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Enhanced Avoidance Habits in Relation to History of Early-Life Stress

The effect of stress on the balance between goal-directed behavior and stimulus–response habits has been demonstrated in a number of studies, but the extent to which stressful events that occur during development affect the balance between these systems later in life is less clear. Here, we examined...

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Autores principales: Patterson, Tara K., Craske, Michelle G., Knowlton, Barbara J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6700232/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31456726
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01876
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author Patterson, Tara K.
Craske, Michelle G.
Knowlton, Barbara J.
author_facet Patterson, Tara K.
Craske, Michelle G.
Knowlton, Barbara J.
author_sort Patterson, Tara K.
collection PubMed
description The effect of stress on the balance between goal-directed behavior and stimulus–response habits has been demonstrated in a number of studies, but the extent to which stressful events that occur during development affect the balance between these systems later in life is less clear. Here, we examined whether individuals with a history of early-life stress (ELS) show a bias toward avoidance habits on an instrumental learning task as adults. Participants (N = 189 in Experiment 1 and N = 112 in Experiment 2) were undergraduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized that a history of ELS and a longer training phase would be associated with greater avoidance habits. Participants learned to make button-press responses to visual stimuli in order to avoid aversive auditory outcomes. Following a training phase involving extensive practice of the responses, participants were tested for habitual responding using outcome devaluation. After completing the instrumental learning task, participants provided retrospective reports of stressful events they experienced during their first 16 years of life. We did not observe evidence for an effect of the length of training, but we did observe an effect of ELS, with greater stress predicting greater odds of performing the avoidance habit. In Experiment 2, we sought to replicate the effect of ELS observed in Experiment 1, and we also tested whether the presence of distraction during training would increase avoidance habit performance. We replicated the effect of ELS but we did not observe evidence of an effect of distraction. Taken together, these data lend support to the hypothesis that stress occurring during development can have lasting effects on the balance between goal-directed behavior and stimulus–response habits in humans. Enhancement of avoidance habits may help explain the higher levels of negative health outcomes such as heart and liver disease that have been observed in individuals with a history of ELS. Some of the negative health behaviors that contribute to these negative health outcomes, e.g., overeating and substance use, may be performed initially to avoid feelings of distress and then transition to being performed habitually.
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spelling pubmed-67002322019-08-27 Enhanced Avoidance Habits in Relation to History of Early-Life Stress Patterson, Tara K. Craske, Michelle G. Knowlton, Barbara J. Front Psychol Psychology The effect of stress on the balance between goal-directed behavior and stimulus–response habits has been demonstrated in a number of studies, but the extent to which stressful events that occur during development affect the balance between these systems later in life is less clear. Here, we examined whether individuals with a history of early-life stress (ELS) show a bias toward avoidance habits on an instrumental learning task as adults. Participants (N = 189 in Experiment 1 and N = 112 in Experiment 2) were undergraduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized that a history of ELS and a longer training phase would be associated with greater avoidance habits. Participants learned to make button-press responses to visual stimuli in order to avoid aversive auditory outcomes. Following a training phase involving extensive practice of the responses, participants were tested for habitual responding using outcome devaluation. After completing the instrumental learning task, participants provided retrospective reports of stressful events they experienced during their first 16 years of life. We did not observe evidence for an effect of the length of training, but we did observe an effect of ELS, with greater stress predicting greater odds of performing the avoidance habit. In Experiment 2, we sought to replicate the effect of ELS observed in Experiment 1, and we also tested whether the presence of distraction during training would increase avoidance habit performance. We replicated the effect of ELS but we did not observe evidence of an effect of distraction. Taken together, these data lend support to the hypothesis that stress occurring during development can have lasting effects on the balance between goal-directed behavior and stimulus–response habits in humans. Enhancement of avoidance habits may help explain the higher levels of negative health outcomes such as heart and liver disease that have been observed in individuals with a history of ELS. Some of the negative health behaviors that contribute to these negative health outcomes, e.g., overeating and substance use, may be performed initially to avoid feelings of distress and then transition to being performed habitually. Frontiers Media S.A. 2019-08-13 /pmc/articles/PMC6700232/ /pubmed/31456726 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01876 Text en Copyright © 2019 Patterson, Craske and Knowlton. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Patterson, Tara K.
Craske, Michelle G.
Knowlton, Barbara J.
Enhanced Avoidance Habits in Relation to History of Early-Life Stress
title Enhanced Avoidance Habits in Relation to History of Early-Life Stress
title_full Enhanced Avoidance Habits in Relation to History of Early-Life Stress
title_fullStr Enhanced Avoidance Habits in Relation to History of Early-Life Stress
title_full_unstemmed Enhanced Avoidance Habits in Relation to History of Early-Life Stress
title_short Enhanced Avoidance Habits in Relation to History of Early-Life Stress
title_sort enhanced avoidance habits in relation to history of early-life stress
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6700232/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31456726
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01876
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