Accounting for the deleterious effects of naturally occuring affect suppression in the assessment of executive functioning: a proof of concept study

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Title Accounting for the deleterious effects of naturally occuring affect suppression in the assessment of executive functioning: a proof of concept study
Publication Type thesis
School or College College of Social & Behavioral Science
Department Psychology
Author Franchow, Emilie Irene
Date 2013-08
Description Affect suppression (AS) is an emotion regulation strategy that is known to be associated with temporary depletion of executive functioning. The purpose of this study was to examine the ramification of this effect on clinical neuropsychological evaluations, as well as whether this effect generalizes to working memory and processing speed. Fifty-six adults (mean age 22.89) completed the Burden of State Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (measuring AS burden generally vs. on the day of testing), subtests from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System, and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Working Memory and Processing Speed subtests. Individuals with high AS burden on the day of testing exhibited poorer executive performance, but only when their general AS burden was low. The magnitude of this effect was clinically significant (i.e., 2/3 of SD). This effect held even after accounting of demographics, depression levels, processing speed, and working memory. AS did not account for variance in working memory or processing speed performances above and beyond executive functioning. These results suggest that AS burden on the day of testing has deleterious effects on executive functioning and represents a clinically meaningful bias in clinical evaluation.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Cognitive control; Depletion; Emotion regulation; Neuropsychological testing; Self-regulation; Situational factors
Dissertation Name Master of Science
Language eng
Rights Management © Emilie Irene Franchow
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 660,549 bytes
Identifier etd3/id/2514
ARK ark:/87278/s6tj1vtz
Setname ir_etd
ID 196090
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6tj1vtz
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