L4 - Interpersonal Processes Flashcards
What are the learning objectives of this lecture?
- Describe how interpersonal processes contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety and depression.
- Explain specific interpersonal problems in individuals with emotional disorders, such as rejection by strangers and issues with intimates.
- Identify behaviors that cause interpersonal problems, such as negative feedback seeking and excessive reassurance seeking, and paraphrase theories explaining these behaviors.
- Describe early interpersonal risk factors for anxiety and mood disorders, such as parenting.
What is the general idea about people’s social environment?
People have different social worlds - ‘‘The human enviornment is other people’’
- how you behave will influence my attention, emotions but also my behaviour
What are the two perspectives that look at interpersonal processes and that is also how the lecture is split in two parts?
- Early learning experiences (e.g. parenting style) - how are parents treated the world and us, we learn about the world (how dangerous it is…) and about ourselves (beliefs about our worth…) → schematic beliefs from our parents
- How does having a disorder (social anxiety and depression) affect the social world around us - how we behave and how people respond to us
What are key parenting factors that have been associated with anxiety disorders?
- overprotective or controlling parenting that limits autonomy
- parenting that is negative, rejecting, or emotionally cold
- parenting that reinforces avoidance behaviours in children, preventing them from learning to cope with ambiguous or potentially threatening situations
These factors are particularly significant to children who have a genetic or temperamental predispositions to anxiety
What effect does an anxious mother have on what the child learns about the world and themselves?
- The world is dangerous and something to avoid
- You do not have control or self-efficacy: you are helpless
- mothers more protective than fathers (more likely to take the children on advantures) - good to have the combination of protective and advanturous parents
- The ultimate consequence of overprotective parenting is that the child avoids potentially threatening situations and is prevented from potentially learning the situation is not as dangerous as predicted and he or she is able to exert some control in the situation
How does parental modelling and transmission of threat information contribute to the child’s risk of developing anxiety?
- Children often learn fears and anxieties by observing their parents and listening to verbal warnings about potential dangers
- For instance, if a mother consistently displays fear in response to certain situations, her child may internalize this fear and develop heightened anxiety
- Children can learn to fear certain things at a very young age simply by observing fearful behaviours in their parents
- Modelling anxious behaviour and frequently providing verbal warnings about potential threats can contribute to higher levels of anxiety in children
- If a parent experiences high levels of anxiety - their child is more likely to be exposed to these anxious behaviours, increasing their own risk of developing anxiety symptoms
How do other family members such as partner or siblings increase one’s risk for anxiety?
- Family members beyond parents - siblings, spouses - also influence the development of anxiety disorders
- When close family members exhibit high levels of over-involvement, lack of warmth, or anxious behaviours, they may unintentionally reinforce an individual’s anxiety
What experiment was done to test the effect of parenting style?
- Give puzzles to children and mom has a clue as well and they want to see whether the mom gets involved - the mom is free to engage, encourage, help, give emotional response (e.g. you can do it/you are not able to do it, i will help ypu)
- Half of children anxious and half not
- Results: Mothers of anxious children - more and directive to help their child but also in more negative way
- Question: Is this because of the child asking for help or the child’s response to the mother’s behaviour?
- Another study: two types of mothers (mothers of ancious vs not anxious children) and the mothers were playing with other children
- When the mothers of clinically anxious children were playing with other child (not their own) who is clinically anxious = overinvolved but when playing with non-anxious child their involvement dropped
- seems that mothers are more responsive to anxious children when the child signals for help
How is the nature of the parenting style and the temperament of the child related?
- An over-protective parenting style makes people
vulnerable to developing anxiety disorders. - However, overprotection and anxiety are bidirectionally related
- when children are already by temperament more anxious they get a different (more overinvolved) reaction from their parents than children who are not anxious by nature
- while the protective response of the parents to an anxious child may seem beneficial in short term, excessive parental involvement can inadvertently reduce the child’s independence and reinforce avoidance behaviours, making them more vulnerable to anxiety in the long run
What effect in later life does the overprotective parenting style have?
In later life, this parenting style is associated with low-self efficacy, external locus of control and low trust in others (attachment)
How do adverse (early) life events affect the child later in life?
- Children who were showed love and affection from their parents ealry in life have different biological system (their stress system works differently), higher self-esteem, slef-worth is higher
- in adverse early life events, the child might learn that they are not worthy, shouldn’t trust people - gets engrained in how they perceive the world, it’s hard to overcome this (right people, luck)
- Also depends on the temperament of the child - what coping startegies they have, emotional regulation…
- Adverse early life experiences - make people vulnerable for certain disorders - anxiety, personality disorders
How does family cohesion affect the child and their vulnerability to anxiety disorders?
- Stressful or negative family enviornments - growing up in a high-stress environment can increase a child’s risk of developing anxiety
- Inter-parental conflict - frequent arguments and discord between parents can contribute to anxiety in children
- The way a child perceives and processes the inter-parental conflict - particularly whether they blame themselves or feel threatened by the discord - plays a crucial role in determining how much it impacts their emotional well-being
- Children who feel insecure or lack effective coping mechanisms may be more vulberable to developing anxiety in response to parental conflicts
- Trauma within the family (e.g., parental death, abuse) is also associated with higher anxiety levels
How are early life experiences and depression related?
Depression is associated with neglect and abuse
Rejection, neglect, negativity teach you:
- Seeing yourself as worthless
- Insecure/avoidant attachment
- Hopelesness
- Problems with emotion regulation
Idiosyncratic learning experiences → Negative cognitive schemas
What is attachment?
Attachment is a deep, reciprocal, physical and emotional relationship between a parent and a child that is permanent. This relationship forms the basis for all future intimate and trusting relationships
What does it mean to be securely attached?
“The central theme of attachment theory is that
primary caregivers who are available and
responsive to an infant’s needs allow the child to
develop a sense of security. The infant knows that
the caregiver is dependable, which creates a
secure base for the child to then explore the
world.”
- To be securely attached means to not be attached (running to other children, free to run the world because they know that when they come back there will be people they can rely on and lean on)
What are the 4 attachment styles identified from the strange situation test?
- Secure attachment - greet and/or approach the caregiver and may maintain contact but are able to return to play; able to soothe and calm themselves
- Insecure/avoidant attachment - fail to greet and/or approach, appear oblivious to their caregiver’s return and remain focused on toys, essentially avoiding the caregiver; not trust people -
- Insecure/resistant attachment - are extremely distressed by the separations and cannot be soothed at reunions, essentially displaying much distress and angry resistance to interactions with the caregiver.
- Disorganised attachment - behaviour with characteristics of both types of insecure attachment. On the one hand, they seek an approach to the parent, while at the same time this causes stress and anxiety
How stable is attachment from infancy to adulthood?
- dismissing and preoccupied attachment styles are often combined = insecure
- The opposing category of that is secure
Study: answorth strange situation test in infancy and 15 years later:
- 64% remain in the same category
- 70% remain in the same side of the spectrum secure vs insecure
What is an important thing to remember when talking about behaviours that people with SAD/depression do and people without don’t do
There are significant differences which can be important for maintaining certain disorder but it’s important to keep in mind that the fact that there is a significant difference doesn’t mean that everybody with SAD/depression will behave a certain way and also that everybody who doesn’t have SAD/depression won’t behave a certain way
- There is a big overlap
Why are other people so important for us?
- Fundamental need to belong
- Not being connected affects our mental and physical health
- Not having people = stressful
- Loneliness, social isolation for prolonged time is a prediction for depression
- We are group animals
What drives social behaviour?
- Need to belong - to all kinds of people/groups
- Need for self-actualization - more popular people are happier people (more invited to parties), other people value us that increases our self-esteem and self-worth
- Need to be safe
What are the biological motivational systems?
- Soothing system: manage distress and promote bonding (attachment)
- Drive system: to motivate us towards recourses (status and competition)
- Threat system: threat detection & protection - “better safe than sorry” (anxiety)
What is the leary circle and how does that affect how are people inclined to behave?
Picture 2
- It shows how we are inclined to behave but also how we talk about other people etc
- we can flactuate on this - flexible in responding to different situations and people
- but some people are infexible and are more inclined to behave a certain way in response to a specific stimuli = linked to psychopathology (depressed person is more likely to avoid certain situations, be more critical of their enviornment)
- there are ceratin psychopathology that make you stuck in certain behaviours
Why aren’t we all on the friendly side in the leery circle?
- To be friendly, we first need to feel safe
- When someone is competing with us for resources or popularity, it might be more beneficial/practical/likely for our advantage that we are hostile to be the best (threat system wants to protect us)
- People who have low mood - they distrust, they anticipate to be rejected so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy
How does the social circle of individuals with SAD look like?
- Individuals with anxiety often engage in fewer social interactions and tend to have a smaller circle of friends
- By adulthood, individuals with SAD may possess the necessary social skills to interact effectively, but they may struggle to use these skills in real world situation sdue to heigtened fear or avoidance
What is a study that shows this self-fulfilling prophecy?
- Two groups of healthy people who interacted with another person
- Half was told that they won’t be liked by the other person and the other was told that they will be liked
- Results: when interacted with people who they thought didn’t like them, those people actually liked them less
- Because if we think someone doesn’t like us, we will open up less, talk less, which negatively reflects on the individual who we are conversing with
- Cognitions affect our behaviour
How does the self-fulfilling prophecy reflect in individuals with SAD?
Picture 3
- study where they increased the social anxiety in SAD clients and asked them about their negative beliefs about othersand self-focused attention and then measured social performance
- Higher negative beliefs about others -> worse social performance
- Believing another likes or dislikes you: behaviors making the beliefs come true
What are the consequences of the safety behaviours?
- safety behaviours (e.g. not open, avoiding contact with others)
- actor tried to interact with participants in the waiting room and then rated whether they liked them, whether they thought they were open and whether they would want future interactions with these people
- The actor didn’t know who has SAD and who doesn’t
- The participants did a social task (now for 3 mins talk to this person) and people with sad were more open and had higher percentage of the desire for future interactions expressed by the actor when compared to how they were in the waiting room
- shows that the safety behaviours are not there because they cannot do it, but rather because they dare not do it - but if they are thought to do it (not how) then they get better and don’t engage in the safety behaviours as much
- Picture 4
What does experiment on social status?
- Told participants that they have a lower social status (e.g. you should listen to what the other one says)
- The effects on the people: Not assertive, Compliant, Inhibition, Avoid, Little eye contact, Negative mood - all kinds of behaviours that are visible in SAD patients
Based on this experiment what does the social status theory explain?
- Social anxiety is defensive behaviour, reaction to
perceived social status
- Submissive behaviour is safe - prevents interpersonal conflict with dominant group members
- Depression as reaction to perceived defeat
- conservation of recourses; “live to fight another day.”
What does another study show about friendliness and popularity opinions?
Experiment with tutorial groups in which the members conducted a big and long group project
- Those with higher social anxiety were seen less popular and less dominant by themselves and by other members
- But when asked about friendliness, they themselves perceived that others will think that they are less friendly but that didn’t reflect on the actual opinion of others - they didn’t regard them as less friendly even if they were more socially anxious
- Good news for SAD individuals because they tend to believe that their behaviour affects all kinds of domains - other people will think you are silly, not friendly, less popular = they might think you’re less popular but doesn’t affect their opinion about your friendliness
What are the results from a study in terms of reassurance seeking and empathy and support providing in SAD individuals?
Picture 5
- socially anxious people were seeking more reassurance while non-socially anxious people were providing more empathy and support when interacting with socially anxious individuals compared to non-socially anxious ones
What is the take-away message from those studies about the effect of behaviour of socially anxious people on their social interactions?
Social anxiety has to do with popularity, tougness and dominance but it doesn’t affect likelability rather person’s willingness for future plans with socially anxious person
- it still can have consequences even though it’s not about friendliness
What two groups are there in socially anxious people?
- Distrustful, hostile and submissive
- Cooperative and submissive
We can see both types of behaviours - heterogeneity within the disorders
Flashcards from the article about anxiety and environment
How does peer victimization contribute to anxiety?
- Peer victimization or bullying is an extreme form of social rejection and is particularly associated with increased social anxiety
- The relationship between these two seems to be bidirectional - children who experience higher levels of anxiety may be more likely to be victimized, and being victimized may further increase their levels of anxiety and even lead to depression
Do nonfamilial social enviornments shape one’s vulnerability to anxiety?
Yes, peer interactions and other social experiences also influence an individual’s likelihood of developing or overcoming anxiety disorders
How do cultural differences play a role in shaping social anxiety and avoidance behaviours?
- Common belief that individuals from Eastern cultures tend to exhibit higher levels of social anxiety than those from Western cultures
- More collectivistic cultures may view social withdrawal as more acceptable or even positive, reducing its impact on daily functioning compared to individualistic cultures, where outgoing behaviour is more highely valued
What other aspect of anxiety does culture influence?
- Cultural norms also infleunce the diagnostic threshold for anxiety disorders by determining when certain behaviours are considered problematic
- The way anxiety is expressed varies across cultures
- Taijin Kyofusho (TK) in Japan reflects fear of offending others, contrasting with Western social phobia, which involves fear of negative evaluation
How do relationships affect treatment outcome?
- The quality of an individual’s relationships can influence the effectiveness of anxiety disorder treatments
- Factors such as family criticism, hostility, and emotional over-involvement (high expressed emotion) can negatively impact treatment outcomes
- Higher levels of perceived criticism from family members are associated with poorer treatment responses
- Dysfunctional family environments can hinder an individual’s progress during treatment
- Parental psychopathology, particularly maternal anxiety or depression, is associated with lower treatment success in anxious children
Does treatment affect relationships?
- Successful treatment for anxiety disorders often leads to improvements in an individual’s social relationships
- As anxiety symptom decrease, individuals may find it easier to engage with others and maintain higher interpersonal connections
Is involvement of family in treatment beneficial and recommended?
- Incorporating family members into anxiety treatment programs can be beneficial in adressing behaviours that contribute to anxiety maintenance
- However, family involvement must be carefully managed to ensure that it doesn’t inadvertently reinforce dependency and avoidance behaviours
Article about interpersonal processes in depression
How do symptoms of depression lead to impairment in interpersonal relations?
- Individual may lose interest or pleasure in social activities and interactions, which may lead to social withdrawal and isolation
- Individuals who experience significant feelings of worthlessness or guilt might talk about these feelings frequently in their social interactions and even seek excessive reassurance about their self-worth
- Some symptoms of depression are inherently likely to produce interpersonal distress and impairment, which could help maintain the current major depressive episode and create a troubled interpersonal context that could potentially trigger future episodes of depression
- Interpersonal factors likely contribute to depression’s chronicity
What are the basic behavioural features and communication behaviours associated with depression?
- They tend to express sadness more intensely through facial expressions, make less eye contact, exhibit slouched posture, and engage in more self-touching behaviours
- Their speech is typically slower, quiter, and perceived more negatively by others
- They initiate fewer social interactions and respond less frequently, leading to reduced engagement in conversations
- This pattern of communication can increase their risk of social rejection and loneliness, further reinforcing their depression
- However, research suggests that these behavioural traits improve following treatment or recovery from a depressive episode
How do social skills deficits relate to depression?
- The behaviours and communication features mentioned above contribute to social skills deficits - these may lead to negative evaluations by others
- Depressed individuals often rate their social skills poorly, however, they may be more accurate than non-depressed individuals, who tend to have an optimistic bias
- Longitudinal research: social skills deficits appear to be a consequence of depression, rather than the other way around
How do social skill deficits contribute to the vulnerability to depression?
- Social skills deficits may interact with stressors to increase vulnerability to depression
- Lack of social support is a crucial factor: shy individuals with low social support are at increased risk for depression
- Difficulty maintaining relationships can worsen depression symptoms
What does Coyne’s interpersonal theory of depression suggest about reassurance seeking in depressed individuals?
Depressed individuals often engage in interpersonal feedback seeking, which can be aversive to others
- Coyne’s interpersonal theory of depression suggests that this pattern creates a cycle where the need for reassurance leads to frustration in others, ultimately resulting in rejection and worsening depressive symptoms
- This loss of social support contributes to the persistence and recurrence of depression
What is excessive reassurance seeking (ERS)?
ERS - key behaviour that contributes to social rejection in depression
- Involves persistently seeking validation of one’s worth despite receiving assurance, leading to frustration and eventual rejection from others
How is ERS linked to depressive symptoms and interpersonal rejection?
- ERS predicts future depression, especially in stressful contexts (e.g. parents with depression)
- ERS alone may not cause rejection; its impact is stronger when combined with depressive symptoms (urgency, desperation, other social skills deficits)
What is the self-verification theory?
According to self-verification theory, people desire interpersonal feedback that is consistent with their self-concept, even if their self-concept is negative, because it enhances their ability to predict and control their environment
What is negative feedback seeking (NFS)?
- NFS is defined as the tendency to actively solicit criticism and other negative interpersonal feedback from others
- derived from self-verification theory
- Provides sense of predictability despite reinforcing negative affect
- Depressed individuals, especiallu those with low self-esteem, prefer negative vs positive feedback
How are NFS and ERS measured?
Assessed using self-report measures that ask individuals how frequently they tend to engage in ERS and NFS
What are the limitations of the measures of ERS and NFS?
- The extent to which an individual can accurately report how often he or she engages in interpersonal feedback-seeking behaviors is unclear
- More important to assess how frequently close others in the individual’s environment report that he or she is engaging in interpersonal feedback-seeking behavior because engaging in ERS and NFS is only thought to lead to interpersonal rejection if it becomes bothersome to those in the environment
How does NFS relate to depression and social rejection?
- longitudinal research: NFS, particularly when combined with negative life events, predicts increased depressive symptoms and social rejection
- Appears to be a stable trait, persisting even after depressive episodes remit, further contributing to interpersonal difficulties and reinforcing depressive cycles
How does ERS in anxious individuals look like compared to depressed ones?
- In anxiety disorders, it related to seeking reassurance about external threats rather than self-worth, like it is in depression
- higher NFS predicts increases in depressive symptoms but not in anxiety
- However, for boys, social anxiety, not depression, predicted NFS over time
How do NFS and ERS relate to each other and how do they lead to interpersonal difficulties?
NFS and ERS conflict - ERS seeks self-enhancement and NFS seeks self-verification
- depressed individuals often engage in both, potentially eliciting rejection from close others
- Mildly depressed men who engaged in both received negative evaluations from roommates, while those engaging in only one type didn’t
What interpersonal models of depression help to explain how these feedback-seeking behaviours contribute to depression?
- Cognitive-affective crossfire model
- Cognitive processing model
- Integrative Interpersonal Framework for Depression and its Chronicity
- Global Enhancement and Specific Verification Theory
What inconsistency in cognitive and emotional responses do ERS and NFS elicit?
- Research indicates that individuals with depressive symptoms may have conflicting cognitive and emotional repsonses to self-relevant feedback
- When seeking negative feedback (NFS), it’s effectively displeasing but cognitively satisfying, as it alighns with their negative self-concept
- In contrast, ERS provides pleasing but cognitively dissatisfying feedback, as it conflicts with their negative self-view
How does the cognitive-affective crossfire model explain this inconsistency? What does it lead to?
- The model explains this inconsistency, suggesting that discomfort caused by the mismatch between cognitive and emotional responses prompts further feedback-seeking behaviour
- Depressed individuals may switch between NFS for self-verifying negative feedback and ERS for self-enhancing positive feedback, creating a cycle of conflicting behaviours
- This pattern leads to interpersonal rejection, as the persistent and incnsistent feedback-seeking elicits negative evaluations from others, especially when both NFS and ERS are present
What does the cognitive processing model suggest?
- self-enhancement (ERS) and self-verification (NFS) strivings require different levels of cognitive processing
- Self-enhancing feedback requires fewer cognitive resources as it only involves determining if the feedback is positive or negative
- self-verifying feedback requires more steps, such as assessing whether the feedback aligns with one self-views
- individuals with negative self-view under cognitive load -> seek self-enhancing feedback
- individuals with negative self-view with enough cognitive capacity -> seek self-verifying feedback
- The model has not yet been tested with depressed individuals - but maight be valuable since they engage in rumination which presents high cognitive load (Q: are they more likely to seek self-enhancing feedback because of this?)
What does the integrative interpersonal framework for depression and its chronicity suggest? How does it differ from the two previous models?
- The two previous models explain why depressed individuals engage in both ERS and NFS, they don’t explain why depression is often chronic
- Joiner proposed the current model which emphasizes self-propagatory processes - behaviours and psychological factors that prolong or exacerbate depression
- These are: ERS, NFS, interpersonal conflict avoidance, blame maintenance - create and sustain interpersonal problems that, in turn, contribute to future depressive symptoms
- This framework also identifies distal interpersonal risk factors for depression: poor social skills, insecure attachment, sociotropy (excessive investment in interpersonal relationships) -> contribute to chronicity by generating stress
- these factors work in a cycle, further intensifying depressive episodes and increasing their likelihood of recurrence
What is the global enhancement and specific verification theory? What does it suggest that needs to be clarified further about NFS and ERS?
- Individuals with depression tend to desire and seek out self-enhancing feedback about their global traits and self-verifying feedback about their specific attributes
- depressed individuals are more likely to seek both types of feedback in ways that are aversive to others, particularly if they have negative core beliefs about themselves and relationships -> persistent NFS leads to interpersonal stress, rejection and increased symptoms, further perpetuating the cycle
- in contrast, non-depressed individuals with secure core beliefs seek feedback in ways that promote positive outcomes
- the theory also highlights the need for better measures of ERS and NFS, as current tools odn’t fully capture how depressed individuals seek excessive reassurance about specific slef-views or NFS about global triats
What are interpersonal risk factors associated with and how do they link to depression? What do they lead to?
- The interpersonal risk factors are associated with interpersonal styles, such as Interpersonal inhibition, dependency and insecure attachment styles
- These styles may increase the likelihood of engaging in ERS and NFS, making such behaviours more aversive and contributing to negative social outcomes in depressed individuals
What is interpersonal inhibition and how does it contribute to depression and other deficits?
- It includes avoidance, withdrawal, shyness which often contribute to social skills deficits because their inhibition leads them to have less practice at interacting with others
- Lack of assertiveness, social withdrawal, and shyness increase the risk of depression, often through social support and loneliness
- The inhibition may lead them to becoming interpersonally dependent on the few social contacts from which they feel support. Dependency on these individuals may manifest itself through ERS and NFS behaviors, which ultimately may lead to interpersonal rejection and increased feelings of loneliness
What is interpersonal dependency and sociotropy and how do they contribute to depression?
- Interpersonal dependency - need for attachment and pleasing others - known risk factor for depression
- High sociotropy which involves doubts about relationships, overlaps with the doubt seen in ERS, making them likely correlated - also linked to increased depressive symptoms
- While these factors often interact with stress in predicting depressive symptoms, studies are showing mixed results regarding their role in the onset of depression
How do the different attachment styles relate to depression and what is this relationship mediated by?
Insecure attachment style - difficulty forming stable relationships -> more depression
Secure attachment style - positive mental health outcomes
- sociotropy, low-self-esteem, dysfunctional attitudes and reduced ability to forgive mediate the relationship between insecure attachment and depression -> interpersonal difficulties and maladaptive psychological traits
What are the interpersonal consequences of depression?
- relationships of depressed individuals tend to be characterized by rejection, dissatisfaction, low intimacy, and decreased activity and involvement
- contagious depression
What treatments have been developed so far to target the interpersonal processes associated with depression?
- interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) - identify the general area in which a person is having relationship difficulties and to build the person’s skills in that area to improve his or her relationships and thus decrease his or her depressive symptoms
- four primary areas on which IPT can focus: grief, role transitions, role disputes, or interpersonal deficits
- behavioral activation (BA) - targets inactivity, withdrawal, and avoidance behaviors that can exacerbate depressive symptoms; focuses on increasing exposure to pleasant activities and positive interactions in the environment
- promotes improved mood, social integration, development of better social and communication skills, leading to symtpom reduction
- cognitive behavioral analysis system of psychotherapy (CBASP) - designed for chronic depression and helps individuals to reconnect with their enviornment
- involves analysing distressing interpersonal interactions and identifying ways to improve them
- aim is for individuals to gain new perspectives on how to interact with others that may result in more satisfying interpersonal interactions
