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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Psychopathology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1412001
This article is part of the Research Topic Emotional Impulsivity and Emotion Regulation Deficits as Important Factors in Clinically Challenging Behaviors in Psychiatric Disorders View all 4 articles

Contexts of Urgency May Go Beyond Emotion

Provisionally accepted
Matthew V. Elliott Matthew V. Elliott *Oliver P. John Oliver P. John JD Allen JD Allen Sheri L. Johnson Sheri L. Johnson
  • University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Urgency has been defined as the tendency towards rash speech and behavior in the context of emotion. Measures of Urgency have been found to have robust predictive power for psychopathologies and problematic behaviors. In the current study, we question whether emotions are unique drivers of urgency, or if emotions are potent exemplars of contexts that lead to rash speech and behavior. The Emotion Specific model and the Broader Contexts model correspond with these two conceptualizations of urgency, and they frame our pre-registered hypotheses. Participants from two well-powered samples (n = 600, n = 588) completed 9 modified items from the Urgency and Positive Urgency scales to assess rash responses in each of four contexts -"Upset," "Excited," "Tired," and "Hungry" -and a fifth "In General" set. After data cleaning, we used principal components analysis to construct a unidimensional, 4-item set that was applied to capture impulsive behavior across the five contexts. We found that this research tool, called the Contexts of Impulsive Behaviors (CIBS), replicated in the second dataset, and it had adequate internal reliability in both samples. Although the Emotion Specific model was supported by the fact that the Upset context had a greater mean and greater variance than the Tired and Hungry contexts, most results supported the Broader Contexts model. That is, CIBS contexts were highly intercorrelated, and bivariate correlations with psychopathology were not significantly different across contexts. In partial correlations, effects of the Upset and Excited contexts were partially or fully statistically mediated by the Tired and Hungry contexts. These findings suggest that emotions are potent contexts for impulsive behaviors. At the same time, those with high urgency are vulnerable to impulsivity in other Deleted: triggers Deleted: TRIGGERS contexts, such as fatigue and hunger, that challenge the regulatory functions of the prefrontal cortex. Limitations, future directions, and clinical implications are discussed.

    Keywords: emotion, impulsivity, Psychopathology, Self-Control, urgency

    Received: 03 Apr 2024; Accepted: 29 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Elliott, John, Allen and Johnson. 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) or licensor 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.

    * Correspondence: Matthew V. Elliott, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.