Understanding the social world around us is important to function in today’s society. Gaining understanding can be achieved through cognitive empathy. In the current study, the main question ‘Is...Show moreUnderstanding the social world around us is important to function in today’s society. Gaining understanding can be achieved through cognitive empathy. In the current study, the main question ‘Is the effect of acute stress on the level of cognitive empathy in female students moderated by experienced childhood trauma?’ has been examined in 119 female students between 18 and 25 years old (M = 21.19, SD = 1.66). The relationship between acute stress, cognitive empathy and experienced childhood trauma has been examined with three sub-questions that focus on 1. the effect of acute stress on cognitive empathy, 2. the effect of subjective acute stress on the level of cognitive empathy and 3. Is the effect of acute stress on cognitive empathy moderated by experienced childhood trauma? These questions have been answered with an experimental study with a between-subjects design and a sequentially assigned stress or no stress manipulation provided by the Trier Social Stress Test (Kirschbaum et al., 1993). Before and during the manipulation acute stress has been measured with the Visual Analogue Scale (Freyd, 1923). Cognitive empathy has been measured with the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (Thombs et al., 2009) was used for measuring experienced childhood trauma. The current study shows no significant results for the main question and its sub-questions. This contributes to other studies who used the RMET to measure cognitive empathy and didn’t find any significant results, meaning they should use a different instrument in future research. In addition, it is important to re-examine the main research question using physiological measures of acute stress. This study contributes to the scientific knowledge of this moderation effect, but more research is needed to get a better understanding and help for people who experienced childhood trauma.Show less
When the COVID-19 pandemic caused the United Kingdom to go into lockdown, restrictions such as social distancing resulted in adjustments to daily life. This impacted the mental health of...Show moreWhen the COVID-19 pandemic caused the United Kingdom to go into lockdown, restrictions such as social distancing resulted in adjustments to daily life. This impacted the mental health of adolescents. Especially adolescents with a history of childhood traumatic experiences, were found to be vulnerable to develop mental health problems. Mental health problems can worsen over time and affect the quality of life of adolescents. Therefore, it is important that anxiety is recognized and addressed as early as possible. Thus, it was expected that anxiety of adolescents with a history of childhood traumatic experiences would worsen throughout the pandemic. Adolescents with adverse childhood experiences were recruited for this study (N = 73, Mage = 22.4). Anxiety was measured during the first lockdown (April 2020), during the lifting of some restrictions (July 2020) and just before the second lockdown (October 2020). The Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS) was used for a total anxiety score and for the scores of three subtypes of anxiety: Social Anxiety, Physiological Anxiety and Worry. Data was analyzed with SPSS and four One-Way Repeated Measures ANOVAs were performed. The findings showed that Total Anxiety did not change significantly during the pandemic (F (2,130) = 0.257, p > .05). Neither did Physiological Anxiety (F (2, 130) = 0.040, p > .02), Worry (F (2,130) = 0.202, p > .02) and Social Anxiety (F (2, 130) = 0.103, p = > .02). The absence of significant results, can be due to post-traumatic growth of the adolescents. They might have developed coping mechanisms to deal with their childhood trauma and therefore are more able to deal with anxiety during the pandemic. Additionally, childhood trauma might lessen the impact of trauma during adolescence. Further research on long term effects of the pandemic on anxiety is needed.Show less
The aim of this article is to investigate what role mental wellbeing plays in the experienced somatoform symptoms in adolescents who experienced childhood adversity, during the COVID-19 pandemic....Show moreThe aim of this article is to investigate what role mental wellbeing plays in the experienced somatoform symptoms in adolescents who experienced childhood adversity, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, it is investigated if changes in mental wellbeing between two timepoints during the pandemic are related to changes in somatoform symptoms during COVID-19 in adolescents who experienced childhood adversity. Also, exploratory analyses were run to investigate whether mental wellbeing at the first time point could predict changes in somatoform symptoms over time and vice versa. Longitudinal measures from seventy-six adolescents are used across two timepoints: during the first peak in the pandemic (April 2020) and when the restrictions were less stringent (July 2020). The results show that there is an association between the experienced somatoform symptoms and mental wellbeing. This association is also found between the change in mental wellbeing over time and the change in somatoform symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also clear that both mental wellbeing and somatoform symptoms during the first peak of the SARS-CoV-2-virus have no predictive value for the change in mental wellbeing or somatoform symptoms over time. This research contributes to the existing body of literature with the discovery that mental wellbeing and somatoform symptoms are associated during COVID-19 in adolescents who experienced childhood adversity. Although the association is clear in this research, it is recommended to extend the research design by including multiple, possibly contributing factors, such as loneliness, stress, gender, type, severity and duration of the experienced childhood adversity, to investigate the underlying mechanism. Secondly, it is recommended to investigate the effectiveness of interventions which adequately support adolescents who experienced childhood adversity and experience somatoform symptoms, for example the ‘Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy’-intervention.Show less
