BACKGROUND: Studies that focus on coping strategies, especially among civilian hostages, are scant. Research findings may help predict the chances of readjustment upon return from captivity. The present study aimed to examine the challenges that the civilian hostages faced during captivity and how they dealt with the conditions of captivity. The study was based on seventeen interviews conducted with citizens who returned from Hamas captivity in the first release of hostages. All interviews were conducted by experienced journalists and were broadcast on the main television networks between 11.12.2024 and 4.1.2024. Two main themes were identified using inductive thematic analysis-difficulties in captivity (e.g., dealing with uncertainty, dependent relationships, conditions of isolation, and boredom). The second theme included coping strategies (e.g., hope, regaining control, building certainty, etc.). In each of these themes, several sub-themes that detail the difficulties in captivity and the ways of dealing with them were identified. In addition, the citizens who returned from captivity described using two coping strategies: problem-focused, which aims to manage the problem by \"removing\" or changing the stressful factor (e.g., planning, building certainty), and emotion-focused coping, which aims to reduce or eliminate the emotional stress and emotions that arise following the trauma (such as distraction, appeal to beliefs, humor, etc.). The themes revealed attempts to regain resources while trying to understand the situation, interpret it, reduce the emotional stress, and act in threatening situations effectively in order to make it possible to survive.

BACKGROUND: We present a case study dealing with the emotional coping of a physician\'s exposure to continuous traumatic stress starting with the events of Oct. 7, 2023 and during the following months.
BACKGROUND: The medical staff at Soroka Medical Center in southern Israel have faced unprecedented challenges over the past months due to ongoing conflict along the Gaza border. Since October 7, 2023, over 2,550 wounded patients have been treated at Soroka for injuries of varying severity, with more than 250 requiring life-saving surgeries. As the region\'s largest trauma center, Soroka\'s staff have endured continuous exposure to traumatic stress, suffering, distress and grief - both within the hospital and in their personal lives.
CONCLUSIONS: While the long-term impacts remain to be seen, preliminary findings suggest that organizational efforts during routine may help mitigate potential negative effects of exposure to traumatic stress in the course of emergency. Further research is needed to understand how cumulative exposure interacts with process of recovery and growth.
CONCLUSIONS: The current report presents the different layers of traumatic exposure, the associated risk and resilience factors and a perception that was instilled in the hospital in the years preceding the current war which promoted a culture of proactive peer discourse about emotional hardship and normalization of referral for professional help when needed. We also present coping behaviors that were common among many staff members and organizational responses, considering the uniqueness of the current challenges, their scope and duration.

BACKGROUND: Prominent theories of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) propose that the behaviour is characterised by amplified emotional responses. However, little is known about how people who self-injure respond during emotional challenge.
METHODS: We measured subjective and physiological responding (heart rate, heart rate variability, and electrodermal responding) among young adults with past-year NSSI (n = 51) and those with no lifetime NSSI (n = 50) during a resting baseline, a stress induction, and a post-stress resting phase. Participants reported the extent to which they spontaneously used cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression during the post-stress phase. Two weeks later, a subset of the sample (n = 42) reported how they remembered feeling during the laboratory session.
RESULTS: Although the NSSI group reported considerably greater emotion dysregulation than Controls, both groups showed similar subjective and psychological reactivity to, and recovery from, emotional challenge. Both groups used reappraisal and suppression regulation strategies following acute stress to a similar extent, and later came to remember the emotional challenge in a similar manner.
CONCLUSIONS: Within the NSSI group, past-year self-injury tended to be infrequent and sporadic. Only 43.6% of the sample participated in the follow-up survey assessing memory of emotional challenge.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings demonstrate that the role of emotion in NSSI is more complex than prominent theories can account for, raising substantial questions regarding the nature of emotion in NSSI. A more comprehensive understanding of the role of emotion in NSSI is needed to inform intervention strategies to better support people who self-injure.

BACKGROUND: Auditory-verbal hallucinatory experiences (AVH) have a 12% prevalence in the general pediatric population. Literature reports a higher risk of developing AVH in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The persistence of AVHs during adolescence represents a risk of evolution into psychotic disorders. Social cognition and emotional markers could be considered prodromes markers of this evolution. The objectives of this prospective observational study are to observe social cognition and emotional markers correlation with the presence and persistence of AVH over two years and with the evolution of PTSD and psychotic diagnosis.
METHODS: This prospective case-control study, longitudinal over two years (with an interim reassessment at six months and one year), will include 40 participants aged 8 to 16 years old with a diagnosis of PTSD and without a diagnosis of psychosis according to the criteria of DSM-5 (K-SADS-PL). Subjects included are divided into two groups with AVH and without AVH matched by gender, age and diagnosis. The primary outcome measure will be the correlation between social cognition and emotional makers and the presence of AVH in the PTSD pediatric population without psychotic disorders. The social cognition marker is assessed with the NEPSY II test. The emotional marker is assessed with the Differential Emotion Scale IV and the Revised Beliefs About Voices Questionnaire. The secondary outcome measures are the correlation of these markers with the persistence of AVH and the evolution of the patient\'s initial diagnosis two years later.
CONCLUSIONS: The originality of our protocol is to explore the potential progression to psychosis from PTSD by cognitive biases. This study supports the hypothesis of connections between PTSD and AVH through sensory, emotional and cognitive biases. It proposes a continuum model from PTSD to psychotic disorder due to impaired perception like AVH.
BACKGROUND: Clinical trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03356028.

Democratic societies have to face the challenge of increasing affective polarisation - a strong, emotionally fuelled, opposition between adherents of different political parties, or conflicting views and attitudes in different social groups. Social and psychological sciences can contribute to a better understanding of this phenomenon and the special role of emotion theory and research in this respect. In their invited contribution, Bakker and Lelkes note the lack of conceptual precision of the term affective and invite emotion scientists to fill this notion with a theoretical structure that encourages systematic research across different problem areas and cultures. Two invited comments on this article support this initiative but favour an approach that privileges discrete emotions. In his comment, Von Scheve argues that intentionality and the associated action tendencies are essential to understand the emotional basis of polarisation. Halperin et al., based on a conceptual analysis and their own empirical research, they highlight the multi-faceted emotion of disappointment, covering both negative and positive aspects, as the most promising candidate. Finally, I consider the potential role of mixed or blended emotions as well as the potential contributions of appraisal theory, especially with respect to appraisal bias and ensuing emotion dispositions and action tendencies.

An intriguing perspective about human emotion, the theory of constructed emotion considers emotions as generative models according to the Bayesian brain hypothesis. This theory brings fresh insight to existing findings, but its complexity renders it challenging to test experimentally. We argue that laboratory studies of pain could support the theory because although some may not consider pain to be a genuine emotion, the theory must at minimum be able to explain pain perception and its dysfunction in pathology. We review emerging evidence that bear on this question. We cover behavioral and neural laboratory findings, computational models, placebo hyperalgesia, and chronic pain. We conclude that there is substantial evidence for a predictive processing account of painful experience, paving the way for a better understanding of neuronal and computational mechanisms of other emotions.

BACKGROUND: The pandemic has had a significant impact on the daily lives of children and their families, particularly the children of health care workers, due to changes in family routines as a result of their parents\' work schedules. We aimed to explore the socioemotional and behavioural (SEB) problems of children of healthcare worker mothers (HCWM) during the COVID-19 pandemic and compare them with age-matched children and their mothers from other occupations.
METHODS: A case-control study design was applied, and a snowball approach was used to enrol volunteered participants aged between 6 and 36 months of age, through a Google survey. We used the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (BITSEA) questionnaire to assess children\'s SEB problems and a Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) to evaluate the psychological distress of mothers. Differences in BITSEA, BSI and MSPSS scores were examined using chi-square and Mann-Whitney U tests, as appropriate. A logistic regression model was used to identify independent predictors of children\'s behavioural and emotional problems.
RESULTS: In total, 600 questionnaires were analysed. It was observed that children in the HCWM group were separated from their mothers more often and for longer periods of time than their counterparts (p < 0.010, p = 0.002). Changes in the child\'s structured outdoor activities during the pandemic period were more likely to be observed in the HCWM group (p < 0.05). The percentage of children with the BITSEA problem subscale above the subclinical cut-off, externalizing and dysregulation scores were significantly higher in the HCWM group (p = 0.044, p = 0.031, and p = 0.016). Moreover, each point increase in BSI global index scores (p < 0.001, RR:3.34, 95%CI:1.91-5.82) was found as a risk factor for clinically significant SEB problems.
CONCLUSIONS: Overall, the current study suggests HCWM\'s have experienced occupational inequality, and young children of HCWM\'s were at increased risk for externalizing and dysregulation problems during the pandemic. Maternal psychological stress had a significant impact on their children\'s socio-emotional well-being.

Due to the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic, conducting sensory evaluations requiring direct interactions became challenging. In response, researchers have been motivated to devise non-face-to-face testing methods as alternatives. This study aimed to compare two non-face-to-face home-use tests (HUT) with the traditional face-to-face central location test (CLT). Both HUTs involved online recruitment and sample delivery to participants\' homes. One HUT provided a written protocol with no direct interaction (contactless HUT; C-HUT), whereas the other included an online meeting with a researcher for live guidance (online HUT; O-HUT). Four coffee samples were evaluated on the basis of liking and sensory and emotional attributes. The comparison between CLT and O-HUT showed RV coefficients of 0.92, 0.93, and 0.98 (P < 0.05) for liking and sensory and emotional attributes, respectively. In addition, based on the RV coefficient, the CLT results showed a significantly greater similarity to those of O-HUT compared to those of C-HUT. The O-HUT also outperformed the C-HUT in its ability to significantly discriminate between samples. Hence, real-time interactions between researchers and participants, as facilitated by O-HUT, may be more suitable in certain scenarios compared to C-HUT, which relies solely on a written protocol. Overall, these findings suggest that C-HUT and O-HUT are suitable methods for collecting sensory data and overcoming geographic and face-to-face contact limitations, providing greater flexibility, and reducing the time and cost associated with traditional sensory evaluations.

BACKGROUND: Studies on cross-informant agreement on adolescents\' emotional and behavioral problems (EBPs) are sparse in low- and middle-income countries. This study aimed to assess parent-adolescent and teacher-adolescent agreement on EBPs and associated factors in Nepal.
METHODS: This cross-sectional survey included 1904 school-going adolescents aged 11-18, enrolled in government and private schools located in sixteen districts of Nepal. The Nepali versions of the Youth Self Report, Child Behavior Checklist, and Teacher\'s Report Form were administered to assess EBPs reported by adolescents, their parents, and teachers, respectively. Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done to assess mean differences in problem scores. Pearson\'s correlation was used to assess cross-informant agreement. Linear regression analysis was used to explore factors associated with cross-informant discrepancies in EBPs.
RESULTS: Adolescents reported significantly more problems than their parents and teachers. Mean Total Problem scores for the 90 common items in the adolescents\' self-reports, parent reports, and teacher reports were 34.5 (standard deviation [SD]: 21.4), 24.1 (SD = 19.2), and 20.2 (SD = 17.5) respectively. Parent-adolescent agreement on Total Problems was moderate, whereas teacher-adolescent agreement was low. The parent-adolescent agreement was moderate to low for the two broadband scales and all syndrome scales, whereas the teacher-adolescent agreement was low for all scales. Female gender and ethnic minority status impacted both parent-adolescent and teacher-adolescent discrepancies. Family stress/conflicts impacted parent-adolescent discrepancies, while academic performance impacted teacher-adolescent discrepancies.
CONCLUSIONS: Nepali adolescents reported more EBPs than their parents and teachers. The agreement between adolescents\' self-reports and reports by their parents and teachers was moderate to low. Gender, caste/ethnicity, family stress/conflicts, and academic performance were associated with cross-informant discrepancies. It is crucial to collect information from different sources, consider context-specific needs, and discern factors influencing cross-informant discrepancies to accurately assess adolescents\' EBPs and develop personalized approaches to treatment planning.

Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) is a rare form of exceptional memory, characterised by an ability to recall personal episodes in response to dates. The single case \"DT\" is one of less than 100 HSAM individuals globally, and little is known about how these individuals organise the vast number of events they can recollect. We administered 2 novel priming tasks to explore navigation between autobiographical memories. In both tasks, a \"prime\" date appeared on the screen and DT was instructed to access and begin reliving a specific memory from that date. After 3 s, a \"target\" date appeared, and DT switched to the new memory. Latencies were recorded. Experiment 1 explored the influence of emotional valence on memory navigation. DT was quicker moving from positive or negative memories to neutral memories, compared to between neutral memories, supporting the role of emotionality in connecting memories in HSAM. Experiment 2 investigated semantic content and mental timeline configuration\'s role in organisation. DT was faster moving forward (e.g., 1996-1997) than backwards (e.g., 2023-2022), indicating a forwards perception of time. No differences were observed regarding semantic content. Results provide insight into DT\'s memory dimensions and support the use of this task to explore organisation.