Psychophysiologische und subjektive Korrelate aversiver und appetitiver Reizverarbeitung im Menschen und die Rolle interindividueller Unterschiede

This dissertation focuses on inter-individual differences in the processing of aversive and appetitive stimuli. Approaches for clinical interventions can be developed based on the associations between deviations in stimulus processing and mental health. In this dissertation, three central processes of stimulus processing were examined: the cognitive processing of emotional stimuli, biases of which are associated with the development of depression, affective learning, which is often used as a model for addictive disorders, and the reaction to acute stress stimuli as a relevant influencing factor for the development of many clinical conditions. Special consideration was given to the role of habitual anxiety coping, as a repressive coping style is associated with an increased prevalence of numerous stress-related illnesses. To investigate these factors, three elaborate studies were conducted in which various physiological measures such as electrodermal activity and cardiac activity, subjective ratings and implicit measures of cognitive biases were used. The results indicate that inter-individual differences play a role in all the stimulus processing steps considered. Study I showed that habitual anxiety coping can influence automatic action tendencies towards positive stimuli, with repressors showing an increased approach tendency. This suggests that cognitive biases may be maladaptive in principle and not only to negative stimuli. Study II showed that appetitive conditioning can lead to comparable cardiac CRs as aversive conditioning and thus provide a new peripheral physiological measure of CRs in appetitive conditioning paradigms. Furthermore, the study provided evidence for a relationship between appetitive and aversive CRs on a subjective, but not on a physiological level. In Study III, no altered stress response known from repressors in the form of a weakened subjective stress perception and an increased physiological stress response could be observed under non-social stress. This indicates that this reaction could possibly be triggered primarily by social stress. Overall, the results provide evidence that inter-individual differences may play a role in emotional stimulus processing. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.