Attentional disorder: Cause or consequence of emotional problems?

An essen tial ques tion in concep tu al ising atten tional processes in emotional dysfunc tion concerns whether or not these processes have a direct causal or a contrib ut ory role in dysfunc tion, or are merely a consequence or epiphen omenon of such dysfunc tion. The caus al ity issue can be approached from a longit ud inal perspect ive by consid er ing the devel op ment of emotional prob lems over a timecourse. In this frame work, relat ively stable atten tional factors could increase individual vulner ab il ity to emotional disorders by their inter ac tion with other person and envir on mental vari ables. In this scen ario, atten tional “disorder” may predate emotional prob lems. In contrast, atten tional disorder may result from emotional disturb ance. Nevertheless, even if emotional prob lems cause partic u lar attentional phenom ena, these phenom ena could still play a role in trans form ing normal emotional reac tions into patho lo gical ones. More specifi c ally, there could be indi vidual differ ences in the type and intens ity of certain atten tional responses under states of stress, some vari et ies of which could contrib ute to the devel opment of emotional disorders.