Attention Bias and Metacognition: Relationships with Childhood Trauma and Psychological Vulnerability

Abstract

The thesis is grounded in the self-regulatory executive function model (S-REF; Wells & Matthews, 1994, 1996). It explored the relationship between childhood trauma and cognitive biases in the areas of attention and metacognition, and associations with psychological vulnerability. While attention bias and metacognitive beliefs have been associated with psychological distress, socio-environmental factors that might contribute to their development, such as childhood trauma, are not well understood. Paper 1 provides a systematic review of the literature on the associations between childhood trauma and attentional bias to emotional stimuli in adulthood. The review highlights that childhood trauma is positively, albeit inconsistently, associated with attentional bias to emotional stimuli. While bias was not dependent upon childhood trauma type or experimental design, the impact of current psychopathology was unclear due to inadequate clinical controls. The results suggest that both automatic and strategic mechanisms underlie attentional bias following childhood trauma and highlight the potential usefulness of attentional control interventions. Paper 2 tested the associations between childhood trauma, dysfunctional metacognition and psychological vulnerability. Childhood trauma was significantly positively associated with dysfunctional metacognition and psychological vulnerability, and dysfunctional metacognition was also associated with increased psychological vulnerability. Furthermore, the association between childhood trauma and psychological vulnerability was partially mediated by dysfunctional metacognition. The findings indicate the role of dysfunctional metacognition as a mechanism for increased psychological vulnerability following childhood trauma. Finally, paper 3 provides a critical appraisal of the previous two papers. It offers a theoretical framework and considers the design, implementation and interpretation of the results of the thesis. Taken together, the results highlight that childhood trauma is associated with greater psychological vulnerability and metacognitive bias as implicated in the S-REF model. The association between childhood trauma and attention bias is mixed and therefore, future research is needed to explore the causal relationships between childhood trauma, bias and psychological vulnerability. The thesis supports the application of metacognitive therapy for individuals exposed to childhood trauma.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Adrian Wells (Supervisor) & Lora Capobianco (Supervisor)