Is Dysfunctional Use of the Mobile Phone a Behavioural Addiction? Confronting Symptom-Based Versus Process-Based Approaches.

in Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy (2015), 22(5), 460-8

UNLABELLED: Dysfunctional use of the mobile phone has often been conceptualized as a 'behavioural addiction' that shares most features with drug addictions. In the current article, we challenge the ... [more ▼]

UNLABELLED: Dysfunctional use of the mobile phone has often been conceptualized as a 'behavioural addiction' that shares most features with drug addictions. In the current article, we challenge the clinical utility of the addiction model as applied to mobile phone overuse. We describe the case of a woman who overuses her mobile phone from two distinct approaches: (1) a symptom-based categorical approach inspired from the addiction model of dysfunctional mobile phone use and (2) a process-based approach resulting from an idiosyncratic clinical case conceptualization. In the case depicted here, the addiction model was shown to lead to standardized and non-relevant treatment, whereas the clinical case conceptualization allowed identification of specific psychological processes that can be targeted with specific, empirically based psychological interventions. This finding highlights that conceptualizing excessive behaviours (e.g., gambling and sex) within the addiction model can be a simplification of an individual's psychological functioning, offering only limited clinical relevance. KEY PRACTITIONER MESSAGE: The addiction model, applied to excessive behaviours (e.g., gambling, sex and Internet-related activities) may lead to non-relevant standardized treatments. Clinical case conceptualization allowed identification of specific psychological processes that can be targeted with specific empirically based psychological interventions. The biomedical model might lead to the simplification of an individual's psychological functioning with limited clinical relevance. [less ▲]

Implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food: the moderating roles of dietary restraint and disinhibition.

in Journal of eating disorders (2015), 3

BACKGROUND: Attitudes toward body shape and food play a role in the development and maintenance of dysfunctional eating behaviors. Nevertheless, they are rarely investigated together. Therefore, this ... [more ▼]

BACKGROUND: Attitudes toward body shape and food play a role in the development and maintenance of dysfunctional eating behaviors. Nevertheless, they are rarely investigated together. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the interrelationships between implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food and to investigate the moderating effect on these associations of interindividual differences in problematic and nonproblematic eating behaviors (i.e., flexible versus rigid cognitive control dimension of restraint, disinhibition). METHODS: One hundred and twenty-one young women from the community completed two adapted versions of the Affect Misattribution Procedure to implicitly assess attitudes toward body shape (i.e., thin and overweight bodies) and food (i.e., "permitted" and "forbidden" foods), as well as the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire to evaluate restraint and disinhibition. RESULTS: The results revealed that an implicit preference for thinness was positively associated with a positive attitude toward permitted (i.e., low-calorie) foods. This congruence between implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food was significant at average and high levels of flexible control (i.e., functional component of eating). Moreover, an implicit preference for thinness was also positively associated with a positive attitude toward forbidden (i.e., high-calorie) foods. This discordance between implicitly assessed attitudes was significant at average and high levels of rigid control and disinhibition (i.e., dysfunctional components of eating). CONCLUSIONS: These findings shed new light on the influence of congruent or discordant implicitly assessed attitudes toward body shape and food on normal and problematic eating behaviors; clinical implications are discussed. [less ▲]

L’entrainement attentionnel : Une technique transdiagnostique

in Van der Linden, Martial; Ceschi, Grazia; Billieux, Joël (Eds.) Interventions psychologiques en psychopathologie cognitive (2015)

Do emotional stimuli interfere with two distinct components of inhibition?

in Cognition and Emotion (2015), 29(3), 559-67

Emotions have recently been shown to interfere with the efficacy of inhibitory control. However, understanding their impact requires taking into account that inhibition is not a unitary construct, but ... [more ▼]

Emotions have recently been shown to interfere with the efficacy of inhibitory control. However, understanding their impact requires taking into account that inhibition is not a unitary construct, but consists of distinct functions underlain by specific mechanisms. In this study, 88 participants performed two emotional versions of classic laboratory tasks designed to assess (1) the ability to inhibit a prepotent response (a stop-signal task using faces with different emotional expressions) and (2) the capacity to resist the effect of proactive interference (PI; a recent negative task that included emotional words). Overall results showed that emotional stimuli interfered with inhibition capacities in both tasks. Although tending in the same direction, these results suggest that different underlying mechanisms (e.g., top-down vs. bottom-up processes) or consecutive differences in emotional processing (e.g., different interactions with stimulus/task properties, processing stages or motivational aspects) are at play in these two inhibition-related functions. [less ▲]

Is there an all-embracing construct of emotion reactivity? Adaptation and validation of the emotion reactivity scale among a French-speaking community sample.

in Comprehensive psychiatry (2014), 55(8), 1960-7

BACKGROUND: Emotion reactivity is defined as the extent to which an individual experiences emotions in response to a wide array of stimuli, intensely, and for a prolonged period. This construct is a key ... [more ▼]

BACKGROUND: Emotion reactivity is defined as the extent to which an individual experiences emotions in response to a wide array of stimuli, intensely, and for a prolonged period. This construct is a key psychological factor in the development and maintenance of psychopathological disorders. The aim of the current study was to develop and validate a French version of the Emotion Reactivity Scale (ERS), which gauges three aspects of emotion reactivity: (1) emotional sensitivity, (2) emotional intensity, and (3) emotional persistence. METHOD: The French ERS and both concurrent and divergent validated scales were administered to 258 participants from the community. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analyses revealed good fit indices for: (1) a single-factor model, (2) a three-factor model, and (3) a hierarchical three-factor solution with a single-factor solution as a second-order latent variable for a generic construct of emotion reactivity. The French version of the Emotion Reactivity Scale also exhibits acceptable internal scale score reliability (total scale and subscales). Eventually, meaningful relationships were found between factors of emotion reactivity and depression, distinct aspects of impulsive behaviors, and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. CONCLUSION: Findings of the confirmatory factor analyses are consistent with previous studies suggesting that the ERS is mainly captured by a single major construct of emotion reactivity. [less ▲]

Encoding style and its relationships with schizotypal traits and impulsivity during adolescence.

in Psychiatry research (2013), 210(3), 1020-5

This study intends to explore how individual differences in encoding style (i.e. how encoding is implicitly affected by pre-existing schemata, so called an internal style, versus by cues from the outside ... [more ▼]

This study intends to explore how individual differences in encoding style (i.e. how encoding is implicitly affected by pre-existing schemata, so called an internal style, versus by cues from the outside world, so called an external style) are associated with schizotypal traits and impulsivity expression during adolescence. Moreover, we aim to provide first evidence reliability for the encoding style questionnaire with an adolescent sample. 101 French-speaking community adolescents (Mage=16.06, S.D.age=2.01; 57 girls; primarily Caucasian) participated in a cross-sectional study. The whole sample filled out a battery of self-report questionnaires. Our data supports a positive association between a predominant internal encoding style, the level of positive and disorganized schizotypal traits, and a higher degree of urgency and sensation seeking impulsivity components. On the one hand, these results have clinical implications in the sense that a low level in implicit processing, namely encoding style, is involved in positive and disorganized schizotypal traits as well as in impulsivity. Schizotypal traits and impulsivity are two sets of traits that put youth at risk for the development of severe psychopathological states in adulthood. On the other hand, this research enables an increased understanding of encoding style by providing the first reliable assessment tool for French-speaking adolescents. [less ▲]

Validation of a short French version of the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale.

in Comprehensive psychiatry (2012), 53(5), 609-15

BACKGROUND: Impulsivity is a multifaceted construct that has a prominent role in psychiatry. Lynam et al (2006) have developed the UPPS-P, a 59-item scale measuring 5 impulsivity components: negative ... [more ▼]

BACKGROUND: Impulsivity is a multifaceted construct that has a prominent role in psychiatry. Lynam et al (2006) have developed the UPPS-P, a 59-item scale measuring 5 impulsivity components: negative urgency, positive urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking. The aim of the present study was to validate a short, 20-item French version of the UPPS-P. METHODS: Six hundred fifty participants filled out the short French UPPS-P. A subgroup of participants (n = 145) took part in a follow-up study and completed the scale twice to determine test-retest stability; another subgroup (n = 105) was screened with other questionnaires also to establish external validity. RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analyses supported a hierarchical model comprising 2 higher order factors of urgency (resulting from negative urgency and positive urgency) and lack of conscientiousness (resulting from lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance) as well as a separate factor of sensation seeking. The results indicated good internal consistency and test-retest stability. External validity was supported by relationships with psychopathological symptoms. CONCLUSION: The short French version of the UPPS-P therefore presents good psychometric properties and may be considered a promising instrument for both research and clinical practice. [less ▲]

Investigation of impulsivity in a sample of treatment-seeking pathological gamblers: a multidimensional perspective.

in Psychiatry research (2012), 198(2), 291-6

Numerous studies have shown that problem gambling is characterised by lack of impulse control. However, they have often been conducted without considering the multifaceted nature of impulsivity and ... [more ▼]

Numerous studies have shown that problem gambling is characterised by lack of impulse control. However, they have often been conducted without considering the multifaceted nature of impulsivity and related psychological mechanisms. The current study aims to disentangle which impulsivity facets are altered in pathological gambling. Twenty treatment-seeking pathological gamblers (PGs) and 20 matched control participants completed a self-reported questionnaire measuring the various facets of impulsive behaviours (UPPS Impulsive Behaviour Scale), as well as two laboratory tasks assessing inhibitory control (the go-stop task) and tolerance for delayed rewards (single key impulsivity paradigm). Compared with matched controls, PGs exhibited higher urgency, lower premeditation, impairment in prepotent inhibition, and lower tolerance towards delayed rewards. Nevertheless, complementary profile analyses showed that impulsivity-related deficits found in PGs are highly heterogeneous, and that some PGs are neither impulsive in the impulsivity facets assessed nor impaired in the cognitive mechanisms measured. These findings underscore (1) the necessity to disentangle the construct of impulsivity into lower-order components and (2) that further studies should take into account, in addition to impulsivity-related mechanisms, other psychological factors potentially involved in pathological gambling. [less ▲]

Problematic use of the Internet and self-regulation: a review of the initial studies

in The Open Addiction Journal (2012), 5

Difficulties in disengaging attentional resources from self-generated thoughts moderate the link between dysphoria and maladaptive self-referential thinking.

in Cognition and Emotion (2012), 26(4), 748-57

Negative emotions increase self-focused attention, a core feature of depression and anxiety-related disorders. However, the cognitive mechanisms associated with the tendency to self-focus-and, conversely ... [more ▼]

Negative emotions increase self-focused attention, a core feature of depression and anxiety-related disorders. However, the cognitive mechanisms associated with the tendency to self-focus-and, conversely, with the ability to voluntarily disengage attentional resources from the self and direct them towards the external environment-remain poorly understood. Thus, this study aimed to examine whether a specific cognitive control mechanism that directs attention between self-generated thoughts and external information might moderate the relationship between dysphoria and maladaptive self-referential thinking. Results showed that dysphoria increases the frequency of rumination, self-blame, and catastrophising, especially for participants who have more difficulty in switching from self-generated thoughts to information provided by the environment. These results shed new light on the cognitive mechanisms underlying maladaptive self-referential thinking associated with dysphoria. More specifically, this specific cognitive mechanism might play a key role in the maintenance or amplification of a depressed mood. [less ▲]