About

Howard Berenbaum is a Professor of Psychology and an Affiliate of the Social & Behavioral Sciences Institute at the University of Illinois. His research aims to explain the development of adult psychopathology, with a particular focus on the role of emotional processes. Berenbaum's work is characterized by its broad approach, not limited to a single etiological factor or experimental paradigm, reflecting the complex and multidetermined nature of psychopathological conditions. A significant portion of his research has been guided by a framework for describing emotional disturbances, which he and his students proposed in 2003. This framework categorizes emotional disturbances into three broad types: disturbances in emotional valence (such as excessive levels of unpleasant emotion), disturbances in emotional intensity, variability, and regulation, and disturbances in emotional awareness. In recent years, his research has concentrated on phenomena including emotional awareness and other meta-emotion factors, emotional intensity and variability, peculiarity, and worry. Berenbaum earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University Bloomington and has contributed extensively to the field through numerous scholarly articles and collaborations.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Applied psychology
• Medical education
• Psychiatry
• Medicine
• Social psychology
• Geography

Selected publications

• Efficacy, User Engagement, and Acceptability of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy–Oriented Psychological Chatbots for Adults With Depressive and/or Anxiety Symptoms: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

  Journal of Medical Internet Research · 2026-03-12

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the most examined psychotherapy for depression and anxiety, but delivery faces significant barriers such as limited access, cost, and time constraints. CBT-oriented psychological chatbots offer a promising means of addressing these challenges. Yet, their overall efficacy, user engagement, and acceptability have not been systematically synthesized. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy, user engagement, and acceptability of CBT-oriented chatbots for adults with depressive and/or anxiety symptoms. METHODS: A systematic search of nine databases, including PubMed, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, Web of Science, PsycINFO, CINAHL, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WanFang, and VIP Databases was conducted from inception to February 2026. Eligibility criteria included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing CBT-oriented chatbots to control groups in adults with depressive and/or anxiety symptoms. Risk of bias (ROB) was assessed using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. Random-effects meta-analyses (Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman adjustment) calculated pooled effect sizes (Hedges'g), 95% confidence intervals (CIs), and 95% prediction intervals (PIs). Heterogeneity was evaluated using the I² statistic, and Galbraith plots were utilized to identify outliers for subsequent sensitivity analyses. Subgroup and meta-regression analyses examined potential moderators. The certainty of evidence was evaluated using the GRADE approach. Data on user engagement and acceptability were extracted and synthesized using narrative and quantitative methods where available. RESULTS: Twenty-nine eligible RCTs were included. CBT-oriented psychological chatbots produced a moderate reduction in depressive symptoms at post-intervention (g = -0.55, 95% CI -0.70 to -0.40, 95% PI -1.23 to 0.13) and a small reduction in anxiety symptoms (g = -0.26, 95% CI -0.37 to -0.14, 95% PI -0.67 to 0.15). At follow-up, effects were small for depression (g = -0.32, 95% CI -0.55 to -0.09, 95% PI -0.93 to 0.29) and non-significant for anxiety (g = -0.19, 95% CI -0.43 to 0.04, 95% PI -0.84 to 0.46). Subgroup and meta-regression analyses revealed that anxiety outcomes were significantly moderated by clinical profiles - showing distinct advantages for comorbid symptoms - and the proportion of female participants. The CBT-oriented chatbots received an adequate level of engagement that complied with digital intervention standards. Although user satisfaction ratings were generally favorable, technical limitations and repetitive interaction patterns remain to be addressed to enhance overall acceptability. Regarding the limitations of evidence, the overall certainty was rated as very low to low, predominantly driven by high RoB and substantial heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: This study innovatively isolates CBT-oriented chatbots from broader digital interventions, providing a precise, methodology-driven evaluation of theoretically grounded therapeutics. This review brings critical evidence to the field that these tools yield significant short-term relief, particularly for comorbid anxiety profiles. In the real world, CBT chatbots offer profound potential as scalable, low-barrier first-line tools. To sustain engagement, future developments must evolve from rigid rule-based scripts toward adaptive, large language model (LLM)-driven architectures while ensuring clinical safety. CLINICALTRIAL: PROSPERO CRD42024615506; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/view/CRD42024615506.

  PublisherDOI

• The Association Between Contentment and Depressive Symptoms: Results From Three Panel Studies

  Journal of Clinical Psychology · 2026-02-16

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We examined whether contentment was associated with depressive symptoms at both between- and within-person levels, both concurrently and prospectively. We examined our hypotheses using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPM) that computed the associations between contentment and depressive symptoms, treating tranquility and cheer as covariates, with three sets of data: three waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS; n = 27,947), the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Refresher daily diary study (n = 782), and a daily diary study with college students (n = 278). For the between-person and concurrent within-person associations, in all three samples, contentment was associated with depressive symptoms, even when considering tranquility and cheer. Likewise, for the prospective associations, only contentment predicted subsequent depressive symptoms in two of the three samples (the HRS and the MIDUS samples). We discuss implications for studying the etiology and treatment of depression.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Differential brain responses to affective sounds in misophonia and hyperacusis: A task-based fMRI approach

  Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience · 2026-04-14

  articleOpen access

  Humans are naturally attuned to emotionally salient sounds, such as screams signaling danger, which trigger survival-related responses. In sound-sensitivity disorders, such as misophonia and hyperacusis, everyday sounds provoke intense emotional and behavioral reactions. Misophonia is typically triggered by specific sounds, such as chewing, whereas hyperacusis involves hypersensitivity to sounds above certain intensity thresholds. Because these disorders share overlapping symptoms and frequently co-occur, disentangling their neural bases is essential for improving diagnosis and treatments. We recruited 91 young adults categorized into four groups: misophonia, hyperacusis, comorbid misophonia and hyperacusis, and controls. We conducted task-based fMRI, where participants listened to 90 emotionally valenced sounds from the International Affective Digitized Sounds-2 database and rated their valence during scanning. Whole-brain functional activation and seed-to-voxel functional connectivity analyses revealed both distinct and overlapping pattern of neural correlates associated with these disorders. The misophonia group, regardless of comorbid hyperacusis (relative to controls), showed hyperactivation in visual association areas and reduced connectivity between salience and visual networks during unpleasant versus neutral sound processing. This suggests atypical cross-modal sensory involvement. The hyperacusis group exhibited reduced connectivity between salience hubs and frontal control regions compared to misophonia and controls, indicating impaired top-down regulation. In contrast, this connectivity was preserved in misophonia for generally unpleasant sounds, suggesting intact regulation. The comorbid group showed neural patterns associated with both disorders. Overall, these findings reveal overlapping and disorder-specific neural patterns across sound tolerance profiles. Future research should combine neural and behavioral data to refine mechanistic models and guide targeted interventions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Sparse machine learning of resting-state fMRI reveals brain-wide dysconnectivity in hyperacusis

  Communications Medicine · 2025-12-24

  articleOpen access

  Loudness hyperacusis may alter brain function beyond the discomfort elicited by regular sound levels. Yet, the neuroscientific literature of hyperacusis has largely focused on the sensory neural components, and often in the context of other comorbid conditions. Our goal was to investigate brain-wide neural interactions associated with loudness hyperacusis using resting-state fMRI and machine learning classification. Fourteen young, healthy adults experiencing hyperacusis were recruited and compared to twenty-five age-, gender-, and education-matched control individuals. All participants had normal hearing thresholds and they were classified as having hyperacusis based on having a score greater than 22 on the Hyperacusis Questionnaire (HQ). Functional connectivity measures were used in a machine learning model that distinguished participants with hyperacusis from controls. Model weights were further analyzed systematically to reveal the cognitive brain networks and regional hubs where functional coupling was significantly altered in hyperacusis. Here, we observe that participants with hyperacusis are distinguishable from control individuals using a functional connectivity-based classification model, which yields a classification F1-score of 0.679. Owing to optimized feature selection, the model coefficients capture highly specific neural connectivity differences between the groups, including brain regions and networks implicated in semantic processing, working memory, emotion processing, and self-regulation. Furthermore, network connectivity measures, scaled by model-informed coefficients, explain up to 53% of the variance in individual HQ scores. Through rigorous data-driven modeling, we characterize the reduced sound tolerance condition of loudness hyperacusis as being associated with atypical spontaneous connectivity across cognitive networks that extend beyond the auditory system. Such improved knowledge of the condition validates patient experiences and has implications for future treatments and assessments. When someone is sensitive to the loudness of everyday sounds that do not seem to affect those around them, we call it loudness hyperacusis. Often, hyperacusis affects activities of daily living and impacts psychological health. We compared brain differences using a type of brain imaging called MRI in young adults with hyperacusis and an age-matched control group without hyperacusis. Using advanced computational approaches, we measured differences in functional connections across a large number of brain regions. We found that individuals with loudness hyperacusis may process information from their senses differently, especially when it comes to attention and memory. Besides sound-attenuation strategies, treatments that address the brain’s meaning-making networks and emotional response to sounds could help those with hyperacusis. Ajmera et al. use brain imaging and machine learning to dissociate young adults with loudness hyperacusis from matched controls. There are intrinsic functional connectivity differences related to emotion and cognitive processing between the two groups, but fewer differences with respect to auditory processing.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Altered intrinsic brain connectivity in misophonia, with and without hyperacusis

  Hearing Research · 2025-12-27 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  • Resting-state functional connectivity in the brain distinguished misophonic subgroups (with and without hyperacusis) from a control group with greater than 85% accuracy • Overlap in connectivity patterns among misophonic subgroups substantiated the effects of the dominant misophonia condition • Cortical regions in salience, somatomotor, and frontoparietal control networks showed dysregulated connectivity in misophonic individuals • Aberrant functional connectivity within subcortex was exclusive to misophonia-only group, whereas atypical connectivity in complex visual processing regions was attributed to presence of hyperacusis in the comorbid group. Misophonia and loudness hyperacusis are debilitating sound intolerance conditions marked by extreme emotional and physiological responses to everyday sounds. Although frequently co-occurring, their distinct neural correlates remain poorly delineated. In an exploratory data-driven analysis, we identified neural-connectivity based markers of misophonia among cortical and subcortical networks in the brain using resting-state fMRI data. We leveraged an optimized and cross-validated machine learning framework to sift through more than 85 thousand functional connections and to evaluate detectability of misophonia, in isolation and when comorbid with hyperacusis. Participants were rigorously categorized using structured interviews into misophonia-only (MI), misophonia with hyperacusis (MH), and control (CTR) groups. Classifier models trained on individual functional connectivity distinguished both MI and MH from CTR, with 63% and 67% test prediction accuracy respectively. Core misophonia-related alterations consistently emerged across both groups, particularly in salience, somatomotor, and frontoparietal control networks, implying disruptions in emotion regulation, motor inhibition, and attentional control, respectively. Specific to misophonia-only were connectivity abnormalities in the basal ganglia and subcortex, suggesting a neural dissociation between MI and MH conditions. In contrast, connectivity trends unique to MH revealed networks implicated in higher-order visual processing, likely reflecting hyperacusis-linked processes. These findings offer a refined neurobiological dissociation between misophonia and hyperacusis and underscore the importance of careful diagnostic separation in both research and clinical contexts. By isolating misophonia-relevant brain networks, our results provide actionable insight into the development of precise neuroscience-informed interventions. In particular, they support psychology-based therapy to target dysfunctional connectivity in salience and control circuits for treating misophonia.

  PublisherDOI

• What is common may be as important as what is different: Examining the general factor shared by dispositional shame and guilt using bi-factor models

  European Journal of Personality · 2025-06-24

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Previous research on shame-proneness and guilt-proneness has tended to focus on their unique associations with other variables, eliminating the substantial shared variance with shame-proneness when examining guilt-proneness, and eliminating the shared variance with guilt-proneness when examining shame-proneness. However, this approach does not examine the variance shared by shame- and guilt-proneness. To address this issue, we conducted three studies employing bi-factor models to examine the general factor shared by the proneness to experience shame and guilt, and their relationship to various personality traits and psychopathology (i.e., externalizing and internalizing psychopathology). Our results showed that the general factor was strongly and positively associated with personality traits related to moral emotions (empathy, agreeableness, and conscientiousness), and strongly but inversely associated with both self-reported and informant-reported externalizing psychopathology. The general factor was also associated with self-consciousness, but not with self-criticism, vulnerable narcissism or neuroticism. These findings have important implications for the conceptualization of shame-proneness and guilt-proneness.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Deprivation, contentment, and depression

  The Journal of Positive Psychology · 2025-01-31 · 1 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Implicit Abandonment Distress: Testing the Dynamic Link Between Schema Activation and Physiological Arousal

  Collabra Psychology · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Psychodynamic theory has been criticized as adhering to models of psychopathology that cannot lead to testable predictions and knowledge accumulation. To address this issue, we proposed an account of an implicit memory mechanism (a schema of abandonment) and measured the activation of this latent disposition in two meaningful contexts. Two hundred undergraduates were randomly assigned to either a social rejection or a comparison (non-reject) group, which was more ambiguous in nature. Explicit/implicit schema measures and psychophysiological data were used to test the relationship between schema activation and distress. As hypothesized, only the implicit schema measure was associated with physiological arousal; however, the nature of activation ran counter to our prediction. For participants with strong implicit abandonment schema content, significant arousal occurred in the comparison (non-reject) ambiguous group rather than the social rejection group. The findings demonstrate that: (1) implicit schema processes are indeed implicated in abandonment distress, and (2) situations in which the meaning of an event is more open to interpretation are likely more relevant to how schemas work. Altogether, findings suggest that psychodynamic processes are testable and may help account for distress dynamics, such as attempts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.

  PublisherDOI

• Age-related effects on emotional reactions to sounds in individuals with misophonia

  The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2024-10-01

  articleSenior author

  Misophonia, characterized by intolerance to specific sounds, triggers emotional reactions like disgust, anger, and distress. While misophonia typically begins in childhood/adolescence, its nature across the lifespan is understudied. Our study assesses audiological correlates and emotional reactions to sounds in misophonia across age groups. We recruited three groups: young misophonia (YM: 18–29 years, N = 14), mid-to-old misophonia (OM: 30–67 years, N = 17), and young controls (YC: 18–25 years, N = 26). All underwent hearing assessments (0.25–16kHz). Participants classified typical trigger and other affective sounds based on eliciting any misophonic reactions and rated their valence on a neutral to extremely unpleasant scale. Results show age-related effects in OM, with poorer hearing (>4 kHz) compared to YM and YC. Both groups had slower response times to trigger sounds compared to non-trigger sounds, suggesting a greater cognitive and emotional load. We found group differences on valence rating and reaction times. OM perceived sounds to be more unpleasant and responded slower to sounds relative to YM, possibly due to age or hearing loss effects. These findings suggest that misophonia may interact with auditory processing of emotions that are influenced by age and hearing acuity. Note that these results are preliminary and data collection is ongoing.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring phenotypic overlap across schizotypy and autism spectrum conditions in American and Chinese young adults

  Schizophrenia Research · 2024-04-15 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R01MH062552

  NIH · $1.3M · 2006

• NIH Grant R03MH050531

  NIH · $163k · 1998

Frequent coauthors

• Matthew Tyler Boden

  VA Center for Clinical Management Research

  27 shared

• Luis E. Flores

  University of Toronto

  19 shared

• Michelle Schoenleber

  St. Norbert College

  18 shared

• Renee J. Thompson

  Washington University in St. Louis

  18 shared

• John G. Kerns

  University of Missouri

  17 shared

• Philip I. Chow

  University of Virginia

  16 shared

• Keith Bredemeier

  16 shared

• Thomas F. Oltmanns

  Washington University in St. Louis

  14 shared