The distressed (Type D) personality factor of social inhibition, but not negative affectivity, enhances eyeblink conditioning

Partial Predictability in Avoidance Acquisition and Expression of Wistar-Kyoto and Sprague-Dawley Rats: Implications for Anxiety Vulnerability in Uncertain Situations

“…Both WKY and SD rats exhibited reduced avoidance responding in the 50% tone-alone condition as compared to the performance of each strain in the standard 100% tone-shock condition. This finding is consistent with the results of partial reinforcement studies of avoidance learning (41, 43, 52) as well as classical conditioning studies of schedules of partial reinforcement (32,(53)(54)(55)(56)(57)(58)(59). However, WKY rats in the 50% tone-alone condition outperformed SD rats in the 100% tone-shock condition, while SD rats in the 50% tonealone condition did not acquire significant levels of avoidance responses and tended to escape rather than avoid the shock.…”

“…In a human BI study of partial reinforcement (32), Allen and colleagues reported that a schedule with 50% US air puff trials produced greater enhancement of eyeblink conditioning than the 50% CS-alone schedule used in the current study. In addition, the inclusion of US-alone trials did not interfere with acquisition of conditioned eyeblinks (32,59). It would be of interest to test bar press avoidance in WKY and SD rats with a schedule in which un-signaled shocks are inter-mixed into toneshock training.…”

Inhibited Personality Temperaments Translated Through Enhanced Avoidance and Associative Learning Increase Vulnerability for PTSD

“…Other personality factors found to be strongly related to BI are harm avoidance or HA (Allen et al., 2017) and distressed (Type D) personality (Allen et al., 2018). HA is defined as a tendency to avoid punishing, novel, and non-rewarding situations (Nixon and Parsons, 1989) and can be measured with a subscale of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ; Cloninger et al., 1991, 1993).…”

“…High NA results in negative emotions, sadness, and a gloomy outlook on life, while high SI would result in a tendency to not share these negative emotions with others for fear of their reactions. Type D (including both the SI and NA subscales) was significantly positively correlated with current BI in a non-clinical sample (Allen et al., 2018) and is also related to PTSD in a variety of populations including survivors of heart attack (Pedersen et al., 2004), first responders (Ogińska-Bulik and Langer, 2007), and active duty military personnel (Mommersteeg et al., 2011; Rademaker et al., 2011). Recently, Servatius et al.…”

Cardiorespiratory Response to Moderate Hypercapnia in Female College Students Expressing Behaviorally Inhibited Temperament

“…Moreover, distressed (Type D) personality, a combination of negative affect and social inhibition linked to cardiovascular disease, has been reported to have low HRV (Martin et al, 2010;Bibbey et al, 2015). Both harm avoidance (Allen et al, 2017) and Type D personality (Servatius et al, 2017;Allen et al, 2018;Handy et al, 2018) are highly correlated with BI temperament. Thus, it is reasonable to expect BI to have inherently reduced HRV or alternatively greater reductions of HRV from exposure to challenges.…”