anger, and happiness, but not for sadness, with both AD groups showing lower performance for surprise and anger, and with the mild AD showing better performance for happiness. In both AD groups, ability to understand the emotional situation and to name the emotion was significantly correlated with cognitive impairment and awareness of disease. Neuropsychiatric symptoms were significantly correlated in moderate AD group. Conclusions: Impairment in understanding the emotional aspects of situations can lead moderate AD people to experience conflicts in family and social situations. Mild AD people can experience same conflicts when their preserved ability in understanding the emotional situation is underestimated.

Perfectionism and the Pandemic

This paper presents some of the behavioral and emotional challenges many of us have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic; the emotional reasoning that has or can undermine rational coping; and how the philosophical practice approach of Logic-Based Therapy & Consultation (LBTC) can help.

A STUDY OF THE ELEMENTS OF DEPRESSION IN “ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES” (2015)

The majority of research that exists on mental illness refers to the portrayals of adults with mental illness in films and television shows but limited research has been conducted on the portrayals of teenagers suffering from mental illness through a medium such as young adult literature. This study discussed and discovered the elements of depression behaviors depicted in the novel ―All the Bright Places‖ by Jennifer Niven (2015). The writers chose to study the two main characters, Theodore Finch and Violet Markey, and explored the elements of depression behaviors in the novel. Each text was descriptively examined using textual analysis and coded using a coding book. It was found that the novel depicts all elements of cognitive distortions in Beck's Cognitive Theory of Depression (All-Or-Nothing Thinking, Overgeneralization, Magnification and Minimizing, Personalizing, Mental Filter, Jumping to Conclusions, Labelling, Emotional Reasoning, Mind Reading; and Disqualifying the Positive). To conclude, Niven has addresses not only depression and also suicide with a seriousness and realism. A beautiful juxtaposition. Despite the ending, she leaves the reader with a sense of hope, that it will get better although never easier. Keywords: Young Adult Literature, Depression, All the Bright Places