Psych News Alert: Misophonia May Be Linked to Emotion Dysregulation

Misophonia—having reduced tolerance for and intense negative emotional reactions to triggering sounds like eating, snoring, gum-snapping, and pen-clicking—may be linked to emotion dysregulation, a study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research suggests.

Laura J. Dixon, Ph.D., of the University of Mississippi, and colleagues analyzed data from 4,005 adults who completed several questionnaires to assess misophonia symptoms, stress, and emotion dysregulation. The questionnaires were based on:

• The Misophonia Questionnaire, to measure sensitivity to certain sounds and emotional and behavioral reactions to misophonia sounds
• The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, to assess emotion dysregulation, including lack of emotional clarity (Clarity), difficulties engaging in goals (Goals), difficulties controlling emotions when experiencing distress (Impulse), limited access to effective emotion regulation strategies (Strategies), and nonacceptance of emotional responses (Nonacceptance)
• The Work and Social Adjustment Scale, to measure functional impairment due to misophonia across five domains, including ability to work, tasks for the home, social leisure activities, private leisure activities, and relationships with others
• The four-item version of the Perceived Stress Scale, to control for recent stress

Overall, 185 individuals reported clinically significant misophonia symptoms, while another 3,490 reported at least some level of sensitivity to one or more triggering sounds and were classified as having subclinical misophonia.

Two main findings emerged from the questionnaires. First, people with clinical levels of misophonia had significantly greater difficulties in emotion regulation compared with those with subclinical symptoms. Second, emotion dysregulation was significantly associated with sensitivity to misophonia sounds, reactions to misophonia sounds, and misophonia-related impairment, even after controlling for demographic factors and an individual’s current stress.

“[T]he Clarity, Goals, and Nonacceptance subscales were significant, which corresponds to difficulties in knowing and being clear about one’s emotions, focusing on and engaging in goal-directed behaviors, and having a tendency to be less accepting of distress reactions and experiencing secondary negative reactions to the distress (e.g., anger, embarrassment), respectively,” the researchers wrote. “[E]motion dysregulation is central to many disorders, particularly when negative emotions are present, and misophonia is no exception. [F]uture research should conduct comparisons with clinical groups to identify deficits that may be particularly unique to misophonia symptomatology.”

(Image: Getty Images/iStock/aprott)

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