ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the role of Negative Mood Regulation Expectancies (NMRE) in the development of suicidal and parasuicidal behavior, and also highlights that whether clinical interventions designed to enhance mood regulation skills are successful depends in part on people's faith that new mood regulation strategies will work for them. Given the cultural value in the United States of emotional self-control, we hypothesize that Americans who profess stronger NMRE will be perceived favorably by others. Catanzaro and Laurent argued that, among adolescents, superficially adaptive beliefs that one can regulate a negative mood in general might include maladaptive beliefs about specific options that reflect their immaturity. Recent advances in imaging technology have spurred an explosion of research illuminating the correlations between psychological phenomena and activity in the brain. For example, experienced meditators show distinctive Electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns and an eight-week program in meditation produced beneficial changes in brain activity and immune functioning.
