Steven De Peuter

KU Leuven | ku leuven · Research Coordination Office

Science is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists. We interrogated these concerns w...

Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as public health, new technologies or climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science-society nexus acros...

More than 800 (co-)authors participated in a large-scale cross-sectional survey on inappropriate attribution of authorship and the use of explicit authorship guidelines in psychological science (response rate 29.6%, predominantly from Europe and North America). Almost half of the respondents had been involved in a study where someone was added as a...

[Main text in Dutch only] In the case of research misconduct or other unacceptable practices, whistleblowers play an important role to report the wrongdoing. However, blowing the whistle may have severe adverse consequences. Researchers who are aware of this may feel reluctant to speak up, ask questions or report misconduct. By qualitatively analys...

Researchers of KU Leuven, a large Belgian university, were invited to complete a bespoke questionnaire assessing their attitudes toward research integrity and the local research culture, with specific emphasis on the supervision of junior researchers. A total of 7,353 invitations were sent via e-mail and 1,866 responses were collected (25.3% respon...

Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic 1,2. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low pub...

Science is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment may challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science society nexus across different cultural contexts,...

Scientific information is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public...

There has been a surge of interest in research integrity over the last decade, with a wide range of studies investigating the prevalence of questionable research practices (QRPs). However, nearly all these studies focus on research design, data collection and analysis, and hardly any empirical research has been done on the occurrence of QRPs in the...

Research institutions’ research culture is increasingly recognized as a central driver of research integrity. Institutions are urged to develop research integrity promotion plans to foster a culture of research integrity. A host of guidelines and associated initiatives have been issued but specific, actionable recommendations for institutions are s...

[English abstract, article in Dutch] Research integrity has received increased attention, in the literature as well as in policy. A host of initiatives is supporting its promotion. However, misconduct will not cease to exist and needs to be reported, by whistleblowers. It takes a lot of courage to blow the whistle as it can have an enormous impact...

The research culture of research institutions is increasingly recognized as an central driver of research integrity and institutions are urged to develop research integrity promotion plans to foster a culture of research integrity. A host of guidelines and associated initiatives have been issued, but what is generally lacking is specific, actionabl...

With the growing emphasis on scientific integrity as a way to curb research misconduct, the “moral obligation to act” when a researcher observes a breach of integrity is becoming stronger. However, it takes a lot of courage to blow the whistle as it can have an enormous impact on the whistleblower’s career and personal well-being – and that of coll...

Competition for research funds has, in the recent decade, become hypercompetitive. Commonly, to determine which proposals receive funding, a system of peer review is used, which is broadly accepted, easily understood, and broadly trusted among researchers. It is often considered the best system in use, but it suffers from important shortcomings and...

Competition for research funds has, in the recent decade, become hypercompetitive. Commonly, to determine which proposals receive funding, a system of peer review is used, which is broadly accepted, easily understood and broadly trusted among researchers. It is often considered the best system in use, but it suffers from important shortcomings and...

The growing body of research on interoceptive conditioning has predominantly focused on associative learning paradigms that investigated the formation of intero-interoceptive or extero-interoceptive associations. Yet, little research has explored whether interoceptive sensations can enter an intero-exteroceptive association. Therefore, in an intero...

Objectives:: Previous research indicates that reducing fear of movement-related pain is hampered by engaging in safety-seeking behavior. We tested the hypothesis that fear reduction is only disrupted by behavior that serves a pain avoidance goal (safety-seeking), but not when it is serving an achievement goal. Methods:: Using the voluntary joyst...

In chronic musculoskeletal pain, avoidance behavior is a prominent behavioral characteristic that can manifest itself in various ways. It is also considered a crucial component in the development and maintenance of chronic pain-related disability, supposedly fueled by pain-related fear and catastrophic beliefs. Despite the frequent occurrence of av...

This article describes an investigation of the effect of attitude toward and use of different components of an online smoking cessation program on stage transition based on the Transtheoretical Model. Participants were 299 users of the StopSmokingCoach, an online smoking cessation program, who completed an online questionnaire concerning their atti...

In asthma, many treatment decisions are dependent upon patient perception/patient report of asthma symptoms. Discrepancies between patient perception of asthma symptoms and objective indicators of pathophysiology are widespread and can hinder asthma treatment. Early detection of problems in asthma symptom perception may be a first step to help thes...

Inhalation of CO(2)-enriched air has been used as a laboratory model for a number of anxiety disorders, such as general anxiety disorder and panic disorder. Because studies describing psychophysiological responses to this challenge are scarce, the present studies investigated skin conductance level, eyeblink startle, self-reported anxiety and fract...

Self-reported asthma symptoms correlate only modestly with measures of underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. In this study, we investigated the role of fear of symptoms and perceived control on respiratory symptom perception in patients with asthma. Patients with intermittent to moderate persistent asthma (N=32) were administered 4 subsequent r...

The present study investigated interoceptive fear conditioning (IFC) to an interoceptive and exteroceptive conditional stimulus (CS) with a severe respiratory load applied for 30s as the unconditional stimulus (US). CSs were another, weak respiratory load in the intero-IFC study (N=74), and a neutral picture in the extero-IFC study (N=42). CSs prec...

A growing body of research connects anxiety with poorer outcomes in COPD. However, more specific measures of dyspnea-related fear may be more closely related to critical processes involved in pulmonary rehabilitation (perception of dyspnea and avoidance of physical activity) and may have a predictive value for COPD outcome beyond general anxiety me...

The current review deals with interoceptive conditioning as a viable mechanism maintaining fear of pain: The available literature suggests that interoceptive—i.e., internal bodily—sensations may become predictors of pain and will subsequently elicit fear of pain. After a short overview of interoceptive (fear) conditioning and its role in the mainte...

Dyspnea-related anxiety may lead to reduced quality of life and functional disability through fearful avoidance of dyspnea-evoking activity. We describe the validation of a generic - diagnosis-independent - instrument assessing dyspnea-related anxiety. A total of 187 patients with respiratory diseases completed the Breathlessness Beliefs Questionna...

Spontaneous breathing consists of substantial correlated variability: Parameters characterizing a breath are correlated with parameters characterizing previous and future breaths. On the basis of dynamic system theory, negative emotion states are predicted to reduce correlated variability whereas sustained attention is expected to reduce total resp...

Background / Purpose: Interoceptive fear conditioning (IFC) is learning that bodily sensations (sensations from gut; heartbeats, respiratory sensations,…) predict an aversive event. As a consequence, these sensations elicit anticipatory anxiety. IFC has not been studied in pain.The current study applied the cold pressor as a means to induce IFC i...

The main aims of this study were a) to investigate the relationship between lightheadedness and cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFv) during hyperventilation-induced hypocapnia, and b) to investigate whether and why the relationship between lightheadedness and CBFv may change after several episodes of this sensation. Three hypocapnic and three normoc...

The present study investigated differences in symptom perception between a clinical sample with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) and a matched healthy control group. Participants (N = 58, 29 patients) were told that they would inhale different gas mixtures that might induce symptoms. Next, they went through 2 subsequent rebreathing trials consi...

Human fear research has mostly applied exteroceptive stimuli to induce fear. Interoceptive sensations however can also be very threatening and play a major role in a number of anxiety disorders. In this study, we compared affective responses to inspiratory resistive loads with those to aversive pictures. During repeated administrations of two loads...

Asthma self-management programs are effective but often time-consuming.We evaluated the effects of a shortened asthma self-management program on asthma knowledge, morbidity and asthma-related behaviour in a group of moderate to severe adult asthmatics. The effects of the program were evaluated with a one year prospective trial in a group of 55 asth...

Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is characterized by a variety of symptoms in response to nontoxic concentrations of chemicals. To further test a laboratory model of MCS based on symptom learning, we used a stronger respiratory challenge in this study than in previous studies to induce symptoms (20% CO(2)-enriched air, unconditioned stimulus). A...

Background Eye-blink EMG startle potentiation is observed in negative situations and negative emotional states, as well as in defensive responding to threat. The existing evidence supporting EMG startle potentiation as a defensive response is mainly based on exteroceptive stimuli – e.g., pictures or electrical stimuli. Evidence concerning EMG star...

Whereas sighing appears to function as a physiological resetter, the psychological function of sighing is largely unknown. Sighing has been suggested to occur both during stress and negative emotions, such as panic and pain, and during positive emotions, such as relaxation and relief. In three experiments, sigh rate was investigated during short im...

The present study aimed to explore the role of a brief negative affective state on symptom reporting. Non-clinical high (n = 24) and low (n = 24) habitual symptom reporters viewed four picture series (160 s per series) varying in affective content: neutral, general positive, general negative and symptom-related. Participants rated each picture seri...

Inaccurate perception of respiratory symptoms is often found in asthma patients. Typically, patients who inaccurately perceive asthma symptoms are divided into underperceivers and overperceivers. In this paper we point out that this division is problematic. We argue that little evidence exists for a trait-like stability of under- and overperception...

Musculoskeletal pain is one of the most frequently reported complaints in primary care. The last decade's research has evidenced the important role of pain-related fear in the maintenance and exacerbation of chronic pain problems. In this article we review the current state of the art regarding the nature, development, and consequences of pain-rela...

The present study investigated the effect of repeated hypercapnic challenges on the sensory (intensity [I]) and affective (unpleasantness [U]) dimensions of breathlessness. Three subsequent rebreathing trials (Read, 1968) were administered to healthy men and women (n = 39). The I and U of breathlessness were rated every 20 s during the baseline, re...

The current review deals with interoceptive conditioning as a viable mechanism maintaining pain-related fear: The available literature suggests that interoceptive – i.e., internal bodily – sensations may become predictors of pain and will subsequently elicit pain-related fear. After a short overview of interoceptive conditioning and interoceptive f...

We investigated the role of a symptom interpretation frame on the accuracy of interoception and on retrospective symptom reporting in nonclinical high and low reporters of medically unexplained symptoms. All participants (N=74) went through two subsequent trials of the Rebreathing Test, inducing altered respiration and other physical sensations as...

The online rating of perceived breathlessness in a rebreathing test (RT) is a new and powerful technique to analyze the psychological and physiological process related to the mechanisms of breathlessness. The aim of the present study was to assess the influence of rating type on respiratory sensation and behavior during repeated hypercapnic exposur...

Two decades of research have shown that depressed patients experience significant difficulties retrieving specific autobiographical memories. Importantly, reduced autobiographical memory (AM) specificity is a known vulnerability factor for depression and is predictive of a more chronic course. One of the models that has been put forward to explain...

This study investigated breathing behavior in an odor-CO2-inhalation fear conditioning paradigm. A differential conditioning paradigm was applied in 55 participants. Both acquisition and extinction consisted of three CS+ and three CS- trials. Diluted ammonia and butyric acid served as conditional odor cues (CSs); inhalation of 20% CO2-enriched as U...

Een boek over self-regulation dat op je tafel belandt omdat degene die had toegezegd het te bespreken er de tijd niet voor vindt, dat ruikt naar moeilijk verteerbaar leeswerk. Ik vreesde het ergste toen ik er al niet in slaagde om wijs te raken uit de titel: te veel informatie in te weinig woorden.

We used the visual dot-probe paradigm to investigate a possible attentional bias for asthma-related cues in asthma. Patients with asthma and healthy control participants reacted as quickly as possible to the position of a dot replacing one word from a word pair. In this type of design, differences in reaction times according to the type of words in...

In this study, we assessed air hunger (AH) and ventilatory responses to repeated CO(2) exposures in healthy women (N=31), scoring high or low for trait anxiety. A standardized rebreathing test, implying a gradually increasing CO(2) stimulus, was administered three times with 15-min intervals. Respiratory behavior and the intensity of AH perception...

This study investigated the role of illness-specific catastrophic thinking in symptom perception in asthma. A total sample of 72 patients with intermittent to moderate persistent asthma completed the Catastrophizing about Asthma Scale and completed the Asthma Symptom Checklist to measure retrospective symptom reporting. In addition, symptoms were c...

Hyperventilation has been suggested as a concomitant and possible maintaining factor that may contribute to the symptom pattern of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Because patients accepting the illness and trying to live with it seem to have a better prognosis than patients chronically fighting it, we investigated breathing behavior during differen...

We investigated associative learning as a possible explanation of overperception in asthma. Thirty newly diagnosed patients with asthma (eight men) underwent a histamine provocation to elicit airway obstruction (Cockcroft's protocol). Patients testing positive and reporting symptoms underwent an identical procedure on the next day with saline, a su...

Asthma is a chronic disease characterized by recurrent attacks of shortness of breath, wheezing, and cough. Negative Affectivity (NA) or Neuroticism has been linked with overperception of symptoms. Because these are broad concepts, they are hard to target in therapy. Identifying more specific factors – explaining more specific variance in symptom r...

Samenvatting Kjellman, M. & Hammarbäck, L. (2006). Arbeidsre-integratie na een burn-out: Praktische handleiding voor de werkgever en Arbeidsre-integratie na een burn-out: Praktische handleiding voor de werknemer. Houten: Bohn Stafleu van Loghum.

Respiratory symptom perception research has focused mainly on respiratory sensations. Because dyspnea is multidimensional, affective aspects should be investigated. Patients with asthma (N=25) underwent a histamine provocation until a 20% fall in forced expiratory volume in 1s (FEV(1)). After each dose level, 6 symptoms of dyspnea intensity and 6 s...

Relaxation techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation and autogenic training, are widely and successfully applied. However, there is little theorizing integrating the affective, as well as the cognitive and the physiological correlates of relaxation. In this article, each of these different aspects of relaxation is discussed. At a cognitive...

Relaxation techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation and autogenic training, are widely and successfully applied. However, there is little theorizing integrating the affective, as well as the cognitive and the physiological correlates of relaxation. In this article, each of these different aspects of relaxation is discussed. At a cognitive...

Reported somatic symptoms without clear relation to physiological processes are studied. A learning paradigm was used with two odors (CSs) and the inhalation of CO(2)-enriched air (US), while measuring symptom levels and respiratory behavior. After paring one odor with the CO(2)-enriched air and the other odor with air, half of the participants rec...

We investigated the effects of anxiety on the intensity of air hunger during gradually increasing levels of CO2 until the end-tidal fractional concentration of CO2 was 7.9% or air hunger was intolerable. Normal high and low (trait) anxious participants (N=23) went through three rebreathing trials (15 min interval). Breathing behaviour was continuou...

Bespreking van Boyd, B. (2005). Oudergids Asperger-syndroom. 200 tips en strategieën. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Nieuwezijds.

The first aim of this study was to evaluate the reliability and validity of one version of the PANAS that is widely used in Flanders. In a large nonclinical sample (N=3499), the PANAS showed solid psychometric properties. Sex differences appeared: men scored significantly higher on Positive Affect (PA), but significantly lower on Negative Affect (N...

This study aimed to investigate whether lightheadedness in response to odors could be acquired through previous associations with hyperventilation-induced hypocapnia. Diluted ammonia and acetic acid served as conditional odor cues (CSs) in a differential associative learning paradigm. Hyperventilation-induced hypocapnia (unconditional stimulus [US]...

Accurate perception of airway caliber remains an important issue in asthma management. The way bronchodilation is perceived is partly related to the perception of the efficacy of bronchodilators in relieving complaints. In the present study, we compared the effects of salmeterol, formoterol and placebo on relief of histamine-induced asthma symptoms...

Asthma education programs improve asthma treatment results significantly. Low participation rate is a recurrent problem that impedes the efficiency of those programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate social cognitive determinants of the intention to participate in an asthma self-management program. Structured interview. Outpatient clini...

This study aimed to characterize individual bodily symptoms as regards their differential relationship with negative affectivity (NA). In a first step, 73 symptoms were rated by independent groups of raters (psychologists, medical doctors, healthy students) on the following characteristics: the extent to which a symptom (1) refers to a specific loc...

Although hyperventilation has been hypothesized to play a role in many pathologies, its critical triggers remain poorly understood. The present experiment aimed to test whether stronger hyperventilation responses occur in response to suggested risk of suffocation compared with other fearful situations in high- and low-trait anxious women. Fractiona...