Short communication Impact of childhood trauma, alexithymia, dissociation, and emotion suppression on emotional Stroop task Katja Wingenfeld a, ⁎ , Kirsten Riedesel a , Zorica Petrovic a , Christine Philippsen a , Björn Meyer a , Matthias Rose a , Hans J. Grabe b , Sven Barnow c , Bernd Löwe a , Carsten Spitzer a a Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf and Schön Klinik Hamburg-Eilbek, Hamburg, Germany b Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-University, Greifswald, Germany c Institute of Psychology, Ruprecht-Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany Received 5 January 2010; received in revised form 1 April 2010; accepted 8 June 2010 Abstract Objective: Attentional bias to emotion- and illness-related information plays a prominent role in many mental disorders, particularly major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders. Using the emotional Stroop task we investigated which variables beyond aspects of patients' psychopathology might influence reaction times and interference in the Stroop test. Methods: We investigated 82 psychosomatic inpatients and 39 healthy controls. Diagnosis of depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and somato- form disorders were established using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Severity of depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms, as well as experiences of childhood trauma, alexithy- mia, dissociation and emotion suppression were assessed via questionnaires. The emotional Stroop test was performed by using neutral and negative words, words related to depression, anxiety and somatization, respectively, and individually chosen words, which were related to the main problems of the participants. Results: In multivariate regression analyses, reaction times were best predicted by self-reported experiences of childhood trauma. Interference, by contrast, was predicted by emotion suppression, but only for negative words, anxiety-related words and individu- ally relevant words. Against our hypothesis, measurements of psychopathology were not associated with Stroop performance. Conclusions: The present study provides further support for the idea that the experience of childhood trauma influences adult neuropsychological performance. Furthermore, the findings sug- gest that the ability to suppress emotions may be an important predictor of attentional bias. © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Childhood trauma; Emotion regulation; Mental disorder; Stroop test Introduction Attentional bias to emotion- and illness-related informa- tion plays a prominent role in mental disorders [1]. A widely used method in this field is the emotional Stroop paradigm. In this task, subjects have to name the colors in which words are printed as fast as possible while ignoring the content of the word. Typically, the reaction time is slower for emotional and personally relevant words as well as for words related to the patient's clinical condition than for neutral words, resulting in enhanced interference to those words [1–3]. Despite the clinical significance of attentional bias, emotional Stroop research has yielded inconclusive results. Likewise, findings in somatoform disorders have been equivocal [4–6], which may be related to their high rates of comorbid depression and anxiety [7]. For instance, in borderline personality disorder (BPD), the hypothesis of inhibitory problems has not been confirmed by all studies [8–10]. However, a recent study indicated that inhibition of Journal of Psychosomatic Research 70 (2011) 53 – 58 ⁎ Corresponding author. Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Martinistr. 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany. Tel.: +49 40 42 80 3 41 69; fax: +49 40 42 80 3 49 75. E-mail address: k.wingenfeld@uke.uni-hamburg.de (K. Wingenfeld). 0022-3999/10/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jpsychores.2010.06.003