Do meta-cognitive beliefs affect meta-awareness of intrusive thoughts about trauma?
Loading...
Date
2016-10-24
Authors
Takarangi, Melanie K T
Nayda, Diane
Strange, Deryn
Nixon, Reginald David
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Rights
© 2016 Elsevier.
Rights Holder
Elsevier.
Abstract
Background and Objectives
People exposed to trauma often experience intrusive thoughts and memories about that event. Research examining people's responses to trauma assumes that people can accurately notice the occurrence of symptoms. However, we know from the broader cognitive literature on ‘mind-wandering’ that people are not always aware of their current focus of attention. That lack of awareness has implications for our theoretical and practical understanding of how trauma survivors recover from their experience. In the current study we investigated whether people's meta-cognitive beliefs about controlling trauma-related intrusions influenced the occurrence and meta-awareness of those intrusions.
Methods
We recruited participants who scored high (strong beliefs) or low (weak beliefs) on beliefs regarding the importance of controlling intrusive thoughts. Participants viewed a trauma film then—during a subsequent reading task—reported any film-related intrusions they noticed. We also intermittently asked half the participants to report what they were thinking at that particular moment, to “catch” intrusions without meta-awareness.
Results
People are not always aware of their trauma intrusions, and importantly, people with strong beliefs are more likely to notice trauma related intrusions both with and without meta-awareness than people with weak beliefs.
Limitations
We used an analogue trauma, and focused on a particular metacognitive belief, both of which somewhat limit generalizability. We also cannot definitively rule out demand effects.
Conclusions
Our data add to existing research showing people may lack meta-awareness of trauma-related thoughts, and suggest that survivors with particular metacognitive characteristics may be more vulnerable to ‘mind-wandering’ about trauma without awareness.
Description
© 2016 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Keywords
Meta-cognitive beliefs, meta-awareness, trauma, intrusions, PTSD, posttraumatic stress disorder
Citation
Takarangi, M. K. T., Nayda, D., Strange, D., & Nixon, R. D. V. (2017). Do meta-cognitive beliefs affect meta-awareness of intrusive thoughts about trauma? Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 54, 292–300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2016.10.005