Pessimistic College Students' Attentional Bias Components, Time Course Characteristics And Intervention Research

Objectives: The expectation is divided into two types: pessimism and optimism.Seligman,the pioneer of positive psychology,believes that having positive characteristics can make people live happier and more meaningful(Peterson & Seligman,2005).Optimists have higher happiness,lower stress,better physical and mental health and higher adaptive function(Tindle et al.,2017),while pessimists are the opposite(Scheier & Carver,2010).The study found that optimists and pessimists have different attention bias,and attention bias is the basis for maintaining the continuity and development of certain characteristics or psychological symptoms.Attentional Bias Modification can improve individual mental health(Heeren et al.,2012).From the existing related research,most of the researches are based on the comparison of the key Reaction Time.It is rare to use more precise eye movement technology to explore the components of the pessimist’s attention bias and its time course.Relevant research on the intervention of pessimistic individual attention bias is adopted.In view of this,this study takes pessimistic college students as subjects,examines the component of attention bias and time course of different emotion faces,and explores the mechanism of Attentional Bias Modification program to intervene the maladaptive pessimistic college students.Methods:This study included two experiments.In the first experiment,32 pessimistic subjects,31 optimistic subjects,and 30 ordinary subjects in the neutral group were selected using The Life Orientation Test-Revised,The Self-Rating Anxiety Scale and The Self-Rating Depression Scale.With the revised Dot-probe paradigm,We explore the pessimistic,optimistic and neutral group college students’ attentional bias components and the time-course.The experimental design was 3(groups: optimist group,pessimist group,neutral group)× 2(emotional face types: positive emotion faces,negative emotion faces)two-factor mixed experiment design.The groups are between-subject designs,and the emotional face types are within-subjects designs.Depending on the Reaction Time,the Attention Bias Score,the Orienting Index and the Disengaging Index are used to explore the attention bias and its components.The eye movement experiment uses the Direction of Eye Movements Bias,the First Fixation Duration Bias,and the Gaze Duration Bias as main indicators.In the second experiment,the pessimistic college students are divided into two groups of equal quality.Based on the revised Dot-Probe paradigm,the effects and mechanism of Attentional Bias Modification on the pessimists’ attention bias are discussed.Both the Reaction Time and Eye movement experiments were performed :2(groups: ABM group,ACC group)× 2(time: pre-test,post-test)× 2(emotional face types: positive face,negative face)experimental design,in which the Groups are the between-subject designs,and the Time and Emotional face types are the within-subject designs.Results:(1)The results of experiment 1 showed that in the Reaction Time,the Attention Bias Score of the negative emotion faces(18.83±16.90ms)were significantly larger than that of the neutral group(5.08±14.07ms),p = 0.003 and the optimistic group(4.01 ± 21.20ms),p = 0.001.The pessimistic group’s Attention Bias Score for negative emotion faces(18.83±16.90ms)were significantly larger than positive emotion pictures(4.48±31.44ms),p = 0.008;pessimistic group’s Disengaging Index for negative emotion faces(13.19±13.60ms)Significantly greater than the neutral group(2.49 ± 19.37ms),p = 0.013 and the optimistic group(1.60 ± 16.82ms),p = 0.007.The Disengaging Index of the pessimistic group on the negative emotion picture(13.19±13.60ms)was significantly larger than that of the positive emotion faces(3.13±18.20ms),p = 0.002.In the comparison of eye movement data,the Direction of Eye Movements(64.29±8.90%)for the negative emotion faces were significantly larger than the neutral group(56.19±6.15%),p = 0.001 and the optimistic group(54.61±11.81)%),p= 0.001;the pessimistic group’s First Fixation Duration bias(36.58±53.79ms)for negative emotion faces were significantly larger than the positive faces(11.04±60.61ms),p = 0.036.(2)In the Reaction Time,The results of experiment 2 showed that the Attention Bias Scores of the ABM group was significantly higher for the positive emotion faces in the post-test(25.08±21.57ms)than in the pre-test(5.91±36.47ms),p = 0.003.The negative emotion faces were noted that the post-test Attention Bias Score(-8.13±20.67ms)was significantly lower than the pre-test(18.14±17.28ms),p < 0.001.The ABM group’s Disengaging Index for the positive emotion faces in the post-test(24.04±16.47ms)were significantly higher than in the pre-test(7.71±17.67ms),p < 0.001.Disengaging Index of ABM group for negative emotion faces in the post-test(-11.77±17.62ms)was significantly lower than the pre-test(11.47 ± 20.75ms),p < 0.001.In the comparison of eye movement data,for the positive emotion faces,in the post-test First Fixation Duration Bias(33.69±62.30ms)was significantly higher than in the pre-test(9.95±52.20ms),p < 0.001;For the negative emotion faces,First Fixation Duration Bias of the ABM group in the post-test(20.09±55.13ms)was significantly lower than in the pre-test(34.01±63.57ms),p = 0.040;For the positive emotion faces,the Gaze Duration of the ABM group in post-test(64.72±6.81%)was significantly higher than in the pre-test(52.86±6.13%),p < 0.001.For the negative emotion faces,the Gaze Duration of the ABM group in post-test(47.74±7.70%)was significantly lower than in the pre-test(52.63±8.01%),p < 0.001.In conclusion:(1)Pessimistic college students have stronger attention bias on negative emotion faces,and the attention bias comes from the component of Difficulty in Disengagement.The time course of the attentional bias components is Facilitated Attention to the negative faces position in the early stage.(2)ABM can effectively enhance the attention bias of pessimistic college students on positive emotion pictures,and weaken the attention bias of negative emotion pictures,and the mechanism stems from the attention bias component of Difficulty in Disengagement.The time course of ABM changing the attentional bias component is to strengthen the component of Difficulty in Disengagement in the initial and overall stages for the positive emotion faces,and to weaken the component of Difficulty in Disengagement in the initial and overall stages for the negative emotion faces.