Uncertainty cues amplify late positive potential responses to aversive emotional stimuli.

Uncertainty is unavoidable, and maladaptive responses to uncertainty may underlie the etiology and maintenance of psychopathology. A general tendency to associate uncertainty with aversive consequences, a type of covariation bias, can amplify aversive emotional experiences. To address questions about uncertainty during emotion regulation, we examined the Late Positive Potential (LPP) - an electrocortical marker of attention to and appraisal of motivationally relevant emotional stimuli - during a task designed to measure the effect of covariation bias and its emotional response consequences.

Caring for you, me, and us: The lived experience of compassion in counselors.

There is growing interest in compassion within the context of counseling, given its potential to support the well-being of both clients and counselors. For counselors, compassion may improve self-care and protect against various empathy-related stressors, such as empathic distress. Compassion is commonly taught and studied according to a division of self-compassion or other-oriented compassion (also, other-compassion).

Brief mindfulness training enhances cognitive control in socioemotional contexts: Behavioral and neural evidence.

In social contexts, the dynamic nature of others' emotions places unique demands on attention and emotion regulation. Mindfulness, characterized by heightened and receptive moment-to-moment attending, may be well-suited to meet these demands. In particular, mindfulness may support more effective cognitive control in social situations via efficient deployment of top-down attention.

Mindfulness increases prosocial responses toward ostracized strangers through empathic concern.

Four studies tested the proposition that mindfulness and its training fostered prosociality toward ostracized strangers. In discovery Study 1, dispositional mindfulness predicted greater empathic concern for, and more helping behavior toward, an ostracized stranger. Using an experimental design, Study 2 revealed that very briefly instructed mindfulness, relative to active control instructions, also promoted prosocial responsiveness to an ostracized stranger.

Meta-analytic evidence for effects of mindfulness training on dimensions of self-reported dispositional mindfulness.

Improvements in stable, or dispositional, mindfulness are often assumed to accrue from mindfulness training and to account for many of its beneficial effects. However, research examining these assumptions has produced mixed findings, and the relation between dispositional mindfulness and mindfulness training is actively debated. A comprehensive meta-analysis was conducted on randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of mindfulness training published from 2003-2014 to investigate whether (a) different self-reported mindfulness scale dimensions change as a result of mindfulness training, (b) key aspects of study design (e.

Trait Mindfulness Predicts Efficient Top-Down Attention to and Discrimination of Facial Expressions.

In social situations, skillful regulation of emotion and behavior depends on efficiently discerning others' emotions. Identifying factors that promote timely and accurate discernment of facial expressions can therefore advance understanding of social emotion regulation and behavior. The present research examined whether trait mindfulness predicts neural and behavioral markers of early top-down attention to, and efficient discrimination of, socioemotional stimuli.

From mindful attention to social connection: The key role of emotion regulation.

Effective emotion regulation is important for high-quality social functioning. Recent laboratory-based evidence suggests that mindfulness may enhance emotion regulation in socioemotional contexts; however, little is known about mindful emotion regulation during in vivo social interactions. In a study of romantic couples, we assessed each partner's mindfulness and top-down attentional efficiency (with an Emotional Go/No-Go task) prior to sampling emotions and perceived connection with others during day-to-day social interactions.