Emotional awareness and bullying prevention in children with autism spectrum disorder / 中国实用儿科杂志

Emotional disorder is one of the main clinical symptoms of autism spectrum disorder(ASD),which is related to the lack of emotional awareness,social cognition and alexithymia. It is often manifested as difficulty in recognizing,distinguishing and processing emotional information of oneself and others,resulting in making inappropriate emotional reactions. Children and adolescents with ASD often participate in school bullying as the perpetrator,victim,or victim-perpetrator,and this brings about a series of negative physical and mental effects on them. Bullying prevention should not only include interventions for core symptoms and comorbidities of ASD,but also involve building partner empathy and social skills,teacher responsibility and supportive services,parental involvement,and social integration.

Las emociones en la vida universitaria: análisis de la relación entre autoconocimiento emocional y autorregulación emocional en adolescentes y jóvenes universitarios / Emotions in university life: Analysis of the relationship between emotional self-awareness and emotional selfregulation in teens and college-aged students

Resumen Objetivo: Se presentan los resultados de una investigación correlacional que estableció la relación entre autoconocimiento y autorregulación emocional en universitarios colombianos. Método: La muestra estuvo compuesta por 356 sujetos entre 15 y 22 años, que cursaban carreras profesionales en tres universidades de Cartagena de Indias (Colombia). La información fue recolectada a través de la escala CARE, con una consistencia interna de 0.722 para autoconocimiento y 0.750 para autorregulación. Resultados: Los hallazgos revelan una asociación estadísticamente significativa entre los niveles de autoconocimiento emocional y los de autorregulación emocional de los participantes, encontrándose que a mayor percepción e identificación de las emociones, mayor es la probabilidad de desarrollar tolerancia a la frustración. De igual manera, se halló que la capacidad de hablar abiertamente de las emociones y de reconocer señales emocionales internas aumenta la probabilidad de regular los impulsos emocionales, de generar estrategias de afrontamiento y de desarrollar tolerancia a la frustración. Conclusión: La comunicación y el reconocimiento de las emociones son aspectos determinantes para que estos jóvenes puedan regular sus emociones y enfrentar o manejar adecuadamente los problemas cotidianos.

Abstract Objective: This paper aims to submit a correlational research in order to establish a relationship between emotional self-awareness and emotional self-regulation in Colombian university students. Method: 356 university students aged between 15 and 22 from Cartagena (Colombia) were sampled. CARE scale was used to collect the information, giving an internal consistency of 0.722 to 0.750 for self-knowledge and self-regulation. Results: The findings reveal a statistically significant association between participants' levels of emotional self-awareness and emotional self-regulation. A higher perception and identification of emotions was found, also the greater the likelihood of developing tolerance to the frustration. Similarly, the capability to talk openly about emotions and inner emotional signals increases the likelihood of regulating emotional impulsiveness, to generate coping strategies and to have greater tolerance to frustration, was established Conclusions: Emotions communication and recognition are determining factors so that these young people can regulate their emotions and face or handle better the daily problems.

Propiedades psicométricas del Cuestionario de conciencia emocional en población infantil española / Psychometric properties of the emotional awareness questionnaire in a Spanish child population

La competencia emocional es la capacidad para percibir, expresar, comprender, regular y controlar nuestras emociones y las de los demás. La conciencia emocional es la competencia básica que permite el desarrollo del resto de competencias emocionales durante la infancia y la adolescencia. En este trabajo, se han estudiado las propiedades psicométricas de la versión española del Cuestionario de conciencia emocional, administrado a 1476 niños/as españoles (8-12 años). Se ha replicado la estructura original formada por seis factores. Se han estudiado la Habilidad de los ítems y del instrumento, la validez de constructo, de contenido y concurrente, los resultados han sido satisfactorios. Se han observado diferencias según sexo y edad. Los resultados apoyan el uso del autoinforme con fines clínicos y de investigación.

Emotional competence is the ability to perceive, express, understand, regulate, and control our emotions and those of others. Emotional awareness is the competence that allows the development of the emotional competencies during childhood and adolescence. The aim of this piece of work is study the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the emotional awareness Questionnaire, administered to 1476 Spanish children (8-12 years old). The original six-factor structure was replicated. An analysis was performed on the items, construct validity, content validity, and the concurrent validity, with the results being satisfactory. Significant differences were found for gender and age. The results support the use of a self-report questionnaire for clinical as well as research purposes.

Validación del Cuestionario de Conciencia Emocional en Adolescentes Españoles / Validation of Emotional Awareness Questionnaire in Spanish Adolescent

La regulación de la emoción es un proceso complejo que implica la iniciación, inhibición o modulación del propio estado o comportamiento en una situación dada (Cole, Michel & Teti, 1994). La regulación emocional tiene una función altamente significativa en la vida humana ya que reacciones emocionales inapropiadas, extremas o incontroladas pueden impedir un ajuste funcional a la sociedad (Koole, 2009). Sin embargo para una adecuada regulación emocional es necesaria una buena comprensión emocional y, a su vez, para una comprensión eficaz se requiere una apropiada percepción emocional. En este estudio se analizan las propiedades psicométricas de la versión española del Cuestionario de Conciencia Emocional revisado (Emotional Awareness Questionnaire, EAQ30) desarrollado por Rieffe, Oosterveld, Miers, Terwogt y Ly (2008). La versión española del EAQ30 fue administrada a 1.316 adolescentes españoles de 14 a 16 años. Los datos confirman la estructura original de la escala de seis factores: Distinción de las emociones, Intercambio verbal de las emociones, No ocultamiento de las emociones, Conciencia corporal, Análisis de las emociones y Atención a las emociones de los otros. Los coeficientes de consistencia interna de las subescalas del EAQ30 fueron satisfactorios y equivalentes a los obtenidos en la escala original. Por otra parte, el estudio también confirmó la invariancia de la estructura factorial del instrumento cuando se considera el sexo, en la adolescencia media. Estos resultados permitirían sostener que la adaptación al español aquí presentada puede ser utilizada para evaluar el constructo conciencia emocional en adolescentes de lengua española de un modo válido y confiable en ambos sexos.

Emotional awareness is an attentional process that enables us to monitor our emotions and to differentiate between various emotions in a qualitative sense, to locate their antecedents, and to acknowledge the physiological correlates of the emotion experience (Rieffe, Oosterveld, Miers, Terwogt, & Ly, 2008). Rieffe and colaborators (2008) consider that emotional awareness also includes attitudinal aspects such as positive or negative appreciation of the own emotions, consideration of them as aspects of oneself, or on the contrary, that they must be communicated to the others. Emotional awareness would be a cognitive skill that would enable the opportunity to regulate the most primitive emotional reactions and find patterns that are more appropriate reaction to a particular context (Rieffe, Terwogt, Petrides, Cowan, Miers, & Tolland, 2007). It is necessary to have a good emotional awareness to adequately cope a particular situation. Since there were no scales to measure emotional awareness but often alexithymia scales were used to evaluate it as its opposed emotional state, Rieffe and colleagues (2007) developed the Emotional Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ). Different analyses carried out by Rieffe and collaborators led to the Revised Emotional Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ Revised - Rieffe et al., 2008). Subsequent studies developed by Lahaye, Luminet, Broeck, Bodart, and Mikolajczak (2010) using the revised Emotional Awareness Questionnaire, found a positive correlation of the questionnaire’s six dimensions with emotional intelligence. The same study showed a negative correlation between emotional awareness and the three dimensions - difficulty in identifying feelings, difficulty in describing feelings, and oriented to an external thinking - that make up Alexithymia Questionnaire for Children developed by Rieffe, Oosterveld, and Meerum Terwogt (2006). Given the importance of emotional awareness to the emotional development of children and adolescents and that there are no instruments published in Spanish that validly measure this construct, in this study, we investigated the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Emotional Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ 30; Rieffe et al., 2008). The EAQ30 is a self-report questionnaire comprising 30 items rated on a 3-point scale (1 = Not true, 2 = Sometimes true, 3 = True). It includes six subscales or dimensions: (1) Differentiating emotions or ability to differentiate and understand the causes of emotions; (2) Bodily awareness or identification of the physical aspects of emotional experience; (3) Verbal sharing or verbal communication’s own emotional state; (4) Acting out emotions or impulsive tendency to show emotions of oneself in a way non- functional; (5) Analyses of emotionsor ability to deal voluntarily to one’s emotions; and finally, and (6) Attending to others’ emotions or the voluntary decision to deal with the emotions of others. The EAQ30 was administered to 1316 children aged 14 to 16 years old (age: M = 14.95; SD = .72), from Valencia (Spain), of middle socioeconomic level. The translation of this questionnaire was performed according to the International Test Commission guidelines for test adaptation (Hambleton, 2001). Asix-factor model was tested using AMOS Program; the results have shown that the original 6-factor structure was replicated in our data. The internal consistency coefficients of the EAQ30 subscales were satisfactory -Cronbach’s estimates between .68 and .70- and equivalent to those obtained in the original scale. A multiple group analysis was used to test whether the six-factor model was invariant across the gender by examining the change in model ji square and comparative fit index (CFI) values. We found the model of 6-factor has metric invariant through gender. These results allow us to claim that the Spanish version presented here can be used to evaluate the construct emotional awareness in Spanish adolescents of a valid and reliable way. It would be interesting to do further studies with different Spanish-speaking populations to see if the stability of the structure is preserved after making appropriate adjustments to the specific language in the use of Spanish for each of the populations involved.

Emotional Awareness Deficits in Male Patients with Alcohol Dependence / 신경정신의학

OBJECTIVES: The individual's ability to recognize and describe emotion in self and others is an important concept of many psychiatric disorders. The purpose of this study was to investigate emotional awareness deficits in patients with alcohol dependence. METHODS: 55 male inpatients with alcohol dependence and 28 male normal controls were evaluated by the Korean version of the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS-K), the Korean version of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20K), the Openness Experience Inventory (OEI) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). The LEAS-K is an objective measure to assess the ability to be aware of one's own or another's emotions and the TAS-20 is the most widely used subjective measure of alexithymia. Scores of these scales were compared between two groups using ANCOVA controlling age and BDI scores. RESULTS: The LEAS-K scores were significantly lower in alcohol-dependent patients than normal controls. The TAS-20K total scores, factor 1 (Difficulty to Identifying Feeling, DIF) and factor 3 (Externally Oriented Thinking, EOT) were significantly higher in alcohol-dependent patients than normal controls. In contrast to the LEAS-K, the TAS-20K scores correlated significantly with the BDI scores. CONCLUSION: Emotional awareness is impaired in alcohol-dependent patients and it may not be related with depressive mood. Additional studies are needed to explore the significance of alexithymia, especially impaired emotional awareness, and its relationship to depressive mood in patients with alcohol dependence.

Empathy and Mood Awareness Reflected in the Resting-State Brain Metabolic Activity in the Patients with Schizophrenia and Normal Subjects

OBJECTIVES: Empathy has been conceptualized as the ability of emotional resonance and perspective-taking. Emotional awareness has been proposed as the basis of empathy. In this study we examined the relationship between empathy and mood awareness and their neural correlates in resting-state activity in normal controls and patients with schizophrenia. METHODS: Empathy and mood awareness scale scores were compared between 29 patients with schizophrenia and 21 normal controls by voxel-based t-tests and voxel-based correlation analyses of resting-state 18F-FDG PET images. RESULTS: Empathy and mood labeling scale scores were significantly decreased in schizophrenic patients. Mood monitoring was positively correlated with empathy score in normal controls, but not in schizophrenic patients. In normal controls, empathy was positively correlated with resting-state activities in the intraparietal sulcus and mood monitoring was positively correlated with the temporal pole, frontopolar cortex, inferior temporal gyrus, entorhinal cortex and the subgenual prefrontal cortex resting activities. The orbitofrontal cortex resting activity was positively correlated with mood monitoring-related subgenual prefrontal cortex activity in the normal controls. Patients with schizophrenia showed decreased orbitofrontal resting activity and loss of its correlations with mood monitoring-related regional activities. CONCLUSION: This study showed that alteration in the resting-state activity in schizophrenia may reflect dysfunctional empathy and distorted characteristic of emotional awareness. However, the resting-state activity may not reflect the relationship between emotional awareness and empathy.