Attentional biases in healthy adults: Exploring the impact of temperament and gender

Autor(en)

Nina Pintzinger, Daniela Pfabigan, Ulrich S. Tran, Ilse Kryspin-Exner, Claus Lamm

Abstrakt

Background

Attentional biases such as faster attentional orienting toward negative information were consistently replicated in high-anxious and depressive individuals, but findings in healthy individuals are inconsistent so far.
Methods

Using a dot-probe paradigm, we investigated whether temperament traits and gender, which are linked to (sub)clinical symptoms and attentional processing, influenced attentional biases in healthy adults.
Results

All participants showed protective attentional biases in terms of orienting their attention away from negative information. In both genders higher values of negative affect were compensated with stronger attentional engagement with positive stimuli. This effect was more pronounced in men than in women. Effortful control fulfilled its regulative function in terms of stronger avoidance of negative stimuli only among men.
Limitations

Reaction times after probe detection provide only a snapshot of attention and allow only for an indirect assessment of visual attention. Future research should emphasize methods that allow for continuous monitoring of attention allocation, therefore results of the present study await replication in psychophysiological or eye-tracking studies.
Conclusion

Our results highlight the importance of considering influencing factors such as gender and temperament traits for attentional biases in healthy adults.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Psychologie der Kognition, Emotion und Methoden, Institut für Klinische und Gesundheitspsychologie

Journal

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

Band

52

Seiten

29-37

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2016.02.003

Publikationsdatum

09-2016

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

501010 Klinische Psychologie, 501021 Sozialpsychologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Psychiatry and Mental health, Clinical Psychology, Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/9b380d97-6fb1-4d46-8ac1-5184e5f0d4cb