Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
under embargo until 2026-03-29
2026-03-29T00:00:00Z
Relevance: Efficacy of doctor empathy and nocebo education on treatment outcomes of people with cancer has been established across experimental and randomised-controlled trials (RCT). Objective: i)...Show moreRelevance: Efficacy of doctor empathy and nocebo education on treatment outcomes of people with cancer has been established across experimental and randomised-controlled trials (RCT). Objective: i) to test whether distinct effects of clinician empathy and nocebo information can also improve psychological and side effect outcomes of clinical advanced breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and ii) to explore whether potential positive effects are persistent over treatment time. Methods: In this 2x2 proof-of-principle study, before treatment start, a total of 23 Dutch, chemonaïve, female breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy were randomised (1:1:1:1) to short information videos on chemotherapy side effects. The four videos varied on levels of empathy (+ / -) and nocebo information (+ / -). During treatment, participants’ psychological (primary outcomes: anxiety, distress) and side effect outcomes were assessed by self-report questionnaires at 7-days, 21-days, and 52-days after treatment start. Results: Repeated linear mixed model analyses indicated that empathy generally did not affect the level of anxiety (p = .440) or distress (p = .056). Empathy increased overall intensity (β = 0.76, 95% CI [.07; 1.44], p = .032) and number of side effects (β = 0.78, 95% CI [.11; 1.45], p = .025). Nocebo information did not seem to influence intensity (p = .269) or number of side effects (p = .975). Only anxiety levels were indicated to increase over time (p = .008), both at 21-days (β = 0.86, 95% CI [.25; 1.47]) and 52-days (β = 1.18, 95% CI [.38; 1.98]) post-treatment start. Conclusions: In clinical settings, advanced breast cancer patients may not profit from empathy or nocebo information. Repeating the study with a larger sample is recommended to gain clarity on communication effects. The information videos may benefit training of clinical staff and treatment consultations.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Avoidance is a hallmark symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), yet the link between avoidance learning and PTSD severity and treatment outcome has not yet been explored. For this purpose...Show moreAvoidance is a hallmark symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), yet the link between avoidance learning and PTSD severity and treatment outcome has not yet been explored. For this purpose, we administered a computer-based avoidance learning task to 144 treatment-seeking PTSD patients during the baseline assessment of a randomized clinical trial. The task consisted of a photo of blue or red colored lamps (conditional stimuli, CS+) followed by aversive photos (unconditional stimulus, US), while a photo of a yellow-colored lamp was followed by a black screen (safety stimulus, CS-). The US could be avoided by pressing a button during one CS+ (CS+ avoidable) but not the other (CS+ unavoidable). Participants were asked to fill in a threat expectancy rating after the CSs, and to report their relief after omission of the US. Participants were then given exposure therapy, and their PTSD symptoms were measured throughout 52 weeks. We predicted that higher rates of unnecessary or ineffective avoidance, higher expectancy ratings after omission of the US, and higher relief scores would relate to higher PTSD severity, and lower treatment gains. Results did not confirm any hypothesis; however, elevated threat expectancies (regardless of CStype) were related to PTSD symptom severity at baseline, and expectancies following CS- were related to PTSD severity across time points. Findings suggest general impairment in action-safety learning; however, it might be more relevant in light of PTSD severity to further explore the role of general threat expectancy. Furthermore, future studies should consider utilizing physiological measures, and adapting the task to include avoidance costs.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
This study investigated the impact of parental verbal threat (vs. safety) information regarding a stranger on a child’s subjective and behavioral fear responses towards that stranger. As a...Show moreThis study investigated the impact of parental verbal threat (vs. safety) information regarding a stranger on a child’s subjective and behavioral fear responses towards that stranger. As a manipulation, parents were instructed to provide their children (N=79), aged 10-14 years, with standardized verbal threat or safety information about two strangers in the lab. Then, children engaged in a social interaction task with the two strangers (blind to their condition) separately, while child behavioral avoidance was recorded. Following the task, children reported fear beliefs for each stranger. Also, parents completed a self-report questionnaire on social anxiety symptoms. Children reported more fear beliefs for the stranger paired with the threat information, but no significant difference was found in observed avoidance. In addition, verbal threat information did not have a stronger influence on children’s observed avoidance in case of higher reported fear beliefs. Similarly, high parental social anxiety symptoms did not moderate the impact of verbal threat information on the child’s cognitive or behavioural fear indices. However, they did have a significant influence on behavioural avoidance, regardless of verbal information. Overall, this study shows a causal effect of verbal threat messages provided by parents only on child subjective fear and highlightsthe need for further research on the verbal transmission of childhood social fears in the context of family, by examining these processes in various social situations, age groups, and fear indices.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
In PTSD research, script-driven imagery procedures are used to induce fear expression in traumatized participants but no consensus on a standard script for research has been established yet. This...Show moreIn PTSD research, script-driven imagery procedures are used to induce fear expression in traumatized participants but no consensus on a standard script for research has been established yet. This study fills a research gap by being the first to directly compare two contemporary imagery script procedures to evaluate their feasibility. We hypothesized an audio-scripted imagery procedure to lead to higher fear expression (heart rate, skin conductance, subjective distress) than an imagery-only script. A moderating effect of the vividness of the stressful memory on fear expression was also hypothesized. In a between-subjects design, participants (N = 37) were sorted into two conditions and were interviewed regarding a stressful life experience. Fear expression was measured during baseline and imagery. Contrary to expectations, both procedures led to a similar increase in fear expression. Crucially, the audio-scripted imagery procedure might be especially effective for participants with a high baseline vividness of the stressful memory which has implications for future PTSD research. Upcoming studies should investigate changes to the script procedures to facilitate comparison between scripts and further explore the effect of script procedures on high-vividness participants.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Introduction: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) are an effective treatment for many depressed patients, but their disadvantages include a wide range of side effects and a delayed...Show moreIntroduction: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) are an effective treatment for many depressed patients, but their disadvantages include a wide range of side effects and a delayed treatment response. In contrast, subanesthetic doses of ketamine show acute antidepressant effects. Previous functional connectivity findings implicate the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), key areas of the default mode network (DMN), in ketamine’s acute antidepressant effect. In addition, psilocybin has also shown acute antidepressant effects with a potential role for the claustrum, an area functionally connected to the DMN. However, pharmacological fMRI findings concerning acute antidepressant drug action may be moderated by the decision to include or exclude a controversial preprocessing step called global signal regression (GSR). In this study, we investigated ketamine’s acute effects on functional connectivity patterns in the brain in order to probe the underlying mechanism of its acute antidepressant effects. Hypotheses: Ketamine acutely decreases functional connectivity between the vmPFC and PCC and between the DMN and claustrum. In addition, these findings will not be affected by the decision to include or exclude GSR. Method: Twenty volunteers were administered ketamine as well as a placebo on separate days in a randomized, double-blind, crossover design. We acquired resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data before, during and immediately after the acute phase of administration. Results: No differences in functional connectivity patterns were found between ketamine and placebo. These results were unaffected by the inclusion or exclusion of GSR. Conclusion: It remains unclear which changes in functional connectivity occur in the acute phase of ketamine administration. Future research should investigate the influence of GSR on fMRI findings.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
open access
Across clinical assessment tasks, a statistical model trained on the assessments of one person (a person’s model) has been shown to be more accurate than the person on which the model is based, the...Show moreAcross clinical assessment tasks, a statistical model trained on the assessments of one person (a person’s model) has been shown to be more accurate than the person on which the model is based, the Model-over-Person effect. Because the language that people use to express their state of mind is clinically meaningful, the objective of this study was to examine whether the Model-over-Person effect extends to language assessments as well as to identify conditions in which the effect occurs. The accuracy of the assessments of a person versus a person’s model was measured as their agreement with a reference standard (the mean assessment of multiple assessors) in two conditions: 1) the assessment of single words and 2) the assessment of texts. Artificial Intelligence based language assessments were employed to create the person’s model. No Model-over-Person effect occurred in the assessment of single words or all texts (N = 500 words/texts). A small Model-over-Person effect took place for all three assessors in the assessment of the longer texts (⩾ 50 words; dz = .39-.42; n = 23 texts). This effect be explained by the finding that a high amount of input data can make an assessment more prone to human error. Additionally, the relation between the accuracy and different assessment and language characteristics indicated that a person’s model could be more accurate in case of a low agreement among assessors and that the accuracy is not related to the confidence of the assessor in the assessment. The results show how computational language assessments can complement a person in accuracy and may support the use of computational language models as decision-support in clinical decision-making.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
open access
Individuals with a lower socioeconomic status (SES) are at an increased risk for developing depressive symptoms. However, it has not been investigated whether this link is homogenous, or whether...Show moreIndividuals with a lower socioeconomic status (SES) are at an increased risk for developing depressive symptoms. However, it has not been investigated whether this link is homogenous, or whether specific depressive symptoms relate to SES differentially. In this thesis, I explored (1) which individual symptoms of depression are related to subjective social status (as a proxy for SES); (2) how specific indicators of SES are related to specific symptoms of depression; and (3) how the addition of stressors impacts the relations between SES indicators and depressive symptoms. I used data previously gathered from 448 students aged ≥18 at institutions of higher education in the Netherlands, as a part of the WARN-D study. Variables were assessed through a questionnaire that was administered online. I estimated three regularised partial correlation networks to explore shared variances among nine symptoms of depression, five indicators of SES, and seven stressors. The network analyses revealed that (1) subjective social status (as a proxy for SES) was negatively associated with guilt/worthlessness, depressed mood, anhedonia, trouble concentrating, and feeling tired, meaning that participants with higher scores on subjective social status had, on average, lower scores on these symptoms; (2) educational level (as one of multiple indicators of SES) was negatively associated with appetite disturbances, and the ability to get by financially was negatively associated with depressed mood, guilt/worthlessness, and appetite disturbances; (3) these associations diminished considerably or disappeared altogether when controlling for the stressor variables. Overall, all SES-depression associations were small in magnitude. The results suggest that patterns of depressive symptoms might differ between high-SES and low-SES individuals. Future research should explore the mechanisms behind these differences to guide prevention and intervention. My findings are consistent with previous research showing that symptom composite scores obscure important differences between individuals.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a debilitating and pervasive disorder involving persistent preoccupations with intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and ritualized actions or behaviors...Show moreBackground: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a debilitating and pervasive disorder involving persistent preoccupations with intrusive thoughts (obsessions) and ritualized actions or behaviors (compulsions). Investigating the mechanisms underlying the development, maintenance, and treatment outcome can increase our understanding of the heterogeneity of the OCD population. One factor that may affect OCD symptom severity is self-efficacy, which is the belief in one’s capacity to perform necessary behaviors for goal attainment. Another potential factor is experiential avoidance, the avoidance of negatively perceived inner experiences including thoughts, emotions, memories, or physical sensations. This cross-sectional study is embedded in the 3D (Doorbreek Dwang Digitaal) study, which is a randomized controlled trial investigating the treatment effects of treatment for OCD by comparing exposure as usual and a personalized online approach to this therapy. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between baseline levels of self-efficacy, experiential avoidance, and OCD symptom severity in patients with OCD. Methods: To this end, the baseline questionnaires of self-efficacy (the Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for OCD; SEQ-OCD) and experiential avoidance (the Avoidance and Acceptance Questionnaire; AAQ-II), and a structured interview for OCD symptom severity (Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale; Y-BOCS) were used. A multiple linear regression model tested the relationship between baseline scores on the SEQ-OCD, AAQ-II, and Y-BOCS of 40 participants diagnosed with OCD. Consecutively, a hierarchical and a k-means clustering analysis were performed, to form clusters of participants using the SEQ-OCD, AAQ-II, and Y-BOCS baseline scores. Results: Results showed that self-efficacy had a significant negative relationship with OCD symptom severity, as higher levels of self-efficacy were associated with a lower level of OCD symptom severity. However, this relationship was not significant anymore when experiential avoidance was added to the model. Experiential avoidance was not significantly related to OCD symptom severity or self-efficacy. With hierarchical and k-means clustering, two clusters were identified that significantly differed in levels of self-efficacy, OCD symptom severity, and experiential avoidance. One cluster showed significantly higher levels of OCD symptom severity and experiential avoidance and significantly lower levels of self-efficacy. This cluster also experienced more obsessions involving contamination, religion, symmetry/ordering, and more compulsions involving cleaning and counting. Conclusion: This study indicates that there is a relationship between self-efficacy and OCD symptom severity. Moreover, we found evidence of distinct groups of OCD patients with different levels of self-efficacy, OCD symptom severity, experiential avoidance, and different OCD symptom subtypes. This may indicate a differential role of self-efficacy and experiential avoidance across the different OCD symptom subtypes. Limitations of this study included the small sample size and the overrepresentation of females and the contamination obsession subtype. Future studies using larger sample sizes and a more diverse sample are required to further establish the precise mechanism of self-efficacy and symptom subtype in the development and maintenance of OCD.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Atomoxetine is a prescription drug often used to restore executive (or cognitive) functioning in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and other neuropsychiatric conditions....Show moreAtomoxetine is a prescription drug often used to restore executive (or cognitive) functioning in patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and other neuropsychiatric conditions. Moreover, this drug may potentially be ingested by healthy individuals who seek to improve their cognitive performance. However, the effect of atomoxetine on healthy brain functioning remains largely unclear. Network approaches have become useful for studying how the functional connectivity between brain regions may enhance or hinder executive functioning. Accordingly, to further examine the underlying mechanisms of action of atomoxetine, it is relevant to explore how this drug influences the functional connectivity of a large-scale brain network involved in the control of top-down processes: the executive control network (ECN). The aim of this study was thus to investigate the effect of atomoxetine (40 mg) on the functional connectivity of the ECN in healthy volunteers (n = 15). Network analyses were conducted on unpublished functional magnetic resonance (fMRI)-data collected by Chamberlain and colleagues (2009) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects, crossover design in which participants completed a goal-directed fMRI-task (i.e., the temporal discounting task), probing the ECN. Contrary to expectations, a paired-samples permutation test, corrected for multiple comparisons by means of a threshold free cluster enhancement, revealed that the functional connectivity of the participants’ ECN does not increase significantly after ingesting atomoxetine as compared to placebo (p > .05 corrected). Nevertheless, exploratory analyses indicated that, relative to placebo, atomoxetine significantly strengthens the functional connectivity of a frontoparietal network highly associated with cognition and language paradigms (t(14) = 7.61, p = .003). Together, these results suggest that, in healthy individuals, atomoxetine might not have enhancing effects on the processes supported by the ECN but (potentially) on those supported by a frontoparietal network. Atomoxetine might thus have beneficial effects in the cognitive performance of healthy individuals by facilitating certain processes associated with both cognition and language. Further research is however warranted to corroborate these findings in confirmatory studies and enhance the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of action of atomoxetine in healthy brain functioning.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic strongly influenced adolescents’ opportunities for real-life interactions, especially with their peers. These interactions are crucial for the development of...Show moreThe Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic strongly influenced adolescents’ opportunities for real-life interactions, especially with their peers. These interactions are crucial for the development of prosocial behavior, and its predictors, such as empathic concern, perspective-taking, and opportunities for prosocial actions. We investigated the development of prosocial behavior, empathic concern, perspective-taking, and opportunities for prosocial actions in adolescents aged 15-18 years old before the pandemic (T1/T2 for the pre-pandemic group) and in those aged 15-18 years old during the pandemic (T2/T3 for the peri-pandemic group). Both groups participated in a charity dictator game a during two measurement instances. Adolescents in the pre-pandemic group showed more empathic concern, and prosocial behavior over time (T1/T2), while their perspective-taking skills remained stable, and their opportunities for prosocial behavior decreased. Adolescents in the peri-pandemic group showed more perspective-taking skills and opportunities for prosocial actions over time (T2/T3), while their empathic concern and prosocial behavior remained stable. These different developmental trajectories may point toward the importance of real-life interactions for empathic concern and prosocial behavior and the role of crisis situations in fostering perspective-taking skills. Adolescents may have sought out more opportunities for prosocial actions during the pandemic to fulfill their need to contribute to society and to belong. Moreover, gender affected the results, with girls showing more empathic concern across groups, and more prosocial behavior in the pre-pandemic group. This may be due to gender intensification and reinforcement for gender-conforming behavior. Future research should investigate the extent to which empathic concern, perspective-taking, and prosocial behavior are malleable by different circumstances and whether gender roles explicitly influence adolescents’ prosocial behavior.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
under embargo until 2025-01-31
2025-01-31T00:00:00Z
Dissociation is a complex trans-diagnostic phenomenon, which ranges from normative to pathological. There are multiple ways of measuring and categorising dissociation, and different theories as to...Show moreDissociation is a complex trans-diagnostic phenomenon, which ranges from normative to pathological. There are multiple ways of measuring and categorising dissociation, and different theories as to the aetiology and function of dissociation in psychological disorders. People with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) experience more dissociation than healthy controls and other personality disorders, and dissociation is associated with other key features of BPD. Despite this, dissociation in BPD is poorly understood. It is unclear which types of dissociation manifest in BPD, in which situations, and the function that dissociation achieves. The aim of this study was to investigate the form and function of dissociation in BPD, by identifying themes across personal narratives. A thematic analysis was performed on narratives of dissociative experiences assessed within a script-driven imagery approach. The predominant forms of dissociation were depersonalisation and derealisation. Dissociation occurred in interpersonal and threatening situations, tended to follow negative affect, and was accompanied by physical reactions consistent with sympathetic nervous system activation. Dissociation functioned as psychological escape from internal experiences or external situations. These themes are discussed within the context of prominent theories of BPD and dissociation. These findings are in line with the idea that dissociation in BPD acts as a protective mechanism against high sensitivity and reactivity to affective and interpersonal experiences in the place of normative regulation skills. This paper concludes that dissociation in BPD offers psychological escape from intolerable experiences, and is related to a low threshold for threat perception and threat response mobilisation.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
under embargo until 2024-12-22
2024-12-22T00:00:00Z
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a disorder characterized by impairments in interpersonal functioning such as experiencing difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships. These impairments...Show moreSocial anxiety disorder (SAD) is a disorder characterized by impairments in interpersonal functioning such as experiencing difficulties in forming and maintaining relationships. These impairments have negative intrapersonal consequences for individuals with SAD on different levels such as the physiological, behavioral, and psychological level. A newer perspective on SAD has suggested that it also negatively impacts the interaction partner (i.e. interpersonal consequences of the disorder). According to this perspective, certain verbal and nonverbal behaviors and thought or feeling content of the healthy interaction partner are affected while interacting with an individual who have SAD. The current study investigated the intra- and interpersonal consequences of SAD on the physiological, behavioral, and psychological level during initial interactions. Participants played a dyadic trust game (23 same-gender dyads) while their electrodermal activity (EDA) was continuously measured and filled in self-report measures during and after the game. The dyads consisted either of one participant scoring high on social anxiety (SA) and one low on SA (i.e. SA dyads) or two participants scoring low on SA (i.e. control dyads). EDA was used as the measure on the physiological level, participants’ trust ratings were the measure on the behavioral level, and the discrepancy between self and partner reports on positive/negative personal attributes to explore cognitive biases was the measure on the psychological level. We expected to observe higher EDA synchrony, lower trust ratings, and higher discrepancy between self and partner reports in SA dyads compared to control dyads. Results showed no difference between dyads on all levels indicating that we were not able to observe the predicted effect of finding intra- and interpersonal consequences of SAD in SA dyads. The most important implication of the current study is that, it included three different levels of SAD, in contrast to earlier studies that mainly focused on one level. This provides a useful example for how future studies might be designed and conducted.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Negative Attention Bias (NAB) is suggested to have evolutionary functions; however, there is evidence that it also plays a role in the onset and maintenance of depression. Previous studies...Show moreNegative Attention Bias (NAB) is suggested to have evolutionary functions; however, there is evidence that it also plays a role in the onset and maintenance of depression. Previous studies investigating NAB and its links to depression were mainly conducted with clinical and at-risk adolescent and adult samples. Results of previous studies indicated depressed or at-risk individuals present NAB specifically towards depression-congruent stimuli (e.g., sad faces). This study is the first to investigate NAB and its links to depressive symptoms in non-clinical children. Moreover, the link between parental depressive symptoms and NAB in children was also investigated. In line with the previous studies, it was hypothesized children, like adults, will show NAB towards negative over positive emotional stimuli; children who have higher levels of depression will attend longer to sad faces in specific; children whose parents have higher levels of depression will attend longer to sad faces in specific. In a cross-sectional design, 90 8–12-year-old children and 84 parents (44 mothers) were tested. Children and parents’ dwell times to positive (happy) compared to negative (angry, fearful, sad) emotional expressions were measured using an eye-tracking task. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) for children and the Beck’s Depression Inventory (BDI) for parents. While only one parent contributed to the eye-tracking task, both parents were asked to fill out the BDI. Results indicated although parents compared to children attended longer to all emotional expressions, both children and their parents attended longer to negative compared to positive emotions. No link between child depressive symptoms or parental depressive symptoms with NAB specific to sad faces was found in children. We conclude that children, like adults, show a negativity bias in their attention to emotional expressions; however, suggested links between child and parent depressive symptoms with NAB may not hold in non-clinical child samples. This study adds to the growing research on emotion-processing and vulnerability to depression in children.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
The use of feedback interventions to inform treatment progress have increased in the past decades, but the mechanism of action is not sufficiently understood. It is hypothesized that feedback...Show moreThe use of feedback interventions to inform treatment progress have increased in the past decades, but the mechanism of action is not sufficiently understood. It is hypothesized that feedback interventions may work through adapting the expectation of therapists on the patient’s treatment outcome. The current study aims to investigate the effect of feedback (simple feedback, complex feedback, and no feedback) on therapists’ treatment expectations. Additionally, it is tested whether the effect of feedback on therapists’ treatment expectations is moderated by whether the patient is progressing or not. Lastly, an examination of the effect of feedback on therapists’ predicting treatment success, was evaluated, with an expectation that complex feedback would help therapists have a better prediction accuracy than simple feedback. To explore these hypotheses, therapists (N = 68) answered a few questions regarding their outcome expectations at sessions 1, 5, 10, and 15 while patients (N = 437) had to complete the Outcome Questionnaire-45 item prior to each session, for a maximum of 15 sessions. Results suggest that therapists’ expectations were not affected when they received feedback, neither the effect of feedback on therapists’ outcome expectations was moderated by patients’ progression. Additionally, it showed that feedback in general, led to better therapists' prediction accuracy than not receiving feedback. When a distinction between complex feedback and simple feedback was made, the results showed that therapists seem to benefit more from complex feedback. To conclude, feedback does not affect therapists’ treatment expectations over time. Moreover, feedback in general does affect therapists' prediction accuracy, and more specifically, complex feedback makes therapists’ have a more accurate prediction.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Female sexual dysfunction is a common problem. Problems with relaxation are often perceived as the cause for why these sexual difficulties occur. However, little is known about how relaxation...Show moreFemale sexual dysfunction is a common problem. Problems with relaxation are often perceived as the cause for why these sexual difficulties occur. However, little is known about how relaxation influences the sexual response. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate how relaxation is associated with the female sexual response. This was investigated by an experimental design in which 50 healthy women (age 18-45 years) performed a relaxation exercise with the help of a relaxation instrument. As a control condition, they had to quietly lay down. Pelvic floor and self-reported mental relaxation, pleasurableness of tactile non-genital stimulation in response to a tactile stimulation exercise, and genital and subjective sexual arousal in response to an erotic film were measured as dependent variables. It also exploratively examined whether having a history of sexual abuse influences the relationship between relaxation and the sexual response. Performing the relaxation exercise with the relaxation instrument did not induce more pelvic floor or mental relaxation compared to quietly lying down. Similarly, the relaxation exercise did not facilitate pleasurableness of tactile non-genital stimulation. Levels of pelvic floor or mental relaxation were not associated with genital sexual arousal in response to an erotic film, but were associated with subjective sexual arousal. Having a history of sexual abuse did not influence pelvic floor and mental relaxation and pleasurableness of tactile non-genital stimulation, and it was not associated with genital and subjective sexual arousal in response to an erotic film. These results show that the relaxation exercise was not effective in increasing pelvic floor or mental relaxation and that it does not lead to more pleasurableness of tactile stimulation when compared to quietly lying down. However, the findings might indicate that relaxation could indeed facilitate feelings of sexual arousal, but does perhaps not facilitate the physical sexual response. Nevertheless, more research is needed with a more effective relaxation exercise in order to get a greater understanding in the facilitating effects of relaxation on the female sexual response.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Child social behaviour is indicative of psychosocial functioning. Familial factors, including positive and negative parental characteristics are proposed to be related to child adaptive and...Show moreChild social behaviour is indicative of psychosocial functioning. Familial factors, including positive and negative parental characteristics are proposed to be related to child adaptive and maladaptive social behaviour. The differential susceptibility (DS) theory suggests that the relationship between parental characteristics and child behaviour can only be understood after taking child characteristics into consideration. In this study, we explored the relationship between parental positive and negative affect/social anxiety and child positive shyness and avoidance while taking into account the potential moderating role of child temperament. The sample consisted of children aged 4 to 6 years (N = 68, Age M =5.16; 34 girls) and their primary caregivers. Parents reported their positive and negative affect and their child’s temperament. Child positive shyness and avoidance were observed during a social performance task. Parenting dimensions did not significantly relate to child social behaviour. No significant associations were found between parental positive affect and child observed positive shyness, or between parental negative affect/ social anxiety and child observed avoidance. Child temperament was not found to enhance the relationship between parenting dimensions and child observed behaviour. These non-significant results could be explained by the reflexive nature of inhibitory behaviour, or by methodological aspects of the study.Show less
