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Emotion Regulation and PsychopathologyInappropriate emotional responses are implicatedin a large number of forms of psychopathology(Gross & Levenson, 1997; Thoits,1985). Indeed, more than half of the Axis Iclinical disorders (such as the anxiety disordersand mood disorders), and all of the Axis II personalitydisorders (such as borderline personalitydisorder), involve problematic emotionalresponses (American Psychiatric Association,2000). What's proven more difficult than onemight expect, however, has been moving frombroad statements such as these to specific empiricallygrounded insights concerning how differencesin emotional reactivity and/or emotion508 V PERSONALITY ISSUESregulation contribute to different forms of psychopathology(Rottenberg & Gross, 2003;Rottenberg & Johnson, 2007), and how therapeuticinterventions might be used to correctdysregulated emotion (Moses & Barlow,2006).Take major depressive disorder. This disorderis a devastating psychiatric conditionwhose definition includes increased negativeaffect and anhedonia (diminished positive affect).From this definition, it might seem obviousthat depression leads to disrupted emotionregulation (Gross & Munoz, 1995). However,there are no fewer than three competing viewsof how depression disrupts emotional responding,and without clarity about the nature of theproblematic emotions, it is very difficult todraw conclusions about the role of emotionregulation (Rottenberg, Gross, & Gotlib,2005). The first view is that depression involvesdiminished emotional reactivity to positivesituations. In support of this "positive attenuation"view, convincing evidence from avariety of induction contexts suggests that individualswho are depressed respond with lesspositive emotion than individuals who are notdepressed. The second view is that depressioninvolves increased negative emotional reactivity.Like the positive attenuation hypothesis,the "negative potentiation" view seems to followdirectly from the very definition of depression,as well as from major theories of depression(e.g., Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979).However, the preponderance of empirical evidenceactually suggests that individuals whoare depressed show lesser rather than greateremotional reactivity.These findings suggest a third view-namely,the "emotion context insensitivity" view(Rottenberg et aI., 2005). This view derives fromevolutionary accounts of depression as characterizedby disengagement (Nesse, 2000), andsees emotional responses (whether negative orpositive) as involving energetic engagement withthe environment. In this view, depression leadsto pervasive disengagement, and hence to diminishedlevels of both positive and negative emotionalreactivity. Consistent with this third view,Rottenberg and colleagues (Rottenberg, Kasch,Gross, & Gotlib, 2002; Rottenberg & Johnson,2007) have presented studies showing that relativeto either formerly depressed or neverdepressedparticipants, depressed individualsshowed less
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