| Popis: |
Affect is defined as the subjective experience of an emotional state (Hofmann, 2016). In the literature, a distinction is often made between negative and positive affect based on underlying valence. Negative affect (NA) describes unpleasant feelings such as fear, sadness, or anger, while positive affect (PA) describes pleasant emotional feelings such as joy, pride, or gratitude. Many empirical studies indicated that intense NA is a common feature of mental disorders, especially in emotional disorders (anxiety and depressive disorders; Aldao et al., 2010; Bullis et al., 2018). In recent years, interest in the examination of PA in clinical research has also increased (e.g. Craske et al., 2019; Taylor et al., 2017; Wilner Tierpark et al., 2019). In general, studies showed that anxiety and depression symptoms were associated with and predicted both increased NA and decreased PA (Carl et al., 2014; Dinger et al., 2019; Stanton & Watson, 2014). On the other hand, authors pointed out that only certain mental disorders (such as major depressive disorder and social anxiety disorder) were associated with dampened PA, while others did not show deficits in this respect (Cohen et al., 2017). A theoretical review by Carl et al. (2013) summarized that, on average, individuals with different emotional disorders use diverse strategies to regulate NA and PA. A further investigation of these associations thus seems warranted. Hofmann et al. (2012) assume that NA and PA should be understood as independent factors in the clinical context and should, therefore, also be studied separately. The main aim of the present project is to systematically evaluate the relationship of NA and PA with disorder-specific symptoms in anxiety and depression. For this purpose, correlations of the variables are searched from existing publications and summarized in a meta-analysis. The results may provide important insights into the strength of the links between psychopathology and affect and highlight differential influencing factors. |
