A Multifaceted Assessment of Emotional Tolerance and Intensity in Hoarding

Hoarding and eating pathology: The mediating role of emotion regulation

“…These findings are consistent with previous research demonstrating associations between emotion dysregulation and hoarding behaviors [25,27] as well as disordered eating [29] and extend this research by demonstrating that emotion dysregulation is one mechanism that accounts for the associations noted. Contrary to initial predictions however, difficulties regulating emotions did not mediate the association between hoarding severity and BMI.…”

“…In addition, acquiring has been conceptualized as a maladaptive attempt to regulate one's positive and negative emotions [28], which could be particularly problematic in the context of a lack of more adaptive emotion regulation strategies. Consistent with this notion, when examining the hoarding subscales separately Timpano and colleagues [27] found that difficulty discarding and acquiring, but not clutter, were associated with both self-report and behavioral indices of emotion dysregulation.…”

“…In addition, distress tolerance, a related but separate construct reflecting one's ability to withstand negative emotional states, has been found to predict hoarding symptom severity in nonclinical samples [26,27]. Previous researchers have hypothesized that emotion dysregulation may play a role in specific features of hoarding disorder, particularly difficulty discarding and acquiring.…”

Behavioral and emotional consequences of thought listing versus cognitive restructuring during discarding decisions in hoarding disorder

“…Extending prior research on emotional prediction and intensity in HD (Shaw et al, 2015; Timpano et al, 2014), we predicted that:…”

“…Tactics for ER may be behavioral (e.g., response modulation) or cognitive (e.g., reappraisal) (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Preliminary research suggests that student volunteers with hoarding symptoms exhibit ER-related problems such as greater intensity of NA and decreased emotion tolerance (Timpano, Shaw, Cougle, & Fitch, 2014). On self-report measures, individuals with HD report difficulty engaging in goal-directed behavior when distressed and difficulty accessing to strategies for regulating emotions (Fernandez de la Cruz et al, 2013), and report anticipating a higher level of NA when discarding (Shaw, Timpano, Steketee, Tolin, & Frost, 2015).…”