Search

Some people have learned to defend against taking in nourishment that is available, whether it be emotional or physical, because their early life experience was that accepting nourishment carried a [...]

The frequency of low O.sub.2 (hypoxia) has increased in coastal marine areas but how fish avoid deleterious water masses is not yet clear. To assess whether the presence and oxygen pressure (PO.sub.2) level of an O.sub.2 refuge affects the hypoxia avoidance behaviour of fish, individual Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.) were exposed to a range of O.sub.2 choices in a 2-way choice chamber at 11.4°C over two different experiments. Cod in the first experiment were allowed access to a fixed O.sub.2 refuge (fully air-saturated seawater) whilst oxygen pressure (PO.sub.2) on the other side was reduced in steps to a critically low level, i.e. 4.3 kPa-a point where cod can no longer regulate O.sub.2 consumption. Under these conditions, cod did not avoid any level of hypoxia and fish swimming speed also remained unchanged. In contrast, strong avoidance reactions were exhibited in a second experiment when fish were again exposed to 4.3 kPa but the safety, i.e. PO.sub.2, of the refuge was reduced. Fish not only spent less time at 4.3 kPa as a result of fewer sampling visits but they also swam at considerably slower speeds. The presence of an avoidance response was thus strongly related to refuge PO.sub.2 and it is unlikely that cod, and possibly other fish species, would enter low O.sub.2 to feed in the wild if a sufficiently safe O.sub.2 refuge was not available. It is therefore hypothesized that the feeding range of fish may be heavily compressed if hypoxia expands and intensifies in future years., Author(s): Neill A. Herbert [sup.1] [sup.2] , Jon E. Skjæraasen [sup.3] , Trygve Nilsen [sup.4] , Anne G. V. Salvanes [sup.3] , John F. Steffensen [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Marine [...]

The need to belong theory proposes that all human beings need social connections. However, dismissive avoidant individuals claim to be comfortable without close relationships and appear to be indifferent to how other people think of them. The current studies examined the association between dismissing avoidant attachment and the desire to feel accepted by others. In Study 1, high-dismissive participants reported experiencing higher than average levels of positive affect and state self-esteem after learning that other participants accepted them. In Study 2, high-dismissive participants felt better about themselves and experienced higher levels of positive affect after learning that in the future they would be successful in interpersonal relative to independent domains or controls. The results of these studies suggest that dismissive avoidants do not represent a counterexample to the hypothesis that all human beings have a fundamental need and desire to belong. Keywords: need to belong; attachment behavior; avoidance; self-esteem; motivation

This study examined (a) the role of avoidance coping in prospectively generating both chronic and acute life stressors and (b) the stress-generating role of avoidance coping as a prospective link to future depressive symptoms. Participants were 1,211 late-middle-aged individuals (500 women and 711 men) assessed 3 times over a 10-year period. As predicted, baseline avoidance coping was prospectively associated with both more chronic and more acute life stressors 4 years later. Furthermore, as predicted, these intervening life stressors linked baseline avoidance coping and depressive symptoms 10 years later, controlling for the influence of initial depressive symptoms. These findings broaden knowledge about the stress-generation process and elucidate a key mechanism through which avoidance coping is linked to depressive symptoms. Keywords: life stressors, stress generation, coping strategies, avoidance coping, depressive symptoms

The attempted control of intrusive, uncontrollable thoughts has been implicated in the maintenance of a range of psychological disorders. The current paper describes the refinement of the Thought Control Questionnaire Insomnia (TCQI; Behav. Cogn. Psychoth. 29 (2001)) through its administration to a sample (n = 385) including good sleepers and individuals with insomnia. Several items with poor psychometric properties were discarded, resulting in a 35-item revised TCQI. Factor analysis revealed six factors; aggressive suppression, cognitive distraction, reappraisal, social avoidance, behavioural distraction, and worry. The attempted management of unwanted thoughts was compared across individuals with insomnia and good sleepers, and the impact of these strategies on sleep quality, anxiety and depression was investigated. With the exception of cognitive distraction, individuals with insomnia, relative to good sleepers, more frequently used every thought control strategy. The strategies of aggressive suppression and worry, in particular, appeared to be unhelpful, with the use of these strategies predicting sleep impairment, anxiety and depression. The strategy of cognitive distraction appeared to be helpful, with the use of this strategy predicting better sleep quality. Keywords: Insomnia; Suppression; Worry: Distraction; Avoidance; Reappraisal

Cognitive studies about anxiety suggest that the interplay between automatic and strategic biases in attention to threat is related to the persistence of fear. In the present study, the time-course of attention to pictures with varying threat levels was investigated in high trait anxious (HTA, n = 21) and low trait anxious (LTA, n = 22) students. In a visual probe detection task, high and mild threat pictures were presented at three durations: 100, 500, and 1250 ms. Results indicated that all individuals attended to the high threat pictures for the 100ms condition. Differential responding between HTA and LTA individuals was found for the 500 ms condition: only HTA individuals showed an attentional bias for mild threatening stimuli. For the 1250ms condition, the HTA individuals attended away from high and mild threat pictures. The observed pattern of differential attention to threatening pictures may explain the persistence of fear in HTA individuals. Keywords: Selective attention; Time-course; Threat; Anxiety; Avoidance

The present study examined the relationship between emotional reactivity (self-report and physiological reactivity) to pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral emotion-eliciting stimuli and experiential avoidance (EA). Sixty-two participants were separated into high and low experiential avoiders. Results indicated that high EA participants reported greater emotional experience to both unpleasant and pleasant stimuli compared to low EA participants. In contrast to their heightened reports of emotion, high EA participants displayed attenuated heart rate reactivity to the unpleasant stimuli relative to the low EA participants. These findings are interpreted as reflecting an emotion regulation attempt by high EA participants when confronted with unpleasant emotionally-evocative stimuli. Keywords: Emotional avoidance; Emotion regulation; Heart rate; Facial EMG

Despite theoretical arguments that avoiding certain topics can be functional, there is consistent evidence that avoiding topics tends to be associated with dissatisfying relationships. This disparity between theory and empirical findings suggests a need to understand better the connection between topic avoidance and relational dissatisfaction. The current study, which is grounded in communication privacy management theory (Petronio, 2002), examines this issue by investigating moderators of the connection between avoidance and dissatisfaction. Data were gathered from 114 parent--child dyads and 100 heterosexual dating couples. Results suggested that the associations between topic avoidance and relational dissatisfaction were moderated by individuals' motivations for avoidance and by personal and relational characteristics that are conceptually linked to such motivations. These findings are consistent with theoretical arguments that topic avoidance can be benign--and even helpful--in some relational circumstances.

This study of 97 cocaine-dependent subjects assessed differences in the effects of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and non-CBT treatments, such as contingency management (CM) and methadone maintenance, on patients' adoption of drug avoidance activities (DAA) after treatment, and whether the adoption of these activities was associated with sustained reductions in cocaine use during the follow-up period. Subjects who had been exposed to CBT reported more frequent engagement in drug-use avoidance activities at treatment end and at the 1-year follow-up than did subjects assigned to either the CM or control conditions. The composite DAA scores were significantly related to cocaine abstinence at both follow-up contacts. This finding suggests the importance of adopting a range of avoidance activities and engaging in them frequently, rather than relying on any single activity. Further, a series of multivariate regression models revealed that a subject's total DAA score accounted for more variance than did treatment group assignment in predicting reduced cocaine use over the 1-year follow-up period. Keywords: Relapse prevention; Cognitive behavioral; Drug abuse; Coping

Two experiments are investigated to influence the approach / avoidance-related motor actions on attention allocation to effective stimuli. The results proved that the effects were generally stronger for positive as compared to negative stimuli along with discussing functional and theoretical implications.

The isolation of persons with AIDS in the private and professional domains is a constant issue, despite of extensive information campaigns about AIDS. A study was conducted, which was operationalized with the help of automatic approach and avoidance predispositions assessed the automatic evaluations of persons with AIDS and healthy persons.