Joseph Bardeen

Auburn University | AU · Department of Psychology

The metacognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) suggests that persistent use of the maladaptive self-regulation strategies that comprise the cognitive attentional syndrome (CAS) increases the likelihood of developing PTSD symptoms following trauma exposure. The metacognitive model also suggests that flexible regulation of attention...

The Multidimensional Cognitive Attentional Syndrome Scale (MCASS) was developed to assess the seven maladaptive forms of self-regulation that make up the cognitive attentional syndrome (CAS). Both theory and empirical evidence highlight important distinctions among the seven forms of self-regulation underlying the CAS. The primary purpose of the pr...

The negative emotional contrast avoidance model posits that pathological worry is maintained by the avoidance of negative emotional shifts. The Contrast Avoidance Questionnaires (CAQ–Worry and CAQ–General Emotion) aim to assess contrast avoidance beliefs and behaviors. Questions remain around the factor structures of the CAQs, whether such structur...

Executive functioning (EF) consists of a set of related, but distinct, higher-level cognitive abilities that are used to organize and integrate lower-level processes in the service of engaging in goal-direct behavior. Evidence suggests that deficits in EF are a vulnerability factor for the development of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. Less un...

Context Cognitive theories of anxiety- and fear-related pathology suggest that individuals with these forms of pathology (versus those without) exhibit greater threat-related attentional bias (AB). However, there are a multitude of mixed and null findings in this area of research. Unlike other commonly used measures of AB, eye-tracking indices of A...

The cognitive attentional syndrome (CAS) is a core concept within metacognitive theory. The premise of the CAS is related to metacognition, however its role in psychopathology is distinct. Due to the complex nature of the CAS, a theoretically driven and psychometrically sound self-report measure of the CAS for the Arabic population is yet to be dev...

Experiential avoidance, an unwillingness to stay in contact with unwanted inner experiences (e.g., emotions, thoughts, bodily sensations), has been implicated in the development and maintenance of anxiety. Individuals with high levels of experiential avoidance are more likely to employ maladaptive coping strategies (i.e., avoidance behaviors), whic...

Background and objectives Current theories of health anxiety and a growing body of empirical literature suggest that those high in health anxiety symptoms might find uncertainty itself threatening and demonstrate attentional biases for uncertainty-related information (ABU). Moreover, a dual processes model of attention would suggest that individual...

Two prominent conceptual models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are the cognitive model, associated with cognitive processing therapy (CPT; Resick & Schnicke, 1992), and the functional contextualist model, underlying acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT; Hayes et al., 1999). Network analysis was used to examine dynamic interactions among...

The Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI), a 60-item self-report measure, assesses the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Hexaflex. The factor structure of the MPFI was examined in this study. In a community sample of adults (N = 827), four models (correlated six-factor, one-factor, higher-order, and bifactor) were tested...

Objectives: Mental contamination and cognitive fusion have been identified as risk factors for anxiety. The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating effect of cognitive fusion on the relationship between mental contamination and anxiety. Method: Participants (N = 504 community adults), recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), comp...

The recent global pandemic (i.e., COVID-19) has had a serious impact on psychological health, as the stress associated with the pandemic increases the likelihood of developing clinically significant anxiety. Evidence suggests that attentional control may protect those individuals with outcome-specific vulnerabilities from developing maladaptive psy...

Theory and empirical evidence suggest that those with higher posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and better attentional control (i.e., the strategic control of higher-order executive attention in regulating bottom-up, stimulus driven responses to prepotent stimuli; Sarapas et al., 2017) can use that ability to disengage and shift attention away fro...

The cognitive attentional syndrome (CAS), a multidimensional construct that consists of maladaptive forms of self-regulation, is central to the metacognitive model. Despite the CAS’s central importance to the metacognitive model, as well as evidence that components of the CAS are risk factors for the development of emotional disorders, a psychometr...

The Barkley Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale – Short Form (BDEFS-SF; Barkley, 2011) was developed to assess deficits in five facets of executive functioning. Theoretical assumptions surrounding the BDEFS-SF presume that executive dysfunction is an overarching construct that consists of five domain-specific factors (i.e., a hierarchical model...

Objective: Event centrality, the extent to which a traumatic event becomes a reference point for understanding the world and one's role in it, is related to both posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and posttraumatic growth (PTG). Given that higher event centrality is associated with both of these seemingly disparate postevent trajectories, researc...

The purpose of the present study was to examine, via meta-analysis, the efficacy of third wave therapies in reducing posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. A secondary aim was to identify whether treatment efficacy was moderated by treatment type, treatment duration, use of exposure, use of intent-to-treat samples, and treatment format (i.e., individ...

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been identified as a contributing factor to the development and maintenance of anxiety. Individuals with high AS are sensitive to bodily cues and anxiety-related thoughts and often misinterpret these stimuli as catastrophic or dangerous. Similarly, negative and positive metacognitive beliefs (i.e., beliefs about thinkin...

Individual differences in attentional control may explain null findings and inconsistent patterns of threat-related attentional bias (ABT) that are common in the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) literature. At Time 1 (T1), trauma-exposed community participants (N = 89) completed a clinical interview, self-report measures, and an eye-tracking ta...

Maladaptive posttraumatic cognitions are considered an important factor in conceptualizing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Specifically, negative beliefs about self, the world, and self-blame regarding the traumatic event are all associated with more severe PTSD symptoms and are targets of cognitive treatments of PTSD (e.g., cognitive process...

Cognitive fusion has been identified as a risk factor for anxiety. Evidence suggests that those with better attentional control may be able to flexibly shift attention from an internal to external focus, thus reducing contact with negative self-referent thoughts. As such, attentional control was examined as a moderator of the relation between cogni...

Objective: Experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion synergistically form what is known as the closed response style. Prior study findings indicate that the closed response style, examined as an interaction between experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion, relates to posttraumatic stress symptom severity among a heterogeneous sample of trauma...

There is extensive variability in cocaine-related attentional bias (AB) following trauma script exposure among cocaine-dependent (CD) patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, research is needed to identify the specific PTSD-CD patients most likely to exhibit an AB to cocaine cues. A common polymorphism in brain-derived neurotr...

Social cognition provides insight into why Americans are largely divided with strong partisan rifts. The purpose of this set of studies was to examine social cognitive forms of aggression in relation to political party affiliation and political candidate endorsement. In Study 1 (N = 1,657), all forms of aggressive social cognitions (hostile attribu...

Emotional reactivity has been implicated in the development and maintenance of anxiety. The metacognitive model suggests that maladaptive metacognitive beliefs (i.e., beliefs about thinking) may increase the impact of emotional reactivity on anxiety. As such, the purpose of the present study was to examine maladaptive metacognitive beliefs as a mod...

Over-valuation of happiness might be a transdiagnostic risk factor for psychopathology. However, emotion regulation self-efficacy may influence the association between happiness emotion goals and psychopathology. The purpose of the present study was twofold. First, we sought to replicate prior findings showing that happiness emotion goals and depre...

Attentional deployment is one of the primary regulation strategies discussed in prominent information processing models of emotion regulation. Despite its theoretical relevance to emotion regulation, attentional deployment has received relatively little focus in the emotion regulation literature compared to regulatory strategies that occur later in...

Examinations of personality and political ideology have assessed political ideology as a unidimensional construct and primarily focused on the Big Five personality factors. The purpose of the present two-part study was to examine associations among political ideology (assessed using two dimensions [social and economic]) and Dark Tetrad traits in tw...

The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that unrealistically high happiness emotion goals lead to decreased emotion regulation self-efficacy, which in turn, leads to depressive symptoms. A cross-lagged panel design with data collection at three time points was used to allow for causal inferences of directionality among study variables...

The purpose of this three-part study was to identify and correct psychometric limitations of the Attentional Control Scale (ACS: Derryberry & Reed, 2002) via bifactor modeling and item modification. In Study 1 (N = 956), results from exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA) suggested that the multidimensionality of the ACS might b...

The metacognitive model and recent preliminary research suggests that metacognitive beliefs (i.e., beliefs about thinking) may be particularly important for understanding the pathogenesis of posttraumatic stress (PTS). The metacognitive model also suggests that deficits in executive control (i.e., metacognitive control) may increase the impact of m...

Deficits in emotion regulation self-efficacy (Tamir & Mauss, 2011) may be a risk factor for psychological distress. The present study sought to test the hypothesis that participants who were led to believe that emotion regulation self-efficacy was enhanced (expected success condition: n = 34), versus those in a control condition (n = 36), would rep...

The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004) is a self-report measure that assesses six facets of emotion dysregulation. A modified version of the DERS (M-DERS) was developed to address psychometric limitations of the original measure (Bardeen et al., 2016). Although the factor structure of the M-DERS (i.e., two models:...

The majority of individuals exposed to trauma do not go on to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); thus, researchers have sought to identify individual difference variables that make one particularly susceptible to posttraumatic stress symptoms. Trait anxiety is one individual difference variable implicated in the pathogenesis of posttraum...

Objective: One must first experience a traumatic event (Criterion A in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; 5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013) to be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Standard procedures for assessing Criterion A (i.e., the "worst-event" method) may result in misid...

The Distress Tolerance Scale (DTS) is a self-report measure of perceived capacity to withstand aversive emotions. Initial factor analysis of this measure suggested a structure comprising one higher-order factor and four lower-order domain-specific factors. However, there is limited evidence in support of the DTS’s purported multidimensionality, and...

Evidence suggests that posttraumatic stress (PTS) disorder (PTSD) symptom presentations may vary as a function of index trauma type. Network analysis was employed in the present study to examine differences in PTS symptom centrality (i.e., the relative influence of a symptom on the network), and PTS symptom associations across three trauma types: m...

The purpose of the present study was to examine anxiety sensitivity, attentional bias to threat (ABT), and the aggregate influence of these constructs as prospective predictors of anxiety. Participants (N = 176) completed a baseline assessment session which included the completion of self-report measures of anxiety and anxiety sensitivity, as well...

In the present study, we examined constructs of emotion regulation (emotion regulation difficulties, expressive suppression, and cognitive reappraisal) in relation to attentional bias to threat (ABT). Participants (N = 176) completed a battery of self-report measures and an eye-tracking task in which eye movements to neutral and threat images were...

The purpose of the present study was to use eye-tracking technology to (a) show that attentional control can be used to reduce attentional bias to threat (ABT) among those with higher levels of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms, (b) identify the specific attentional control (AC) processes (i.e., inhibition, shifting, working memory updating) that...

Advances in HIV treatment through highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) have led to a steady decline in HIV-related mortality rates. However, HAART requires adherence to strict and often complicated medication regimens, and nonadherence to HAART can significantly decrease its effectiveness. Depression has consistently shown a robust associat...

The Multidimensional Inventory of Hypochondriacal Traits (MIHT) is a self-report measure that assesses four interrelated domains of health anxiety (i.e., Cognitive, Behavioral, Perceptual, Affective). Prior research has supported a correlated four-factor model, as well as a hierarchical model, in which each of the four factors load onto the higher...

Although theory suggests that a bias for attending to threat information (ABT) may be a biobehavioral process underlying the transdiagnostic vulnerability factor of emotion dysregulation, there is a paucity of empirical evidence showing direct associations between emotion dysregulation and ABT. The purpose of the present study was to examine the re...

Emotional distress intolerance (EDI) has been identified as a risk factor for mood and anxiety disorders. One factor that may influence the association between EDI and psychopathology is attention to emotions (AE). Recent evidence suggests that AE may encompass two dissociable components: voluntary and involuntary AE. This study aimed to examine th...

The purpose of the present study was to examine religiosity as a moderator of the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and depressive symptoms in a large sample of general population adults recruited via the Internet (N = 566). Hierarchical regression revealed a significant interaction between IU and religiosity predicting depressiv...

The Metacognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30) is a self-report measure that assesses metacognitive beliefs (i.e., beliefs about thinking). Prior research has supported a correlated five-factor model, but no known published study has examined the tenability of second-order or bifactor models of the MCQ-30. Results supported a bifactor model of the MC...

Objective: Cognitive-behavioral models of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) propose that the content of one's thoughts, including negative beliefs about the self, others, and world, play a fundamental role in our understanding and treatment of PTSD. Metacognitive theory suggests that metacognitive beliefs (i.e., beliefs about thinking), rather...

Wells’s (1990) attention training technique (ATT) is a neurobehavioral therapy for emotional disorders that purportedly can improve upon existing treatment efforts for these disorders. Yet, ATT remains underutilized in the treatment of emotional disorders. One tenable reason for the underutilization of ATT is that researchers and clinicians alike m...

We examined five dimensions of distress tolerance (i.e., uncertainty, ambiguity, frustration, negative emotion, physical discomfort) as prospective predictors of perceived stress. Undergraduate students (N = 135) completed self-report questionnaires over the course of two assessment sessions (T1 and T2). Results of a linear regression in which the...

A number of individual difference factors, including emotional distress intolerance (EDI), experiential avoidance (EA), and anxiety sensitivity (ASI), have been implicated in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptomatology. Attentional control (AC) has been shown to serve as a protective factor against the development o...

The present study sought to explicate the time-course of posttraumatic stress (PTS)-related attentional bias to threat (ABT) by examining differences in attention bias variability (ABV; a measure which accounts for the temporal dynamics of ABT). A dot-probe task with four presentation durations was used to capture both subliminal and supraliminal s...

Objectives: The present study aimed to elucidate the factor structure of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, )-a widely used measure of emotion dysregulation. Method: Participants were 3 undergraduate samples (N = 840, 78.33% female, mean age = 20.30). Results: We began by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA...

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a popular transdiagnositic treatment approach, is based on the central tenant that human suffering develops and is exacerbated by psychological inflexibility. Cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance are two interrelated processes central to psychological inflexibility. Despite substantive theoretical rationale...

Modified DERS from: Bardeen, J. R., Fergus, T. A., Hannan, S. M., & Orcutt, H. K. (in press). Addressing psychometric limitations of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale through item modification. Journal of Personality Assessment.

Through its frequent use, a pattern has emerged showing psychometric limitations of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 200425. Gratz, K. L., & Roemer, L. (2004). Multidimensional assessment of emotion regulation and dysregulation: Development, factor structure, and initial validation of the Difficulties in Emotion R...

Mental contamination, an internal sense of dirtiness that originates in the absence of physical contact with a stimulus, has been implicated in the exacerbation of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms following sexual trauma. In addition, evidence suggests that associations between PTS-related risk factors and PTS symptoms may depend on the degree t...

Research suggests that happiness emotion goals (i.e., cognitive representations that happiness is the desired emotional endpoint) may confer risk for depression. Based upon prior speculations that emotion regulation could be important for understanding the association between happiness emotion goals and depression, in Study 1, we examined whether e...

Parenting behaviors – specifically behaviors characterized by high control, intrusiveness, rejection, and overprotection – and effortful control have each been implicated in the development of anxiety pathology. However, little research has examined the protective role of effortful control in the relation between parenting and anxiety symptoms, spe...

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) and the tendency to avoid emotions have both been identified as vulnerability factors for the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Furthermore, both cross-sectional and prospective research have provided evidence that emotional avoidance and AS interact to predict anxiety symptoms, such that...

The purpose of the present study was to identify subgroups of participants who may be at particularly high risk for anxiety pathology based on specific combinations of demographic characteristics and higher-order cognitive abilities in a population at disproportionate risk for deficits in cognitive abilities (i.e., smokers within the criminal justi...

Self-discrepancy theory postulates that negative affective states (e.g., depression and anxiety) may be a consequence of discrepancies between individuals’ goals and their self-perceptions. One theoretical construct that has been hypothesized to influence the magnitude of the association between self-discrepancies and negative affect is goal streng...

Researchers have called for examinations of associations between distinct facets of distress tolerance and specific forms of psychopathology. We examined associations between five facets of distress tolerance (intolerance of uncertainty, ambiguity, frustration, negative emotion, and physical discomfort) and health anxiety using a large community sa...

Research has provided evidence of an interactive effect between anxiety sensitivity (AS) and experiential avoidance (EA) in predicting both anxiety and posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptomatology. Additionally, theory suggests that EA alleviates distress in the short-term, but exacerbates it in the long-term. The present cross-sectional study was dev...

Despite growing evidence for the efficacy of Gratz and colleagues’ emotion regulation group therapy (ERGT) for deliberate self-harm (DSH) among women with borderline personality disorder (BPD), the proposed mechanism of change in this treatment (i.e., emotion regulation) remains largely unexamined. This study examined change in emotion dysregulatio...

Emotion regulation (ER) has been identified as a critical factor in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS; Bardeen, Kumpula, & Orcutt, 2013 [Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 27, 188–196]; Marx & Sloan, 2005 [Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43, 569– 583]; Nightingale & Williams, 2000 [British Journal of Clinical Psycholo...

Despite strong evidence for an association between the experience of posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms and substance use, little is known about the particular individuals most at-risk for problematic substance use in response to PTS symptoms. Consequently, the goal of this study was to conduct a prospective investigation of the moderating role of...

With the burden of emergency department (ED) use increasing, research examining the factors associated with ED visits among individuals who use the ED most frequently is needed. Given that substance use is strongly linked to ED visits, this study sought to examine the factors associated with greater ED visits among patients with substance use disor...

Attentional control may be used by trauma survivors to temporarily disengage and shift attention from threat salient information, allowing individuals to remain in, and habituate to, trauma-relevant contexts rather than using less adaptive regulatory strategies. Thus, greater attentional control abilities may be one factor that differentiates those...

Cross-sectional research has shown that the association between anxiety sensitivity (i.e., a trait-like fear of anxiety-related bodily sensations due to beliefs that these sensations engender negative outcomes) and anxiety becomes stronger as experiential avoidance (i.e., an unwillingness to stay in contact with unwanted inner experiences) increase...

Drawing on a gender roles theory of emotion regulation, we examined the specific facets of emotion regulation difficulties through which higher-order cognitive abilities may be related to anxiety. Participants (N = 225) completed self-report measures of emotion regulation difficulties and anxiety, and were administered neuropsychological tests asse...

Despite the potential transdiagnostic importance of emotion regulation, there has been a lack of research examining emotion regulation in the context of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We examined associations between facets of emotion regulation corresponding to two contemporary models of emotion regulation and obsessive-compulsive symptoms i...

Given the potential transdiagnostic importance of emotion dysregulation, as well as a lack of research examining emotion dysregulation in relation to health anxiety, the present study sought to examine associations among specific emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), emotion regulation difficulties, and h...

Distress tolerance is inversely associated with a number of negative outcomes, including multiple forms of psychopathology. Research suggests that difficulties accessing effective emotion regulation (ER) strategies may adversely affect the willingness and/or ability to tolerate distress. Additionally, research has shown that attentional control (i....

Distress tolerance (DT) has been suggested as an individual difference factor with transdiagnostic importance. To date, determining the transdiagnostic status of DT has been limited due to the lack of consensus regarding the construct’s conceptualization. Zvolensky et al. (Current Directions in Psychological Science 19:406–410, 2010) developed a hi...<