Sample records for positive emotional response
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Taylor, Charles T; Knapp, Sarah E; Bomyea, Jessica A; Ramsawh, Holly J; Paulus, Martin P; Stein, Murray B
2017-06-01
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is empirically supported for the treatment of anxiety disorders; however, not all individuals achieve recovery following CBT. Positive emotions serve a number of functions that theoretically should facilitate response to CBT - they promote flexible patterns of information processing and assimilation of new information, encourage approach-oriented behavior, and speed physiological recovery from negative emotions. We conducted a secondary analysis of an existing clinical trial dataset to test the a priori hypothesis that individual differences in trait positive emotions would predict CBT response for anxiety. Participants meeting diagnostic criteria for panic disorder (n = 28) or generalized anxiety disorder (n = 31) completed 10 weekly individual CBT sessions. Trait positive emotionality was assessed at pre-treatment, and severity of anxiety symptoms and associated impairment was assessed throughout treatment. Participants who reported a greater propensity to experience positive emotions at pre-treatment displayed the largest reduction in anxiety symptoms as well as fewer symptoms following treatment. Positive emotions remained a robust predictor of change in symptoms when controlling for baseline depression severity. Initial evidence supports the predictive value of trait positive emotions as a prognostic indicator for CBT outcome in a GAD and PD sample. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Infant pupil diameter changes in response to others' positive and negative emotions.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Elena Geangu
Full Text Available It has been suggested that infants resonate emotionally to others' positive and negative affect displays, and that these responses become stronger towards emotions with negative valence around the age of 12-months. In this study we measured 6- and 12-month-old infants' changes in pupil diameter when presented with the image and sound of peers experiencing happiness, distress and an emotionally neutral state. For all participants the perception of another's distress triggered larger pupil diameters. Perceiving other's happiness also induced larger pupil diameters but for shorter time intervals. Importantly, we also found evidence for an asymmetry in autonomous arousal towards positive versus negative emotional displays. Larger pupil sizes for another's distress compared to another's happiness were recorded shortly after stimulus onset for the older infants, and in a later time window for the 6-month-olds. These findings suggest that arousal responses for negative as well as for positive emotions are present in the second half of the first postnatal year. Importantly, an asymmetry with stronger responses for negative emotions seems to be already present at this age.
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Aragón, Oriana R; Clark, Margaret S; Dyer, Rebecca L; Bargh, John A
2015-03-01
Extremely positive experiences, and positive appraisals thereof, produce intense positive emotions that often generate both positive expressions (e.g., smiles) and expressions normatively reserved for negative emotions (e.g., tears). We developed a definition of these dimorphous expressions and tested the proposal that their function is to regulate emotions. We showed that individuals who express emotions in this dimorphous manner do so as a general response across a variety of emotionally provoking situations, which suggests that these expressions are responses to intense positive emotion rather than unique to one particular situation. We used cute stimuli (an elicitor of positive emotion) to demonstrate both the existence of these dimorphous expressions and to provide preliminary evidence of their function as regulators of emotion. © The Author(s) 2015.
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Positive Psychology: Positive Emotions and Emotional Intelegence
Miloseva, Lence
2008-01-01
The paper focuses on the and emotional intelligence. We try to answer on some questions regarding the role which positive emotions have in our life’s. The broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 1998; 2001) predicts that positive emotions are useful in several ways. They guide present behavior, by broadening one’s attention and cognition, setting the stage for creative, explorative, and innovative pursuits. As well, positive emotions build personal and social resources to help individuals achi...
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Positive emotion impedes emotional but not cognitive conflict processing.
Zinchenko, Artyom; Obermeier, Christian; Kanske, Philipp; Schröger, Erich; Kotz, Sonja A
2017-06-01
Cognitive control enables successful goal-directed behavior by resolving a conflict between opposing action tendencies, while emotional control arises as a consequence of emotional conflict processing such as in irony. While negative emotion facilitates both cognitive and emotional conflict processing, it is unclear how emotional conflict processing is affected by positive emotion (e.g., humor). In 2 EEG experiments, we investigated the role of positive audiovisual target stimuli in cognitive and emotional conflict processing. Participants categorized either spoken vowels (cognitive task) or their emotional valence (emotional task) and ignored the visual stimulus dimension. Behaviorally, a positive target showed no influence on cognitive conflict processing, but impeded emotional conflict processing. In the emotional task, response time conflict costs were higher for positive than for neutral targets. In the EEG, we observed an interaction of emotion by congruence in the P200 and N200 ERP components in emotional but not in cognitive conflict processing. In the emotional conflict task, the P200 and N200 conflict effect was larger for emotional than neutral targets. Thus, our results show that emotion affects conflict processing differently as a function of conflict type and emotional valence. This suggests that there are conflict- and valence-specific mechanisms modulating executive control.
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Donohue, Meghan Rose; Goodman, Sherryl H; Tully, Erin C
Risk for internalizing problems and social skills deficits likely emerges in early childhood when emotion processing and social competencies are developing. Positively biased processing of social information is typical during early childhood and may be protective against poorer psychosocial outcomes. We tested the hypothesis that young children with relatively less positively biased attention to, interpretations of, and attributions for their mother's emotions would exhibit poorer prosocial skills and more internalizing problems. A sample of 4- to 6-year-old children ( N =82) observed their mothers express happiness, sadness and anger during a simulated emotional phone conversation. Children's attention to their mother when she expressed each emotion was rated from video. Immediately following the phone conversation, children were asked questions about the conversation to assess their interpretations of the intensity of mother's emotions and misattributions of personal responsibility for her emotions. Children's prosocial skills and internalizing problems were assessed using mother-report rating scales. Interpretations of mother's positive emotions as relatively less intense than her negative emotions, misattributions of personal responsibility for her negative emotions, and lack of misattributions of personal responsibility for her positive emotions were associated with poorer prosocial skills. Children who attended relatively less to mother's positive than her negative emotions had higher levels of internalizing problems. These findings suggest that children's attention to, interpretations of, and attributions for their mother's emotions may be important targets of early interventions for preventing prosocial skills deficits and internalizing problems.
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The facilitating effect of positive emotions during an emotional Stroop task.
Liu, Xingyu; Yang, Yisheng; Jiang, Songxiu; Li, Jie
2018-05-08
Prior research has shown that negative emotions, even though task irrelevant, are capable of delaying a participant's response to the color in which a negative emotional word is presented, a phenomenon known as the 'emotional Stroop effect'. However, relatively little is known about whether positive emotions have a similar or an opposite effect. The current study sets out to confirm the facilitating effect of positive emotions on color naming, which is predicted by Barbara Fredrickson's 'broaden and build' theory. Our results indicate that positive emotions did facilitate such processing in both of the study's experiments. We also found a significant difference in early posterior negativity amplitudes between positive and neutral stimuli, which was related to the 'fast effect'. Overall, the study's findings suggest that positive emotions can be detected quickly and automatically, and that this kind of prioritizing facilitates the ongoing cognitive processing.
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Donohue, Meghan Rose; Goodman, Sherryl H.; Tully, Erin C.
2016-01-01
Risk for internalizing problems and social skills deficits likely emerges in early childhood when emotion processing and social competencies are developing. Positively biased processing of social information is typical during early childhood and may be protective against poorer psychosocial outcomes. We tested the hypothesis that young children with relatively less positively biased attention to, interpretations of, and attributions for their mother’s emotions would exhibit poorer prosocial skills and more internalizing problems. A sample of 4- to 6-year-old children (N=82) observed their mothers express happiness, sadness and anger during a simulated emotional phone conversation. Children’s attention to their mother when she expressed each emotion was rated from video. Immediately following the phone conversation, children were asked questions about the conversation to assess their interpretations of the intensity of mother’s emotions and misattributions of personal responsibility for her emotions. Children’s prosocial skills and internalizing problems were assessed using mother-report rating scales. Interpretations of mother’s positive emotions as relatively less intense than her negative emotions, misattributions of personal responsibility for her negative emotions, and lack of misattributions of personal responsibility for her positive emotions were associated with poorer prosocial skills. Children who attended relatively less to mother’s positive than her negative emotions had higher levels of internalizing problems. These findings suggest that children’s attention to, interpretations of, and attributions for their mother’s emotions may be important targets of early interventions for preventing prosocial skills deficits and internalizing problems. PMID:28348456
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Topham, Glade L; Hubbs-Tait, Laura; Rutledge, Julie M; Page, Melanie C; Kennedy, Tay S; Shriver, Lenka H; Harrist, Amanda W
2011-04-01
The aim of the present study was to examine the relations of parenting style, parent response to negative child emotion, and family emotional expressiveness and support to child emotional eating. Mothers (N=450) completed questionnaires and their 6-8-year-old children (N=450) were interviewed. Results showed that emotional eating was negatively predicted by authoritative parenting style and family open expression of affection and emotion, and positively predicted by parent minimizing response to child negative emotion. Results suggest the need for early prevention/intervention efforts directed to these parenting and family variables. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Emotional response towards food packaging
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Liao, Lewis Xinwei; Corsi, Armando M.; Chrysochou, Polymeros
2015-01-01
In this paper we investigate consumers’ emotional responses to food packaging. More specifically, we use self-report and physiological measures to jointly assess emotional responses to three typical food packaging elements: colours (lowwavelength vs. high-wavelength), images (positive vs. negative...... response that can only be measured by self-report measures. We propose that a joint application of selfreport and physiological measures can lead to richer information and wider interpretation of consumer emotional responses to food packaging elements than using either measure alone....
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Positive emotion, appraisal, and the role of appraisal overlap in positive emotion co-occurrence.
Tong, Eddie M W; Jia, Lile
2017-02-01
Appraisal research has traditionally focused on negative emotions but has not addressed issues concerning the relationships between several positive emotions and appraisals in daily life and the extent to which co-occurrence of positive emotions can be explained by overlap in appraisals. Driven by a priori hypotheses on appraisal-emotion relationships, this study investigated 12 positive emotions and 13 appraisal dimensions using Ecological Momentary Assessment. The results provide strong evidence that positive emotions and appraisals correlate significantly in daily life. Importantly, we found that the positive emotions' overlap on theoretically relevant, as compared to irrelevant, appraisals was stronger and more predictive of their co-occurrence. Furthermore, appraisal overlap on theoretically relevant appraisals predicted the co-occurrence of positive emotions even when the appraisal of pleasantness was excluded, indicating that positive emotions do not co-occur just by virtue of their shared valence. Our findings affirmed and refined the appraisal profiles of positive emotions and underscore the importance of appraisals in accounting for the commonality and differences among positive emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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Are positive emotions just as "positive" across cultures?
Leu, Janxin; Wang, Jennifer; Koo, Kelly
2011-08-01
Whereas positive emotions and feeling unequivocally good may be at the heart of well-being among Westerners, positive emotions often carry negative associations within many Asian cultures. Based on a review of East-West cultural differences in dialectical emotions, or co-occurring positive and negative feelings, we predicted culture to influence the association between positive emotions and depression, but not the association between negative emotions and depression. As predicted, in a survey of over 600 European-, immigrant Asian-, and Asian American college students, positive emotions were associated with depression symptoms among European Americans and Asian Americans, but not immigrant Asians. Negative emotions were associated with depression symptoms among all three groups. We also found initial evidence that acculturation (i.e., nativity) may influence the role of positive emotions in depression: Asian Americans fell "in between" the two other groups. These findings suggest the importance of studying the role of culture in positive emotions and in positive psychology. The use of interventions based on promoting positive emotions in clinical psychology among Asian clients is briefly discussed. 2011 APA, all rights reserved
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Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia is associated with tonic positive emotionality.
Oveis, Christopher; Cohen, Adam B; Gruber, June; Shiota, Michelle N; Haidt, Jonathan; Keltner, Dacher
2009-04-01
Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSAREST) indexes important aspects of individual differences in emotionality. In the present investigation, the authors address whether RSAREST is associated with tonic positive or negative emotionality, and whether RSAREST relates to phasic emotional responding to discrete positive emotion-eliciting stimuli. Across an 8-month, multiassessment study of first-year university students (n = 80), individual differences in RSAREST were associated with positive but not negative tonic emotionality, assessed at the level of personality traits, long-term moods, the disposition toward optimism, and baseline reports of current emotional states. RSAREST was not related to increased positive emotion, or stimulus-specific emotion, in response to compassion-, awe-, or pride-inducing stimuli. These findings suggest that resting RSA indexes aspects of a person's tonic positive emotionality. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.
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Positive Emotions Associated with "Counter-Strike" Game Playing.
Shin, Mirim; Heard, Rob; Suo, Chao; Chow, Chin Moi
2012-10-01
Digital game playing engages people for long periods of time. The pleasure offered by digital games may explain the players' consumption of this activity. Games may elicit both positive and negative emotions, which can be measured by encephalography (EEG). The EEG alpha asymmetry index (AI) is different in positive and negative emotions and so may be used to distinguish positive from negative emotions that occur during gaming. We hypothesized that the "Counter-Strike" (CS) game (Valve Software, Bellevue, WA) is pleasurable and demonstrable with a positive EEG AI. Twelve male participants ages 18-30 years underwent EEG recordings continuously during and postgame. EEG was also recorded pregame for control conditions of baseline (sitting on a chair staring at a blank wall), movement (moving fingers on the computer keyboard with a blank screen), sound (listening to the sound of the CS game with a blank screen), and screen (watching the CS game without playing). Self-ratings of emotional responses were completed at pre-, during, and postgame. A significant decrease in the EEG AI was observed under the screen condition compared with baseline, whereas an increase was observed postgame compared with the screen condition. The participants demonstrated a positive EEG AI following the "shoot" events (shoot opponents) and negative emotions after the "being shot" events. Subjective ratings of emotional response indicated happiness during and postgame, but anger and arousal were reported only during the game. The overall results are consistent with the hypothesis that predominantly positive emotional reactions are elicited from playing the CS game and concur with positive subjective ratings of happiness. Future studies may explore the relationship of game pleasure and obsessive game play.
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Positive Technologies for Understanding and Promoting Positive Emotions.
Baños, Rosa María; Carrillo, Alba; Etchemendy, Ernestina; Botella, Cristina
2017-10-26
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become increasingly present in our lives, and their use has spread considerably. This paper presents a review of the way ICTs can help practitioners and researchers to study, promote, and train positive emotions. It is framed within the field of Positive Technologies: the applied scientific approach to the study of the use of technology to improve the quality of personal experience, with the goal of increasing wellbeing. First, the article presents an introduction to the topic of technologies and positive emotions. Then, it describes how ICTs can aid in monitoring, assessing, promoting, modifying, and training positive emotions. Finally, implications and future directions of the role of Positive Technologies in positive emotions are discussed. The authors conclude that, in the near future, Positive Technologies and the field of positive emotions will interact synergistically, producing an exponential growth in the understanding and promotion of positive emotions.
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MDMA alters emotional processing and facilitates positive social interaction.
Wardle, Margaret C; de Wit, Harriet
2014-10-01
±3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, "ecstasy") produces "prosocial" effects, such as feelings of empathy and closeness, thought to be important to its abuse and its value in psychotherapy. However, it is not fully understood how MDMA alters basic emotional processes to produce these effects, or whether it produces corresponding changes in actual social behavior. Here, we examined how MDMA affects perceptions of and responses to emotional expressions, and tested its effects on behavior during a social interaction. We also examined whether MDMA's prosocial effects related to a measure of abuse liability. Over three sessions, 36 healthy volunteers with previous ecstasy use received MDMA (0.75, 1.5 mg/kg) and placebo under double-blind conditions. We measured (i) mood and cardiovascular effects, (ii) perception of and psychophysiological responses to emotional expressions, (iii) use of positive and negative words in a social interaction, and (iv) perceptions of an interaction partner. We then tested whether these effects predicted desire to take the drug again. MDMA slowed perception of angry expressions, increased psychophysiological responses to happy expressions, and increased positive word use and perceptions of partner empathy and regard in a social interaction. These effects were not strongly related to desire to take the drug again. MDMA alters basic emotional processes by slowing identification of negative emotions and increasing responses to positive emotions in others. Further, it positively affects behavior and perceptions during actual social interaction. These effects may contribute to the efficacy of MDMA in psychotherapy, but appear less closely related to its abuse potential.
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Emotion-related hemisphere asymmetry: subjective emotional responses to laterally presented films.
Wittling, W; Roschmann, R
1993-09-01
To investigate whether the cerebral hemispheres differ in their subjective emotional responses 54 adult subjects were presented two films of different emotion-related qualities (positive and negative film) either to their left or right hemisphere. The films were exposed by means of a technique for the lateralization of visual input that allows prolonged viewing while permitting free ocular scanning. Subjective emotional responses were assessed by means of a continuous rating of emotional arousal experienced during the movie as well as by retrospective ratings of ten different emotional qualities. Presenting both films to the right hemisphere resulted in stronger subjective responses in the continuous emotion rating as well as in some retrospectively assessed ratings compared to left-hemispheric presentation. The effects were more pronounced for the negative film. Taken together, the findings suggest a higher responsiveness of the right hemisphere in subjective emotional experience.
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Risk for mania and positive emotional responding: too much of a good thing?
Gruber, June; Johnson, Sheri L; Oveis, Christopher; Keltner, Dacher
2008-02-01
Although positive emotion research has begun to flourish, the extremes of positive emotion remain understudied. The present research used a multimethod approach to examine positive emotional disturbance by comparing participants at high and low risk for episodes of mania, which involves elevations in positive emotionality. Ninety participants were recruited into a high or low mania risk group according to responses on the Hypomanic Personality Scale. Participants' subjective, expressive, and physiological emotional responses were gathered while they watched two positive, two negative, and one neutral film clip. Results suggested that participants at high risk for mania reported elevated positive emotion and irritability and also exhibited elevated cardiac vagal tone across positive, negative, and neutral films. Discussion focuses on the implications these findings have for the diagnosis and prevention of bipolar disorder, as well as for the general study of positive emotion.
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Implicit learning and emotional responses in nine-month-old infants.
Angulo-Barroso, Rosa M; Peciña, Susana; Lin, Xu; Li, Mingyan; Sturza, Julia; Shao, Jie; Lozoff, Betsy
2017-08-01
To study the interplay between motor learning and emotional responses of young infants, we developed a contingent learning paradigm that included two related, difficult, operant tasks. We also coded facial expression to characterise emotional response to learning. In a sample of nine-month-old healthy Chinese infants, 44.7% achieved learning threshold during this challenging arm-conditioning test. Some evidence of learning was observed at the beginning of the second task. The lowest period of negative emotions coincided with the period of maximum movement responses after the initiation of the second task, and movement responses negatively correlated with the frequency of negative emotions. Positive emotions, while generally low throughout the task, increased during peak performance especially for learners. Peak frequency of movement responses was positively correlated with the frequency of positive emotions. Despite the weak evidence of learning this difficult task, our results from the learners would suggest that increasing positive emotions, and perhaps down-regulating negative emotional responses, may be important for improving performance and learning a complex operant task in infancy. Further studies are necessary to determine the role of emotions in learning difficult tasks in infancy.
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Fredrickson, Barbara L.
2001-01-01
Describes the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, situating it within the field of positive psychology. The theory posits that experiences of positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires, which in turn build their enduring personal resources (physical, intellectual, social, and psychological). Reviews…
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Vaish, Amrisha; Grossmann, Tobias; Woodward, Amanda
2015-09-01
Prior work suggests that young children do not generalize others' preferences to new individuals. We hypothesized (following Vaish et al., 2008, Psychol. Bull., 134, 383-403) that this may only hold for positive emotions, which inform the child about the person's attitude towards the object but not about the positivity of the object itself. It may not hold for negative emotions, which additionally inform the child about the negativity of the object itself. Two-year-old children saw one individual (the emoter) emoting positively or negatively towards one and neutrally towards a second novel object. When a second individual then requested an object, children generalized the emoter's negative but not her positive emotion to the second individual. Children thus draw different inferences from others' positive versus negative emotions: Whereas they view others' positive emotions as person centred, they may view others' negative emotions as object centred and thus generalizable across people. The results are discussed with relation to the functions and implications of the negativity bias. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.
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Emotional Responses to Music: Experience, Expression, and Physiology
Lundqvist, Lars-Olov; Carlsson, Fredrik; Hilmersson, Per; Juslin, Patrik N.
2009-01-01
A crucial issue in research on music and emotion is whether music evokes genuine emotional responses in listeners (the emotivist position) or whether listeners merely perceive emotions expressed by the music (the cognitivist position). To investigate this issue, we measured self-reported emotion, facial muscle activity, and autonomic activity in…
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Gadeikis, Darius; Bos, Nikita; Schweizer, Susanne; Murphy, Fionnuala; Dunn, Barnaby
2017-05-01
It is important to identify effective emotion regulation strategies to increase positive emotion experience in the general population and in clinical conditions characterized by anhedonia. There are indications that engaging in experiential processing (direct awareness of sensory and bodily experience) bolsters positive emotion experience but this has not been extensively tested during memory recall. To further test this notion, 99 community participants recalled two positive autobiographical memories. Prior to the second recall, participants either underwent an experiential, analytical, or distraction induction (n = 33 per condition). Subjective happiness and sadness ratings and heart rate variability (HRV) response were measured during each recall. Greater spontaneous use of experiential processing during the first memory was associated with greater happiness experience, but was unrelated to HRV and sadness experience. Inducing experiential processing increased happiness experience relative to both the analytical and distraction conditions (but had no impact on sadness experience). There was a significant difference in HRV between conditions. The experiential condition led to a trend-significant increase, and the other conditions a non-significant decrease, in HRV from the first to the second memory. These results suggest that engaging in experiential processing is an effective way to up-regulate positive emotion experience during positive memory recall. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.
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Positive Emotion in Nature as a Precursor to Learning
Coleman, Tamara Chase
2014-01-01
This study was designed to examine the perception of learning in adults generated by the effect of a positive emotion-in this case, awe. For the study, a working definition of awe is an "impact-provoking reverence due to a powerful, positive emotional response to the natural world." This qualitative study used primarily face-to-face…
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Emotional response to advertising
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Bogdan Anastasiei
2014-11-01
Full Text Available Emotions can transcend cultural, linguistic, demographic, and social boundaries. Emotions affect information processing and create a positive attitude toward the ad, which becomes associated with the brand. Objectives. This study investigates the role of pleasure (P, arousal (A and domination (D emotions in mobile’s photo camera advertisement and how each of them is influencing consumer attitude towards the advertisement and brand. Prior Work. Holbrook and Batra (1987 developed their own emotional scale based on these three dimensions (PAD, showing that these emotions mediate consumer responses to advertising. Approach. A 1*4 factorial experiment design method was adopted in order to measure the impact of independent variables (emotion type on dependent variables (attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand. Results. The results revealed that emotions like Pleasure (loving, friendly, grateful and Arousal (active, interested, excited, entertained influence consumers' attitudes towards brand and advertising. Value. Marketers need to understand the role of pleasure and arousal emotions when making advertising campaign; an effective promotion leads to persuading consumers. The results indicate that marketing practitioners should measure affective responses when testing an advertisement, as long as this action would predict brand attitude.
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Fredrickson, Barbara L.
2001-01-01
In this article, the author describes a new theoretical perspective on positive emotions and situates this new perspective within the emerging field of positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory posits that experiences of positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources. Preliminary empirical evidence supporting ...
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Effects of oxycodone on brain responses to emotional images.
Wardle, Margaret C; Fitzgerald, Daniel A; Angstadt, Michael; Rabinak, Christine A; de Wit, Harriet; Phan, K Luan
2014-11-01
Evidence from animal and human studies suggests that opiate drugs decrease emotional responses to negative stimuli and increase responses to positive stimuli. Such emotional effects may motivate misuse of oxycodone (OXY), a widely abused opiate. Yet, we know little about how OXY affects neural circuits underlying emotional processing in humans. We examined effects of OXY on brain activity during presentation of positive and negative visual emotional stimuli. We predicted that OXY would decrease amygdala activity to negative stimuli and increase ventral striatum (VS) activity to positive stimuli. Secondarily, we examined the effects of OXY on other emotional network regions on an exploratory basis. In a three-session study, healthy adults (N = 17) received placebo, 10 and 20 mg OXY under counterbalanced, double-blind conditions. At each session, participants completed subjective and cardiovascular measures and underwent functional MRI (fMRI) scanning while completing two emotional response tasks. Our emotional tasks reliably activated emotional network areas. OXY produced subjective effects but did not alter either behavioral responses to emotional stimuli or activity in our primary areas of interest. OXY did decrease right medial orbitofrontal cortex (MOFC) responses to happy faces. Contrary to our expectations, OXY did not affect behavioral or neural responses to emotional stimuli in our primary areas of interest. Further, the effects of OXY in the MOFC would be more consistent with a decrease in value for happy faces. This may indicate that healthy adults do not receive emotional benefits from opiates, or the pharmacological actions of OXY differ from other opiates.
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EEG Correlates of Ten Positive Emotions.
Hu, Xin; Yu, Jianwen; Song, Mengdi; Yu, Chun; Wang, Fei; Sun, Pei; Wang, Daifa; Zhang, Dan
2017-01-01
Compared with the well documented neurophysiological findings on negative emotions, much less is known about positive emotions. In the present study, we explored the EEG correlates of ten different positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love). A group of 20 participants were invited to watch 30 short film clips with their EEGs simultaneously recorded. Distinct topographical patterns for different positive emotions were found for the correlation coefficients between the subjective ratings on the ten positive emotions per film clip and the corresponding EEG spectral powers in different frequency bands. Based on the similarities of the participants' ratings on the ten positive emotions, these emotions were further clustered into three representative clusters, as 'encouragement' for awe, gratitude, hope, inspiration, pride, 'playfulness' for amusement, joy, interest, and 'harmony' for love, serenity. Using the EEG spectral powers as features, both the binary classification on the higher and lower ratings on these positive emotions and the binary classification between the three positive emotion clusters, achieved accuracies of approximately 80% and above. To our knowledge, our study provides the first piece of evidence on the EEG correlates of different positive emotions.
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Balconi, Michela; Canavesio, Ylenia
2013-03-01
The present research firstly investigated the neural correlates (ERPs, event-related potentials) of attitudes to engage in prosocial-helping behaviors, and secondly, it analyzed the relation between these brain-based potentials and personal profile (high vs. low empathic profile). It was considered the subjects' behavior in response to specific emotional situations (positive vs. negative) in case it was required a possible prosocial intervention. Thirty-one subjects were invited to empathize with the emotional contexts (videotapes that reproduced two person's exchanges) and to decide whether to intervene or not to support these persons. BEES questionnaire for empathic behavior was submitted to the subjects after the experimental session. ERP acquisition and LORETA source analysis revealed a negative ongoing deflection (N200 effect) more prefrontally distributed (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) in response to prosocial intervention options mainly for negative and positive contexts. Moreover, a significant positive correlation was found between high-empathic profiles, intervention behaviors (higher frequency of interventions) and N200 amplitude (higher peak). These results highlight the role of emotions in prosocial behavior, since the N200 effect was considered a marker of the emotional significance of the interpersonal situation. Secondly, the empathic trait may explain the prosocial decisional processes: Higher empathic trait contributes to induce subject's intervention behavior which in turn appears to be directly related to the cortical responsiveness within the prefrontal areas.
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An Environmental Approach to Positive Emotion: Flowers
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jeannette Haviland-Jones
2005-01-01
Full Text Available For more than 5000 years, people have cultivated flowers although there is no known reward for this costly behavior. In three different studies we show that flowers are a powerful positive emotion “inducer”. In Study 1, flowers, upon presentation to women, always elicited the Duchenne or true smile. Women who received flowers reported more positive moods 3 days later. In Study 2, a flower given to men or women in an elevator elicited more positive social behavior than other stimuli. In Study 3, flowers presented to elderly participants (55+ age elicited positive mood reports and improved episodic memory. Flowers have immediate and long-term effects on emotional reactions, mood, social behaviors and even memory for both males and females. There is little existing theory in any discipline that explains these findings. We suggest that cultivated flowers are rewarding because they have evolved to rapidly induce positive emotion in humans, just as other plants have evolved to induce varying behavioral responses in a wide variety of species leading to the dispersal or propagation of the plants.
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Caffeine alters emotion and emotional responses in low habitual caffeine consumers.
Giles, Grace E; Spring, Alexander M; Urry, Heather L; Moran, Joseph M; Mahoney, Caroline R; Kanarek, Robin B
2018-02-01
Caffeine reliably increases emotional arousal, but it is unclear whether and how it influences other dimensions of emotion such as emotional valence. These experiments documented whether caffeine influences emotion and emotion regulation choice and success. Low to abstinent caffeine consumers (maximum 100 mg/day) completed measures of state anxiety, positive and negative emotion, and salivary cortisol before, 45 min after, and 75 min after consuming 400 mg caffeine or placebo. Participants also completed an emotion regulation choice task, in which they chose to employ cognitive reappraisal or distraction in response to high and low intensity negative pictures (Experiment 1), or a cognitive reappraisal task, in which they employed cognitive reappraisal or no emotion regulation strategy in response to negative and neutral pictures (Experiment 2). State anxiety, negative emotion, and salivary cortisol were heightened both 45 and 75 min after caffeine intake relative to placebo. In Experiment 1, caffeine did not influence the frequency with which participants chose reappraisal or distraction, but reduced negativity of the picture ratings. In Experiment 2, caffeine did not influence cognitive reappraisal success. Thus, caffeine mitigated emotional responses to negative situations, but not how participants chose to regulate such responses or the success with which they did so.
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Takahashi, Hidehiko; Matsuura, Masato; Koeda, Michihiko; Yahata, Noriaki; Suhara, Tetsuya; Kato, Motoichiro; Okubo, Yoshiro
2008-04-01
We aimed to investigate the neural correlates associated with judgments of a positive self-conscious emotion, pride, and elucidate the difference between pride and a basic positive emotion, joy, at the neural basis level using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Study of the neural basis associated with pride might contribute to a better understanding of the pride-related behaviors observed in neuropsychiatric disorders. Sixteen healthy volunteers were studied. The participants read sentences expressing joy or pride contents during the scans. Pride conditions activated the right posterior superior temporal sulcus and left temporal pole, the regions implicated in the neural substrate of social cognition or theory of mind. However, against our prediction, we did not find brain activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, a region responsible for inferring others' intention or self-reflection. Joy condition produced activations in the ventral striatum and insula/operculum, the key nodes of processing of hedonic or appetitive stimuli. Our results support the idea that pride is a self-conscious emotion, requiring the ability to detect the intention of others. At the same time, judgment of pride might require less self-reflection compared with those of negative self-conscious emotions such as guilt or embarrassment.
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Motivation enhances control of positive and negative emotional distractions.
Walsh, Amy T; Carmel, David; Harper, David; Grimshaw, Gina M
2018-01-03
Using cognitive control to ignore distractions is essential for successfully achieving our goals. In emotionally-neutral contexts, motivation can reduce interference from irrelevant stimuli by enhancing cognitive control. However, attention is commonly biased towards emotional stimuli, making them potent distractors. Can motivation aid control of emotional distractions, and does it do so similarly for positive and negative stimuli? Here, we examined how task motivation influences control of distraction from positive, negative, and neutral scenes. Participants completed a simple perceptual task while attempting to ignore task-irrelevant images. One group received monetary reward for fast and accurate task performance; another (control) group did not. Overall, both negative (mutilation) and positive (erotic) images caused greater slowing of responses than neutral images of people, but emotional distraction was reduced with reward. Crucially, despite the different motivational directions associated with negative and positive stimuli, reward reduced negative and positive distraction equally. Our findings suggest that motivation may encourage the use of a sustained proactive control strategy that can effectively reduce the impact of emotional distraction.
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Sultson, Hedvig; Kukk, Katrin; Akkermann, Kirsti
2017-09-01
Research on emotional eating mostly focuses on negative emotions. Much less is known about how positive emotions relate to overeating and binge eating (BE). The aim of the current study was to construct a scale for positive and negative emotional eating and to assess its predictive validity. In study 1, the Positive-Negative Emotional Eating Scale (PNEES) was constructed and tested on 531 women, who also completed Eating Disorders Assessment Scale (EDAS). Results showed that a two-factor model constituting Positive emotional eating (PNEES-P) and Negative emotional eating (PNEES-N) fit the data well. PNEES-N also showed good convergent validity in assessing binge eating, correlating highly with EDAS subscale Binge eating. Further, a path analysis showed that after controlling for the mediating effect of PNEES-N, PNEES-P continued to significantly predict binge eating. In study 2 (N = 60), experience sampling method was used to assess overeating and BE in the natural environment. Palmtop computers were given to participants for a three-day study period that prompted them with questions regarding emotional experience, overeating, and BE. Results indicated that PNEES-P significantly predicted overeating, whereas PNEES-N predicted overeating and BE episodes only in a subsample of women who had experienced at least one overeating or BE episode. Thus, positive and negative emotional eating might have different relations with overeating and BE, with the latter being more characteristic of the severity/frequency of overeating and BE. New assessment tools that in addition to negative emotional eating also address positive emotional eating could be of potential help in planning intervention. Further, the tendency to overeat in response to positive emotions could be integrated into current models of eating disorders, especially when addressing relapse prevention. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Risk for Mania and Positive Emotional Responding: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Gruber, June; Oveis, Christopher; Keltner, Dacher; Johnson, Sheri L.
2008-01-01
Although positive emotion research has begun to flourish, the extremes of positive emotion remain understudied. The present research used a multimethod approach to examine positive emotional disturbance by comparing participants at high and low risk for episodes of mania, which involves elevations in positive emotionality. Ninety participants were recruited into a high or low mania risk group according to responses on the Hypomanic Personality Scale. Participants’ subjective, expressive, and ...
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A discrete emotions approach to positive emotion disturbance in depression
Gruber, June; Oveis, Christopher; Keltner, Dacher; Johnson, Sheri L.
2011-01-01
Converging findings suggest that depressed individuals exhibit disturbances in positive emotion. No study, however, has ascertained which specific positive emotions are implicated in depression. We report two studies that compare how depressive symptoms relate to distinct positive emotions at both trait and state levels of assessment. In Study 1 (N = 185), we examined associations between depressive symptoms and three trait positive emotions (pride, happy, amusement). Study 2 compared experie...
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A discrete emotions approach to positive emotion disturbance in depression.
Gruber, June; Oveis, Christopher; Keltner, Dacher; Johnson, Sheri L
2011-01-01
Converging findings suggest that depressed individuals exhibit disturbances in positive emotion. No study, however, has ascertained which specific positive emotions are implicated in depression. We report two studies that compare how depressive symptoms relate to distinct positive emotions at both trait and state levels of assessment. In Study 1 (N=185), we examined associations between depressive symptoms and three trait positive emotions (pride, happy, amusement). Study 2 compared experiential and autonomic reactivity to pride, happy, and amusement film stimuli between depressive (n=24; DS) and non-depressive (n=31; NDS) symptom groups. Results indicate that symptoms of depression were most strongly associated with decreased trait pride and decreased positive emotion experience to pride-eliciting films. Discussion focuses on the implications these findings have for understanding emotion deficits in depression as well as for the general study of positive emotion. © 2010 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
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3 Ways to Increase Positive Emotions
... Search English Español 3 Ways to Increase Positive Emotions KidsHealth / For Teens / 3 Ways to Increase Positive ... to give yourself a boost. Track Your Positive Emotions Name the positive emotions you're already familiar ...
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Are only Emotional Strengths Emotional? Character Strengths and Disposition to Positive Emotions.
Güsewell, Angelika; Ruch, Willibald
2012-07-01
This study aimed to examine the relations between character strengths and dispositional positive emotions (i.e. joy, contentment, pride, love, compassion, amusement, and awe). A sample of 574 German-speaking adults filled in the Dispositional Positive Emotion Scales (DPES; Shiota, Keltner, & John, 2006), and the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS; Peterson, Park, & Seligman, 2005). The factorial structure of the DPES was examined on item level. Joy and contentment could not be clearly separated; the items of the other five emotions loaded on separate factors. A confirmatory factor analysis assuming two latent factors (self-oriented and object/situation specific) was computed on scale level. Results confirmed the existence of these factors, but also indicated that the seven emotions did not split up into two clearly separable families. Correlations between dispositional positive emotions and character strengths were positive and generally low to moderate; a few theoretically meaningful strengths-emotions pairs yielded coefficients>.40. Finally, the link between five character strengths factors (i.e. emotional strengths, interpersonal strengths, strengths of restraint, intellectual strengths, and theological strengths) and the emotional dispositions was examined. Each of the factors displayed a distinctive "emotional pattern"; emotional strengths evidenced the most numerous and strongest links to emotional dispositions. © 2012 The Authors. Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being © 2012 The International Association of Applied Psychology.
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The Nonverbal Communication of Positive Emotions: An Emotion Family Approach.
Sauter, Disa A
2017-07-01
This review provides an overview of the research on nonverbal expressions of positive emotions, organised into emotion families, that is, clusters sharing common characteristics. Epistemological positive emotions (amusement, relief, awe, and interest) are found to have distinct, recognisable displays via vocal or facial cues, while the agency-approach positive emotions (elation and pride) appear to be associated with recognisable visual, but not auditory, cues. Evidence is less strong for the prosocial emotions (love, compassion, gratitude, and admiration) in any modality other than touch, and there is little support for distinct recognisable signals of the savouring positive emotions (contentment, sensory pleasure, and desire). In closing, some limitations of extant work are noted and some proposals for future research are outlined.
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Emotional Effects of Positive Forms of Communication
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Светлана Валентиновна Ионова
2015-12-01
Full Text Available The article discusses the problem of emotional significance of a positive form of speech. Based on the methodology of emotions linguistics, linguoecology, communicative linguistics and the methods of description, comparison and discourse analysis, the author distinguishes some types of speech situations that demonstrate visible differences between positive expression of emotions and their content and the pragmatic effect. The difference between the notions of “positive communication” and “positive form of communication” is demonstrated. Special attention is given to the following types of positive emotional communication: tolerant emotional communication, emotional emphasis, emotional neglect, and emotional tabooing. The utterances in situations of real and textual communication demonstrate negative effects of statements expressed in a positive form and identify the specifics of positive forms of emotional communication in comparison with rational communication.
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The Power of Positive Emotions
... Safe Videos for Educators Search English Español The Power of Positive Emotions KidsHealth / For Teens / The Power ... great one. 2. Practice Positivity Every Day Building habits that encourage us to feel more positive emotions ...
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Anne M. Farrell
2018-02-01
Full Text Available Emotional and economic incentives often conflict in decision environments. To make economically desirable decisions then, deliberative neural processes must be engaged to regulate automatic emotional reactions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI study, we evaluated how fixed wage (FW incentives and performance-based (PB financial incentives, in which pay is proportional to outcome, differentially regulate positive and negative emotional reactions to hypothetical colleagues that conflicted with the economics of available alternatives. Neural activity from FW to PB incentive contexts decreased for positive emotional stimuli but increased for negative stimuli in middle temporal, insula, and medial prefrontal regions. In addition, PB incentives further induced greater responses to negative than positive emotional decisions in the frontal and anterior cingulate regions involved in emotion regulation. Greater response to positive than negative emotional features in these regions also correlated with lower frequencies of economically desirable choices. Our findings suggest that whereas positive emotion regulation involves a reduction of responses in valence representation regions, negative emotion regulation additionally engages brain regions for deliberative processing and signaling of incongruous events.
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Farrell, Anne M; Goh, Joshua O S; White, Brian J
2018-01-01
Emotional and economic incentives often conflict in decision environments. To make economically desirable decisions then, deliberative neural processes must be engaged to regulate automatic emotional reactions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we evaluated how fixed wage (FW) incentives and performance-based (PB) financial incentives, in which pay is proportional to outcome, differentially regulate positive and negative emotional reactions to hypothetical colleagues that conflicted with the economics of available alternatives. Neural activity from FW to PB incentive contexts decreased for positive emotional stimuli but increased for negative stimuli in middle temporal, insula, and medial prefrontal regions. In addition, PB incentives further induced greater responses to negative than positive emotional decisions in the frontal and anterior cingulate regions involved in emotion regulation. Greater response to positive than negative emotional features in these regions also correlated with lower frequencies of economically desirable choices. Our findings suggest that whereas positive emotion regulation involves a reduction of responses in valence representation regions, negative emotion regulation additionally engages brain regions for deliberative processing and signaling of incongruous events.
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Van Strien, Jan W; Van Kampen, Dirk
2009-10-30
Fourteen men scoring high and 14 men scoring low on a positive schizotypy scale participated in a lateralized emotional Stroop task. Vocal reaction times for color naming of neutral, positive and negative emotional words were recorded. Across participants, the color naming of neutral and emotional words was slightly faster to right than to left visual field presentations. In men with high scores on positive schizotypy, the presentation of negative words to the left visual field (right hemisphere) resulted in significant affective interference with color naming, which was significantly larger than in men with low scores. Correlational analysis also showed that positive schizotypy was significantly associated with emotional interference in response to LVF negative words. The outcome is discussed in terms of right hemispheric engagement in negative emotions in high positive schizotypic men.
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Fäsche, Anika; Gunzenhauser, Catherine; Friedlmeier, Wolfgang; von Suchodoletz, Antje
2015-01-01
The present study investigated five to six year old children's ability to regulate negative and positive emotions in relation to psychosocial problem behavior (N=53). It was explored, whether mothers' supportive and nonsupportive strategies of emotion socialization influence children's problem behavior by shaping their emotion regulation ability. Mothers reported on children's emotion regulation and internalizing and externalizing problem behavior via questionnaire, and were interviewed about their preferences for socialization strategies in response to children's expression of negative affect. Results showed that children with more adaptive expression of adequate positive emotions had less internalizing behavior problems. When children showed more control of inadequate negative emotions, children were less internalizing as well as externalizing in their behavior. Furthermore, results indicated indirect relations of mothers' socialization strategies with children's problem behavior. Control of inadequate negative emotions mediated the link between non-supportive strategies on externalizing problem behavior. Results suggest that emotion regulatory processes should be part of interventions to reduce the development of problematic behavior in young children. Parents should be trained in dealing with children's emotions in a constructive way.
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Moss, Simon A; Wilson, Samuel G
2015-01-01
According to some scholars, if individuals experience over three times as many positive emotions as negative emotions, they are more likely to thrive. We contend, however, that perhaps positive and negative emotions that overlap in time are likely to enhance wellbeing. Specifically, if positive and negative emotions are experienced simultaneously rather than separately-called ambivalent emotions-the fundamental needs of individuals are fulfilled more frequently. Considerable evidence supports this perspective. First, many emotions that enhance wellbeing, although classified as positive, also coincide with negative feelings. Second, ambivalent emotions, rather than positive or negative emotions separately, facilitate creativity and resilience. Third, ambivalent emotions activate distinct cognitive systems that enable individuals to form attainable goals, refine their skills, and enhance their relationships. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Kang, Yoona; Gruber, June
2013-04-01
The ability to adaptively exert control over negative emotions is associated with beneficial mental health outcomes. Less is known about the associated emotional sequelae surrounding controllable versus uncontrollable positive emotional experiences. The ability to harness positive emotions is of particular importance in populations involving disrupted positive emotion functioning. In the present study, participants engaged in a relived memory task in which they recalled either a controllable or uncontrollable past positive emotional experience in counterbalanced order, while concurrent experiential and autonomic responses were measured. Participants included adults with bipolar I disorder (BD; n = 32), major depression (MDD; n = 32), and or nonpsychiatric controls (CTLs; n = 31). Across all participants, reliving a controllable positive emotion experience was associated with exhibited increased respiratory sinus arrhythmia, an autonomic marker of regulatory control. Interestingly, only the MDD group reported increased positive emotion and decreased cardiovascular arousal when reliving an event involving uncontrollable positive emotion, compared to the BD and CTL groups. No other group differences emerged. These findings suggest that although controllable positive emotion experiences may be adaptive for most, individuals with a history of restricted affect and depressed mood may actually derive more pleasure from times of unharnessed happiness. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.
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Personality traits modulate emotional and physiological responses to stress.
Childs, Emma; White, Tara L; de Wit, Harriet
2014-09-01
An individual's susceptibility to psychological and physical disorders associated with chronic stress exposure, for example, cardiovascular and infectious disease, may also be predicted by their reactivity to acute stress. One factor associated with both stress resilience and health outcomes is personality. An understanding of how personality influences responses to acute stress may shed light upon individual differences in susceptibility to chronic stress-linked disease. This study examined the relationships between personality and acute responses to stress in 125 healthy adults, using hierarchical linear regression. We assessed personality traits using the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ-BF), and responses to acute stress (cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure, mood) using a standardized laboratory psychosocial stress task, the Trier Social Stress Test. Individuals with high Negative Emotionality exhibited greater emotional distress and lower blood pressure responses to the Trier Social Stress Test. Individuals with high agentic Positive Emotionality exhibited prolonged heart rate responses to stress, whereas those with high communal Positive Emotionality exhibited smaller cortisol and blood pressure responses. Separate personality traits differentially predicted emotional, cardiovascular, and cortisol responses to a psychosocial stressor in healthy volunteers. Future research investigating the association of personality with chronic stress-related disease may provide further clues to the relationship between acute stress reactivity and susceptibility to disease.
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The Contributions of Positive and Negative Affect to Emotional Well-Being
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Randy Larsen
2009-12-01
Full Text Available In this paper, the definitions of subjective well-being have been reviewed with a focus on its emotional core, which we consider to be the ratio of positive to negative affect over time. The reviewed evidence showed that negative emotions tend to be of longer duration than positive and that the NA system produces stronger emotional responses than the PA system. Also, a variety of experimental results show that negative stimuli make unique demands on cognitive resources (particularly perception and attention compared to positive stimuli. The evidence that the negative affect system produces stronger affective output, per unit input, than the positive affect system, is a phenomenon known as negativity bias. I also went so far as to argue that negativity exceeds positivity by a factor of pi (3.14 and that efforts to speed adaptation to negative events may be more important to overall SWB then efforts to prolong responses to positive events (Larsen and Prizmic, 2008. The fact that negativity is stronger than positivity, combined with the notion of differential adaptation (people adapt faster to good events than to bad events, creates the conditions that drive the hedonic treadmill. However, most people are, to some degree, able to overcome the psychological forces of the hedonic treadmill and maintain at least a modicum of emotional well-being (Biswas-Diener, Vitterso, & Diener, 2005. It is likely that the ability called "emotional intelligence" refers in large part to the capacity to manage negative affect following unpleasant or stressful events (Larsen & Learner, 2006. Moreover, such an ability is likely to be made up of particular behaviors and strategies that each contributes specifically to the management of negative emotions (Larsen & Prizmic, 2004.
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Dampening or savoring positive emotions: a dialectical cultural script guides emotion regulation.
Miyamoto, Yuri; Ma, Xiaoming
2011-12-01
Four studies examined the hypothesis that, although people may generally want to savor, rather than to dampen, their positive emotions (i.e., hedonic emotion regulation), such a hedonic emotion regulation tendency should be less pronounced for Easterners than for Westerners. Using retrospective memory procedures, Study 1 found that Easterners recalled engaging in hedonic emotion regulation less than Westerners did, even after controlling for their initial emotional reactions. Studies 2-3 showed that cultural differences in emotion regulation were mediated by dialectical beliefs about positive emotions. Study 4 replicated the findings by examining online reports of emotion regulation strategies on the day students received a good grade. Furthermore, there were cultural differences in actual emotion change over time, which was partly explained by dialectical beliefs about positive emotions. These findings highlight the active role cultural scripts play in shaping emotion regulation and emotional experiences. (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.
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Interaction With PC Tablets And Possible Emotional Responses
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Emy Agren
2015-08-01
Full Text Available The remarkable developments in mobile-based technologies have brought prominent impacts on human life style. Today life is running on mobile electronic devices smart phones tablets gaming devices and video-players. Generally the users acquaint with the features and properties of products after emotionally and physically interacting with the devices. The interaction in return influencing our moods depending on the feelings the technology creates. The focus of this study lays on the uses of tablets or also called PC tablets and its effects on its users emotional responses. To discover possible emotional responses with the tablets the data in this work were collected through a survey questionnaire from participants belongs to various backgrounds age groups and genders. The model of emotions was adopted in order to classify the emotional responses.The study has found that during or after the interaction with the tablets the users may get positive or negative emotional responses of a different kind. The users mood can also be affected by awakening such emotional feelings as happiness sadness frustration etc.
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Psychiatry, religion, positive emotions and spirituality.
Vaillant, George E
2013-12-01
This paper proposes that eight positive emotions: awe, love/attachment, trust/faith, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy and hope constitute what we mean by spirituality. These emotions have been grossly ignored by psychiatry. The two sciences that I shall employ to demonstrate this definition of spirituality will be ethology and neuroscience. They are both very new. I will argue that spirituality is not about ideas, sacred texts and theology. Rather, spirituality is all about emotion and social connection that are more dependent on the limbic system than the cortex. Specific religions, for all their limitations, are often the portal through which positive emotions are brought into conscious attention. Neither Freud nor psychiatric textbooks ever mention emotions like joy and gratitude. Hymns and psalms give these emotions pride of place. Our whole concept of psychotherapy might change, if clinicians set about enhancing positive emotions, rather than focusing only on the negative ones. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Is valuing positive emotion associated with life satisfaction?
Bastian, Brock; Kuppens, Peter; De Roover, Kim; Diener, Ed
2014-08-01
The experience of positive emotion is closely linked to subjective well-being. For this reason, campaigns aimed at promoting the value of positive emotion have become widespread. What is rarely considered are the cultural implications of this focus on happiness. Promoting positive emotions as important for "the good life" not only has implications for how individuals value these emotional states, but for how they believe others around them value these emotions also. Drawing on data from over 9,000 college students across 47 countries we examined whether individuals' life satisfaction is associated with living in contexts in which positive emotions are socially valued. The findings show that people report more life satisfaction in countries where positive emotions are highly valued and this is linked to an increased frequency of positive emotional experiences in these contexts. They also reveal, however, that increased life satisfaction in countries that place a premium on positive emotion is less evident for people who tend to experience less valued emotional states: people who experience many negative emotions, do not flourish to the same extent in these contexts. The findings demonstrate how the cultural value placed on certain emotion states may shape the relationship between emotional experiences and subjective well-being.
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Emotional responses as independent components in EEG
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Jensen, Camilla Birgitte Falk; Petersen, Michael Kai; Larsen, Jakob Eg
2014-01-01
susceptible to noise if captured in a mobile context. Hypothesizing that retrieval of emotional responses in mobile usage scenarios could be enhanced through spatial filtering, we compare a standard EEG electrode based analysis against an approach based on independent component analysis (ICA). By clustering...... or unpleasant images; early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP). Recent studies suggest that several time course components may be modulated by emotional content in images or text. However these neural signatures are characterized by small voltage changes that would be highly...... by emotional content. We propose that similar approaches to spatial filtering might allow us to retrieve more robust signals in real life mobile usage scenarios, and potentially facilitate design of cognitive interfaces that adapt the selection of media to our emotional responses....
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Enhanced embodied response following ambiguous emotional processing.
Beffara, Brice; Ouellet, Marc; Vermeulen, Nicolas; Basu, Anamitra; Morisseau, Tiffany; Mermillod, Martial
2012-08-01
It has generally been assumed that high-level cognitive and emotional processes are based on amodal conceptual information. In contrast, however, "embodied simulation" theory states that the perception of an emotional signal can trigger a simulation of the related state in the motor, somatosensory, and affective systems. To study the effect of social context on the mimicry effect predicted by the "embodied simulation" theory, we recorded the electromyographic (EMG) activity of participants when looking at emotional facial expressions. We observed an increase in embodied responses when the participants were exposed to a context involving social valence before seeing the emotional facial expressions. An examination of the dynamic EMG activity induced by two socially relevant emotional expressions (namely joy and anger) revealed enhanced EMG responses of the facial muscles associated with the related social prime (either positive or negative). These results are discussed within the general framework of embodiment theory.
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Neural correlates of preparatory and regulatory control over positive and negative emotion.
Seo, Dongju; Olman, Cheryl A; Haut, Kristen M; Sinha, Rajita; MacDonald, Angus W; Patrick, Christopher J
2014-04-01
This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activation during preparatory and regulatory control while participants (N = 24) were instructed either to simply view or decrease their emotional response to, pleasant, neutral or unpleasant pictures. A main effect of emotional valence on brain activity was found in the right precentral gyrus, with greater activation during positive than negative emotion regulation. A main effect of regulation phase was evident in the bilateral anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC), precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, right putamen and temporal and occipital lobes, with greater activity in these regions during preparatory than regulatory control. A valence X regulation interaction was evident in regions of ventromedial PFC and anterior cingulate cortex, reflecting greater activation while regulating negative than positive emotion, but only during active emotion regulation (not preparation). Conjunction analyses revealed common brain regions involved in differing types of emotion regulation including selected areas of left lateral PFC, inferior parietal lobe, temporal lobe, right cerebellum and bilateral dorsomedial PFC. The right lateral PFC was additionally activated during the modulation of both positive and negative valence. Findings demonstrate significant modulation of brain activity during both preparation for, and active regulation of positive and negative emotional states.
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The neglected role of positive emotion in adolescent psychopathology.
Gilbert, Kirsten E
2012-08-01
Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by elevated stress, heightened risky behaviors, and increases in psychopathology. Emotion dysregulation is a hypothesized contributor to negative outcomes and to the onset of psychopathology during adolescence. However, the dysregulation of negative emotion has been the focus of research while the literature on positive emotion in adolescent psychopathology is limited. This review highlights both the development of normative and dysregulated positive emotion during adolescence. First, the literature on normative adolescent emotional development and on negative emotional regulation is briefly reviewed, followed by a discussion of current theories of positive emotion, which are grounded in the adult literature. From a developmental perspective, the dimension of approach motivation within positive emotion is emphasized throughout and frames the review. This conceptualization guides organization of literatures on normative experiences of positive emotion in adolescence and the role of dysregulated positive emotion in adolescent psychopathology, specifically adolescent depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, externalizing disorders and eating disorders. Last, future directions in the study of adolescent positive emotion and its regulation and the implications of highlighting approach motivation in normative and dysregulated positive emotion in adolescence are detailed. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Balconi, Michela; Grippa, Elisabetta; Vanutelli, Maria Elide
2015-12-01
This study explored the effect of lateralized left-right resting brain activity on prefrontal cortical responsiveness to emotional cues and on the explicit appraisal (stimulus evaluation) of emotions based on their valence. Indeed subjective responses to different emotional stimuli should be predicted by brain resting activity and should be lateralized and valence-related (positive vs negative valence). A hemodynamic measure was considered (functional near-infrared spectroscopy). Indeed hemodynamic resting activity and brain response to emotional cues were registered when subjects (N = 19) viewed emotional positive vs negative stimuli (IAPS). Lateralized index response during resting state, LI (lateralized index) during emotional processing and self-assessment manikin rating were considered. Regression analysis showed the significant predictive effect of resting activity (more left or right lateralized) on both brain response and appraisal of emotional cues based on stimuli valence. Moreover, significant effects were found as a function of valence (more right response to negative stimuli; more left response to positive stimuli) during emotion processing. Therefore, resting state may be considered a predictive marker of the successive cortical responsiveness to emotions. The significance of resting condition for emotional behavior was discussed. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.
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Gender Differences in Positive Social-Emotional Functioning
Romer, Natalie; Ravitch, N. Kathryn; Tom, Karalyn; Merrell, Kenneth W.; Wesley, Katherine L.
2011-01-01
We investigated gender differences of children and adolescents on positive social and emotional competencies using a new strength-based measure of positive social-emotional attributes and resilience--the Social-Emotional Assets and Resilience Scales (SEARS) cross-informant system. Caregivers, teachers, and students in grades kindergarten through…
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The relationship of positive and negative expressiveness to the processing of emotion information.
Knyazev, Gennady G; Barchard, Kimberly A; Razumnikova, Olga M; Mitrofanova, Larisa G
2012-06-01
The tendency to express emotions non-verbally is positively related to perception of emotions in oneself. This study examined its relationship to perception of emotions in others. In 40 healthy adults, EEG theta synchronization was used to indicate emotion processing following presentation of happy, angry, and neutral faces. Both positive and negative expressiveness were associated with higher emotional sensitivity, as shown by cortical responses to facial expressions during the early, unconscious processing stage. At the late, conscious processing stage, positive expressiveness was associated with higher sensitivity to happy faces but lower sensitivity to angry faces. Thus, positive expressiveness predisposes people to allocate fewer attentional resources for conscious perception of angry faces. In contrast, negative expressiveness was consistently associated with higher sensitivity. The effects of positive expressiveness occurred in cortical areas that deal with emotions, but the effects of negative expressiveness occurred in areas engaged in self-referential processes in the context of social relationships. © 2012 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology © 2012 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.
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Schubert, Emery
2007-01-01
The relationship between emotions perceived to be expressed (external locus EL) versus emotions felt (internal locus--IL) in response to music was examined using 5 contrasting pieces of Romantic, Western art music. The main hypothesis tested was that emotion expressed along the dimensions of emotional-strength, valence, and arousal were lower in magnitude for IL than EL. IL and EL judgments made together after one listening (Experiment 2, n = 18) produced less differentiated responses than when each task was performed after separate listenings (Experiment 1, n = 28). This merging of responses in the locus-task-together condition started to disappear as statistical power was increased. Statistical power was increased by recruiting an additional subject pool of elderly individuals (Experiment 3, n = 19, mean age 75 years). Their valence responses were more positive, and their emotional-strength ratings were generally lower, compared to their younger counterparts. Overall data analysis revealed that IL responses fluctuated slightly more than EL emotions, meaning that the latter are more stable. An additional dimension of dominance-submissiveness was also examined, and was useful in differentiating between pieces, but did not return a difference between IL and EL. Some therapy applications of these findings are discussed.
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[Emotional intelligence and oscillatory responses on the emotional facial expressions].
Kniazev, G G; Mitrofanova, L G; Bocharov, A V
2013-01-01
Emotional intelligence-related differences in oscillatory responses to emotional facial expressions were investigated in 48 subjects (26 men and 22 women) in age 18-30 years. Participants were instructed to evaluate emotional expression (angry, happy and neutral) of each presented face on an analog scale ranging from -100 (very hostile) to + 100 (very friendly). High emotional intelligence (EI) participants were found to be more sensitive to the emotional content of the stimuli. It showed up both in their subjective evaluation of the stimuli and in a stronger EEG theta synchronization at an earlier (between 100 and 500 ms after face presentation) processing stage. Source localization using sLORETA showed that this effect was localized in the fusiform gyrus upon the presentation of angry faces and in the posterior cingulate gyrus upon the presentation of happy faces. At a later processing stage (500-870 ms) event-related theta synchronization in high emotional intelligence subject was higher in the left prefrontal cortex upon the presentation of happy faces, but it was lower in the anterior cingulate cortex upon presentation of angry faces. This suggests the existence of a mechanism that can be selectively increase the positive emotions and reduce negative emotions.
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Emotional Effects of Positive Forms of Communication
Светлана Валентиновна Ионова
2015-01-01
The article discusses the problem of emotional significance of a positive form of speech. Based on the methodology of emotions linguistics, linguoecology, communicative linguistics and the methods of description, comparison and discourse analysis, the author distinguishes some types of speech situations that demonstrate visible differences between positive expression of emotions and their content and the pragmatic effect. The difference between the notions of “positive communication” and “pos...
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Facial responsiveness of psychopaths to the emotional expressions of others.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Janina Künecke
Full Text Available Psychopathic individuals show selfish, manipulative, and antisocial behavior in addition to emotional detachment and reduced empathy. Their empathic deficits are thought to be associated with a reduced responsiveness to emotional stimuli. Immediate facial muscle responses to the emotional expressions of others reflect the expressive part of emotional responsiveness and are positively related to trait empathy. Empirical evidence for reduced facial muscle responses in adult psychopathic individuals to the emotional expressions of others is rare. In the present study, 261 male criminal offenders and non-offenders categorized dynamically presented facial emotion expressions (angry, happy, sad, and neutral during facial electromyography recording of their corrugator muscle activity. We replicated a measurement model of facial muscle activity, which controls for general facial responsiveness to face stimuli, and modeled three correlated emotion-specific factors (i.e., anger, happiness, and sadness representing emotion specific activity. In a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, we compared the means of the anger, happiness, and sadness latent factors between three groups: 1 non-offenders, 2 low, and 3 high psychopathic offenders. There were no significant mean differences between groups. Our results challenge current theories that focus on deficits in emotional responsiveness as leading to the development of psychopathy and encourage further theoretical development on deviant emotional processes in psychopathic individuals.
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Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sieun An
2017-04-01
Full Text Available We employ a novel paradigm to test whether six basic emotions (sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and happiness; Ekman, 1992 contain both negativity and positivity, as opposed to consisting of a single continuum between negative and positive. We examined the perceived negativity and positivity of these emotions in terms of their affective and cognitive components among Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and American students. Assessing each emotion at the cognitive and affective levels cross-culturally provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the positivity and negativity of emotions. Affective components were rated as more divergent than cognitive components. Cross-culturally, Americans and Canadians gave higher valence ratings to the salient valence of each emotion, and lower ratings to the non-salient valence of an emotion, compared to Chinese and Koreans. The results suggest that emotions encompass both positivity and negativity, and there were cross-cultural differences in reported emotions. This paradigm complements existing emotion theories, building on past research and allowing for more parsimonious explanations of cross-cultural research on emotion.
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Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures
An, Sieun; Ji, Li-Jun; Marks, Michael; Zhang, Zhiyong
2017-01-01
We employ a novel paradigm to test whether six basic emotions (sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and happiness; Ekman, 1992) contain both negativity and positivity, as opposed to consisting of a single continuum between negative and positive. We examined the perceived negativity and positivity of these emotions in terms of their affective and cognitive components among Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and American students. Assessing each emotion at the cognitive and affective levels cross-culturally provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the positivity and negativity of emotions. Affective components were rated as more divergent than cognitive components. Cross-culturally, Americans and Canadians gave higher valence ratings to the salient valence of each emotion, and lower ratings to the non-salient valence of an emotion, compared to Chinese and Koreans. The results suggest that emotions encompass both positivity and negativity, and there were cross-cultural differences in reported emotions. This paradigm complements existing emotion theories, building on past research and allowing for more parsimonious explanations of cross-cultural research on emotion. PMID:28473791
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Two Sides of Emotion: Exploring Positivity and Negativity in Six Basic Emotions across Cultures.
An, Sieun; Ji, Li-Jun; Marks, Michael; Zhang, Zhiyong
2017-01-01
We employ a novel paradigm to test whether six basic emotions (sadness, fear, disgust, anger, surprise, and happiness; Ekman, 1992) contain both negativity and positivity, as opposed to consisting of a single continuum between negative and positive. We examined the perceived negativity and positivity of these emotions in terms of their affective and cognitive components among Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and American students. Assessing each emotion at the cognitive and affective levels cross-culturally provides a fairly comprehensive picture of the positivity and negativity of emotions. Affective components were rated as more divergent than cognitive components. Cross-culturally, Americans and Canadians gave higher valence ratings to the salient valence of each emotion, and lower ratings to the non-salient valence of an emotion, compared to Chinese and Koreans. The results suggest that emotions encompass both positivity and negativity, and there were cross-cultural differences in reported emotions. This paradigm complements existing emotion theories, building on past research and allowing for more parsimonious explanations of cross-cultural research on emotion.
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Gender differences in emotional responses: a psychophysiological study.
Bianchin, Marta; Angrilli, Alessandro
2012-02-28
Gender differences in emotional responses have been investigated in two groups of students, 22 males and 21 females. Participants watched a set of sixty emotional standardized slides divided into pleasant, neutral and unpleasant, while Startle reflex, Evoked Potentials, Heart Rate, facial EMG and Skin Conductance were recorded. Startle reflex amplitude, an index modulated by amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex and sensitive to aversive emotional stimuli, was overall larger in women. In addition, startle emotion modulation was greater in women with respect to men. Slow Evoked Potentials (400-800 ms), a measure representing the cognitive component of the emotional response, revealed gender differences in the left prefrontal site, with women showing greater positivity to unpleasant compared with pleasant slides while men had greater positivity to pleasant vs. neutral slides. Women, compared with men, perceived all slides as less pleasant and reported greater arousal to unpleasant condition. Results are in line with known functional brain differences, at level of limbic and paralimbic structures, between men and women, and point to biologically grounded greater sensitivity and vulnerability of women to adverse/stressful events. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Biological pacemakers in canines exhibit positive chronotropic response to emotional arousal
Shlapakova, Iryna N.; Nearing, Bruce D.; Lau, David H.; Boink, Gerard J. J.; Danilo, Peter; Kryukova, Yelena; Robinson, Richard B.; Cohen, Ira S.; Rosen, Michael R.; Verrier, Richard L.
2010-01-01
Biological pacemakers based on the HCN2 channel isoform respond to beta-adrenergic and muscarinic stimulation, suggesting a capacity to respond to autonomic input. The purpose of this study was to investigate autonomic response to emotional arousal in canines implanted with murine HCN2-based
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Experiences matter: Positive emotions facilitate intrinsic motivation
Løvoll, Helga Synnevåg; Røysamb, Espen; Vittersø, Joar
2017-01-01
This paper has two major aims. First, to investigate how positive emotions and intrinsic motivation affect each other over time. Second, to test the effect of positive emotions and intrinsic motivation on subsequent educational choices. Through two ordinary study semesters, 64 sport students in Norway reported on their intrinsic motivation for outdoor activities (twice) as well as positive emotions after two three-day outdoor events (four times). Next autumn, students study choice was collect...
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Experiences matter: Positive emotions facilitate intrinsic motivation
Løvoll, Helga Synnevåg; Røysamb, Espen; Vittersø, Joar
2017-01-01
https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2017.1340083 This paper has two major aims. First, to investigate how positive emotions and intrinsic motivation affect each other over time. Second, to test the effect of positive emotions and intrinsic motivation on subsequent educational choices. Through two ordinary study semesters, 64 sport students in Norway reported on their intrinsic motivation for outdoor activities (twice) as well as positive emotions after two three-day outdoor e...
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The effects of positive emotion priming on self-reported reckless driving.
Taubman-Ben-Ari, Orit
2012-03-01
Five studies examined the effects of positive emotion priming on the willingness to drive recklessly. In all five, young drivers were exposed to one of the following primes of positive affect: a positive mood story; happy memories; an exciting film; a relaxing film; or thoughts on the meaning in life. Following the prime, the participants were asked to report on their willingness to drive recklessly. The responses were compared to those of groups exposed either to neutral affect, another kind of positive affect, or negative affect priming. In two of the studies, participants were also asked to report on their driving styles (risky, anxious, angry, or careful) as a second dependent variable. Positive affect, especially in the form of arousal, was found to be related to higher willingness to drive recklessly. Although men tended to report higher intentions to drive recklessly, men and women did not react differently to the emotional induction. Most interestingly, positive emotions of a relaxing nature, as well as thinking about the meaning in life, lowered the willingness to engage in risky driving. The discussion emphasizes the importance of looking for new ways to use positive emotions effectively in road safety interventions, and considers the practical implications of the studies. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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The possibility of nuclear war: Appraisal, coping and emotional response
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Kanofsky, S.
1989-01-01
This study used Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) model of appraisal and coping to explore people's emotional response to the possibility of nuclear war. Sixty-seven women and 49 men participated in a questionnaire study. The sample represented a cross-section of Americans by age and ethnic group but had more education and higher occupational status scores than is typical for the greater population. Sampling limitations and the political climate at the time of questionnaire administration suggested that the present findings be interpreted cautiously. Nevertheless, results suggested the importance of appraisal, defined in this study as the estimated probability of nuclear war and beliefs that citizen efforts to reduce the likelihood of nuclear war can be effective, and coping as factors in people's nuclear threat related emotional response. Six of the study's 11 hypotheses received at least partial confirmation. One or more measures of nuclear threat-related emotional distress were positively correlated with probability estimates of nuclear war, individual and collective response efficacy beliefs, and seeking social support in regard to the nuclear threat. Negative correlations were found between measures of threat-related distress and both trust in political leaders and distancing. Statistically significant relationships contrary to the other five hypotheses were also obtained. Measures of threat-related distress were positively, rather than negatively, correlated with escape avoidance and positive reappraisal coping efforts. Appraisal, coping, and emotion variables, acting together, predicted the extent of political activism regarding the nuclear arms race. It is useful to consider attitudes toward the nuclear arms race, distinguishing between intensity and frequency of emotional distress, and between measures of trait, state, and concept-specific emotionality in understanding emotional responses
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Head position and spinal position as determinants of perceived emotional state.
Schouwstra, S J; Hoogstraten, J
1995-10-01
A sample of 60 first-year psychology students judged the emotional state of 21 drawn figures and completed the Adjective Checklist and a mood questionnaire. The judgments were affected by the interaction between head position and spinal position of the figure. Each figure was associated with a unique pattern of emotions, and the judgments given were not influenced by the subjects' own emotional state.
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Oliver, Lindsay D; Mitchell, Derek G V; Dziobek, Isabel; MacKinley, Julia; Coleman, Kristy; Rankin, Katherine P; Finger, Elizabeth C
2015-01-01
Behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is a debilitating neurodegenerative disorder characterized by frontal and temporal lobe atrophy primarily affecting social cognition and emotion, including loss of empathy. Many consider empathy to be a multidimensional construct, including cognitive empathy (the ability to adopt and understand another's perspective) and emotional empathy (the capacity to share another's emotional experience). Cognitive and emotional empathy deficits have been associated with bvFTD; however, little is known regarding the performance of patients with bvFTD on behavioural measures of emotional empathy, and whether empathic responses differ for negative versus positive stimuli. 24 patients with bvFTD and 24 healthy controls completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET; Dziobek et al., 2008), a performance-based task that taps both cognitive and emotional facets of empathy, and allows for the discrimination of responses to negative versus positive realistic images. MET scores were also compared with caregiver ratings of patient behaviour on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, which assesses patients' everyday demonstrations of perspective taking and empathic concern. Patients with bvFTD were less accurate than controls at inferring mental states for negative and positive stimuli. They also demonstrated lower levels of shared emotional experience, more positive emotional reactions, and diminished arousal to negative social stimuli relative to controls. Patients showed reduced emotional reactions to negative non-social stimuli as well. Lastly, the MET and IRI measures of emotional empathy were found to be significantly correlated within the bvFTD group. The results suggest that patients with bvFTD show a global deficit in cognitive empathy, and deficient emotional empathy for negative, but not positive, experiences. Further, a generalized emotional processing impairment for negative stimuli was observed, which could contribute to the
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Zhang, Qin; Zhang, Jibiao
2013-01-01
In this study, we used the broaden-and-build theory and emotional response theory as the framework to examine the effects of instructors' positive emotions on student engagement and critical thinking in U.S. and Chinese classrooms, as well as the mediating role of students' positive emotions in their relationships. MANOVA results revealed no…
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Relations of nostalgia with music to emotional response and recall of autobiographical memory
小林, 麻美; 岩永, 誠; 生和, 秀敏
2002-01-01
Previous researches suggest that musical mood and preferences affects on emotional response, and that context of music also affects on musical-dependent memory. We often feel 'nostalgia' when listening to old familiar tunes. Nostalgia is related to eliciting positive emotions, recall of autobiographical memory and positive evaluations for recall contents. The present study aimed to examine effects of musical mood, preference and nostalgia on emotional responses, the amounts of recall of autob...
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Positive emotions, spirituality and the practice of psychiatry.
Vaillant, George E
2008-01-01
THIS PAPER PROPOSES THAT EIGHT POSITIVE EMOTIONS: awe, love (attachment), trust (faith), compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy and hope constitute what we mean by spirituality. These emotions have been grossly ignored by psychiatry. The two sciences that I shall employ to demonstrate this definition of spirituality will be ethology and neuroscience. They are both very new. I will argue that spirituality is not about ideas, sacred texts and theology; rather, spirituality is all about emotion and social connection.Specific religions, for all their limitations, are often the portal through which positive emotions are brought into conscious attention. Neither Freud nor psychiatric textbooks ever mention emotions like joy and gratitude. Hymns and psalms give these emotions pride of place. Our whole concept of psychotherapy might change if clinicians set about enhancing positive emotions rather than focusing only on negative emotions.
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Cummings, E Mark; Goeke-Morey, Marcie C; Papp, Lauren M; Dukewich, Tammy L
2002-12-01
Addressing a gap in methodological approaches to the study of links between marital conflict and children, 51 couples were trained to complete home diary reports on everyday marital conflicts and children's responses. Parental negative emotionality and destructive conflict tactics related to children's insecure emotional and behavioral responses. Parental positive emotionality and constructive conflict tactics were linked with children's secure emotional responding. When parents' emotions and tactics were considered in the same model, negative emotionality was more consistently related to children's negative reactions than were destructive conflict tactics, whereas constructive conflict tactics were more consistently related to children's positive reactions than parents' positive emotionality. Differences in children's responding as a function of specific parental negative emotions (anger, sadness, fear) and parent gender were identified.
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Personal and Environmental Resources Mediate the Positivity-Emotional Dysfunction Relationship.
Lehrer, H Matthew; Janus, Katherine C; Gloria, Christian T; Steinhardt, Mary A
2017-03-01
We investigated the relationships among positivity, perceived personal and environmental resources, and emotional dysfunction in adolescent girls. We hypothesized that perceived resources would mediate the relationship between positivity and emotional dysfunction. Participants (N = 510) attending an all-girls public school completed a survey assessing emotional dysfunction (depressive symptoms and perceived stress), positivity (positive/negative emotions), and personal/ environmental resources (resilience, hope, percent adaptive coping, community connectedness, social support, and school connectedness). Perceived resources were combined into one latent variable, and structural equation modeling tested the mediating effect of perceived resources on the relationship between positivity and emotional dysfunction. The model accounted for 63% of the variance in emotional dysfunction. Positivity exerted a significant direct effect on emotional dysfunction (β = -.14, p emotional dysfunction is primarily but not entirely mediated by perceived personal and environmental resources. Schools should consider strategies to enhance experiences of positive emotions and/or decrease experiences of negative emotions, in conjunction with encouraging student awareness and development of personal and environmental resources.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Dich, Nadya; Doan, Stacey N; Evans, Gary W
2015-01-01
high and low maternal responsiveness on allostatic load, a physiological indicator of chronic stress. Participants were 226 mother and child dyads. Mothers reported on children's emotionality at child age 9. Maternal responsiveness was measured at age 13 using self-reports and behavioral observation......While emotionality is often thought of as a risk factor, differential susceptibility theory argues that emotionality reflects susceptibility to both positive and negative environmental influences. The present study explored whether emotional children might be more susceptible to the effects of both...
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Context shapes social judgments of positive emotion suppression and expression.
Kalokerinos, Elise K; Greenaway, Katharine H; Casey, James P
2017-02-01
It is generally considered socially undesirable to suppress the expression of positive emotion. However, previous research has not considered the role that social context plays in governing appropriate emotion regulation. We investigated a context in which it may be more appropriate to suppress than express positive emotion, hypothesizing that positive emotion expressions would be considered inappropriate when the valence of the expressed emotion (i.e., positive) did not match the valence of the context (i.e., negative). Six experiments (N = 1,621) supported this hypothesis: when there was a positive emotion-context mismatch, participants rated targets who suppressed positive emotion as more appropriate, and evaluated them more positively than targets who expressed positive emotion. This effect occurred even when participants were explicitly made aware that suppressing targets were experiencing mismatched emotion for the context (e.g., feeling positive in a negative context), suggesting that appropriate emotional expression is key to these effects. These studies are among the first to provide empirical evidence that social costs to suppression are not inevitable, but instead are dependent on context. Expressive suppression can be a socially useful emotion regulation strategy in situations that call for it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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The effects of valence-based and discrete emotional states on aesthetic response.
Cheng, Yin-Hui
2013-01-01
There is increasing recognition that consumer aesthetics--the responses of consumers to the aesthetic or appearance aspects of products--has become an important area of marketing in recent years. Consumer aesthetic responses to a product are a source of pleasure for the consumer. Previous research into the aesthetic responses to products has often emphasized exterior factors and visual design, but studies have seldom considered the psychological aesthetic experience of consumers, and in particular their emotional state. This study attempts to bridge this gap by examining the link between consumers' emotions and their aesthetic response to a product. Thus, the major goal of this study was to determine how valence-based and discrete emotional states influence choice. In Studies 1 and 2, positive and negative emotions were manipulated to implement two different induction techniques and explore the effect of emotions on participants' choices in two separate experiments. The results of both experiments confirmed the predictions, indicating that aesthetic responses and purchase intention are functions of emotional valence, such that both are stronger for people in a positive emotional state than for those in a negative emotional state. Study 2 also used a neutral affective state to establish the robustness of this observed effect of incidental affect. The results of Study 3 demonstrate that aesthetic response and purchase intention are not only a function of affect valence, but also are affected by the certainty appraisal associated with specific affective states. This research, therefore, contributes to the literature by offering empirical evidence that incidental affect is a determinant of aesthetic response.
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Beyond happiness: Building a science of discrete positive emotions.
Shiota, Michelle N; Campos, Belinda; Oveis, Christopher; Hertenstein, Matthew J; Simon-Thomas, Emiliana; Keltner, Dacher
2017-10-01
While trait positive emotionality and state positive-valence affect have long been the subject of intense study, the importance of differentiating among several "discrete" positive emotions has only recently begun to receive serious attention. In this article, we synthesize existing literature on positive emotion differentiation, proposing that the positive emotions are best described as branches of a "family tree" emerging from a common ancestor mediating adaptive management of fitness-critical resources (e.g., food). Examples are presented of research indicating the importance of differentiating several positive emotion constructs. We then offer a new theoretical framework, built upon a foundation of phylogenetic, neuroscience, and behavioral evidence, that accounts for core features as well as mechanisms for differentiation. We propose several directions for future research suggested by this framework and develop implications for the application of positive emotion research to translational issues in clinical psychology and the science of behavior change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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Contemplative/emotion training reduces negative emotional behavior and promotes prosocial responses.
Kemeny, Margaret E; Foltz, Carol; Cavanagh, James F; Cullen, Margaret; Giese-Davis, Janine; Jennings, Patricia; Rosenberg, Erika L; Gillath, Omri; Shaver, Phillip R; Wallace, B Alan; Ekman, Paul
2012-04-01
Contemplative practices are believed to alleviate psychological problems, cultivate prosocial behavior and promote self-awareness. In addition, psychological science has developed tools and models for understanding the mind and promoting well-being. Additional effort is needed to combine frameworks and techniques from these traditions to improve emotional experience and socioemotional behavior. An 8-week intensive (42 hr) meditation/emotion regulation training intervention was designed by experts in contemplative traditions and emotion science to reduce "destructive enactment of emotions" and enhance prosocial responses. Participants were 82 healthy female schoolteachers who were randomly assigned to a training group or a wait-list control group, and assessed preassessment, postassessment, and 5 months after training completion. Assessments included self-reports and experimental tasks to capture changes in emotional behavior. The training group reported reduced trait negative affect, rumination, depression, and anxiety, and increased trait positive affect and mindfulness compared to the control group. On a series of behavioral tasks, the training increased recognition of emotions in others (Micro-Expression Training Tool), protected trainees from some of the psychophysiological effects of an experimental threat to self (Trier Social Stress Test; TSST), appeared to activate cognitive networks associated with compassion (lexical decision procedure), and affected hostile behavior in the Marital Interaction Task. Most effects at postassessment that were examined at follow-up were maintained (excluding positive affect, TSST rumination, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia recovery). Findings suggest that increased awareness of mental processes can influence emotional behavior, and they support the benefit of integrating contemplative theories/practices with psychological models and methods of emotion regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
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Yamaguchi, Keiko; Ito, Masaya; Takebayashi, Yoshitake
2018-03-12
Emotion regulation utilizing positive emotion during negative emotional states might be one of the effective ways to alleviate depression and anxiety problems among people with emotional disorders. This study examined the psychometric properties and incremental validity of the Positive Emotion In Distress Scale (PEIDS), a newly developed self-report scale, in a sample of university students in Japan. To examine the psychometric properties of the PEIDS, the scale was completed by Japanese university students (396 men and 363 women; mean age of 19.92). Participants additionally answered the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Rumination and Reflection Questionnaire - Shorter Version, Affective Style Questionnaire, Positive and Negative Affective Schedule, and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. The survey was conducted at two time points separated by 1 month to assess test-retest reliability and validity of the PEIDS. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed a one-factor structure. Reliability was confirmed by high internal consistency and test-retest stability; the convergent and discriminant validity was confirmed by correlations with related and unrelated variables. The results of hierarchical regression analyses demonstrated that positive emotion in distress might predict depression above and beyond the effect of baseline depression and other common emotion regulation strategies. The PEIDS showed acceptable reliability and validity within young adults and a non-clinical population in Japan. Further research will be needed to examine the effect of positive emotion among clinical populations. Previous research suggests that positive emotions play a key role in recovery from depression and anxiety problems through some forms of psychotherapy. The Positive Emotion In Distress Scale (PEIDS) measures individual differences regarding the extent to which people can experience positive emotions in negative emotional states. Results suggested that the
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Trait Affect, Emotion Regulation, and the Generation of Negative and Positive Interpersonal Events.
Hamilton, Jessica L; Burke, Taylor A; Stange, Jonathan P; Kleiman, Evan M; Rubenstein, Liza M; Scopelliti, Kate A; Abramson, Lyn Y; Alloy, Lauren B
2017-07-01
Positive and negative trait affect and emotion regulatory strategies have received considerable attention in the literature as predictors of psychopathology. However, it remains unclear whether individuals' trait affect is associated with responses to state positive affect (positive rumination and dampening) or negative affect (ruminative brooding), or whether these affective experiences contribute to negative or positive interpersonal event generation. Among 304 late adolescents, path analyses indicated that individuals with higher trait negative affect utilized dampening and brooding rumination responses, whereas those with higher trait positive affect engaged in rumination on positive affect. Further, there were indirect relationships between trait negative affect and fewer positive and negative interpersonal events via dampening, and between trait positive affect and greater positive and negative interpersonal events via positive rumination. These findings suggest that individuals' trait negative and positive affect may be associated with increased utilization of emotion regulation strategies for managing these affects, which may contribute to the occurrence of positive and negative events in interpersonal relationships. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ivanete Schneider Hahn
2016-01-01
Full Text Available Social media is becoming an important part of an organization's media strategy. This study examines the effects of trust and consumer emotional response to advertisements on brand evaluation in an online social media context. The study used a survey method, and the studied population consisted of 927 Brazilian social media users (Facebook subscribers. The results showed the following: (1 the emotional response to advertising on social media had a positive influence on brand evaluation; and (2 consumer trust had a positive influence on brand evaluation and emotional response to advertisements on social media. It is possible to conclude that consumer trust is the key variable to a positive emotional response to advertisements on social media and to a positive brand evaluation. Finally, this study demonstrates that companies must measure the emotional response to advertising in their social media activities as a way of enhancing brand evaluation.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sanni Somppi
2017-10-01
Full Text Available The neuropeptide oxytocin plays a critical role in social behavior and emotion regulation in mammals. The aim of this study was to explore how nasal oxytocin administration affects gazing behavior during emotional perception in domestic dogs. Looking patterns of dogs, as a measure of voluntary attention, were recorded during the viewing of human facial expression photographs. The pupil diameters of dogs were also measured as a physiological index of emotional arousal. In a placebo-controlled within-subjects experimental design, 43 dogs, after having received either oxytocin or placebo (saline nasal spray treatment, were presented with pictures of unfamiliar male human faces displaying either a happy or an angry expression. We found that, depending on the facial expression, the dogs’ gaze patterns were affected selectively by oxytocin treatment. After receiving oxytocin, dogs fixated less often on the eye regions of angry faces and revisited (glanced back at more often the eye regions of smiling (happy faces than after the placebo treatment. Furthermore, following the oxytocin treatment dogs fixated and revisited the eyes of happy faces significantly more often than the eyes of angry faces. The analysis of dogs’ pupil diameters during viewing of human facial expressions indicated that oxytocin may also have a modulatory effect on dogs’ emotional arousal. While subjects’ pupil sizes were significantly larger when viewing angry faces than happy faces in the control (placebo treatment condition, oxytocin treatment not only eliminated this effect but caused an opposite pupil response. Overall, these findings suggest that nasal oxytocin administration selectively changes the allocation of attention and emotional arousal in domestic dogs. Oxytocin has the potential to decrease vigilance toward threatening social stimuli and increase the salience of positive social stimuli thus making eye gaze of friendly human faces more salient for dogs. Our
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Contact high: Mania proneness and positive perception of emotional touches.
Piff, Paul K; Purcell, Amanda; Gruber, June; Hertenstein, Matthew J; Keltner, Dacher
2012-01-01
How do extreme degrees of positive emotion-such as those characteristic of mania-influence emotion perception? The present study investigated how mania proneness, assessed using the Hypomanic Personality Scale, influences the perception of emotion via touch. Using a validated dyadic interaction paradigm for communicating emotion through touch (Hertenstein, Keltner, App, Bulleit, & Jaskolka, 2006), participants (N=53) received eight different touches to their forearm from a stranger and then identified the emotion via forced-choice methodology. Mania proneness predicted increased overall accuracy in touch perception, particularly for positive emotion touches, as well as the over-attribution of positive and under-attribution of negative emotions across all touches. These findings highlight the effects of positive emotion extremes on the perception of emotion in social interactions.
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Swartz, Rebecca Anne; McElwain, Nancy L.
2012-01-01
Research Findings: The present research examines preservice teachers' (N = 24) self-reported emotion-related regulation and cognition as predictors of their observed responses to young children's positive and negative emotional displays. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that teachers reporting greater reappraisal strategies in…
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Hansen, Flemming; Christensen, Sverre Riis; Lundsteen, Steen
2007-01-01
Recent neurological research has pointed to the importance of fundamental emotional processes for most kinds of human behaviour. Measures of emotional response tendencies towards brands seem to reveal intangible aspects of brand equity, particularly in a marketing context. In this paper a procedure...... for estimating such emotional brand equity is presented and findings from two successive studies of more than 100 brands are reported. It demonstrates how changes that occur between two years are explainable in terms of factors identifiable in the markets, and that the measures otherwise are stable over time...
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Autonomic nervous system response patterns specificity to basic emotions.
Collet, C; Vernet-Maury, E; Delhomme, G; Dittmar, A
1997-01-12
The aim of this study was to test the assumption that the autonomic nervous system responses to emotional stimuli are specific. A series of six slides was randomly presented to the subjects while six autonomic nervous system (ANS) parameters were recorded: skin conductance, skin potential, skin resistance, skin blood flow, skin temperature and instantaneous respiratory frequency. Each slide induced a basic emotion: happiness, surprise, anger, fear, sadness and disgust. Results have been first considered with reference to electrodermal responses (EDR) and secondly through thermo-vascular and respiratory variations. Classical as well as original indices were used to quantify autonomic responses. The six basic emotions were distinguished by Friedman variance analysis. Thus, ANS values corresponding to each emotion were compared two-by-two. EDR distinguished 13 emotion-pairs out of 15. 10 emotion-pairs were separated by skin resistance as well as skin conductance ohmic perturbation duration indices whereas conductance amplitude was only capable of distinguishing 7 emotion-pairs. Skin potential responses distinguished surprise and fear from sadness, and fear from disgust, according to their elementary pattern analysis in form and sign. Two-by-two comparisons of skin temperature, skin blood flow (estimated by the new non-oscillary duration index) and instantaneous respiratory frequency, enabled the distinction of 14 emotion-pairs out of 15. 9 emotion-pairs were distinguished by the non-oscillatory duration index values. Skin temperature was demonstrated to be different i.e. positive versus negative in response to anger and fear. The instantaneous respiratory frequency perturbation duration index was the only one capable of separating sadness from disgust. From the six ANS parameters study, different autonomic patterns were identified, each characterizing one of the six basic emotion used as inducing signals. No index alone, nor group of parameters (EDR and thermovascular
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Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Petri eLaukka
2013-07-01
Full Text Available Which emotions are associated with universally recognized nonverbal signals? We address this issue by examining how reliably nonlinguistic vocalizations (affect bursts can convey emotions across cultures. Actors from India, Kenya, Singapore and USA were instructed to produce vocalizations that would convey 9 positive and 9 negative emotions to listeners. The vocalizations were judged by Swedish listeners using a within-valence forced-choice procedure, where positive and negative emotions were judged in separate experiments. Results showed that listeners could recognize a wide range of positive and negative emotions with accuracy above chance. For positive emotions, we observed the highest recognition rates for relief, followed by lust, interest, serenity and positive surprise, with affection and pride receiving the lowest recognition rates. Anger, disgust, fear, sadness and negative surprise received the highest recognition rates for negative emotions, with the lowest rates observed for guilt and shame. By way of summary, results showed that the voice can reveal both basic emotions and several positive emotions other than happiness across cultures, but self-conscious emotions such as guilt, pride, and shame seem not to be well recognized from nonlinguistic vocalizations.
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An evaluation of the Positive Emotional Experiences Scale: A preliminary analysis
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Rene van Wyk
2016-11-01
Full Text Available Orientation: The positive organisational behaviour movement emphasises the advantages of psychological strengths in business. The psychological virtues of positive emotional experiences can potentially promote human strengths to the advantages of business functioning and the management of work conditions. This is supported by Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory that emphasises the broadening of reactive thought patterns through experiences of positive emotions. Research purpose: A preliminary psychometric evaluation of a positive measurement of dimensions of emotional experiences in the workplace, by rephrasing the Kiefer and Barclay Toxic Emotional Experiences Scale. Motivation for the study: This quantitative Exploratory Factor Analysis investigates the factorial structure and reliability of the Positive Emotional Experiences Scale, a positive rephrased version of the Toxic Emotional Experiences Scale. Research approach, design and method: This Exploratory Factor Analysis indicates an acceptable three-factor model for the Positive Emotional Experiences Scale. These three factors are: (1 psychological recurrent positive state, (2 social connectedness and (3 physical refreshed energy, with strong Cronbach’s alphas of 0.91, 0.91 and 0.94, respectively. Main findings: The three-factor model of the Positive Emotional Experiences Scale provides a valid measure in support of Fredrickson’s theory of social, physical and psychological endured personal resources that build positive emotions. Practical/Managerial implications: Knowledge gained on positive versus negative emotional experiences could be applied by management to promote endured personal resources that strengthen positive emotional experiences. Contribution/value-add: The contribution of this rephrased Positive Emotional Experiences Scale provides a reliable measure of assessment of the social, physical and endured psychological and personal resources identified in Fredrickson
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Positive emotion can protect against source memory impairment.
MacKenzie, Graham; Powell, Tim F; Donaldson, David I
2015-01-01
Despite widespread belief that memory is enhanced by emotion, evidence also suggests that emotion can impair memory. Here we test predictions inspired by object-based binding theory, which states that memory enhancement or impairment depends on the nature of the information to be retrieved. We investigated emotional memory in the context of source retrieval, using images of scenes that were negative, neutral or positive in valence. At study each scene was paired with a colour and during retrieval participants reported the source colour for recognised scenes. Critically, we isolated effects of valence by equating stimulus arousal across conditions. In Experiment 1 colour borders surrounded scenes at study: memory impairment was found for both negative and positive scenes. Experiment 2 used colours superimposed over scenes at study: valence affected source retrieval, with memory impairment for negative scenes only. These findings challenge current theories of emotional memory by showing that emotion can impair memory for both intrinsic and extrinsic source information, even when arousal is equated between emotional and neutral stimuli, and by dissociating the effects of positive and negative emotion on episodic memory retrieval.
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Positive Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology: A Transdiagnostic Cultural Neuroscience Approach
Hechtman, Lisa A.; Raila, Hannah; Chiao, Joan Y.; Gruber, June
2013-01-01
There is burgeoning interest in the study of positive emotion regulation and psychopathology. Given the significant public health costs and the tremendous variance in national prevalence rates associated with many disorders of positive emotion, it is critical to reach an understanding of how cultural factors, along with biological factors, mutually influence positive emotion regulation. Progress in this domain has been relatively unexplored, however, underscoring the need for an integrative review and empirical roadmap for investigating the cultural neuroscientific contributions to positive emotion disturbance for both affective and clinical science domains. The present paper thus provides a multidisciplinary, cultural neuroscience approach to better understand positive emotion regulation and psychopathology. We conclude with a future roadmap for researchers aimed at harnessing positive emotion and alleviating the burden of mental illness cross-culturally. PMID:24812583
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Facial EMG responses to emotional expressions are related to emotion perception ability.
Künecke, Janina; Hildebrandt, Andrea; Recio, Guillermo; Sommer, Werner; Wilhelm, Oliver
2014-01-01
Although most people can identify facial expressions of emotions well, they still differ in this ability. According to embodied simulation theories understanding emotions of others is fostered by involuntarily mimicking the perceived expressions, causing a "reactivation" of the corresponding mental state. Some studies suggest automatic facial mimicry during expression viewing; however, findings on the relationship between mimicry and emotion perception abilities are equivocal. The present study investigated individual differences in emotion perception and its relationship to facial muscle responses - recorded with electromyogram (EMG)--in response to emotional facial expressions. N° = °269 participants completed multiple tasks measuring face and emotion perception. EMG recordings were taken from a subsample (N° = °110) in an independent emotion classification task of short videos displaying six emotions. Confirmatory factor analyses of the m. corrugator supercilii in response to angry, happy, sad, and neutral expressions showed that individual differences in corrugator activity can be separated into a general response to all faces and an emotion-related response. Structural equation modeling revealed a substantial relationship between the emotion-related response and emotion perception ability, providing evidence for the role of facial muscle activation in emotion perception from an individual differences perspective.
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Complexities of Emotional Responses to Social and Nonsocial Affective Stimuli in Schizophrenia
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Joel S. Peterman
2015-03-01
Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Adaptive emotional responses are important in interpersonal relationships. We investigated self-reported emotional experience, physiological reactivity, and micro-facial expressivity in relation to the social nature of stimuli in individuals with schizophrenia.METHOD: Galvanic skin response (GSR and facial electromyography (fEMG were recorded in medicated outpatients with schizophrenia (SZ and demograph-ically-matched healthy controls (CO while they viewed social and non-social im-ages from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS. Participants rated the valence and arousal, and selected a label for experienced emotions. Symp-tom severity in the SZ, and schizotypy in CO were assessed.RESULTS: The two groups did not differ in their labeling of the emotions evoked by the stimuli, but individuals with schizophrenia were more positive in their va-lence ratings. Although self-reported arousal was similar in both groups, GSR was greater in schizophrenia, suggesting differential awareness or calibration of internal states. Both groups reported social images to be more arousing than non-social images but their physiological responses to nonsocial vs. social imag-es were different. Self-reported arousal to neutral social images was correlated with positive symptoms in schizophrenia. Negative symptoms in SZ and disor-ganized schizotypy in CO were associated with reduced fEMG. Greater corruga-tor fEMG activity for positive images in SZ indicates valence-incongruent facial expressions.CONCLUSIONS: The patterns of emotional responses differed between the two groups. While both groups were in broad agreement in self-reported arousal and emotion labels, their GSR and fEMG correlates of emotion diverged in relation to the social nature of the stimuli and clinical measures. Importantly, these results suggest disrupted self awareness of internal states in schizophrenia and under-score the complexities of emotion processing in health and
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Attachment linked predictors of women's emotional and cognitive responses to infant distress.
Leerkes, Esther M; Siepak, Kathryn J
2006-03-01
The purpose of this study was to examine associations among women's emotional and cognitive responses to infant fear and anger and to identify attachment linked predictors of these responses. Four hundred and forty Caucasian and African American undergraduate college women viewed video clips of two crying infants, one displaying anger and the other displaying fear. They identified what the infants were feeling, made causal attributions about the cause of crying, rated their own emotional reactions to the crying infants, and reported on the extent to which their parents met their emotional needs in childhood and their current adult attachment patterns. Emotional and cognitive responses to infant fear and anger were interrelated. Consistent with prediction, a history of parental emotional rejection and adult attachment anxiety and avoidance correlated negatively with accurate identification of emotions and positively with negative attributions, amusement, and neutral responses to infant distress. Adult attachment security moderated the effects of early parental rejection on emotional and cognitive responses to infant distress, and these results varied based on race and parent gender. Results are discussed from an attachment theory perspective.
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Positivity bias in judging ingroup members' emotional expressions.
Lazerus, Talya; Ingbretsen, Zachary A; Stolier, Ryan M; Freeman, Jonathan B; Cikara, Mina
2016-12-01
We investigated how group membership impacts valence judgments of ingroup and outgroup members' emotional expressions. In Experiment 1, participants, randomized into 2 novel, competitive groups, rated the valence of in- and outgroup members' facial expressions (e.g., fearful, happy, neutral) using a circumplex affect grid. Across all emotions, participants judged ingroup members' expressions as more positive than outgroup members' expressions. In Experiment 2, participants categorized fearful and happy expressions as being either positive or negative using a mouse-tracking paradigm. Participants exhibited the most direct trajectories toward the "positive" label for ingroup happy expressions and an initial attraction toward positive for ingroup expressions of fear, with outgroup emotion trajectories falling in between. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2 and demonstrated that the effect could not be accounted for by targets' gaze direction. Overall, people judged ingroup faces as more positive, regardless of emotion, both in deliberate and implicit judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).
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Kate A. Woodcock
2013-06-01
Full Text Available Background: Emotional responding is sensitive to social context; however, little emphasis has been placed on the mechanisms by which social context effects changes in emotional responding. Objective: We aimed to investigate the effects of social context on neural responses to emotional stimuli to inform on the mechanisms underpinning context-linked changes in emotional responding. Design: We measured event-related potential (ERP components known to index specific emotion processes and self-reports of explicit emotion regulation strategies and emotional arousal. Female Chinese university students observed positive, negative, and neutral photographs, whilst alone or accompanied by a culturally similar (Chinese or dissimilar researcher (British. Results: There was a reduction in the positive versus neutral differential N1 amplitude (indexing attentional capture by positive stimuli in the dissimilar relative to alone context. In this context, there was also a corresponding increase in amplitude of a frontal late positive potential (LPP component (indexing engagement of cognitive control resources. In the similar relative to alone context, these effects on differential N1 and frontal LPP amplitudes were less pronounced, but there was an additional decrease in the amplitude of a parietal LPP component (indexing motivational relevance in response to positive stimuli. In response to negative stimuli, the differential N1 component was increased in the similar relative to dissimilar and alone (trend context. Conclusion: These data suggest that neural processes engaged in response to emotional stimuli are modulated by social context. Possible mechanisms for the social-context-linked changes in attentional capture by emotional stimuli include a context-directed modulation of the focus of attention, or an altered interpretation of the emotional stimuli based on additional information proportioned by the context.
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Facial EMG responses to emotional expressions are related to emotion perception ability.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Janina Künecke
Full Text Available Although most people can identify facial expressions of emotions well, they still differ in this ability. According to embodied simulation theories understanding emotions of others is fostered by involuntarily mimicking the perceived expressions, causing a "reactivation" of the corresponding mental state. Some studies suggest automatic facial mimicry during expression viewing; however, findings on the relationship between mimicry and emotion perception abilities are equivocal. The present study investigated individual differences in emotion perception and its relationship to facial muscle responses - recorded with electromyogram (EMG--in response to emotional facial expressions. N° = °269 participants completed multiple tasks measuring face and emotion perception. EMG recordings were taken from a subsample (N° = °110 in an independent emotion classification task of short videos displaying six emotions. Confirmatory factor analyses of the m. corrugator supercilii in response to angry, happy, sad, and neutral expressions showed that individual differences in corrugator activity can be separated into a general response to all faces and an emotion-related response. Structural equation modeling revealed a substantial relationship between the emotion-related response and emotion perception ability, providing evidence for the role of facial muscle activation in emotion perception from an individual differences perspective.
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Kleemans, Mariska; Schlindwein, Luise F; Dohmen, Roos
2017-09-01
Watching news is important for preadolescents, but it may also harm their well-being. This study examined whether applying insights from positive psychology to news production can reduce this potential harm, by reducing negative emotional responses and enhancing positive emotional responses to negative news, and by encouraging prosocial intentions. Moreover, we explored whether peer discussion strengthened these effects. Preadolescents (n = 336; 9-13 years old; 48.5% female) were exposed to either constructive (solution-based news including positive emotions) or nonconstructive news. Subsequently, half of the children assigned to the constructive and the nonconstructive condition participated in a peer discussion. The findings showed that exposure to constructive news resulted in more positive emotional responses and less negative emotional responses as compared to nonconstructive news. Moreover, discussing the news with peers led to more positive and less negative emotional responses among preadolescents who watched the nonconstructive newscast, and to more prosocial intentions among preadolescents who watched constructive news. In all, constructive news reporting and peer discussion could function as tools to make negative news less harmful for preadolescents.
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Positive Emotion Facilitates Cognitive Flexibility: An fMRI Study
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Yanmei Wang
2017-10-01
Full Text Available Cognitive flexibility is the ability to switch rapidly between multiple goals. By using a task-switching paradigm, the present study investigated how positive emotion affected cognitive flexibility and the underlying neural mechanisms. After viewing pictures of different emotional valence (positive, negative, or neutral, participants discriminated whether a target digit in a specific color was odd or even. After a series of trials, the color of target stimuli was changed, i.e., the switch condition. Switch costs were measured by the increase of reaction times (RTs in the switch trials compared to those in the repeat trials. Behavior results indicated that switch costs significantly decreased in the positive emotional condition, and increased in the negative emotional condition, compared with those in the neutral condition. Imaging data revealed enhanced activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC in switch trials than those in repeat trials. Moreover, the interaction between emotion (positive, negative, neutral and trial type (repeat vs. switch was significant. For switch trials, the activation of dACC decreased significantly in the positive condition, while increased significantly in the negative condition compared to neutral condition. By contrast, for repeat trials, no significant difference was observed for the activation of dACC among three emotional conditions. Our results showed that positive emotions could increase the cognitive flexibility and reduce the conflict by decreasing the activation of dACC.
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Aging and emotional expressions: is there a positivity bias during dynamic emotion recognition?
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Alberto eDi Domenico
2015-08-01
Full Text Available In this study, we investigated whether age-related differences in emotion regulation priorities influence online dynamic emotional facial discrimination. A group of 40 younger and a group of 40 older adults were invited to recognize a positive or negative expression as soon as the expression slowly emerged and subsequently rate it in terms of intensity. Our findings show that older adults recognized happy expressions faster than angry ones, while the direction of emotional expression does not seem to affect younger adults’ performance. Furthermore, older adults rated both negative and positive emotional faces as more intense compared to younger controls. This study detects age-related differences with a dynamic online paradigm and suggests that different regulation strategies may shape emotional face recognition.
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Vandercammen, Leen; Hofmans, Joeri; Theuns, Peter
2014-01-01
Despite the fact that studies on self-determination theory have traditionally disregarded the explicit role of emotions in the motivation eliciting process, research attention for the affective antecedents of motivation is growing. We add to this emerging research field by testing the moderating role of emotion differentiation -individual differences in the extent to which people can differentiate between specific emotions- on the relationship between twelve specific emotions and intrinsic motivation. To this end, we conducted a daily diary study (N = 72) and an experience sampling study (N = 34). Results showed that the relationship between enthusiasm, cheerfulness, optimism, contentedness, gloominess, miserableness, uneasiness (in both studies 1 and 2), calmness, relaxation, tenseness, depression, worry (only in Study 1) on one hand and intrinsic motivation on the other hand was moderated by positive emotion differentiation for the positive emotions and by negative emotion differentiation for the negative emotions. Altogether, these findings suggest that for people who are unable to distinguish between different specific positive emotions the relationship between those specific positive emotions and intrinsic motivation is stronger, whereas the relationship between specific negative emotions and intrinsic motivation is weaker for people who are able to distinguish between the different specific negative emotions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Leen Vandercammen
Full Text Available Despite the fact that studies on self-determination theory have traditionally disregarded the explicit role of emotions in the motivation eliciting process, research attention for the affective antecedents of motivation is growing. We add to this emerging research field by testing the moderating role of emotion differentiation -individual differences in the extent to which people can differentiate between specific emotions- on the relationship between twelve specific emotions and intrinsic motivation. To this end, we conducted a daily diary study (N = 72 and an experience sampling study (N = 34. Results showed that the relationship between enthusiasm, cheerfulness, optimism, contentedness, gloominess, miserableness, uneasiness (in both studies 1 and 2, calmness, relaxation, tenseness, depression, worry (only in Study 1 on one hand and intrinsic motivation on the other hand was moderated by positive emotion differentiation for the positive emotions and by negative emotion differentiation for the negative emotions. Altogether, these findings suggest that for people who are unable to distinguish between different specific positive emotions the relationship between those specific positive emotions and intrinsic motivation is stronger, whereas the relationship between specific negative emotions and intrinsic motivation is weaker for people who are able to distinguish between the different specific negative emotions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
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Lewis, I M; Watson, B; White, K M
2010-03-01
This study sought to improve understanding of the persuasive process of emotion-based appeals not only in relation to negative, fear-based appeals but also for appeals based upon positive emotions. In particular, the study investigated whether response efficacy, as a cognitive construct, mediated outcome measures of message effectiveness in terms of both acceptance and rejection of negative and positive emotion-based messages. Licensed drivers (N=406) participated via the completion of an on-line survey. Within the survey, participants received either a negative (fear-based) appeal or one of the two possible positive appeals (pride or humor-based). Overall, the study's findings confirmed the importance of emotional and cognitive components of persuasive health messages and identified response efficacy as a key cognitive construct influencing the effectiveness of not only fear-based messages but also positive emotion-based messages. Interestingly, however, the results suggested that response efficacy's influence on message effectiveness may differ for positive and negative emotion-based appeals such that significant indirect (and mediational) effects were found with both acceptance and rejection of the positive appeals yet only with rejection of the fear-based appeal. As such, the study's findings provide an important extension to extant literature and may inform future advertising message design. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Ma, Xiaoming; Tamir, Maya; Miyamoto, Yuri
2018-02-01
We propose a sociocultural instrumental approach to emotion regulation. According to this approach, cultural differences in the tendency to savor rather than dampen positive emotions should be more pronounced when people are actively pursuing goals (i.e., contexts requiring higher cognitive effort) than when they are not (i.e., contexts requiring lower cognitive efforts), because cultural beliefs about the utility of positive emotions should become most relevant when people are engaging in active goal pursuit. Four studies provided support for our theory. First, European Americans perceived more utility and less harm of positive emotions than Japanese did (Study 1). Second, European Americans reported a stronger relative preference for positive emotions than Asians, but this cultural difference was larger in high cognitive effort contexts than in moderate or low cognitive effort contexts (Study 2). Third, European Americans reported trying to savor rather than dampen positive emotions more than Asians did when preparing to take an exam, a typical high cognitive effort context (Studies 3-4), but these cultural differences were attenuated when an exam was not expected (Study 3) and disappeared when participants expected to interact with a stranger (Study 4). These findings suggest that cultural backgrounds and situational demands interact to shape how people regulate positive emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
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Hastings, Janna; Brass, Andy; Caine, Colin; Jay, Caroline; Stevens, Robert
2014-01-01
We evaluate the application of the Emotion Ontology (EM) to the task of self-reporting of emotional experience in the context of audience response to academic presentations at the International Conference on Biomedical Ontology (ICBO). Ontology evaluation is regarded as a difficult task. Types of ontology evaluation range from gauging adherence to some philosophical principles, following some engineering method, to assessing fitness for purpose. The Emotion Ontology (EM) represents emotions and all related affective phenomena, and should enable self-reporting or articulation of emotional states and responses; how do we know if this is the case? Here we use the EM 'in the wild' in order to evaluate the EM's ability to capture people's self-reported emotional responses to a situation through use of the vocabulary provided by the EM. To achieve this evaluation we developed a tool, EmOntoTag, in which audience members were able to capture their self-reported emotional responses to scientific presentations using the vocabulary offered by the EM. We furthermore asked participants using the tool to rate the appropriateness of an EM vocabulary term for capturing their self-assessed emotional response. Participants were also able to suggest improvements to the EM using a free-text feedback facility. Here, we present the data captured and analyse the EM's fitness for purpose in reporting emotional responses to conference talks. Based on our analysis of this data set, our primary finding is that the audience are able to articulate their emotional response to a talk via the EM, and reporting via the EM ontology is able to draw distinctions between the audience's response to a speaker and between the speakers (or talks) themselves. Thus we can conclude that the vocabulary provided at the leaves of the EM are fit for purpose in this setting. We additionally obtained interesting observations from the experiment as a whole, such as that the majority of emotions captured had
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Lam, Catherine K.; Huang, Xu; Janssen, Onne; Lam, K.C.
In this study, we investigated how supervisors' emotional exhaustion and service climate jointly influence the relationship between subordinates' emotional exhaustion and their display of positive emotions at work. Using data from frontline sales employees and their immediate supervisors in a
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Expressing and Amplifying Positive Emotions Facilitate Goal Attainment in Workplace Interactions
Wong, Elena; Tschan, Franziska; Messerli, Laurence; Semmer, Norbert K.
2013-01-01
Expressing emotions has social functions; it provides information, affects social interactions, and shapes relationships with others. Expressing positive emotions could be a strategic tool for improving goal attainment during social interactions at work. Such effects have been found in research on social contagion, impression management, and emotion work. However, expressing emotions one does not feel entails the risk of being perceived as inauthentic. This risk may well be worth taking when the emotions felt are negative, as expressing negative emotions usually has negative effects. When experiencing positive emotions, however, expressing them authentically promises benefits, and the advantage of amplifying them is not so obvious. We postulated that expressing, and amplifying, positive emotions would foster goal attainment in social interactions at work, particularly when dealing with superiors. Analyses are based on 494 interactions involving the pursuit of a goal by 113 employes. Multilevel analyses, including polynomial analyses, show that authentic display of positive emotions supported goal attainment throughout. However, amplifying felt positive emotions promoted goal attainment only in interactions with superiors, but not with colleagues. Results are discussed with regard to the importance of hierarchy for detecting, and interpreting, signs of strategic display of positive emotions. PMID:23675358
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Expressing and amplifying positive emotions facilitate goal attainment in workplace interactions
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Elena eWong
2013-05-01
Full Text Available Expressing emotions has social functions; it provides information, affects social interactions, and shapes relationships with others. Expressing positive emotions could be a strategic tool for improving goal attainment during social interactions at work. Such effects have been found in research on social contagion, impression management, and emotion work. However, expressing emotions one does not feel entails the risk of being perceived as inauthentic. This risk may well be worth taking when the emotions felt are negative, as expressing negative emotions usually has negative effects. When experiencing positive emotions, however, expressing them authentically promises benefits, and the advantage of amplifying them is not so obvious. We postulated that expressing, and amplifying, positive emotions would foster goal attainment in social interactions at work, particularly when dealing with superiors. Analyses are based on 494 interactions involving the pursuit of a goal by 113 employees. Multilevel analyses, including polynomial analyses, show that authentic display of positive emotions supported goal attainment throughout. However, amplifying felt positive emotions promoted goal attainment only in interactions with superiors, but not with colleagues. Results are discussed with regard to the importance of hierarchy for detecting, and interpreting, signs of strategic display of positive emotions.
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Stellar, Jennifer E; John-Henderson, Neha; Anderson, Craig L; Gordon, Amie M; McNeil, Galen D; Keltner, Dacher
2015-04-01
Negative emotions are reliably associated with poorer health (e.g., Kiecolt-Glaser, McGuire, Robles, & Glaser, 2002), but only recently has research begun to acknowledge the important role of positive emotions for our physical health (Fredrickson, 2003). We examine the link between dispositional positive affect and one potential biological pathway between positive emotions and health-proinflammatory cytokines, specifically levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6). We hypothesized that greater trait positive affect would be associated with lower levels of IL-6 in a healthy sample. We found support for this hypothesis across two studies. We also explored the relationship between discrete positive emotions and IL-6 levels, finding that awe, measured in two different ways, was the strongest predictor of lower levels of proinflammatory cytokines. These effects held when controlling for relevant personality and health variables. This work suggests a potential biological pathway between positive emotions and health through proinflammatory cytokines. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
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Relationships Among Positive Emotions, Coping, Resilience and Mental Health.
Gloria, Christian T; Steinhardt, Mary A
2016-04-01
The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions suggests that positive emotions can widen the range of potential coping strategies that come to mind and subsequently enhance one's resilience against stress. Studies have shown that high stress, especially chronic levels of stress, strongly contributes to the development of anxiety and depressive symptoms. However, researchers have also found that individuals who possess high levels of resilience are protected from stress and thus report lower levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Using a sample of 200 postdoctoral research fellows, the present study examined if (a) positive emotions were associated with greater resilience, (b) coping strategies mediated the link between positive emotions and resilience and (c) resilience moderated the influence of stress on trait anxiety and depressive symptoms. Results support the broaden-and-build theory in that positive emotions may enhance resilience directly as well as indirectly through the mediating role of coping strategies-particularly via adaptive coping. Resilience also moderated the association of stress with trait anxiety and depressive symptoms. Although stress is unavoidable and its influences on anxiety and depressive symptoms are undeniable, the likelihood of postdocs developing anxiety or depressive symptoms may be reduced by implementing programmes designed to increase positive emotions, adaptive coping strategies and resilience. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Vandercammen, Leen; Hofmans, Joeri; Theuns, Peter
2014-01-01
Despite the fact that studies on self-determination theory have traditionally disregarded the explicit role of emotions in the motivation eliciting process, research attention for the affective antecedents of motivation is growing. We add to this emerging research field by testing the moderating role of emotion differentiation –individual differences in the extent to which people can differentiate between specific emotions– on the relationship between twelve specific emotions and intrinsic motivation. To this end, we conducted a daily diary study (N = 72) and an experience sampling study (N = 34). Results showed that the relationship between enthusiasm, cheerfulness, optimism, contentedness, gloominess, miserableness, uneasiness (in both studies 1 and 2), calmness, relaxation, tenseness, depression, worry (only in Study 1) on one hand and intrinsic motivation on the other hand was moderated by positive emotion differentiation for the positive emotions and by negative emotion differentiation for the negative emotions. Altogether, these findings suggest that for people who are unable to distinguish between different specific positive emotions the relationship between those specific positive emotions and intrinsic motivation is stronger, whereas the relationship between specific negative emotions and intrinsic motivation is weaker for people who are able to distinguish between the different specific negative emotions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. PMID:25517984
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Positive Emotional Engagement and Autism Risk
Lambert-Brown, Brittany L.; McDonald, Nicole M.; Mattson, Whitney I.; Martin, Katherine B.; Ibañez, Lisa V.; Stone, Wendy L.; Messinger, Daniel S.
2015-01-01
Positive emotional engagement develops in the context of face-to-face interactions during the first 6 months of life. Deficits in emotional engagement are characteristic of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and may characterize the younger siblings of children with ASD (high-risk siblings). High-risk siblings are likely to exhibit a broad range of…
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Emotional response to musical repetition.
Livingstone, Steven R; Palmer, Caroline; Schubert, Emery
2012-06-01
Two experiments examined the effects of repetition on listeners' emotional response to music. Listeners heard recordings of orchestral music that contained a large section repeated twice. The music had a symmetric phrase structure (same-length phrases) in Experiment 1 and an asymmetric phrase structure (different-length phrases) in Experiment 2, hypothesized to alter the predictability of sensitivity to musical repetition. Continuous measures of arousal and valence were compared across music that contained identical repetition, variation (related), or contrasting (unrelated) structure. Listeners' emotional arousal ratings differed most for contrasting music, moderately for variations, and least for repeating musical segments. A computational model for the detection of repeated musical segments was applied to the listeners' emotional responses. The model detected the locations of phrase boundaries from the emotional responses better than from performed tempo or physical intensity in both experiments. These findings indicate the importance of repetition in listeners' emotional response to music and in the perceptual segmentation of musical structure.
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Liu, Hong; Yin, Hui-fang; Wu, Da-xing; Xu, Shu-jing
2014-01-01
Dysfunctional cognitive processing and abnormal brain activation in response to emotional stimuli have long been recognized as core features of the major depressive disorder (MDD). The aim of this study was to examine how Chinese patients with MDD process Chinese emotional words presented to either the left (LH) or right hemisphere (RH). Reaction time (RT) and the late positive component of the event-related potential were measured while subjects judged the valence (positive or negative) of emotional words written in Chinese. Compared to healthy controls, patients with MDD exhibited slower RTs in response to negative words. In all subjects, the RTs in response to negative words were significantly faster than RTs in response to positive words presented to the LH, as well as significantly faster than responses to negative words presented to the RH. Compared to healthy controls, MDD patients exhibited reduced activation of the central and left regions of the brain in response to both negative and positive words. In healthy controls, the posterior brain areas were more active than the anterior brain areas when responding to negative words. All individuals showed faster RTs in response to negative words compared to positive words. In addition, MDD patients showed lateralization of brain activity in response to emotional words, whereas healthy individuals did not show this lateralization. Posterior brain areas appear to play an especially important role in discriminating and experiencing negative emotional words. This study provides further evidence in support of the negative bias hypothesis and the emotional processing theory.
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No influence of positive emotion on orbitofrontal reality filtering: relevance for confabulation
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Maria Chiara eLiverani
2016-05-01
Full Text Available Orbitofrontal reality filtering is a mechanism that allows us to keep thought and behavior in phase with reality. Its failure induces reality confusion with confabulation and disorientation. Confabulations have been claimed to have a positive emotional bias, suggesting that they emanate from a tendency to embellish the situation of a handicap. Here we tested the influence of positive emotion on orbitofrontal reality filtering in healthy subjects using a paradigm validated in reality confusing patients and with a known electrophysiological signature, a frontal positivity at 200-400 ms after memory evocation. Subjects made two continuous recognition tasks (two runs, composed of the same set of neutral and positive pictures, but arranged in different order. In both runs, participants had to indicate pictures repetitions within, and only within, the ongoing run. The first run measures learning and recognition. The second run, where all items are familiar, requires orbitofrontal reality filtering to avoid false positive responses. High-density evoked potentials were recorded from nineteen healthy subjects during completion of the task. Performance was more accurate and faster on neutral than positive pictures in both runs and all conditions. Evoked potential correlates of emotion and reality filtering occurred at 260-350 ms but dissociated in terms of amplitudes and topography. In both runs, positive stimuli evoked a more negative frontal potential than neutral ones. In the second run, the frontal positivity characteristic of reality filtering was separately, and to the same degree, expressed for positive and neutral stimuli. We conclude that orbitofrontal reality filtering, the ability to place oneself correctly in time and space, is not influenced by emotional positivity of the processed material.
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Positive emotion word use and longevity in famous deceased psychologists.
Pressman, Sarah D; Cohen, Sheldon
2012-05-01
This study examined whether specific types of positive and negative emotional words used in the autobiographies of well-known deceased psychologists were associated with longevity. For each of the 88 psychologists, the percent of emotional words used in writing was calculated and categorized by valence (positive or negative) and arousal (activated [e.g., lively, anxious] or not activated [e.g., calm, drowsy]) based on existing emotion scales and models of emotion categorization. After controlling for sex, year of publication, health (based on disclosed illness in autobiography), native language, and year of birth, the use of more activated positive emotional words (e.g., lively, vigorous, attentive, humorous) was associated with increased longevity. Negative terms (e.g., angry, afraid, drowsy, sluggish) and unactivated positive terms (e.g., peaceful, calm) were not related to longevity. The association of activated positive emotions with longevity was also independent of words indicative of social integration, optimism, and the other affect/activation categories. Results indicate that in writing, not every type of emotion correlates with longevity and that there may be value to considering different categories beyond emotional valence in health relevant outcomes.
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Lin, Chia-Yao; Tien, Yi-Min; Huang, Jong-Tsun; Tsai, Chon-Haw; Hsu, Li-Chuan
2016-01-01
Because of dopaminergic neurodegeneration, patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) show impairment in the recognition of negative facial expressions. In the present study, we aimed to determine whether PD patients with more advanced motor problems would show a much greater deficit in recognition of emotional facial expressions than a control group and whether impairment of emotion recognition would extend to positive emotions. Twenty-nine PD patients and 29 age-matched healthy controls were recruited. Participants were asked to discriminate emotions in Experiment 1 and identify gender in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, PD patients demonstrated a recognition deficit for negative (sadness and anger) and positive faces. Further analysis showed that only PD patients with high motor dysfunction performed poorly in recognition of happy faces. In Experiment 2, PD patients showed an intact ability for gender identification, and the results eliminated possible abilities in the functions measured in Experiment 2 as alternative explanations for the results of Experiment 1. We concluded that patients' ability to recognize emotions deteriorated as the disease progressed. Recognition of negative emotions was impaired first, and then the impairment extended to positive emotions.
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The paradox of fiction: Emotional response toward fiction and the modulatory role of self-relevance.
Sperduti, Marco; Arcangeli, Margherita; Makowski, Dominique; Wantzen, Prany; Zalla, Tiziana; Lemaire, Stéphane; Dokic, Jérôme; Pelletier, Jérôme; Piolino, Pascale
2016-03-01
For over forty years, philosophers have struggled with the "paradox of fiction", which is the issue of how we can get emotionally involved with fictional characters and events. The few neuroscientific studies investigating the distinction between the processing of real and fictional entities have evidenced that midline cortical structures and lateral fronto-parietal regions are more engaged for real and fictional entities, respectively. Interestingly, the former network is engaged in autobiographical memory retrieval and self-reference, processes that are known to boost emotional reactivity, while the latter underpins emotion regulation. Thus, a possible modulation of the emotional response according to the nature (real or fictional) of the stimulus is conceivable. To test this hypothesis, we presented short emotional (negative and positive) and neutral video as fictional or real. For negative material, we found that subjective emotional experience, but not physiological arousal measured by electrodermal activity, was reduced in the fictional condition. Moreover, the amount of personal memories linked to the scenes counteracted this effect boosting the subjective emotional response. On the contrary, personal memories elicited by the scenes, but not fiction, modulate the emotional response for positive material. These results suggest that when a stimulus triggers a personal memory, the emotional response is less prone to be modulated by contextual factors, and suggest that personal engagement could be responsible for emotional reaction toward fiction. We discuss these results in the emotion regulation framework and underline their implications in informing theoretical accounts of emotion in the neuroscientific domain and the philosophical debate on the paradox of emotional response to fiction. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.
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Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative non-linguistic emotion vocalizations.
Laukka, Petri; Elfenbein, Hillary Anger; Söder, Nela; Nordström, Henrik; Althoff, Jean; Chui, Wanda; Iraki, Frederick K; Rockstuhl, Thomas; Thingujam, Nutankumar S
2013-01-01
Which emotions are associated with universally recognized non-verbal signals?We address this issue by examining how reliably non-linguistic vocalizations (affect bursts) can convey emotions across cultures. Actors from India, Kenya, Singapore, and USA were instructed to produce vocalizations that would convey nine positive and nine negative emotions to listeners. The vocalizations were judged by Swedish listeners using a within-valence forced-choice procedure, where positive and negative emotions were judged in separate experiments. Results showed that listeners could recognize a wide range of positive and negative emotions with accuracy above chance. For positive emotions, we observed the highest recognition rates for relief, followed by lust, interest, serenity and positive surprise, with affection and pride receiving the lowest recognition rates. Anger, disgust, fear, sadness, and negative surprise received the highest recognition rates for negative emotions, with the lowest rates observed for guilt and shame. By way of summary, results showed that the voice can reveal both basic emotions and several positive emotions other than happiness across cultures, but self-conscious emotions such as guilt, pride, and shame seem not to be well recognized from non-linguistic vocalizations.
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Balconi, Michela; Vanutelli, Maria Elide
2016-01-01
The present research explored the effect of cross-modal integration of emotional cues (auditory and visual (AV)) compared with only visual (V) emotional cues in observing interspecies interactions. The brain activity was monitored when subjects processed AV and V situations, which represented an emotional (positive or negative), interspecies (human-animal) interaction. Congruence (emotionally congruous or incongruous visual and auditory patterns) was also modulated. electroencephalography brain oscillations (from delta to beta) were analyzed and the cortical source localization (by standardized Low Resolution Brain Electromagnetic Tomography) was applied to the data. Frequency band (mainly low-frequency delta and theta) showed a significant brain activity increasing in response to negative compared to positive interactions within the right hemisphere. Moreover, differences were found based on stimulation type, with an increased effect for AV compared with V. Finally, delta band supported a lateralized right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activity in response to negative and incongruous interspecies interactions, mainly for AV. The contribution of cross-modality, congruence (incongruous patterns), and lateralization (right DLPFC) in response to interspecies emotional interactions was discussed at light of a "negative lateralized effect."
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Zebrowitz, Leslie A; Boshyan, Jasmine; Ward, Noreen; Gutchess, Angela; Hadjikhani, Nouchine
2017-01-01
An older adult positivity effect, i.e., the tendency for older adults to favor positive over negative stimulus information more than do younger adults, has been previously shown in attention, memory, and evaluations. This effect has been attributed to greater emotion regulation in older adults. In the case of attention and memory, this explanation has been supported by some evidence that the older adult positivity effect is most pronounced for negative stimuli, which would motivate emotion regulation, and that it is reduced by cognitive load, which would impede emotion regulation. We investigated whether greater older adult positivity in the case of evaluative responses to faces is also enhanced for negative stimuli and attenuated by cognitive load, as an emotion regulation explanation would predict. In two studies, younger and older adults rated trustworthiness of faces that varied in valence both under low and high cognitive load, with the latter manipulated by a distracting backwards counting task. In Study 1, face valence was manipulated by attractiveness (low /disfigured faces, medium, high/fashion models' faces). In Study 2, face valence was manipulated by trustworthiness (low, medium, high). Both studies revealed a significant older adult positivity effect. However, contrary to an emotion regulation account, this effect was not stronger for more negative faces, and cognitive load increased rather than decreased the rated trustworthiness of negatively valenced faces. Although inconsistent with emotion regulation, the latter effect is consistent with theory and research arguing that more cognitive resources are required to process negative stimuli, because they are more cognitively elaborated than positive ones. The finding that increased age and increased cognitive load both enhanced the positivity of trustworthy ratings suggests that the older adult positivity effect in evaluative ratings of faces may reflect age-related declines in cognitive capacity rather
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Talaei-Khoei, Mojtaba; Nemati-Rezvani, Hora; Fischerauer, Stefan F; Ring, David; Chen, Neal; Vranceanu, Ana-Maria
2017-05-01
The Gross process model of emotion regulation holds that emotion-eliciting situations (e.g. musculoskeletal illness) can be strategically regulated to determine the final emotional and behavioral response. Also, there is some evidence that innate emotional traits may predispose an individual to a particular regulating coping style. We enrolled 107 patients with upper extremity musculoskeletal illness in this cross-sectional study. They completed self-report measures of positive and negative affect, emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), upper extremity physical function, pain intensity, and demographics. We used Preacher and Hayes' bootstrapping approach to process analysis to infer the direct effect of positive and negative affect on physical function as well as their indirect effects through activation of emotion regulation strategies. Negative affect was associated with decreased physical function. The association was partly mediated by expressive suppression (b (SE)=-.10 (.05), 95% BCa CI [-.21, -.02]). Positive affect was associated with increased physical function. Cognitive reappraisal partially mediated this association (b (SE)=.11 (.05), 95% BCa CI [.03, .24]). After controlling for pain intensity, the ratio of the mediated effect to total effect grew even larger in controlled model comparing to uncontrolled model (33% vs. 26% for expressive suppression and 32% vs. 30% for cognitive reappraisal). The relationships between affect, emotion regulation strategies and physical function appear to be more dependent on the emotional response to an orthopedic condition rather than the intensity of the nociceptive stimulation of the pain. Findings support integration of emotion regulation training in skill-based psychotherapy in this population to mitigate the effect of negative affect and enhance the influence of positive affect on physical function. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Balconi, M; Cobelli, C
2015-02-26
The present research explored the cortical correlates of emotional memories in response to words and pictures. Subjects' performance (Accuracy Index, AI; response times, RTs; RTs/AI) was considered when a repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) was applied on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LDLPFC). Specifically, the role of LDLPFC was tested by performing a memory task, in which old (previously encoded targets) and new (previously not encoded distractors) emotional pictures/words had to be recognized. Valence (positive vs. negative) and arousing power (high vs. low) of stimuli were also modulated. Moreover, subjective evaluation of emotional stimuli in terms of valence/arousal was explored. We found significant performance improving (higher AI, reduced RTs, improved general performance) in response to rTMS. This "better recognition effect" was only related to specific emotional features, that is positive high arousal pictures or words. Moreover no significant differences were found between stimulus categories. A direct relationship was also observed between subjective evaluation of emotional cues and memory performance when rTMS was applied to LDLPFC. Supported by valence and approach model of emotions, we supposed that a left lateralized prefrontal system may induce a better recognition of positive high arousal words, and that evaluation of emotional cue is related to prefrontal activation, affecting the recognition memories of emotions. Copyright © 2014 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alice Y. Hua
2018-06-01
Full Text Available Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by profound changes in emotions and empathy. Although most patients with bvFTD become less sensitive to negative emotional cues, some patients become more sensitive to positive emotional stimuli. We investigated whether dysregulated positive emotions in bvFTD undermine empathy by making it difficult for patients to share (emotional empathy, recognize (cognitive empathy, and respond (real-world empathy to emotions in others. Fifty-one participants (26 patients with bvFTD and 25 healthy controls viewed photographs of neutral, positive, negative, and self-conscious emotional faces and then identified the emotions displayed in the photographs. We used facial electromyography to measure automatic, sub-visible activity in two facial muscles during the task: Zygomaticus major (ZM, which is active during positive emotional reactions (i.e., smiling, and Corrugator supercilii (CS, which is active during negative emotional reactions (i.e., frowning. Participants rated their baseline positive and negative emotional experience before the task, and informants rated participants' real-world empathic behavior on the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The majority of participants also underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging. A mixed effects model found a significant diagnosis X trial interaction: patients with bvFTD showed greater ZM reactivity to neutral, negative (disgust and surprise, self-conscious (proud, and positive (happy faces than healthy controls. There was no main effect of diagnosis or diagnosis X trial interaction on CS reactivity. Compared to healthy controls, patients with bvFTD had impaired emotion recognition. Multiple regression analyses revealed that greater ZM reactivity predicted worse negative emotion recognition and worse real-world empathy. At baseline, positive emotional experience was higher in bvFTD than healthy controls and also
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Emotional response to advertising
Bogdan ANASTASIEI; Raluca CHIOSA
2014-01-01
Emotions can transcend cultural, linguistic, demographic, and social boundaries. Emotions affect information processing and create a positive attitude toward the ad, which becomes associated with the brand. Objectives. This study investigates the role of pleasure (P), arousal (A) and domination (D) emotions in mobile’s photo camera advertisement and how each of them is influencing consumer attitude towards the advertisement and brand. Prior Work. Holbrook and Batra (1987) develope...
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Griskevicius, Vladas; Shiota, Michelle N; Neufeld, Samantha L
2010-04-01
Much research has found that positive affect facilitates increased reliance on heuristics in cognition. However, theories proposing distinct evolutionary fitness-enhancing functions for specific positive emotions also predict important differences among the consequences of different positive emotion states. Two experiments investigated how six positive emotions influenced the processing of persuasive messages. Using different methods to induce emotions and assess processing, we showed that the positive emotions of anticipatory enthusiasm, amusement, and attachment love tended to facilitate greater acceptance of weak persuasive messages (consistent with previous research), whereas the positive emotions of awe and nurturant love reduced persuasion by weak messages. In addition, a series of mediation analyses suggested that the effects distinguishing different positive emotions from a neutral control condition were best accounted for by different mediators rather than by one common mediator. These findings build upon approaches that link affective valence to certain types of processing, documenting emotion-specific effects on cognition that are consistent with functional evolutionary accounts of discrete positive emotions. Copyright 2010 APA, all rights reserved.
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Positive emotion-specific changes in the gene expression profile of tickled rats.
Hori, Miyo; Hayashi, Takashi; Nakagawa, Yoshimi; Sakamoto, Shigeko; Urayama, Osamu; Murakami, Kazuo
2009-01-01
The aim of this study was to investigate changes in gene expression after tactile stimulation (tickling) accompanied by positive emotion in the adolescent rat brain. We observed a positive emotional response (50-kHz ultrasonic vocalizations) after tickling using a modified version of the Panksepp method, and then comprehensively compared gene expression levels in the hypothalamus of the tickled rats and control rats using the microarray technique. After 4 weeks of stimulation, the expression levels of 321 of the 41,012 genes (including transcripts) were changed; 136 genes were up-regulated (>1.5-fold) and 185 were down-regulated (>0.67-fold) in the tickled rat group. Upon ontology analysis, the up-regulated genes were assigned to the following Gene Ontology (GO) terms: feeding behavior, neuropeptide signaling pathway, biogenic amine biosynthesis and catecholamine biosynthesis. Down-regulated genes were not assigned to any GO term categorized as a biological process. In conclusion, repeated tickling stimulation with positive emotion affected neuronal circuitry directly and/or indirectly, and altered the expression of genes related to the regulation of feeding in the adolescent rat hypothalamus.
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Empathy for positive and negative emotions in social anxiety disorder.
Morrison, Amanda S; Mateen, Maria A; Brozovich, Faith A; Zaki, Jamil; Goldin, Philippe R; Heimberg, Richard G; Gross, James J
2016-12-01
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with elevated negative and diminished positive affective experience. However, little is known about the way in which individuals with SAD perceive and respond emotionally to the naturally-unfolding negative and positive emotions of others, that is, cognitive empathy and affective empathy, respectively. In the present study, participants with generalized SAD (n = 32) and demographically-matched healthy controls (HCs; n = 32) completed a behavioral empathy task. Cognitive empathy was indexed by the correlation between targets' and participants' continuous ratings of targets' emotions, whereas affective empathy was indexed by the correlation between targets' and participants' continuous self-ratings of emotion. Individuals with SAD differed from HCs only in positive affective empathy: they were less able to vicariously share others' positive emotions. Mediation analyses revealed that poor emotional clarity and negative interpersonal perceptions among those with SAD might account for this finding. Future research using experimental methodology is needed to examine whether this finding represents an inability or unwillingness to share positive affect. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Positive and negative emotions underlie motivation for L2 learning
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Peter D. MacIntyre
2017-03-01
Full Text Available The role of basic emotions in SLA has been underestimated in both research and pedagogy. The present article examines 10 positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love and 9 negative emotions (anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, guilt, hate, sadness, feeling scared, and being stressed. The emotions are correlated with core variables chosen from three well-known models of L2 motivation: Gardner’s integrative motive, Clément’s social-contextual model, and Dörnyei’s L2 self system. Respondents came from Italian secondary schools, and most participants were from monolingual Italian speaking homes. They described their motivation and emotion with respect to learning German in a region of Italy (South Tyrol that features high levels of contact between Italians and Germans. Results show that positive emotions are consistently and strongly correlated with motivation-related variables. Correlations involving negative emotions are weaker and less consistently implicated in motivation. The positivity ratio, that is, the relative prevalence of positive over negative emotion, showed strong correlations with all of the motivation constructs. Regression analysis supports the conclusion that a variety of emotions, not just one or two key ones, are implicated in L2 motivation processes in this high-contact context.
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Emotion potentiates response activation and inhibition in masked priming.
Bocanegra, Bruno R; Zeelenberg, René
2012-01-01
Previous studies have shown that emotion can have 2-fold effects on perception. At the object-level, emotional stimuli benefit from a stimulus-specific boost in visual attention at the relative expense of competing stimuli. At the visual feature-level, recent findings indicate that emotion may inhibit the processing of small visual details and facilitate the processing of coarse visual features. In the present study, we investigated whether emotion can boost the activation and inhibition of automatic motor responses that are generated prior to overt perception. To investigate this, we tested whether an emotional cue affects covert motor responses in a masked priming task. We used a masked priming paradigm in which participants responded to target arrows that were preceded by invisible congruent or incongruent prime arrows. In the standard paradigm, participants react faster, and commit fewer errors responding to the directionality of target arrows, when they are preceded by congruent vs. incongruent masked prime arrows (positive congruency effect, PCE). However, as prime-target SOAs increase, this effect reverses (negative congruency effect, NCE). These findings have been explained as evidence for an initial activation and a subsequent inhibition of a partial response elicited by the masked prime arrow. Our results show that the presentation of fearful face cues, compared to neutral face cues, increased the size of both the PCE and NCE, despite the fact that the primes were invisible. This is the first demonstration that emotion prepares an individual's visuomotor system for automatic activation and inhibition of motor responses in the absence of visual awareness.
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Good mood food. Positive emotion as a neglected trigger for food intake.
Evers, Catharine; Adriaanse, Marieke; de Ridder, Denise T D; de Witt Huberts, Jessie C
2013-09-01
Research on emotions as a trigger for food intake has mainly been focused on the role of negative emotions. In the present studies the role of positive emotions as a trigger for food intake is investigated in a sample of healthy participants with a normal weight. Two laboratory studies were conducted in which positive emotions or no emotions were induced (Study 1) or in addition negative emotions were induced (Study 2) after which unhealthy food intake was assessed by bogus taste tests. In Study 3, food intake was assessed by registering snack intake in a 7-day diary study together with the emotions accompanying each snacking episode to provide a more ecologically valid test of our hypothesis. Studies 1 and 2 showed that positive emotions, compared to the control conditions, evoked more caloric intake. Dietary restraint did not moderate this effect. Study 2 additionally showed that positive emotions evoked caloric intake to the same extent as negative emotions. Study 3 showed that snack intake in daily life was reported to result from positive emotions more frequently than from negative emotions. Positive emotions serve as an important but under-investigated trigger for unhealthy food intake that deserves further scrutiny. Future research should further investigate whether food intake results from emotional arousal in general, or from emotional valence in particular. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Emotional Intensity and Emotion Regulation in Response to Autobiographical Memories During Dysphoria
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
del Palacio Gonzalez, Adriana; Berntsen, Dorthe; Watson, Lynn Ann
2017-01-01
Retrieving personal memories may provoke different emotions and a need for emotion regulation. Emotional responses have been studied scarcely in relation to autobiographical memory retrieval. We examined the emotional response to everyday involuntary (spontaneously arising) and voluntary...... (strategically retrieved) memories, and how this response may be different during dysphoria. Participants (20 dysphoric and 23 non-depressed) completed a structured diary where the intensity of basic emotions and regulation strategies employed upon retrieval of memories were rated. Brooding, memory suppression......, and emotional suppression were higher for all individuals’ involuntary memories than voluntary memories. Negative emotions and regulation strategies were greater for dysphoric individuals for both involuntary and voluntary memories after controlling for the valence of the remembered events. The results provide...
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Positive emotional context eliminates the framing effect in decision-making.
Cassotti, Mathieu; Habib, Marianne; Poirel, Nicolas; Aïte, Ania; Houdé, Olivier; Moutier, Sylvain
2012-10-01
Dual-process theories have suggested that emotion plays a key role in the framing effect in decision-making. However, little is known about the potential impact of a specific positive or negative emotional context on this bias. We investigated this question with adult participants using an emotional priming paradigm. First, participants were presented with positive or negative affective pictures (i.e., pleasant vs. unpleasant photographs). Afterward, participants had to perform a financial decision-making task that was unrelated to the pictures previously presented. The results revealed that the presentation framed in terms of gain or loss no longer affected subjects' decision-making following specific exposure to emotionally pleasant pictures. Interestingly, a positive emotional context did not globally influence risk-taking behavior but specifically decreased the risk propensity in the loss frame. This finding confirmed that a positive emotional context can reduce loss aversion, and it strongly reinforced the dual-process view that the framing effect stems from an affective heuristic belonging to intuitive System 1.
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Anterior cingulate serotonin 1B receptor binding is associated with emotional response inhibition
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
da Cunha-Bang, Sofi; Hjordt, Liv Vadskjær; Dam, Vibeke Høyrup
2017-01-01
-offender controls, completed an emotional Go/NoGo task requiring inhibition of prepotent motor responses to emotional facial expressions. We also measured cerebral serotonin 1B receptor (5-HT1BR) binding with [11C]AZ10419369 positron emission tomography within regions of the frontal cortex. We hypothesized that 5......-HT1BR would be positively associated with false alarms (failures to inhibit nogo responses) in the context of aversive (angry and fearful) facial expressions. Across groups, we found that frontal cortex 5-HT1BR binding was positively correlated with false alarms when angry faces were go stimuli......Serotonin has a well-established role in emotional processing and is a key neurotransmitter in impulsive aggression, presumably by facilitating response inhibition and regulating subcortical reactivity to aversive stimuli. In this study 44 men, of whom 19 were violent offenders and 25 were non...
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Assessing positive emotional states in dogs using heart rate and heart rate variability.
Zupan, Manja; Buskas, Julia; Altimiras, Jordi; Keeling, Linda J
2016-03-01
Since most animal species have been recognized as sentient beings, emotional state may be a good indicator of welfare in animals. The goal of this study was to manipulate the environment of nine beagle research dogs to highlight physiological responses indicative of different emotional experiences. Stimuli were selected to be a more or a less positive food (meatball or food pellet) or social reward (familiar person or less familiar person). That all the stimuli were positive and of different reward value was confirmed in a runway motivation test. Dogs were tested individually while standing facing a display theatre where the different stimuli could be shown by lifting a shutter. The dogs approached and remained voluntarily in the test system. They were tested in four sessions (of 20s each) for each of the four stimuli. A test session consisted of four presentation phases (1st exposure to stimulus, post exposure, 2nd exposure, and access to reward). Heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) responses were recorded during testing in the experimental room and also when lying resting in a quiet familiar room. A new method of 'stitching' short periods of HRV data together was used in the analysis. When testing different stimuli, no significant differences were observed in HR and LF:HF ratio (relative power in low frequency (LF) and the high-frequency (HF) range), implying that the sympathetic tone was activated similarly for all the stimuli and may suggest that dogs were in a state of positive arousal. A decrease of HF was associated with the meatball stimulus compared to the food pellet and the reward phase (interacting with the person or eating the food) was associated with a decrease in HF and RMSSD (root mean square of successive differences of inter-beat intervals) compared to the preceding phase (looking at the person or food). This suggests that parasympathetic deactivation is associated with a more positive emotional state in the dog. A similar reduction
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University Student and Lecturer Perceptions of Positive Emotions in Learning
Rowe, Anna Dluzewska; Fitness, Julie; Wood, Leigh Norma
2015-01-01
This paper presents results of an investigation exploring the experience and functionality of positive feelings and emotions in learning and teaching. The role of emotions in learning is receiving increasing attention; however, few studies have researched how university students and academics experience and perceive positive emotions. A prototype…
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This advert makes me cry: Disclosure of emotional response to advertisement on Facebook
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Emmanuel Mogaji
2016-12-01
Full Text Available As social media is transforming how consumers interact with brands and how brand-related content is consumed, this paper aims to investigate if and how Facebook users express their emotions towards advertisements of brand share on the site. Seven hundred and three comments about the Lloyds 250th Anniversary advertisement on Facebook were analysed as positive, negative or neutral attitude towards the advert. Facebook users found the advertisement emotionally appealing and voluntarily report their emotion of love, pride and in some cases anger. The presence of an iconic image like the black horse and the cover music was found to be emotionally appealing. The background music as well aroused positive emotions and engaging. This study introduces the possibility of analysing Facebook comments on brand content to understand consumers’ emotional responses and attitudes to the brand. Managers can explore these opportunities to identify what consumers find interesting in advertisements and how best to develop their creative strategies. It also offers the opportunity to allocate resources better to engage consumers with creative advertisement. Unlike interviews or surveys, this is a pioneering study on measuring emotional responses to advertisement through users’ self-report on social media.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Chia-Yao Lin
2016-01-01
Full Text Available Because of dopaminergic neurodegeneration, patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD show impairment in the recognition of negative facial expressions. In the present study, we aimed to determine whether PD patients with more advanced motor problems would show a much greater deficit in recognition of emotional facial expressions than a control group and whether impairment of emotion recognition would extend to positive emotions. Twenty-nine PD patients and 29 age-matched healthy controls were recruited. Participants were asked to discriminate emotions in Experiment 1 and identify gender in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, PD patients demonstrated a recognition deficit for negative (sadness and anger and positive faces. Further analysis showed that only PD patients with high motor dysfunction performed poorly in recognition of happy faces. In Experiment 2, PD patients showed an intact ability for gender identification, and the results eliminated possible abilities in the functions measured in Experiment 2 as alternative explanations for the results of Experiment 1. We concluded that patients’ ability to recognize emotions deteriorated as the disease progressed. Recognition of negative emotions was impaired first, and then the impairment extended to positive emotions.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Irma Puskarevic
2013-12-01
Full Text Available Understanding the nature of advertising principles or any other means of marketing communication that affects consume behavior has long been the subject of marketing research. The research of emotional response in relation to ad efficiency in this paper is an extension of the research previously conducted (Nedeljkovic et al., 2011. The aim of this research is to show how the ad content i.e. visual message in printed advertisements affects emotional response. Two hypotheses were postulated. First, we expected more positive response for ads with predominating iconic content. The second hypothesis sought to determine if greater response latency can be expected for ads with dominant tropological content. The method of research was SAM visual method of self-assessment. Emotional response and response latency of the participants were measured for advertisements for food and beverage products and services in order to determine how visual ad content influences emotional response of the participants, as well as the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. In an experiment the participants could rate their emotional response using the Self-assessment Manikin (SAM scale toward both types of advertisements. At the same time the response latency was measured. The results show that the main hypothesis was neither confirmed nor rejected, whereas the second hypothesis was confirmed. We conclude that the attitude towards the ad, as mediating variable, is a good indicator of advertising effectiveness.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mowinckel Petter
2009-09-01
Full Text Available Abstract Background Chronic rheumatic diseases are painful conditions which are not entirely controllable and can place high emotional demands on individuals. Increasing evidence has shown that emotion regulation in terms of actively processing and expressing disease-related emotions are likely to promote positive adjustment in patients with chronic diseases. The Emotional Approach Coping Scale (EAC measures active attempts to acknowledge, understand, and express emotions. Although tested in other clinical samples, the EAC has not been validated for patients with rheumatic diseases. This study evaluated the data quality, internal consistency reliability, validity and responsiveness of the Norwegian version of the EAC for this group of patients. Methods 220 patients with different rheumatic diseases were included in a cross-sectional study in which data quality and internal consistency were assessed. Construct validity was assessed through comparisons with the Brief Approach/Avoidance Coping Questionnaire (BACQ and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-20. Responsiveness was tested in a longitudinal pretest-posttest study of two different coping interventions, the Vitality Training Program (VTP and a Self-Management Program (SMP. Results The EAC had low levels of missing data. Results from principal component analysis supported two subscales, Emotional Expression and Emotional Processing, which had high Cronbach's alphas of 0.90 and 0.92, respectively. The EAC had correlations with approach-oriented items in the BACQ in the range 0.17-0.50. The EAC Expression scale had a significant negative correlation with the GHQ-20 of -0.13. As hypothesized, participation in the VTP significantly improved EAC scores, indicating responsiveness to change. Conclusion The EAC is an acceptable and valid instrument for measuring emotional processing and expression in patients with rheumatic diseases. The EAC scales were responsive to change in an intervention
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Sallquist, Julie; Eisenberg, Nancy; Spinrad, Tracy L.; Eggum, Natalie D.; Gaertner, Bridget M.
2009-01-01
The purpose of this study was to examine a new measure of children’s dispositional positive empathy (i.e., reactions to others’ positive emotions) and its concurrent and longitudinal relations with positive emotion, social competence, and empathy/sympathy with negative emotions. At Time 1, 192 3.5-year-olds (88 girls) participated; at Time 2, 1 year later, 168 4.5-year-olds (79 girls) participated. Children’s positive empathy was reported by mothers and observed in the laboratory at Time 2. A...
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Riis Christensen, Sverre
2004-01-01
Consumers' reactions from being exposed to sponsorships has primarily been measured and docu-mented applying cognitive information processing models to the phenomenon. In the paper it is argued that such effects are probably better modelled applying models of peripheral information processing...... in consumer reactions towards sponsored objects of different natures as well as towards potential sponsoring organisations. For instance, the charitable institutions measured in the study elicit larger negative emotional re-sponses than positive responses, corresponding to a negative Net Emotional Response...... to the net scores and to the full evaluations on the attitude and emotion batteries and it seems as if the latter approach will be richer in explanatory power for a potential sponsor....
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Imbir, Kamil Konrad; Jarymowicz, Maria Teresa; Spustek, Tomasz; Kuś, Rafał; Żygierewicz, Jarosław
2015-01-01
We distinguish two evaluative systems which evoke automatic and reflective emotions. Automatic emotions are direct reactions to stimuli whereas reflective emotions are always based on verbalized (and often abstract) criteria of evaluation. We conducted an electroencephalography (EEG) study in which 25 women were required to read and respond to emotional words which engaged either the automatic or reflective system. Stimulus words were emotional (positive or negative) and neutral. We found an effect of valence on an early response with dipolar fronto-occipital topography; positive words evoked a higher amplitude response than negative words. We also found that topographically specific differences in the amplitude of the late positive complex were related to the system involved in processing. Emotional stimuli engaging the automatic system were associated with significantly higher amplitudes in the left-parietal region; the response to neutral words was similar regardless of the system engaged. A different pattern of effects was observed in the central region, neutral stimuli engaging the reflective system evoked a higher amplitudes response whereas there was no system effect for emotional stimuli. These differences could not be reduced to effects of differences between the arousing properties and concreteness of the words used as stimuli.
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Emotion regulation and emotion coherence: evidence for strategy-specific effects.
Dan-Glauser, Elise S; Gross, James J
2013-10-01
One of the central tenets of emotion theory is that emotions involve coordinated changes across experiential, behavioral, and physiological response domains. Surprisingly little is known, however, about how the strength of this emotion coherence is altered when people try to regulate their emotions. To address this issue, we recorded experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses while participants watched negative and positive pictures. Cross-correlations were used to quantify emotion coherence. Study 1 tested how two types of suppression (expressive and physiological) influence coherence. Results showed that both strategies decreased the response coherence measured in negative and positive contexts. Study 2 tested how multichannel suppression (simultaneously targeting expressive and physiological responses) and acceptance influence emotion coherence. Results again showed that suppression decreased coherence. By contrast, acceptance was not significantly different from the unregulated condition. These findings help to clarify the nature of emotion response coherence by showing how different forms of emotion regulation may differentially affect it.
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Emotion Regulation and Emotion Coherence: Evidence for Strategy-Specific Effects
Dan-Glauser, Elise S.; Gross, James J.
2014-01-01
One of the central tenets of emotion theory is that emotions involve coordinated changes across experiential, behavioral, and physiological response domains. Surprisingly little is known, however, on how the strength of this emotion coherence is altered when people try to regulate their emotions. To address this issue, we recorded experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses while participants watched negative and positive pictures. Cross-correlations were used to quantify emotion coherence. Study 1 tested how two types of suppression (expressive and physiological) influence coherence. Results showed that both strategies decreased the response coherence measured in negative and positive contexts. Study 2 tested how multi-channel suppression (simultaneously targeting expressive and physiological responses) and acceptance influence emotion coherence. Results again showed that suppression decreased coherence. By contrast, acceptance was not significantly different from the unregulated condition. These findings help to clarify the nature of emotion response coherence by showing how different forms of emotion regulation may differentially affect it. PMID:23731438
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Positive perfectionism, negative perfectionism, and emotional eating: The mediating role of stress.
Wang, Hanwei; Li, Jie
2017-08-01
The current study examines the different impacts of positive perfectionism and negative perfectionism on individuals' emotional eating, as well as stress as the proposed underlying mediator that explains the abovementioned relationships. Overall, 386 adults in China reported their levels of positive perfectionism, negative perfectionism, perceived stress, and emotional eating behaviors. Results demonstrate that positive perfectionism is negatively associated with emotional eating, while negative perfectionism is positively associated with emotional eating. In addition, stress mediates the relationship between perfectionism and emotional eating. Specifically, positive perfectionism is indirectly related to emotional eating through the mediation of stress, whereas negative perfectionism is related to emotional eating directly and indirectly through the mediation of stress. Findings of the current study indicate that practitioners working with individuals who suffer from emotional eating problems should focus on ways to reduce negative perfectionism while finding approaches that enhance positive perfectionism. With this approach, individuals would experience less stress and, therefore, would be less likely to be involved in emotional eating. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Felt power explains the link between position power and experienced emotions.
Bombari, Dario; Schmid Mast, Marianne; Bachmann, Manuel
2017-02-01
The approach/inhibition theory by Keltner, Gruenfeld, and Anderson (2003) predicts that powerful people should feel more positive and less negative emotions. To date, results of studies investigating this prediction are inconsistent. We fill this gap with four studies in which we investigated the role of different conceptualizations of power: felt power and position power. In Study 1, participants were made to feel more or less powerful and we tested how their felt power was related to different emotional states. In Studies 2, 3, and 4, participants were assigned to either a high or a low power role and engaged in an interaction with a virtual human, after which participants reported on how powerful they felt and the emotions they experienced during the interaction. We meta-analytically combined the results of the four studies and found that felt power was positively related to positive emotions (happiness and serenity) and negatively to negative emotions (fear, anger, and sadness), whereas position power did not show any significant overall relation with any of the emotional states. Importantly, felt power mediated the relationship between position power and emotion. In summary, we show that how powerful a person feels in a given social interaction is the driving force linking the person's position power to his or her emotional states. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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A misleading feeling of happiness: metamemory for positive emotional and neutral pictures.
Hourihan, Kathleen L; Bursey, Elliott
2017-01-01
Emotional information is often remembered better than neutral information, but the emotional benefit for positive information is less consistently observed than the benefit for negative information. The current study examined whether positive emotional pictures are recognised better than neutral pictures, and further examined whether participants can predict how emotion affects picture recognition. In two experiments, participants studied a mixed list of positive and neutral pictures, and made immediate judgements of learning (JOLs). JOLs for positive pictures were consistently higher than for neutral pictures. However, recognition performance displayed an inconsistent pattern. In Experiment 1, neutral pictures were more discriminable than positive pictures, but Experiment 2 found no difference in recognition based on emotional content. Despite participants' beliefs, positive emotional content does not appear to consistently benefit picture memory.
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Further support for association between GWAS variant for positive emotion and reward systems.
Lancaster, T M; Ihssen, N; Brindley, L M; Linden, D E J
2017-01-31
A recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified a significant single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) for trait-positive emotion at rs322931 on chromosome 1, which was also associated with brain activation in the reward system of healthy individuals when observing positive stimuli in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study. In the current study, we aimed to further validate the role of variation at rs322931 in reward processing. Using a similar fMRI approach, we use two paradigms that elicit a strong ventral striatum (VS) blood oxygen-level dependency (BOLD) response in a sample of young, healthy individuals (N=82). In the first study we use a similar picture-viewing task to the discovery sample (positive>neutral stimuli) to replicate an effect of the variant on emotion processing. In the second study we use a probabilistic reversal learning procedure to identify reward processing during decision-making under uncertainly (reward>punishment). In a region of interest (ROI) analysis of the bilateral VS, we show that the rs322931 genotype was associated with BOLD in the left VS during the positive>neutral contrast (P ROI-CORRECTED =0.045) and during the reward>punishment contrast (P ROI-CORRECTED =0.018), although the effect of passive picture viewing was in the opposite direction from that reported in the discovery sample. These findings suggest that the recently identified GWAS hit may influence positive emotion via individual differences in activity in the key hubs of the brain's reward system. Furthermore, these effects may not be limited to the passive viewing of positive emotional scenes, but may also be observed during dynamic decision-making. This study suggests that future studies of this GWAS locus may yield further insight into the biological mechanisms of psychopathologies characterised by deficits in reward processing and positive emotion.
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Pedersen, Walker S.; Larson, Christine L.
2018-01-01
Emotion regulation has important consequences for emotional and mental health (Saxena, Dubey & Pandey, 2011) and is dependent on executive function (Eisenberg, Smith & Spinrad, 2011). Because state anxiety disrupts executive function (Robinson, Vytal, Cornwell & Grillon, 2013), we tested whether state anxiety disrupts emotion regulation by having participants complete an instructed emotion regulation task, while under threat of unpredictable shock and while safe from shock. We used the late positive potential (LPP) component of the event related potential to measure emotion regulation success. We predicted that LPP responses to negatively valenced images would be modulated by participants’ attempts to increase and decrease their emotions when safe from shock, but not while under threat of shock. Our manipulation check revealed an order effect such that for participants who completed the threat of shock condition first self-reported state anxiety carried over into the subsequent safe condition. Additionally, we found that although instructions to regulate affected participants’ ratings of how unpleasant the images made them feel, instructions to regulate had no effect on LPP amplitude regardless of threat condition. Instead we found that participants who received the threat condition prior to safe had greater LPP responses to all images in the safe condition. We posit that the carryover of anxiety resulted in misattribution of arousal and potentiation of neural responses to the images in the safe condition. Thus, our results imply that physiological arousal and cognition combine to influence the basic neural response to emotional stimuli. PMID:27055095
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Cai, Wen-Peng; Pan, Yu; Zhang, Shui-Miao; Wei, Cun; Dong, Wei; Deng, Guang-Hui
2017-10-01
The current study aimed to explore the association of cognitive emotion regulation, social support, resilience and acute stress responses in Chinese soldiers and to understand the multiple mediation effects of social support and resilience on the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation and acute stress responses. A total of 1477 male soldiers completed mental scales, including the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire-Chinese version, the perceived social support scale, the Chinese version of the Connor-Davidson resilience scale, and the military acute stress scale. As hypothesized, physiological responses, psychological responses, and acute stress were associated with negative-focused cognitive emotion regulation, and negatively associated with positive-focused cognitive emotion regulation, social supports and resilience. Besides, positive-focused cognitive emotion regulation, social support, and resilience were significantly associated with one another, and negative-focused cognitive emotion regulation was negatively associated with social support. Regression analysis and bootstrap analysis showed that social support and resilience had partly mediating effects on negative strategies and acute stress, and fully mediating effects on positive strategies and acute stress. These results thus indicate that military acute stress is significantly associated with cognitive emotion regulation, social support, and resilience, and that social support and resilience have multiple mediation effects on the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation and acute stress responses. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Sex differences in the response to emotional distraction: an event-related fMRI investigation.
Iordan, Alexandru D; Dolcos, Sanda; Denkova, Ekaterina; Dolcos, Florin
2013-03-01
Evidence has suggested that women have greater emotional reactivity than men. However, it is unclear whether these differences in basic emotional responses are also associated with differences in emotional distractibility, and what the neural mechanisms that implement differences in emotional distractibility between women and men are. Functional MRI recording was used in conjunction with a working memory (WM) task, with emotional distraction (angry faces) presented during the interval between the memoranda and the probes. First, we found an increased impact of emotional distraction among women in trials associated with high-confidence responses, in the context of overall similar WM performance in women and men. Second, women showed increased sensitivity to emotional distraction in brain areas associated with "hot" emotional processing, whereas men showed increased sensitivity in areas associated with "cold" executive processing, in the context of overall similar patterns of response to emotional distraction in women and men. Third, a sex-related dorsal-ventral hemispheric dissociation emerged in the lateral PFC related to coping with emotional distraction, with women showing a positive correlation with WM performance in left ventral PFC, and men showing similar effects in the right dorsal PFC. In addition to extending to men results that have previously been reported in women, by showing that both sexes engage mechanisms that are similar overall in response to emotional distraction, the present study identifies sex differences in both the response to and coping with emotional distraction. These results have implications for understanding sex differences in the susceptibility to affective disorders, in which basic emotional responses, emotional distractibility, and coping abilities are altered.
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A systematic review of the neural correlates of positive emotions
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Leonardo Machado
Full Text Available Objective: To conduct a systematic literature review of human studies reporting neural correlates of positive emotions. Methods: The PubMed and Web of Science databases were searched in January 2016 for scientific papers written in English. No restrictions were placed on year of publication. Results: Twenty-two articles were identified and 12 met the established criteria. Five had been published during the last 4 years. Formation and regulation of positive emotions, including happiness, are associated with significant reductions in activity in the right prefrontal cortex and bilaterally in the temporoparietal cortex, as well as with increased activity in the left prefrontal regions. They are also associated with increased activity in the cingulate gyrus, inferior and middle temporal gyri, amygdalae, and ventral striatum. Conclusion: It is too early to claim that there is an established understanding of the neuroscience of positive emotions and happiness. However, despite overlap in the brain regions involved in the formation and regulation of positive and negative emotions, we can conclude that positive emotions such as happiness activate specific brain regions.
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Positive emotions in earthquake survivors in El Salvador (2001).
Vázquez, Carmelo; Cervellón, Priscilla; Pérez-Sales, Pau; Vidales, Diana; Gaborit, Mauricio
2005-01-01
The purpose of this study was to analyze, within a more extensive intervention program, the existence of positive emotions and positive coping in the refugees at the two largest shelters created after the earthquakes of El Salvador in January, 2001. One hundred and fifteen survivors were interviewed in the shelters about different aspects related to positive cognitions and emotions experienced during their sojourn at the camps, as well as their perception of aspects of posttraumatic growth. The results show that most of the people affected by the earthquake revealed a consistent pattern of positive reactions and emotions. The potential implications of these results in the individual sphere, as buffering elements to protect people from the effects of a traumatic experience receive comment.
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Positive Emotional Language in the Final Words Spoken Directly Before Execution.
Hirschmüller, Sarah; Egloff, Boris
2015-01-01
How do individuals emotionally cope with the imminent real-world salience of mortality? DeWall and Baumeister as well as Kashdan and colleagues previously provided support that an increased use of positive emotion words serves as a way to protect and defend against mortality salience of one's own contemplated death. Although these studies provide important insights into the psychological dynamics of mortality salience, it remains an open question how individuals cope with the immense threat of mortality prior to their imminent actual death. In the present research, we therefore analyzed positivity in the final words spoken immediately before execution by 407 death row inmates in Texas. By using computerized quantitative text analysis as an objective measure of emotional language use, our results showed that the final words contained a significantly higher proportion of positive than negative emotion words. This emotional positivity was significantly higher than (a) positive emotion word usage base rates in spoken and written materials and (b) positive emotional language use with regard to contemplated death and attempted or actual suicide. Additional analyses showed that emotional positivity in final statements was associated with a greater frequency of language use that was indicative of self-references, social orientation, and present-oriented time focus as well as with fewer instances of cognitive-processing, past-oriented, and death-related word use. Taken together, our findings offer new insights into how individuals cope with the imminent real-world salience of mortality.
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vmPFC activation during a stressor predicts positive emotions during stress recovery
Yang, Xi; Garcia, Katelyn M; Jung, Youngkyoo; Whitlow, Christopher T; McRae, Kateri; Waugh, Christian E
2018-01-01
Abstract Despite accruing evidence showing that positive emotions facilitate stress recovery, the neural basis for this effect remains unclear. To identify the underlying mechanism, we compared stress recovery for people reflecting on a stressor while in a positive emotional context with that for people in a neutral context. While blood–oxygen-level dependent data were being collected, participants (N = 43) performed a stressful anagram task, which was followed by a recovery period during which they reflected on the stressor while watching a positive or neutral video. Participants also reported positive and negative emotions throughout the task as well as retrospective thoughts about the task. Although there was no effect of experimental context on emotional recovery, we found that ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activation during the stressor predicted more positive emotions during recovery, which in turn predicted less negative emotions during recovery. In addition, the relationship between vmPFC activation and positive emotions during recovery was mediated by decentering—the meta-cognitive detachment of oneself from one’s feelings. In sum, successful recovery from a stressor seems to be due to activation of positive emotion-related regions during the stressor itself as well as to their downstream effects on certain cognitive forms of emotion regulation. PMID:29462404
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Mulej Bratec, Satja; Xie, Xiyao; Schmid, Gabriele; Doll, Anselm; Schilbach, Leonhard; Zimmer, Claus; Wohlschläger, Afra; Riedl, Valentin; Sorg, Christian
2015-12-01
Cognitive emotion regulation is a powerful way of modulating emotional responses. However, despite the vital role of emotions in learning, it is unknown whether the effect of cognitive emotion regulation also extends to the modulation of learning. Computational models indicate prediction error activity, typically observed in the striatum and ventral tegmental area, as a critical neural mechanism involved in associative learning. We used model-based fMRI during aversive conditioning with and without cognitive emotion regulation to test the hypothesis that emotion regulation would affect prediction error-related neural activity in the striatum and ventral tegmental area, reflecting an emotion regulation-related modulation of learning. Our results show that cognitive emotion regulation reduced emotion-related brain activity, but increased prediction error-related activity in a network involving ventral tegmental area, hippocampus, insula and ventral striatum. While the reduction of response activity was related to behavioral measures of emotion regulation success, the enhancement of prediction error-related neural activity was related to learning performance. Furthermore, functional connectivity between the ventral tegmental area and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, an area involved in regulation, was specifically increased during emotion regulation and likewise related to learning performance. Our data, therefore, provide first-time evidence that beyond reducing emotional responses, cognitive emotion regulation affects learning by enhancing prediction error-related activity, potentially via tegmental dopaminergic pathways. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Positive emotions and the social broadening effects of Barack Obama.
Ong, Anthony D; Burrow, Anthony L; Fuller-Rowell, Thomas E
2012-10-01
Past experiments have demonstrated that the cognitive broadening produced by positive emotions may extend to social contexts. Building on this evidence, we hypothesized that positive emotions triggered by thinking about Barack Obama may broaden and expand people's sense of self to include others. Results from an expressive-writing study demonstrated that African American college students prompted to write about Obama immediately prior to and after the 2008 presidential election used more plural self-references, fewer other-references, and more social references. Mediation analyses revealed that writing about Obama increased positive emotions, which in turn increased the likelihood that people thought in terms of more-inclusive superordinate categories (we and us rather than they and them). Implications of these findings for the role of positive emotions in perspective-taking and intergroup relations are considered.
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Santos, Veruska; Paes, Flavia; Pereira, Valeska; Arias-Carrión, Oscar; Silva, Adriana Cardoso; Carta, Mauro Giovanni; Nardi, Antonio Egidio; Machado, Sergio
2013-01-01
The present study aims to conduct a systematic review of the literature by checking the impact of positive emotion in the treatment of depression and on the use of strategies of positive psychology which involves positive emotion to treat and reduce symptoms of depression. For this purpose, we conducted searches in databases ISI Web of Knowledge, PsycINFO and PubMed and found a total of 3400 studies. After inclusion application and exclusion criteria, 28 articles remained, presented and discussed in this study. The studies have important relations between humor and positive emotion as well as a significant improvement in signs and symptoms of depression using differents strategies of positive psychology. Another relevant aspect is the preventative character of the proposed interventions by positive psychology by the fact that increase well-being and produce elements such as resilience and coping resources that reduce the recurrent relapses in the treatment of depression. The strategies of positive psychology, such as increasing positive emotions, develop personal strengths: seeking direction, meaning and engagement for the day-to-day life of the patients, appear as potentially tools for the prophylaxis and treatment of depression, helping to reduce signs and symptoms as well as for prevention of relapses. PMID:24358052
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Age-Dependent Positivity-Bias in Children’s Processing of Emotion Terms
Bahn, Daniela; Vesker, Michael; García Alanis, José C.; Schwarzer, Gudrun; Kauschke, Christina
2017-01-01
Emotions play an important role in human communication, and the daily-life interactions of young children often include situations that require the verbalization of emotional states with verbal means, e.g., with emotion terms. Through them, one can express own emotional states and those of others. Thus, the acquisition of emotion terms allows children to participate more intensively in social contexts – a basic requirement for learning new words and for elaborating socio-emotional skills. However, little is known about how children acquire and process this specific word category, which is positioned between concrete and abstract words. In particular, the influence of valence on emotion word processing during childhood has not been sufficiently investigated. Previous research points to an advantage of positive words over negative and neutral words in word processing. While previous studies found valence effects to be influenced by factors such as arousal, frequency, concreteness, and task, it is still unclear if and how valence effects are also modified by age. The present study compares the performance of children aged from 5 to 12 years and adults in two experimental tasks: lexical decision (word or pseudoword) and emotional categorization (positive or negative). Stimuli consisted of 48 German emotion terms (24 positive and 24 negative) matched for arousal, concreteness, age of acquisition, word class, word length, morphological complexity, frequency, and neighborhood density. Results from both tasks reveal two developmental trends: First, with increasing age children responded faster and more correctly, suggesting that emotion vocabulary gradually becomes more stable and differentiated during middle childhood. Second, the influence of valence varied with age: younger children (5- and 6-year-olds) showed significantly higher performance levels for positive emotion terms compared to negative emotion terms, whereas older children and adults did not. This age
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The Health Significance of Positive Emotions in Adulthood and Later Life.
Ong, Anthony D; Mroczek, Daniel K; Riffin, Catherine
2011-08-01
A growing body of literature supports a link between positive emotions and health in older adults. In this article, we review evidence of the effects of positive emotions on downstream biological processes and meaningful clinical endpoints, such as adult morbidity and mortality. We then present relevant predictions from lifespan theories that suggest changes in cognition and motivation may play an important role in explaining how positive emotions are well maintained in old age, despite pervasive declines in cognitive processes. We conclude by discussing how the application of psychological theory can inform greater understanding of the adaptive significance of positive emotions in adulthood and later life.
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Personality traits modulate neural responses to emotions expressed in music.
Park, Mona; Hennig-Fast, Kristina; Bao, Yan; Carl, Petra; Pöppel, Ernst; Welker, Lorenz; Reiser, Maximilian; Meindl, Thomas; Gutyrchik, Evgeny
2013-07-26
Music communicates and evokes emotions. The number of studies on the neural correlates of musical emotion processing is increasing but few have investigated the factors that modulate these neural activations. Previous research has shown that personality traits account for individual variability of neural responses. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how the dimensions Extraversion and Neuroticism are related to differences in brain reactivity to musical stimuli expressing the emotions happiness, sadness and fear. 12 participants (7 female, M=20.33 years) completed the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and were scanned while performing a passive listening task. Neurofunctional analyses revealed significant positive correlations between Neuroticism scores and activations in bilateral basal ganglia, insula and orbitofrontal cortex in response to music expressing happiness. Extraversion scores were marginally negatively correlated with activations in the right amygdala in response to music expressing fear. Our findings show that subjects' personality may have a predictive power in the neural correlates of musical emotion processing and should be considered in the context of experimental group homogeneity. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Labrenz, Franziska; Icenhour, Adriane; Benson, Sven; Elsenbruch, Sigrid
2015-01-01
As a fundamental learning process, fear conditioning promotes the formation of associations between predictive cues and biologically significant signals. In its application to pain, conditioning may provide important insight into mechanisms underlying pain-related fear, although knowledge especially in interoceptive pain paradigms remains scarce. Furthermore, while the influence of contingency awareness on excitatory learning is subject of ongoing debate, its role in pain-related acquisition is poorly understood and essentially unknown regarding extinction as inhibitory learning. Therefore, we addressed the impact of contingency awareness on learned emotional responses to pain- and safety-predictive cues in a combined dataset of two pain-related conditioning studies. In total, 75 healthy participants underwent differential fear acquisition, during which rectal distensions as interoceptive unconditioned stimuli (US) were repeatedly paired with a predictive visual cue (conditioned stimulus; CS(+)) while another cue (CS(-)) was presented unpaired. During extinction, both CS were presented without US. CS valence, indicating learned emotional responses, and CS-US contingencies were assessed on visual analog scales (VAS). Based on an integrative measure of contingency accuracy, a median-split was performed to compare groups with low vs. high contingency accuracy regarding learned emotional responses. To investigate predictive value of contingency accuracy, regression analyses were conducted. Highly accurate individuals revealed more pronounced negative emotional responses to CS(+) and increased positive responses to CS(-) when compared to participants with low contingency accuracy. Following extinction, highly accurate individuals had fully extinguished pain-predictive cue properties, while exhibiting persistent positive emotional responses to safety signals. In contrast, individuals with low accuracy revealed equally positive emotional responses to both, CS(+) and CS
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Franziska eLabrenz
2015-11-01
Full Text Available As a fundamental learning process, fear conditioning promotes the formation of associations between predictive cues and biologically-significant signals. In its application to pain, conditioning may provide important insight into mechanisms underlying pain-related fear, although knowledge especially in interoceptive pain paradigms remains scarce. Furthermore, while the influence of contingency awareness on excitatory learning is subject of ongoing debate, its role in pain-related acquisition is poorly understood and essentially unknown regarding extinction as inhibitory learning. Therefore, we addressed the impact of contingency awareness on learned emotional responses to pain- and safety-predictive cues in a combined dataset of two pain-related conditioning studies.In total, 75 healthy participants underwent differential fear acquisition, during which rectal distensions as interoceptive unconditioned stimuli (US were repeatedly paired with a predictive visual cue (conditioned stimulus; CS+ while another cue (CS- was presented unpaired. During extinction, both CS were presented without US. CS valence, indicating learned emotional responses, and CS-US contingencies were assessed on visual analogue scales. Based on an integrative measure of contingency accuracy, a median-split was performed to compare groups with low versus high contingency accuracy regarding learned emotional responses. To investigate predictive value of contingency accuracy, regression analyses were conducted. Highly accurate individuals revealed more pronounced negative emotional responses to CS+ and increased positive responses to CS- when compared to participants with low contingency accuracy. Following extinction, highly accurate individuals had fully extinguished pain-predictive cue properties, while exhibiting persistent positive emotional responses to safety signals. In contrast, individuals with low accuracy revealed equally positive emotional responses to both, CS+ and
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Hofer, Alex; Siedentopf, Christian M; Ischebeck, Anja; Rettenbacher, Maria A; Verius, Michael; Felber, Stephan; Wolfgang Fleischhacker, W
2007-01-01
Previous studies have suggested that men and women process emotional stimuli differently. In this study, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate gender differences in regional cerebral activity during the perception of positive or negative emotions. The experiment comprised two emotional conditions (positively/negatively valenced words) during which fMRI data were acquired. Thirty-eight healthy volunteers (19 males, 19 females) were investigated. A direct comparison of brain activation between men and women revealed differential activation in the right putamen, the right superior temporal gyrus, and the left supramarginal gyrus during processing of positively valenced words versus non-words for women versus men. By contrast, during processing of negatively valenced words versus non-words, relatively greater activation was seen in the left perirhinal cortex and hippocampus for women versus men, and in the right supramarginal gyrus for men versus women. Our findings suggest gender-related neural responses to emotional stimuli and could contribute to the understanding of mechanisms underlying the gender disparity of neuropsychiatric diseases such as mood disorders.
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Speed, Brittany C; Nelson, Brady D; Perlman, Greg; Klein, Daniel N; Kotov, Roman; Hajcak, Greg
2015-08-01
Neuroticism and extraversion are multifaceted affective-laden personality traits that have been associated with major depressive disorder (MDD). Research and theory have argued that extraversion, and particularly its facet positive emotionality, is specific to MDD, while neuroticism is common across internalizing disorders. Converging evidence has suggested that MDD is associated with reduced engagement with emotional stimuli, but it remains unclear whether either extraversion, neuroticism, or both modulate reactivity to emotional cues. The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related brain potential that is uniquely suited to assess engagement with emotional stimuli because it reflects sustained attention toward emotional content. The current study examined the LPP in relation to personality traits that may confer risk for depression by examining the relationship between the LPP and both neuroticism and extraversion in never-depressed adolescent girls. Specifically, 550 girls aged 13.5-15.5 with no lifetime history of depression completed an emotional picture-viewing task, and the LPP was measured in response to neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant pictures. Personality traits were gathered via self- and informant report. Results indicated that high extraversion was associated with a potentiated LPP to emotional pictures-and this effect was accounted for by positive emotionality in particular. In contrast, there was no association between the LPP and neuroticism or its facets. The present study is one of the first to demonstrate that extraversion is associated with variation in neural indices of emotional picture processing, similar to what has been observed among individuals with depression and at high risk for depression. © 2015 Society for Psychophysiological Research.
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Autonomic and subjective responsivity to emotional images in people with dissociative seizures.
Pick, Susannah; Mellers, John D C; Goldstein, Laura H
2018-06-01
People with dissociative seizures (DS) report a range of difficulties in emotional functioning and exhibit altered responding to emotional facial expressions in experimental tasks. We extended this research by investigating subjective and autonomic reactivity (ratings of emotional valence, arousal and skin conductance responses [SCRs]) to general emotional images in 39 people with DS relative to 42 healthy control participants, whilst controlling for anxiety, depression, cognitive functioning and, where relevant, medication use. It was predicted that greater subjective negativity and arousal and increased SCRs in response to the affective pictures would be observed in the DS group. The DS group as a whole did not differ from controls in their subjective responses of valence and arousal. However, SCR amplitudes were greater in 'autonomic responders' with DS relative to 'autonomic responders' in the control group. A positive correlation was also observed between SCRs for highly arousing negative pictures and self-reported ictal autonomic arousal, in DS 'autonomic responders'. In the DS subgroup of autonomic 'non-responders', differences in subjective responses were observed for some conditions, compared to control 'non-responders'. The findings indicate unaffected subjective responses to emotional images in people with DS overall. However, within the group of people with DS, there may be subgroups characterized by differences in emotional responding. One subgroup (i.e., 'autonomic responders') exhibit heightened autonomic responses but intact subjective emotional experience, whilst another subgroup (i.e., 'autonomic non-responders') seem to experience greater subjective negativity and arousal for some emotional stimuli, despite less frequent autonomic reactions. The current results suggest that therapeutic interventions targeting awareness and regulation of physiological arousal and subjective emotional experience could be of value in some people with this disorder
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White, Hannah J; Haycraft, Emma; Wallis, Deborah J; Arcelus, Jon; Leung, Newman; Meyer, Caroline
2015-02-01
This study aimed to examine the factor structure of the Mealtime Emotions Measure for adolescents (MEM-A), a novel measure of emotional responses experienced during family mealtimes. Additionally, it examined gender differences in mealtime emotions and also the relationships between mealtime emotions and levels of eating psychopathology, when controlling for anxiety or depression. Adolescent participants (N = 527; 282 girls, 245 boys) with a mean age of 15.9 years completed the new mealtime measure for adolescents (MEM-A), in addition to questions about family mealtime atmosphere, and measures assessing symptoms of anxiety, depression, and eating psychopathology. Factor analysis produced a three factor solution for the MEM-A with two subscales relating to different types of negative mealtime emotions (Anxiety-related mealtime emotions and Anger-related mealtime emotions) and one subscale relating to Positive mealtime emotions. Generally, girls reported experiencing more Anxiety-related mealtime emotions compared to boys. Having conducted separate analyses controlling for levels of either anxiety or depression, there were several significant associations for both girls and boys between mealtime emotions, particularly Anxiety-related emotions, and eating psychopathology. The findings suggest that some mealtime emotions are associated with increased eating psychopathology. Replication and detailed examination of these emotional responses is required. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Aging and emotional expressions: is there a positivity bias during dynamic emotion recognition?
Di Domenico, Alberto; Palumbo, Rocco; Mammarella, Nicola; Fairfield, Beth
2015-01-01
In this study, we investigated whether age-related differences in emotion regulation priorities influence online dynamic emotional facial discrimination. A group of 40 younger and a group of 40 older adults were invited to recognize a positive or negative expression as soon as the expression slowly emerged and subsequently rate it in terms of intensity. Our findings show that older adults recognized happy expressions faster than angry ones, while the direction of emotional expression does not...
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Dich, Nadya; Doan, Stacey N; Evans, Gary W
2015-01-01
While emotionality is often thought of as a risk factor, differential susceptibility theory argues that emotionality reflects susceptibility to both positive and negative environmental influences. The present study explored whether emotional children might be more susceptible to the effects of both high and low maternal responsiveness on allostatic load, a physiological indicator of chronic stress. Participants were 226 mother and child dyads. Mothers reported on children's emotionality at child age 9. Maternal responsiveness was measured at age 13 using self-reports and behavioral observation. Allostatic load was measured at age 13 and 17 using neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and metabolic biomarkers. Emotionality was associated with higher allostatic load if self-reported responsiveness was low, but with lower allostatic load, when self-reported responsiveness was high. © 2015 The Authors. Child Development © 2015 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
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Chu, Carol; Victor, Sarah E; Klonsky, E David
2016-09-01
Some researchers suggest that borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by elevated negative emotion; others argue that BPD involves both reduced positive and increased negative emotion. This study characterizes the emotional experiences of individuals with BPD symptoms in a combined university and community sample. Participants (N = 150) completed a clinical interview assessing BPD symptoms and self-report measures of positive and negative emotion. A subset (n = 106) completed a measure of emotion daily for 2 weeks. Pearson's correlations and multilevel modeling were used to examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between BPD symptoms and emotions. BPD symptoms were robustly related to increased negative emotion; this relationship remained after accounting for positive emotion. BPD symptoms were weakly related to decreased positive emotion; this relationship was no longer significant after accounting for negative emotion. BPD symptoms predicted higher levels of negative and not positive emotion over 14 days. These patterns held for subscales assessing intensity, frequency, and duration of negative and positive emotions. Findings suggest that individuals with BPD features are chiefly distinguished by elevated negative emotional experience. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Regulation of positive and negative emotion: Effects of sociocultural context
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sara A. Snyder
2013-07-01
Full Text Available Previous research has demonstrated that the use of emotion regulation strategies can vary by sociocultural context. In a previous study, we reported changes in the use of two different emotion regulation strategies at an annual alternative cultural event, Burning Man (McRae, Heller, John, & Gross, 2011. In this sociocultural context, as compared to home, participants reported less use of expressive suppression (a strategy generally associated with maladaptive outcomes, and greater use of cognitive reappraisal (a strategy associated with adaptive outcomes. What remained unclear was whether these changes in self-reported emotion regulation strategy use were characterized by changes in the regulation of positive emotion, negative emotion, or both. We addressed this issue in the current study by asking Burning Man participants separate questions about positive and negative emotion. Using multiple datasets, we not only replicated our previous findings, but also found that the decreased use of suppression is primarily driven by reports of decreased suppression of positive emotion at Burning Man. By contrast, the reported increased use of reappraisal is not characterized by differential reappraisal of positive and negative emotion at Burning Man. Moreover, we observed novel individual differences in the magnitude of these effects. The contextual changes in self-reported suppression that we report are strongest for men and younger participants. For those who had previously attended Burning Man, we observed lower levels of self-reported suppression in both sociocultural contexts: Burning Man and home. These findings have implications for understanding the ways in which certain sociocultural contexts may decrease suppression, and possibly minimize its associated maladaptive effects.
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Age-Dependent Positivity-Bias in Children’s Processing of Emotion Terms
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Daniela Bahn
2017-07-01
Full Text Available Emotions play an important role in human communication, and the daily-life interactions of young children often include situations that require the verbalization of emotional states with verbal means, e.g., with emotion terms. Through them, one can express own emotional states and those of others. Thus, the acquisition of emotion terms allows children to participate more intensively in social contexts – a basic requirement for learning new words and for elaborating socio-emotional skills. However, little is known about how children acquire and process this specific word category, which is positioned between concrete and abstract words. In particular, the influence of valence on emotion word processing during childhood has not been sufficiently investigated. Previous research points to an advantage of positive words over negative and neutral words in word processing. While previous studies found valence effects to be influenced by factors such as arousal, frequency, concreteness, and task, it is still unclear if and how valence effects are also modified by age. The present study compares the performance of children aged from 5 to 12 years and adults in two experimental tasks: lexical decision (word or pseudoword and emotional categorization (positive or negative. Stimuli consisted of 48 German emotion terms (24 positive and 24 negative matched for arousal, concreteness, age of acquisition, word class, word length, morphological complexity, frequency, and neighborhood density. Results from both tasks reveal two developmental trends: First, with increasing age children responded faster and more correctly, suggesting that emotion vocabulary gradually becomes more stable and differentiated during middle childhood. Second, the influence of valence varied with age: younger children (5- and 6-year-olds showed significantly higher performance levels for positive emotion terms compared to negative emotion terms, whereas older children and adults did not
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Reichenberger, Julia; Eibl, Johannes Josef; Pfaltz, Monique; Wilhelm, Frank H; Voderholzer, Ulrich; Hillert, Andreas; Blechert, Jens
2017-02-01
Diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder (BPD) include interpersonal problems and high reactivity to negative social interactions. However, experimental studies on these symptoms are scarce, and it remains unclear whether reactivity is also altered in response to positive social interactions. To simulate such situations, the present study used videographic stimuli (E.Vids; Blechert, Schwitalla, & Wilhelm, 2013) in which actors express rejecting, neutral, or appreciating sentences. Twenty BPD patients and 20 healthy controls rated their emotional responses to these on pleasantness, arousal, and 11 specific emotions. In addition to elevated reactivity to negative E.Vids, patients with BPD showed marked reduction in pleasantness responses to positive E.Vids. Furthermore, they exhibited less pride, happiness, feelings of approval, and attraction/love in response to positive videos and more anger, anxiety, embarrassment, contempt, guilt, feelings of disapproval/rejection, and sadness to negative videos. Interestingly, BPD patients also reported negative emotions in response to positive videos. Implications for psychotherapy and research are discussed.
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Villavicencio, Felicidad T; Bernardo, Allan B I
2013-06-01
Research has shown how academic emotions are related to achievement and to cognitive/motivational variables that promote achievement. Mediated models have been proposed to account for the relationships among academic emotions, cognitive/motivational variables, and achievement, and research has supported such mediated models, particularly with negative emotions. The study tested the hypotheses: (1) self-regulation and the positive academic emotions of enjoyment and pride are positive predictors of achievement; and (2) enjoyment and pride both moderate the relationship between self-regulation and achievement. Participants were 1,345 students enrolled in various trigonometry classes in one university. Participants answered the Academic Emotions Questionnaire-Math (Pekrun, Goetz, & Frenzel, 2005) and a self-regulation scale (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991) halfway through their trigonometry class. The students' final grades in the course were regressed to self-regulation, positive emotions, and the interaction terms to test the moderation effects. Enjoyment and pride were both positive predictors of grades; more importantly, both moderated the relationship between self-regulation and grades. For students who report higher levels of both positive emotions, self-regulation was positively associated with grades. However, for those who report lower levels of pride, self-regulation was not related to grades; and, for those who reported lower levels of enjoyment, self-regulation was negatively related to grades. The results are discussed in terms of how positive emotions indicate positive appraisals of task/outcome value, and thus enhance the positive links between cognitive/motivational variables and learning. ©2012 The British Psychological Society.
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The Health Significance of Positive Emotions in Adulthood and Later Life
Ong, Anthony D.; Mroczek, Daniel K.; Riffin, Catherine
2011-01-01
A growing body of literature supports a link between positive emotions and health in older adults. In this article, we review evidence of the effects of positive emotions on downstream biological processes and meaningful clinical endpoints, such as adult morbidity and mortality. We then present relevant predictions from lifespan theories that suggest changes in cognition and motivation may play an important role in explaining how positive emotions are well maintained in old age, despite perva...
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The positives of negative emotions: willingness to express negative emotions promotes relationships.
Graham, Steven M; Huang, Julie Y; Clark, Margaret S; Helgeson, Vicki S
2008-03-01
Four studies support the hypothesis that expressing negative emotion is associated with positive relationship outcomes, including elicitation of support, building of new close relationships, and heightening of intimacy in the closest of those relationships. In Study 1, participants read vignettes in which another person was experiencing a negative emotion. Participants reported they would provide more help when the person chose to express the negative emotion. In Study 2, participants watched a confederate preparing for a speech. Participants provided more help to her when she expressed nervousness. In Study 3, self-reports of willingness to express negative emotions predicted having more friends, controlling for demographic variables and extraversion. In Study 4, self-reports of willingness to express negative emotion measured prior to arrival at college predicted formation of more relationships, greater intimacy in the closest of those relationships, and greater received support from roommates across participants' first semester of college.
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Development of response inhibition in the context of relevant versus irrelevant emotions
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Margot A Schel
2013-07-01
Full Text Available The present study examined the influence of relevant and irrelevant emotions on response inhibition from childhood to early adulthood. Ninety-four participants between 6 and 25 years of age performed two go/nogo tasks with emotional faces (neutral, happy, and fearful as stimuli. In one go/nogo task emotion formed a relevant dimension of the task and in the other go/nogo task emotion was irrelevant and participants had to respond to the color of the faces instead. A special feature of the latter task, in which emotion was irrelevant, was the inclusion of free choice trials, in which participants could freely decide between acting and inhibiting. Results showed a linear increase in response inhibition performance with increasing age both in relevant and irrelevant affective contexts. Relevant emotions had a pronounced influence on performance across age, whereas irrelevant emotions did not. Overall, participants made more false alarms on trials with fearful faces than happy faces, and happy faces were associated with better performance on go trials (higher percentage correct and faster RTs than fearful faces. The latter effect was stronger for young children in terms of accuracy. Finally, during the free choice trials participants did not base their decisions on affective context, confirming that irrelevant emotions do not have a strong impact on inhibition. Together, these findings suggest that across development relevant affective context has a larger influence on response inhibition than irrelevant affective context. When emotions are relevant, a context of positive emotions is associated with better performance compared to a context with negative emotions, especially in young children.
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Positive Emotions and Your Health: Developing a Brighter Outlook
... Issues Subscribe August 2015 Print this issue Positive Emotions and Your Health Developing a Brighter Outlook En ... outlook doesn’t mean you never feel negative emotions, such as sadness or anger, says Dr. Barbara ...
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
David G Rand
Full Text Available Cooperation is central to human existence, forming the bedrock of everyday social relationships and larger societal structures. Thus, understanding the psychological underpinnings of cooperation is of both scientific and practical importance. Recent work using a dual-process framework suggests that intuitive processing can promote cooperation while deliberative processing can undermine it. Here we add to this line of research by more specifically identifying deliberative and intuitive processes that affect cooperation. To do so, we applied automated text analysis using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC software to investigate the association between behavior in one-shot anonymous economic cooperation games and the presence inhibition (a deliberative process and positive emotion (an intuitive process in free-response narratives written after (Study 1, N = 4,218 or during (Study 2, N = 236 the decision-making process. Consistent with previous results, across both studies inhibition predicted reduced cooperation while positive emotion predicted increased cooperation (even when controlling for negative emotion. Importantly, there was a significant interaction between positive emotion and inhibition, such that the most cooperative individuals had high positive emotion and low inhibition. This suggests that inhibition (i.e., reflective or deliberative processing may undermine cooperative behavior by suppressing the prosocial effects of positive emotion.
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Affective match: Leader emotions, follower positive affect, and follower performance
Damen, F.; van Knippenberg, B.M.; van Knippenberg, D.
2008-01-01
Leader emotions may play an important role in leadership effectiveness. Extending earlier research on leader emotional displays and leadership effectiveness, we propose that the affective match between follower positive affect (PA) and leaders' emotional displays moderates the effectiveness of
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Lac, Andrew; Donaldson, Candice D
2018-02-01
People vary in experiences of positive and negative emotions from consuming alcohol, but no validated measurement instrument exclusively devoted to assessing drinking emotions exists in the literature. The current research validated and evaluated the psychometric properties of an alcohol affect scale based on adjectives from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and tested the extent that emotions incurred from drinking were distinct from general trait-based emotions. Three studies tested independent samples of adult alcohol users. In Study 1 (N = 494), exploratory factor analyses of the Alcohol PANAS revealed that both the 20-item model and the 9-parcel model (represented by similar mood content) supported the 2-factor dimensionality of alcohol positive and negative affect. In Study 2 (N = 302), confirmatory factor analyses corroborated the measurement structure of alcohol positive and negative affect, and both constructs evidenced statistical independence from general positive and negative affect. In Study 3 (N = 452), alcohol positive and negative affect exhibited discriminant, convergent, and criterion validity with established alcohol scales. Incremental validity tests demonstrated that alcohol positive and negative affect uniquely contributed (beyond general positive and negative affect) to alcohol expectancies, use, and problems. Findings support that alcohol emotions are conceptually distinct from trait emotions, and underscore the necessity of an assessment instrument tailored to the former to examine associations with alcohol beliefs and behaviors. The Alcohol PANAS confers theoretical and practical applications to understand the emotional consequences of drinking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
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Processing Distracting Non-face Emotional Images: No Evidence of an Age-Related Positivity Effect.
Madill, Mark; Murray, Janice E
2017-01-01
Cognitive aging may be accompanied by increased prioritization of social and emotional goals that enhance positive experiences and emotional states. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests this may be achieved by giving preference to positive information and avoiding or suppressing negative information. Although there is some evidence of a positivity bias in controlled attention tasks, it remains unclear whether a positivity bias extends to the processing of affective stimuli presented outside focused attention. In two experiments, we investigated age-related differences in the effects of to-be-ignored non-face affective images on target processing. In Experiment 1, 27 older (64-90 years) and 25 young adults (19-29 years) made speeded valence judgments about centrally presented positive or negative target images taken from the International Affective Picture System. To-be-ignored distractor images were presented above and below the target image and were either positive, negative, or neutral in valence. The distractors were considered task relevant because they shared emotional characteristics with the target stimuli. Both older and young adults responded slower to targets when distractor valence was incongruent with target valence relative to when distractors were neutral. Older adults responded faster to positive than to negative targets but did not show increased interference effects from positive distractors. In Experiment 2, affective distractors were task irrelevant as the target was a three-digit array and did not share emotional characteristics with the distractors. Twenty-six older (63-84 years) and 30 young adults (18-30 years) gave speeded responses on a digit disparity task while ignoring the affective distractors positioned in the periphery. Task performance in either age group was not influenced by the task-irrelevant affective images. In keeping with the socioemotional selectivity theory, these findings suggest that older adults preferentially
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Miyamoto, Yuri; Uchida, Yukiko; Ellsworth, Phoebe C
2010-06-01
Previous cross-cultural comparisons of correlations between positive and negative emotions found that East Asians are more likely than Americans to feel dialectical emotions. However, not much is known about the co-occurrence of positive and negative emotions in a given situation. When asked to describe situations in which they felt mixed emotions, Japanese and American respondents listed mostly similar situations. By presenting these situations to another group of respondents, we found that Japanese reported more mixed emotions than Americans in the predominantly pleasant situations, whereas there were no cultural differences in mixed emotions in the predominantly unpleasant situations or the mixed situations. The appraisal of self-agency mediated cultural differences in mixed emotions in the predominantly pleasant situations. Study 2 replicated the findings by asking participants to recall how they felt in their past pleasant, unpleasant, and mixed situations. The findings suggest that both Americans and Japanese feel mixed emotions, but the kinds of situation in which they typically do so depends on culture.
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Strien, J.W.; van Kampen, D.
2010-01-01
Fourteen men scoring high and 14 men scoring low on a positive schizotypy scale participated in a lateralized emotional Stroop task. Vocal reaction times for color naming of neutral, positive and negative emotional words were recorded. Across participants, the color naming of neutral and emotional
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Emotional Responses to Music: Shifts in Frontal Brain Asymmetry Mark Periods of Musical Change.
Arjmand, Hussain-Abdulah; Hohagen, Jesper; Paton, Bryan; Rickard, Nikki S
2017-01-01
Recent studies have demonstrated increased activity in brain regions associated with emotion and reward when listening to pleasurable music. Unexpected change in musical features intensity and tempo - and thereby enhanced tension and anticipation - is proposed to be one of the primary mechanisms by which music induces a strong emotional response in listeners. Whether such musical features coincide with central measures of emotional response has not, however, been extensively examined. In this study, subjective and physiological measures of experienced emotion were obtained continuously from 18 participants (12 females, 6 males; 18-38 years) who listened to four stimuli-pleasant music, unpleasant music (dissonant manipulations of their own music), neutral music, and no music, in a counter-balanced order. Each stimulus was presented twice: electroencephalograph (EEG) data were collected during the first, while participants continuously subjectively rated the stimuli during the second presentation. Frontal asymmetry (FA) indices from frontal and temporal sites were calculated, and peak periods of bias toward the left (indicating a shift toward positive affect) were identified across the sample. The music pieces were also examined to define the temporal onset of key musical features. Subjective reports of emotional experience averaged across the condition confirmed participants rated their music selection as very positive, the scrambled music as negative, and the neutral music and silence as neither positive nor negative. Significant effects in FA were observed in the frontal electrode pair FC3-FC4, and the greatest increase in left bias from baseline was observed in response to pleasurable music. These results are consistent with findings from previous research. Peak FA responses at this site were also found to co-occur with key musical events relating to change, for instance, the introduction of a new motif, or an instrument change, or a change in low level acoustic
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Emotional Responses to Music: Shifts in Frontal Brain Asymmetry Mark Periods of Musical Change
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Hussain-Abdulah Arjmand
2017-12-01
Full Text Available Recent studies have demonstrated increased activity in brain regions associated with emotion and reward when listening to pleasurable music. Unexpected change in musical features intensity and tempo – and thereby enhanced tension and anticipation – is proposed to be one of the primary mechanisms by which music induces a strong emotional response in listeners. Whether such musical features coincide with central measures of emotional response has not, however, been extensively examined. In this study, subjective and physiological measures of experienced emotion were obtained continuously from 18 participants (12 females, 6 males; 18–38 years who listened to four stimuli—pleasant music, unpleasant music (dissonant manipulations of their own music, neutral music, and no music, in a counter-balanced order. Each stimulus was presented twice: electroencephalograph (EEG data were collected during the first, while participants continuously subjectively rated the stimuli during the second presentation. Frontal asymmetry (FA indices from frontal and temporal sites were calculated, and peak periods of bias toward the left (indicating a shift toward positive affect were identified across the sample. The music pieces were also examined to define the temporal onset of key musical features. Subjective reports of emotional experience averaged across the condition confirmed participants rated their music selection as very positive, the scrambled music as negative, and the neutral music and silence as neither positive nor negative. Significant effects in FA were observed in the frontal electrode pair FC3–FC4, and the greatest increase in left bias from baseline was observed in response to pleasurable music. These results are consistent with findings from previous research. Peak FA responses at this site were also found to co-occur with key musical events relating to change, for instance, the introduction of a new motif, or an instrument change, or a
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Weiss, Nicole H; Gratz, Kim L; Lavender, Jason M
2015-05-01
Emotion regulation difficulties are a transdiagnostic construct relevant to numerous clinical difficulties. Although the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a multidimensional measure of maladaptive ways of responding to emotions, it focuses on difficulties with the regulation of negative emotions and does not assess emotion dysregulation in the form of problematic responding to positive emotions. The aim of this study was to develop and validate a measure of clinically relevant difficulties in the regulation of positive emotions (DERS-Positive). Findings revealed a three-factor structure and supported the internal consistency and construct validity of the total and subscale scores. © The Author(s) 2015.
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The Power of an Infant's Smile: Maternal Physiological Responses to Infant Emotional Expressions.
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Sanae Mizugaki
Full Text Available Infant emotional expressions, such as distress cries, evoke maternal physiological reactions. Most of which involve accelerated sympathetic nervous activity. Comparatively little is known about effects of positive infant expressions, such as happy smiles, on maternal physiological responses. This study investigated how physiological and psychological maternal states change in response to infants' emotional expressions. Thirty first-time mothers viewed films of their own 6- to 7-month-old infants' affective behavior. Each observed a video of a distress cry followed by a video showing one of two expressions (randomly assigned: a happy smiling face (smile condition or a calm neutral face (neutral condition. Both before and after the session, participants completed a self-report inventory assessing their emotional states. The results of the self-report inventory revealed no effects of exposure to the infant videos. However, the mothers in the smile condition, but not in the neutral condition, showed deceleration of skin conductance. These findings demonstrate that the mothers who observed their infants smiling showed decreased sympathetic activity. We propose that an infant's positive emotional expression may affect the branch of the maternal stress-response system that modulates the homeostatic balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
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Negative emotions in cancer care: do oncologists' responses depend on severity and type of emotion?
Kennifer, Sarah L; Alexander, Stewart C; Pollak, Kathryn I; Jeffreys, Amy S; Olsen, Maren K; Rodriguez, Keri L; Arnold, Robert M; Tulsky, James A
2009-07-01
To examine how type and severity of patients' negative emotions influence oncologists' responses and subsequent conversations. We analyzed 264 audio-recorded conversations between advanced cancer patients and their oncologists. Conversations were coded for patients' expressions of negative emotion, which were categorized by type of emotion and severity. Oncologists' responses were coded as using either empathic language or blocking and distancing approaches. Patients presented fear more often than anger or sadness; severity of disclosures was most often moderate. Oncologists responded to 35% of these negative emotional disclosures with empathic language. They were most empathic when patients presented intense emotions. Responding empathically to patients' emotional disclosures lengthened discussions by an average of only 21s. Greater response rates to severe emotions suggest oncologists may recognize negative emotions better when patients express them more intensely. Oncologists were least responsive to patient fear and responded with greatest empathy to sadness. Oncologists may benefit from additional training to recognize negative emotions, even when displayed without intensity. Teaching cancer patients to better articulate their emotional concerns may also enhance patient-oncologist communication.
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Mavratzakis, Aimee; Herbert, Cornelia; Walla, Peter
2016-01-01
In the current study, electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded simultaneously with facial electromyography (fEMG) to determine whether emotional faces and emotional scenes are processed differently at the neural level. In addition, it was investigated whether these differences can be observed at the behavioural level via spontaneous facial muscle activity. Emotional content of the stimuli did not affect early P1 activity. Emotional faces elicited enhanced amplitudes of the face-sensitive N170 component, while its counterpart, the scene-related N100, was not sensitive to emotional content of scenes. At 220-280ms, the early posterior negativity (EPN) was enhanced only slightly for fearful as compared to neutral or happy faces. However, its amplitudes were significantly enhanced during processing of scenes with positive content, particularly over the right hemisphere. Scenes of positive content also elicited enhanced spontaneous zygomatic activity from 500-750ms onwards, while happy faces elicited no such changes. Contrastingly, both fearful faces and negative scenes elicited enhanced spontaneous corrugator activity at 500-750ms after stimulus onset. However, relative to baseline EMG changes occurred earlier for faces (250ms) than for scenes (500ms) whereas for scenes activity changes were more pronounced over the whole viewing period. Taking into account all effects, the data suggests that emotional facial expressions evoke faster attentional orienting, but weaker affective neural activity and emotional behavioural responses compared to emotional scenes. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Positive emotions in early life and longevity: findings from the nun study.
Danner, D D; Snowdon, D A; Friesen, W V
2001-05-01
Handwritten autobiographies from 180 Catholic nuns, composed when participants were a mean age of 22 years, were scored for emotional content and related to survival during ages 75 to 95. A strong inverse association was found between positive emotional content in these writings and risk of mortality in late life (p < .001). As the quartile ranking of positive emotion in early life increased, there was a stepwise decrease in risk of mortality resulting in a 2.5-fold difference between the lowest and highest quartiles. Positive emotional content in early-life autobiographies was strongly associated with longevity 6 decades later. Underlying mechanisms of balanced emotional states are discussed.
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Common variant in OXTR predicts growth in positive emotions from loving-kindness training.
Isgett, Suzannah F; Algoe, Sara B; Boulton, Aaron J; Way, Baldwin M; Fredrickson, Barbara L
2016-11-01
Ample research suggests that social connection reliably generates positive emotions. Oxytocin, a neuropeptide implicated in social cognition and behavior, is one biological mechanism that may influence an individual's capacity to extract positive emotions from social contexts. Because variation in certain genes may indicate underlying neurobiological differences, we tested whether several SNPs in two genes related to oxytocin signaling would show effects on positive emotions that were context-specific, depending on sociality. For six weeks, a sample of mid-life adults (N=122) participated in either socially-focused loving-kindness training or mindfulness training. During this timespan they reported their positive emotions daily. Five SNPs within OXTR and CD38 were assayed, and each was tested for its individual effect on daily emotions. The hypothesized three-way interaction between time, training type, and genetic variability emerged: Individuals homozygous for the G allele of OXTR rs1042778 experienced gains in daily positive emotions from loving-kindness training, whereas individuals with the T allele did not experience gains in positive emotions with either training. These findings are among the first to show how genetic differences in oxytocin signaling may influence an individual's capacity to experience positive emotions as a result of a socially-focused intervention. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Attentional Bias towards Positive Emotion Predicts Stress Resilience.
Thoern, Hanna A; Grueschow, Marcus; Ehlert, Ulrike; Ruff, Christian C; Kleim, Birgit
2016-01-01
There is extensive evidence for an association between an attentional bias towards emotionally negative stimuli and vulnerability to stress-related psychopathology. Less is known about whether selective attention towards emotionally positive stimuli relates to mental health and stress resilience. The current study used a modified Dot Probe task to investigate if individual differences in attentional biases towards either happy or angry emotional stimuli, or an interaction between these biases, are related to self-reported trait stress resilience. In a nonclinical sample (N = 43), we indexed attentional biases as individual differences in reaction time for stimuli preceded by either happy or angry (compared to neutral) face stimuli. Participants with greater attentional bias towards happy faces (but not angry faces) reported higher trait resilience. However, an attentional bias towards angry stimuli moderated this effect: The attentional bias towards happy faces was only predictive for resilience in those individuals who also endorsed an attentional bias towards angry stimuli. An attentional bias towards positive emotional stimuli may thus be a protective factor contributing to stress resilience, specifically in those individuals who also endorse an attentional bias towards negative emotional stimuli. Our findings therefore suggest a novel target for prevention and treatment interventions addressing stress-related psychopathology.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
ALBERTO AMUTIO
2016-08-01
Full Text Available Objective: Emotional creativity implies experiencing a complex emotional life, which is becoming increasingly necessary in societies that demand innovation and constant changes. This research studies the relation of emotional creativity as a dispositional trait with intrinsic motivation and academic engagement.Methods: A sample of 428 university Chilean students, 36.5% men and 63.5% women, with ages from 18 to 45 years old (M = 20,37 DT = 2,71. Additionally, the mediating function of class-related positive emotions in this relation is explored.Results: The obtained data indicate that developing high levels of dispositional emotional creativity enhances the activation of positive emotions, such as gratitude, love and hope, in the classroom. Furthermore, emotional creativity predicts intrinsic motivation and academic engagement of university students by the experience of positive emotions. Conclusion: These results compel us to be aware of the importance that university students in their early years can understand the complexity of the emotional processes they undergo. A greater control of these emotions would allow students to maintain higher levels of interest in their studies at the different educational stages and to avoid the risk of school failure.
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Animal emotions, behaviour and the promotion of positive welfare states.
Mellor, D J
2012-01-01
This paper presents a rationale that may significantly boost the drive to promote positive welfare states in animals. The rationale is based largely, but not exclusively, on an experimentally supported neuropsychological understanding of relationships between emotions and behaviour, an understanding that has not yet been incorporated into animal welfare science thinking. Reference is made to major elements of the neural/cognitive foundations of motivational drives that energise and direct particular behaviours and their related subjective or emotional experiences. These experiences are generated in part by sensory inputs that reflect the animal's internal functional state and by neural processing linked to the animal's perception of its external circumstances. The integrated subjective or emotional outcome of these inputs corresponds to the animal's welfare status. The internally generated subjective experiences represent motivational urges or drives that are predominantly negative and include breathlessness, thirst, hunger and pain. They are generated by, and elicit specific behaviours designed to correct, imbalances in the animal's internal functional state. Externally generated subjective experiences are said to be integral to the operation of interacting 'action-orientated systems' that give rise to particular behaviours and their negative or positive emotional contents. These action-orientated systems, described in neuropsychological terms, give rise to negative emotions that include fear, anger and panic, and positive emotions that include comfort, vitality, euphoria and playfulness. It is argued that early thinking about animal welfare management focused mainly on minimising disturbances to the internal functional states that generate associated unpleasant motivational urges or drives. This strategy produced animal welfare benefits, but at best it could only lift a poor net welfare status to a neutral one. In contrast, strategies designed to manipulate the
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FMRI Study of Neural Responses to Implicit Infant Emotion in Anorexia Nervosa
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Jenni Leppanen
2017-05-01
Full Text Available Difficulties in social–emotional processing have been proposed to play an important role in the development and maintenance of anorexia nervosa (AN. Few studies, thus far, have investigated neural processes that underlie these difficulties, including processing emotional facial expressions. However, the majority of these studies have investigated neural responses to adult emotional display, which may be confounded by elevated sensitivity to social rank and threat in AN. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the neural processes underlying implicit processing of positively and negatively valenced infant emotional display in AN. Twenty-one adult women with AN and twenty-six healthy comparison (HC women were presented with images of positively valenced, negatively valenced, and neutral infant faces during a fMRI scan. Significant differences between the groups in positive > neutral and negative > neutral contrasts were investigated in a priori regions of interest, including the bilateral amygdala, insula, and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC. The findings revealed that the AN participants showed relatively increased recruitment while the HC participants showed relatively reduced recruitment of the bilateral amygdala and the right dorsolateral PFC in the positive > neutral contrast. In the negative > neutral contrast, the AN group showed relatively increased recruitment of the left posterior insula while the HC groups showed relatively reduced recruitment of this region. These findings suggest that people with AN may engage in implicit prefrontal down-regulation of elevated limbic reactivity to positively social–emotional stimuli.
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Affective processing in positive schizotypy: Loose control of social-emotional information.
Papousek, Ilona; Weiss, Elisabeth M; Mosbacher, Jochen A; Reiser, Eva M; Schulter, Günter; Fink, Andreas
2014-10-30
Behavioral studies suggested heightened impact of emotionally laden perceptual input in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, in particular in patients with prominent positive symptoms. De-coupling of prefrontal and posterior cortices during stimulus processing, which is related to loosening of control of the prefrontal cortex over incoming affectively laden information, may underlie this abnormality. Pre-selected groups of individuals with low versus high positive schizotypy (lower and upper quartile of a large screening sample) were tested. During exposure to auditory displays of strong emotions (anger, sadness, cheerfulness), individuals with elevated levels of positive schizotypal symptoms showed lesser prefrontal-posterior coupling (EEG coherence) than their symptom-free counterparts (right hemisphere). This applied to negative emotions in particular and was most pronounced during confrontation with anger. The findings indicate a link between positive symptoms and a heightened impact particularly of threatening emotionally laden stimuli which might lead to exacerbation of positive symptoms and inappropriate behavior in interpersonal situations. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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The Relationships between Language Learning Strategies and Positive Emotions among Malaysian ESL
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Mohammad Mohammadipour
2018-01-01
Full Text Available Emotions are an indispensable part of second language learning. The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between the use of language learning strategies and positive emotions. The present study adopted a sequential mixed methods design. The participants were 300 Malaysian ESL undergraduates selected through stratified random sampling from 5 public universities in Malaysia. The quantitative data were collected through two sets of questionnaires: (a Oxford's (1990 Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL, and (b Fredrickson's (2009 modified Differential Emotional Scale (mDES. The qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. With regard to the quantitative data analysis, a series of t-tests and correlational analyses were used. The data from the interviews were analysed qualitatively. A positive significant correlation was found between positive emotions and overall language learning strategy use. Also, the qualitative results of the study indicated that the learners who experienced more positive emotions tended to use a greater variety of language learning strategies. The findings of the study emphasise the importance of students’ positive emotions in their use of language learning strategies. It might be suggested that teachers by designing the classroom settings and instructions which promote positive emotions can inspire learners to use language learning strategies more frequently and with a greater variety which in sequence relate to learners’ language learning proficiency.
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Rehmert, Andrea E; Kisley, Michael A
2013-10-01
Older adults have demonstrated an avoidance of negative information, presumably with a goal of greater emotional satisfaction. Understanding whether avoidance of negative information is a voluntary, motivated choice or an involuntary, automatic response will be important to differentiate, as decision making often involves emotional factors. With the use of an emotional framing event-related potential (ERP) paradigm, the present study investigated whether older adults could alter neural responses to negative stimuli through verbal reframing of evaluative response options. The late positive potential (LPP) response of 50 older adults and 50 younger adults was recorded while participants categorized emotional images in one of two framing conditions: positive ("more or less positive") or negative ("more or less negative"). It was hypothesized that older adults would be able to overcome a presumed tendency to down-regulate neural responding to negative stimuli in the negative framing condition, thus leading to larger LPP wave amplitudes to negative images. A similar effect was predicted for younger adults, but for positively valenced images, such that LPP responses would be increased in the positive framing condition compared with the negative framing condition. Overall, younger adults' LPP wave amplitudes were modulated by framing condition, including a reduction in the negativity bias in the positive frame. Older adults' neural responses were not significantly modulated, even though task-related behavior supported the notion that older adults were able to successfully adopt the negative framing condition.
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Rand, David G; Kraft-Todd, Gordon; Gruber, June
2015-01-01
Cooperation is central to human existence, forming the bedrock of everyday social relationships and larger societal structures. Thus, understanding the psychological underpinnings of cooperation is of both scientific and practical importance. Recent work using a dual-process framework suggests that intuitive processing can promote cooperation while deliberative processing can undermine it. Here we add to this line of research by more specifically identifying deliberative and intuitive processes that affect cooperation. To do so, we applied automated text analysis using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software to investigate the association between behavior in one-shot anonymous economic cooperation games and the presence inhibition (a deliberative process) and positive emotion (an intuitive process) in free-response narratives written after (Study 1, N = 4,218) or during (Study 2, N = 236) the decision-making process. Consistent with previous results, across both studies inhibition predicted reduced cooperation while positive emotion predicted increased cooperation (even when controlling for negative emotion). Importantly, there was a significant interaction between positive emotion and inhibition, such that the most cooperative individuals had high positive emotion and low inhibition. This suggests that inhibition (i.e., reflective or deliberative processing) may undermine cooperative behavior by suppressing the prosocial effects of positive emotion.
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Emotion regulation mediates age differences in emotions.
Yeung, Dannii Y; Wong, Carmen K M; Lok, David P P
2011-04-01
This study aimed at testing the proposition of socioemotional selectivity theory whether older people would use more antecedent-focused emotion regulatory strategies like cognitive reappraisal but fewer response-focused strategies like suppression. It also aimed at investigating the mediating role of emotion regulation on the relationship between age and emotions. The sample consisted of 654 younger and older adults aged between 18 and 64. Results showed that age was significantly associated with positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal. No difference was found in negative emotions and suppression between younger and older adults. Cognitive reappraisal partially mediated the effect of age on positive emotions. Findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the underlying mechanism of age variations in emotional experiences.
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Event-related brain responses to emotional words, pictures, and faces - a cross-domain comparison.
Bayer, Mareike; Schacht, Annekathrin
2014-01-01
Emotion effects in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) have previously been reported for a range of visual stimuli, including emotional words, pictures, and facial expressions. Still, little is known about the actual comparability of emotion effects across these stimulus classes. The present study aimed to fill this gap by investigating emotion effects in response to words, pictures, and facial expressions using a blocked within-subject design. Furthermore, ratings of stimulus arousal and valence were collected from an independent sample of participants. Modulations of early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive complex (LPC) were visible for all stimulus domains, but showed clear differences, particularly in valence processing. While emotion effects were limited to positive stimuli for words, they were predominant for negative stimuli in pictures and facial expressions. These findings corroborate the notion of a positivity offset for words and a negativity bias for pictures and facial expressions, which was assumed to be caused by generally lower arousal levels of written language. Interestingly, however, these assumed differences were not confirmed by arousal ratings. Instead, words were rated as overall more positive than pictures and facial expressions. Taken together, the present results point toward systematic differences in the processing of written words and pictorial stimuli of emotional content, not only in terms of a valence bias evident in ERPs, but also concerning their emotional evaluation captured by ratings of stimulus valence and arousal.
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Conway, Anne; McDonough, Susan C; Mackenzie, Michael; Miller, Alison; Dayton, Carolyn; Rosenblum, Katherine; Muzik, Maria; Sameroff, Arnold
2014-01-01
The ability to self-generate positive emotions is an important component of emotion regulation. In this study, we focus on children's latency to express positive emotions following challenging situations and assess whether this ability operates through early maternal sensitivity and children's effortful control. Longitudinal relations between maternal sensitivity, infant negative affect, effortful control, and latency to positive emotion following challenge were examined in 156 children who were 33 months of age. Structural equation models supported the hypothesis that maternal sensitivity during infancy predicted better effortful control and, in turn, shorter latencies to positive emotions following challenge at 33 months. Directions for future research are discussed. © 2014 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.
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Adult Perceptions of Positive and Negative Infant Emotional Expressions
Bolzani Dinehart, Laura H.; Messinger, Daniel S.; Acosta, Susan I.; Cassel, Tricia; Ambadar, Zara; Cohn, Jeffrey
2005-01-01
Adults' perceptions provide information about the emotional meaning of infant facial expressions. This study asks whether similar facial movements influence adult perceptions of emotional intensity in both infant positive (smile) and negative (cry face) facial expressions. Ninety-five college students rated a series of naturally occurring and…
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Positive emotions: A psychological tool for promoting resilience process in childhood
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Carolina Greco
2015-09-01
Full Text Available The aim of this theoretical work is to assess the relation between the capacity to experiment positive emotions and the process of resilience throughout childhood. Our interest arises from two research works being carried out in the province of Mendoza, in Argentina (INCIHUSA-CRICYT-CONICET, directed by Dr Mirta Ison. One the so called “Assessment of resilience in childhood maltreatment”, and the other “ Positive emotions as psycological tools for fostering mental health throughout childhood within vulnerable social contexts”. Resilience is always associated to risky or vulnerable social situations. Positive emotions constitute a resource favorable to the development of resilience. This working hypothesis is based on previous studies which hold that positive emotions favor creative thinking for the solution of interpersonal problems, promote cognitive flexibility, reduce risks at decision making, promote replies to generosity and altruism, increase intelectual resources and counteract depressive tendencies among others. Other authors support the fact that the features a resilient child holds are closely connected to cognitive flexibility, to creative capacity, to the capacity for solving interpersonal problems, to self esteem and attachment links among others. Thus, positive emotions are believed to be one of the psycological resources and tools needed for the development of resilience throughout childhood.
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Vieillard, Sandrine; Gilet, Anne-Laure
2013-01-01
There is mounting evidence that aging is associated with the maintenance of positive affect and the decrease of negative affect to ensure emotion regulation goals. Previous empirical studies have primarily focused on a visual or autobiographical form of emotion communication. To date, little investigation has been done on musical emotions. The few studies that have addressed aging and emotions in music were mainly interested in emotion recognition, thus leaving unexplored the question of how aging may influence emotional responses to and memory for emotions conveyed by music. In the present study, eighteen older (60-84 years) and eighteen younger (19-24 years) listeners were asked to evaluate the strength of their experienced emotion on happy, peaceful, sad, and scary musical excerpts (Vieillard et al., 2008) while facial muscle activity was recorded. Participants then performed an incidental recognition task followed by a task in which they judged to what extent they experienced happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and fear when listening to music. Compared to younger adults, older adults (a) reported a stronger emotional reactivity for happiness than other emotion categories, (b) showed an increased zygomatic activity for scary stimuli, (c) were more likely to falsely recognize happy music, and (d) showed a decrease in their responsiveness to sad and scary music. These results are in line with previous findings and extend them to emotion experience and memory recognition, corroborating the view of age-related changes in emotional responses to music in a positive direction away from negativity.
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Dissociable influences of reward motivation and positive emotion on cognitive control.
Chiew, Kimberly S; Braver, Todd S
2014-06-01
It is becoming increasingly appreciated that affective and/or motivational influences contribute strongly to goal-oriented cognition and behavior. An unresolved question is whether emotional manipulations (i.e., direct induction of affectively valenced subjective experience) and motivational manipulations (e.g., delivery of performance-contingent rewards and punishments) have similar or distinct effects on cognitive control. Prior work has suggested that reward motivation can reliably enhance a proactive mode of cognitive control, whereas other evidence is suggestive that positive emotion improves cognitive flexibility, but reduces proactive control. However, a limitation of the prior research is that reward motivation and positive emotion have largely been studied independently. Here, we directly compared the effects of positive emotion and reward motivation on cognitive control with a tightly matched, within-subjects design, using the AX-continuous performance task paradigm, which allows for relative measurement of proactive versus reactive cognitive control. High-resolution pupillometry was employed as a secondary measure of cognitive dynamics during task performance. Robust increases in behavioral and pupillometric indices of proactive control were observed with reward motivation. The effects of positive emotion were much weaker, but if anything, also reflected enhancement of proactive control, a pattern that diverges from some prior findings. These results indicate that reward motivation has robust influences on cognitive control, while also highlighting the complexity and heterogeneity of positive-emotion effects. The findings are discussed in terms of potential neurobiological mechanisms.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marlette Cassia Oliveira Ferreira
Full Text Available Abstract The perception of crowding, understood as an individual's response to crowds, can be observed in retail environments and influences positive and negative emotions. In this research we test the mediating effect of coping – rational strategies adopted to deal with negative emotions – in the relationship between negative emotions (resulting from crowding perception and consumer behavior (measured by impulse purchase and satisfaction. The findings related to coping explain to what extent there is a positive response to human density in the retail environment. For this, a theoretical model was developed which includes the relationships among perception of crowding, positive and negative emotions, and consumer behavior. The model enhances the understanding of the crowding phenomenon by including relationships mediated by an oppositional strategy (coping dimension between negative emotions and consumer behaviors. To test the theoretical model, a survey was conducted with 456 respondents and hypothesis tests using structural equation modeling. It was evidenced that crowding perception has more robust effects on negative emotions than positive emotions. It is emphasized that with the inclusion of opposition mediation, the weak direct relationship between negative emotions and behaviors, becomes a positive relationship between negative emotion and impulse purchase, and negative emotion and satisfaction. In addition to the theoretical contributions of the tested model, future research and managerial implications are proposed at the end of the article.
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Mermillod, Martial; Grynberg, Delphine; Pio-Lopez, Léo; Rychlowska, Magdalena; Beffara, Brice; Harquel, Sylvain; Vermeulen, Nicolas; Niedenthal, Paula M; Dutheil, Frédéric; Droit-Volet, Sylvie
2017-01-01
Recent research suggests that conceptual or emotional factors could influence the perceptual processing of stimuli. In this article, we aimed to evaluate the effect of social information (positive, negative, or no information related to the character of the target) on subjective (perceived and felt valence and arousal), physiological (facial mimicry) as well as on neural (P100 and N170) responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions (EFE) that varied from neutral to one of the six basic emotions. Across three studies, the results showed reduced ratings of valence and arousal of EFE associated with incongruent social information (Study 1), increased electromyographical responses (Study 2), and significant modulation of P100 and N170 components (Study 3) when EFE were associated with social (positive and negative) information (vs. no information). These studies revealed that positive or negative social information reduces subjective responses to incongruent EFE and produces a similar neural and physiological boost of the early perceptual processing of EFE irrespective of their congruency. In conclusion, the article suggests that the presence of positive or negative social context modulates early physiological and neural activity preceding subsequent behavior.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Martial Mermillod
2018-01-01
Full Text Available Recent research suggests that conceptual or emotional factors could influence the perceptual processing of stimuli. In this article, we aimed to evaluate the effect of social information (positive, negative, or no information related to the character of the target on subjective (perceived and felt valence and arousal, physiological (facial mimicry as well as on neural (P100 and N170 responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions (EFE that varied from neutral to one of the six basic emotions. Across three studies, the results showed reduced ratings of valence and arousal of EFE associated with incongruent social information (Study 1, increased electromyographical responses (Study 2, and significant modulation of P100 and N170 components (Study 3 when EFE were associated with social (positive and negative information (vs. no information. These studies revealed that positive or negative social information reduces subjective responses to incongruent EFE and produces a similar neural and physiological boost of the early perceptual processing of EFE irrespective of their congruency. In conclusion, the article suggests that the presence of positive or negative social context modulates early physiological and neural activity preceding subsequent behavior.
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Rehmert, Andrea E.; Kisley, Michael A.
2014-01-01
Older adults have demonstrated an avoidance of negative information presumably with a goal of greater emotional satisfaction. Understanding whether avoidance of negative information is a voluntary, motivated choice, or an involuntary, automatic response will be important to differentiate, as decision-making often involves emotional factors. With the use of an emotional framing event-related potential (ERP) paradigm, the present study investigated whether older adults could alter neural responses to negative stimuli through verbal reframing of evaluative response options. The late-positive potential (LPP) response of 50 older adults and 50 younger adults was recorded while participants categorized emotional images in one of two framing conditions: positive (“more or less positive”) or negative (“more or less negative”). It was hypothesized that older adults would be able to overcome a presumed tendency to down-regulate neural responding to negative stimuli in the negative framing condition thus leading to larger LPP wave amplitudes to negative images. A similar effect was predicted for younger adults but for positively valenced images such that LPP responses would be increased in the positive framing condition compared to the negative framing condition. Overall, younger adults' LPP wave amplitudes were modulated by framing condition, including a reduction in the negativity bias in the positive frame. Older adults' neural responses were not significantly modulated even though task-related behavior supported the notion that older adults were able to successfully adopt the negative framing condition. PMID:23731435
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Positive and negative emotions in motivation for second language learning
MacIntyre, Peter D.; Vincze, Laszlo
2017-01-01
The role of basic emotions in SLA has been underestimated in both research and pedagogy. The present article examines 10 positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love) and 9 negative emotions (anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, guilt, hate, sadness, feeling scared, and being stressed). The emotions are correlated with core variables chosen from three well-known models of L2 motivation: Gardner’s integrative motive, Clément’s so...
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Oriol, Xavier; Amutio, Alberto; Mendoza, Michelle; Da Costa, Silvia; Miranda, Rafael
2016-01-01
Emotional creativity (EC) implies experiencing a complex emotional life, which is becoming increasingly necessary in societies that demand innovation and constant changes. This research studies the relation of EC as a dispositional trait with intrinsic motivation (IM) and academic engagement (AE). A sample of 428 university Chilean students, 36.5% men and 63.5% women, with ages from 18 to 45 years-old (M = 20.37; DT = 2.71). Additionally, the mediating function of class-related positive emotions in this relation is explored. The obtained data indicate that developing high levels of dispositional EC enhances the activation of positive emotions, such as gratitude, love and hope, in the classroom. Furthermore, EC predicts IM and AE of university students by the experience of positive emotions. These results compel us to be aware of the importance that university students can understand the complexity of the emotional processes they undergo. A greater control of these emotions would allow students to maintain higher levels of interest in their studies at the different educational stages and to avoid the risk of school failure.
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Effects of empathic social responses on the emotions of the recipient.
Seehausen, Maria; Kazzer, Philipp; Bajbouj, Malek; Heekeren, Hauke R; Jacobs, Arthur M; Klann-Delius, Gisela; Menninghaus, Winfried; Prehn, Kristin
2016-03-01
Empathy is highly relevant for social behavior and can be verbally expressed by voicing sympathy and concern (emotional empathy) as well as by paraphrasing or stating that one can mentally reconstruct and understand another person's thoughts and feelings (cognitive empathy). In this study, we investigated the emotional effects and neural correlates of receiving empathic social responses after negative performance feedback and compared the effects of emotionally vs. cognitively empathic comments. 20 participants (10 male) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while receiving negative performance feedback for a cognitive task. Performance feedback was followed by verbal comments either expressing cognitive and emotional empathy or demonstrating a lack of empathy. Empathic comments in general led to less negative self-reported feelings and calmer breathing. At the neural level, empathic comments induced activity in regions associated with social cognition and emotion processing, specifically in right postcentral gyrus and left cerebellum (cognitively empathic comments), right precentral gyrus, the opercular part of left inferior frontal gyrus, and left middle temporal gyrus (emotionally empathic comments), as well as the orbital part of the left middle frontal gyrus and left superior parietal gyrus (emotionally empathic vs. unempathic comments). The study shows that cognitively and emotionally empathic comments appear to be processed in partially separable neural systems. Furthermore, confirming and expanding on another study on the same subject, the present results demonstrate that the social display of cognitive empathy exerts almost as positive effects on the recipient's feelings and emotions in states of distress as emotionally empathic response does. This can be relevant for professional settings in which strong negative emotions need to be de-escalated while maintaining professional impartiality, which may allow the display of cognitive but not
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Schall, Marina; Martiny, Sarah E; Goetz, Thomas; Hall, Nathan C
2016-05-01
Although expressing positive emotions is typically socially rewarded, in the present work, we predicted that people suppress positive emotions and thereby experience social benefits when outperformed others are present. We tested our predictions in three experimental studies with high school students. In Studies 1 and 2, we manipulated the type of social situation (outperformance vs. non-outperformance) and assessed suppression of positive emotions. In both studies, individuals reported suppressing positive emotions more in outperformance situations than in non-outperformance situations. In Study 3, we manipulated the social situation (outperformance vs. non-outperformance) as well as the videotaped person's expression of positive emotions (suppression vs. expression). The findings showed that when outperforming others, individuals were indeed evaluated more positively when they suppressed rather than expressed their positive emotions, and demonstrate the importance of the specific social situation with respect to the effects of suppression. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
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Positive and Negative Emotions Underlie Motivation for L2 Learning
MacIntyre, Peter D.; Vincze, Laszlo
2017-01-01
The role of basic emotions in SLA has been underestimated in both research and pedagogy. The present article examines 10 positive emotions ("joy," "gratitude," "serenity," "interest," "hope," "pride," "amusement," "inspiration," "awe," and "love")…
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The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review.
Zeng, Xianglong; Chiu, Cleo P K; Wang, Rong; Oei, Tian P S; Leung, Freedom Y K
2015-01-01
While it has been suggested that loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is an effective practice for promoting positive emotions, the empirical evidence in the literature remains unclear. Here, we provide a systematic review of 24 empirical studies (N = 1759) on LKM with self-reported positive emotions. The effect of LKM on positive emotions was estimated with meta-analysis, and the influence of variations across LKM interventions was further explored with subgroup analysis and meta-regression. The meta-analysis showed that (1) medium effect sizes for LKM interventions on daily positive emotions in both wait-list controlled RCTs and non-RCT studies; and (2) small to large effect sizes for the on-going practice of LKM on immediate positive emotions across different comparisons. Further analysis showed that (1) interventions focused on loving-kindness had medium effect size, but interventions focused on compassion showed small effect sizes; (2) the length of interventions and the time spent on meditation did not influence the effect sizes, but the studies without didactic components in interventions had small effect sizes. A few individual studies reported that the nature of positive emotions and individual differences also influenced the results. In sum, LKM practice and interventions are effective in enhancing positive emotions, but more studies are needed to identify the active components of the interventions, to compare different psychological operations, and to explore the applicability in clinical populations.
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Yu, Zonghuo; Chen, Li
2016-01-01
Whether relative income or absolute income could affect subjective well-being has been a bone of contention for years. Life satisfaction and the relative frequency of positive and negative emotions are parts of subjective well-being. According to the prospect theory, hedonic adaptation helps to explain why positive emotion is often so hard to be maintained, and negative emotion wouldn't be easy to be eliminated. So we expect the relationship between income and positive emotion is different from that between income and negative emotion. Given that regional reference is the main comparison mechanism, effects of regional average income on regional average subjective well-being should be potentially zero if only relative income matters. Using multilevel analysis, we tested the hypotheses with a dataset of 30,144 individuals from 162 counties in China. The results suggested that household income at the individual level is associated with life satisfaction, happiness and negative emotions. On the contrary, at a county level, household income is only associated with negative emotion. In other words, happiness and life satisfaction was only associated with relative income, but negative emotion was associated with relative income and absolute income. Without social comparison, income doesn't improve happiness, but it could weaken negative emotion. Therefore, it is possible for economic growth to weaken negative emotion without improving happiness. These findings also contribute to the current debate about the "Esterling paradox."
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alejandra Vasquez-Rosati
2017-05-01
Full Text Available Clinically, meditative practices have become increasingly relevant, decreasing anxiety in patients and increasing antibody production. However, few studies have examined the physiological correlates, or effects of the incorporation of meditative practices. Because pupillary reactivity is a marker for autonomic changes and emotional processing, we hypothesized that the pupillary responses of mindfulness meditation practitioners (MP and subjects without such practices (non-meditators (NM differ, reflecting different emotional processing. In a group of 11 MP and 9 NM, we recorded the pupil diameter using video-oculography while subjects explored images with emotional contents. Although both groups showed a similar pupillary response for positive and neutral images, negative images evoked a greater pupillary contraction and a weaker dilation in the MP group. Also, this group had faster physiological recovery to baseline levels. These results suggest that mindfulness meditation practices modulate the response of the autonomic nervous system, reflected in the pupillary response to negative images and faster physiological recovery to baseline levels, suggesting that pupillometry could be used to assess the potential health benefits of these practices in patients.
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Attentional bias for positive emotional stimuli: A meta-analytic investigation.
Pool, Eva; Brosch, Tobias; Delplanque, Sylvain; Sander, David
2016-01-01
Despite an initial focus on negative threatening stimuli, researchers have more recently expanded the investigation of attentional biases toward positive rewarding stimuli. The present meta-analysis systematically compared attentional bias for positive compared with neutral visual stimuli across 243 studies (N = 9,120 healthy participants) that used different types of attentional paradigms and positive stimuli. Factors were tested that, as postulated by several attentional models derived from theories of emotion, might modulate this bias. Overall, results showed a significant, albeit modest (Hedges' g = .258), attentional bias for positive as compared with neutral stimuli. Moderator analyses revealed that the magnitude of this attentional bias varied as a function of arousal and that this bias was significantly larger when the emotional stimulus was relevant to specific concerns (e.g., hunger) of the participants compared with other positive stimuli that were less relevant to the participants' concerns. Moreover, the moderator analyses showed that attentional bias for positive stimuli was larger in paradigms that measure early, rather than late, attentional processing, suggesting that attentional bias for positive stimuli occurs rapidly and involuntarily. Implications for theories of emotion and attention are discussed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sandrine eVieillard
2013-10-01
Full Text Available There is mounting evidence that aging is associated with the maintenance of positive affect and the decrease of negative affect to ensure emotion regulation goals. Previous empirical studies have primarily focused on a visual or autobiographical form of emotion communication. To date, little investigation has been done on musical emotions. The few studies that have addressed aging and emotions in music were mainly interested in emotion recognition, thus leaving unexplored the question of how aging may influence emotional responses to and memory for music. In the present study, eighteen older (60-84 years and eighteen younger (19-24 years listeners were asked to evaluate the strength of their experienced emotion on happy, peaceful, sad, and scary musical excerpts (Vieillard, et al., 2008 while facial muscle activity was recorded. Participants then performed an incidental recognition task followed by a task in which they judged to what extent they experienced happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and fear when listening to music. Compared to younger adults, older adults (a reported a stronger emotional reactivity for happiness than other emotion categories, (b showed an increased zygomatic activity for scary stimuli, (c were more likely to falsely recognize happy music, and (d showed a decrease in their responsiveness to sad and scary music. These results are in line with previous findings and extend them to emotion experience and memory recognition, corroborating the view of age-related changes in emotional responses to music in a positive direction away from negativity.
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Novelli, David; Drury, John; Reicher, Stephen; Stott, Clifford
2013-01-01
Exposure to crowding is said to be aversive, yet people also seek out and enjoy crowded situations. We surveyed participants at two crowd events to test the prediction of self-categorization theory that variable emotional responses to crowding are a function of social identification with the crowd. In data collected from participants who attended a crowded outdoor music event (n = 48), identification with the crowd predicted feeling less crowded; and there was an indirect effect of identification with the crowd on positive emotion through feeling less crowded. Identification with the crowd also moderated the relation between feeling less crowded and positive emotion. In data collected at a demonstration march (n = 112), identification with the crowd predicted central (most dense) location in the crowd; and there was an indirect effect of identification with the crowd on positive emotion through central location in the crowd. Positive emotion in the crowd also increased over the duration of the crowd event. These findings are in line with the predictions of self-categorization theory. They are inconsistent with approaches that suggest that crowding is inherently aversive; and they cannot easily be explained through the concept of ‘personal space’. PMID:24236079
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
David Novelli
Full Text Available Exposure to crowding is said to be aversive, yet people also seek out and enjoy crowded situations. We surveyed participants at two crowd events to test the prediction of self-categorization theory that variable emotional responses to crowding are a function of social identification with the crowd. In data collected from participants who attended a crowded outdoor music event (n = 48, identification with the crowd predicted feeling less crowded; and there was an indirect effect of identification with the crowd on positive emotion through feeling less crowded. Identification with the crowd also moderated the relation between feeling less crowded and positive emotion. In data collected at a demonstration march (n = 112, identification with the crowd predicted central (most dense location in the crowd; and there was an indirect effect of identification with the crowd on positive emotion through central location in the crowd. Positive emotion in the crowd also increased over the duration of the crowd event. These findings are in line with the predictions of self-categorization theory. They are inconsistent with approaches that suggest that crowding is inherently aversive; and they cannot easily be explained through the concept of 'personal space'.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alexander Strobel
2017-10-01
Full Text Available Need for Cognition (NFC is conceptualized as an individuals’ tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity and, thus, captures one’s cognitive engagement. It plays a well-established role in information processing in experimental or academic contexts. However, so far comparably little is known about its consequences for other than purely cognitive or academic outcomes. Indeed, NFC is positively associated with personality traits pertaining to Positive Emotionality (PE and negatively to traits related to Negative Emotionality (NE. Moreover, evidence suggests NFC to be related to an active, problem-focused coping style. We therefore hypothesized NFC to mediate between life events and individual differences in PE and NE. In a sample of N = 202 volunteers from the general population, we observed that the number of past positive and negative life events had direct effects on PE, and NE, respectively, and that for positive life events, a mediating effect on PE via NFC was observed, with a higher number of past positive life events being related to higher NFC that in turn was related to increased PE. Thus, the present results lend support to the notion of NFC as an important factor supporting personal well-being by way of its mediating role between the number of past positive life events and positive affect.
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I followed the butterflies: Poetry of positive emotions in art therapy research
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Gioia Chilton
2015-12-01
Full Text Available Art therapy is a profession that offers potential avenues to improve mental health by increasing positive emotions and counteracting depression and negativity through art-making processes within a therapeutic relationship. As art therapy research is scant, this study of how positive emotions are expressed through art-making was needed. Pairs of art therapists (N = 5 conducted participatory arts-based research to explore emotional expression through visual art-making and discussion. Results included artwork and illustrated poems that demonstrate the expression of positive and other emotions within an interpersonal relationship. As part of multi-modal aesthetic exploration, poetry was used as a means of data analysis and as a vehicle for conveying findings.
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Egermann, Hauke; Fernando, Nathalie; Chuen, Lorraine; McAdams, Stephen
2015-01-01
Subjective and psychophysiological emotional responses to music from two different cultures were compared within these two cultures. Two identical experiments were conducted: the first in the Congolese rainforest with an isolated population of Mebenzélé Pygmies without any exposure to Western music and culture, the second with a group of Western music listeners, with no experience with Congolese music. Forty Pygmies and 40 Canadians listened in pairs to 19 music excerpts of 29–99 s in duration in random order (eight from the Pygmy population and 11 Western instrumental excerpts). For both groups, emotion components were continuously measured: subjective feeling (using a two- dimensional valence and arousal rating interface), peripheral physiological activation, and facial expression. While Pygmy music was rated as positive and arousing by Pygmies, ratings of Western music by Westerners covered the range from arousing to calming and from positive to negative. Comparing psychophysiological responses to emotional qualities of Pygmy music across participant groups showed no similarities. However, Western stimuli, rated as high and low arousing by Canadians, created similar responses in both participant groups (with high arousal associated with increases in subjective and physiological activation). Several low-level acoustical features of the music presented (tempo, pitch, and timbre) were shown to affect subjective and physiological arousal similarly in both cultures. Results suggest that while the subjective dimension of emotional valence might be mediated by cultural learning, changes in arousal might involve a more basic, universal response to low-level acoustical characteristics of music. PMID:25620935
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hauke eEgermann
2015-01-01
Full Text Available Subjective and psychophysiological emotional responses to music from two different cultures were compared within these two cultures. Two identical experiments were conducted: the first in the Congolese rainforest with an isolated population of Mbenzélé Pygmies without any exposure to Western music and culture, the second with a group of Western music listeners, with no experience with Congolese music. Forty Pygmies and 40 Canadians listened in pairs to 19 music excerpts of 29 to 99 seconds in duration in random order (8 from the Pygmy population and 11 Western instrumental excerpts. For both groups, emotion components were continuously measured: subjective feeling (using a two- dimensional valence and arousal rating interface, peripheral physiological activation, and facial expression. While Pygmy music was rated as positive and arousing by Pygmies, ratings of Western music by Westerners covered the range from arousing to calming and from positive to negative. Comparing psychophysiological responses to emotional qualities of Pygmy music across participant groups showed no similarities. However, Western stimuli, rated as high and low arousing by Canadians, created similar responses in both participant groups (with high arousal associated with increases in subjective and physiological activation. Several low-level acoustical features of the music presented (tempo, pitch, and timbre were shown to affect subjective and physiological arousal similarly in both cultures. Results suggest that while the subjective dimension of emotional valence might be mediated by cultural learning, changes in arousal might involve a more basic, universal response to low-level acoustical characteristics of music.
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ROLE OF RESPONSIBILITY IN EMOTIONAL BURNOUTOF TEACHERS AT INITIAL STAGE OF PROFESSIONALIZATION
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S I Kudinov
2016-12-01
Full Text Available The article presents a comparative analysis of the empirical research results of the formation of burnout symptoms in the teachers with low and high levels of personal responsibility. The sample of respondents was made by teachers with five years’ experience of work. At the preliminary stage the peculiarities of situational and personality anxiety, as well as indicators of emotional stability and neuroticism were studied. As a result of the data analysis the teachers with average anxiety and emotional stability were included in the final group of the subjects. The procedure of the respondents selection was motivated by the desire to exclude the respondents, potentially predisposed to intense emotional burnout due to their individual susceptibility to it from the empirical sample.During carrying out the basic research the responsibility indicators were studied at the first stage. According to the hierarchical distribution of the harmonic variables of responsibility the contrasting levels of the manifestation of this property were revealed and characterized. The high level of responsibility manifestation included mainly the positive characteristics responsible for the intensity of the display properties, such as ergicity, sthenicity, internality, socio-centeredness, meaningfulness and productivity. The second group included the respondents in whose hierarchy of variables property manifestation is dominated by the disharmonious components responsible for the weak manifestations of the property: aergicity, asthenicity, externality, ego-centeredness, etc. The selected indicators of responsibility in the both groups differed at a statistically significant level. At the following stage the emotional burnout indicators in each group were analyzed. The study confirmed the put forward hypothesis that the emotional burnout developed more intensively in the teachers with a high level of personal responsibility, rather than that of the respondents with a
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Ashraf, Mujeeba; Sitwat, Aisha
2016-08-01
The aim of this research was to study the relationship between personality dimensions, positive emotions and coping mechanisms of caregivers of patients living with HIV. This study used a cross-sectional research design. A sample comprising 56 caregivers was recruited from HIV/AIDS clinics in three teaching hospitals in Lahore, Pakistan. Data were collected between February and July 2010. Most caregivers were men, and of low socio-economic status. Individuals with both high and low extraversion used problem-focused coping, self-control and accepting responsibility, but those with low extraversion used more escape-avoidance coping, and they had also high levels of negative emotions. Those high in neuroticism used more tension-reduction coping than problem-focused coping, and experienced fewer positive emotions. Regression analysis findings revealed neuroticism as a significant predictor of negative emotions as well as emotion-focused coping, and only extraversion significantly predicted negative emotions. This research could help in devising psychological management plans for caregivers of patients living with HIV in order to assist them in coping with the burden of care. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd.
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Hernández, Maciel M.; Eisenberg, Nancy; Valiente, Carlos; Spinrad, Tracy L.; Berger, Rebecca H.; VanSchyndel, Sarah K.; Thompson, Marilyn S.; Southworth, Jody; Silva, Kassondra M.
2018-01-01
Positive emotional expressivity has been associated with increased social competence and decreased maladjustment in childhood. However, a few researchers have found null or even positive associations between positive emotional expressivity and maladjustment, which suggests that there may be nuanced associations of positive expressivity, perhaps as…
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Vieillard, Sandrine; Gilet, Anne-Laure
2013-01-01
There is mounting evidence that aging is associated with the maintenance of positive affect and the decrease of negative affect to ensure emotion regulation goals. Previous empirical studies have primarily focused on a visual or autobiographical form of emotion communication. To date, little investigation has been done on musical emotions. The few studies that have addressed aging and emotions in music were mainly interested in emotion recognition, thus leaving unexplored the question of how aging may influence emotional responses to and memory for emotions conveyed by music. In the present study, eighteen older (60–84 years) and eighteen younger (19–24 years) listeners were asked to evaluate the strength of their experienced emotion on happy, peaceful, sad, and scary musical excerpts (Vieillard et al., 2008) while facial muscle activity was recorded. Participants then performed an incidental recognition task followed by a task in which they judged to what extent they experienced happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and fear when listening to music. Compared to younger adults, older adults (a) reported a stronger emotional reactivity for happiness than other emotion categories, (b) showed an increased zygomatic activity for scary stimuli, (c) were more likely to falsely recognize happy music, and (d) showed a decrease in their responsiveness to sad and scary music. These results are in line with previous findings and extend them to emotion experience and memory recognition, corroborating the view of age-related changes in emotional responses to music in a positive direction away from negativity. PMID:24137141
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The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Xianglong eZENG
2015-11-01
Full Text Available While it has been suggested that loving-kindness meditation (LKM is an effective practice for promoting positive emotions, the empirical evidence in the literature remains unclear. Here, we provide a systematic review of 24 empirical studies (N = 1759 on LKM with self-reported positive emotions. The effect of LKM on positive emotions was estimated with meta-analysis, and the influence of variations across LKM interventions was further explored with subgroup analysis and meta-regression. The meta-analysis showed that (1 medium effect sizes for LKM interventions on daily positive emotions in both wait-list controlled RCTs and non-RCT studies; and (2 small to large effect sizes for the on-going practice of LKM on immediate positive emotions across different comparisons. Further analysis showed that (1 interventions focused on loving-kindness had medium effect size, but interventions focused on compassion showed small effect sizes; (2 the length of interventions and the time spent on meditation did not influence the effect sizes, but the studies without didactic components in interventions had small effect sizes. A few individual studies reported that the nature of positive emotions and individual differences also influenced the results. In sum, LKM practice and interventions are effective in enhancing positive emotions, but more studies are needed to identify the active components of the interventions, to compare different psychological operations, and to explore the applicability in clinical populations.
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Kujawa, Autumn; Proudfit, Greg Hajcak; Kessel, Ellen M; Dyson, Margaret; Olino, Thomas; Klein, Daniel N
2015-01-01
Reward reactivity and positive emotion are key components of a theoretical, early-emerging approach motivational system, yet few studies have examined associations between positive emotion and neural reactivity to reward across development. In this multi-method prospective study, we examined the association of laboratory observations of positive emotionality (PE) at age 3 and self-reported positive affect (PA) at age 9 with an event-related potential component sensitive to the relative response to winning vs. losing money, the feedback negativity (ΔFN), at age 9 (N=381). Males had a larger ΔFN than females, and both greater observed PE at age 3 and self-reported PA at age 9 significantly, but modestly, predicted an enhanced ΔFN at age 9. Negative emotionality and behavioral inhibition did not predict ΔFN. Results contribute to understanding the neural correlates of PE and suggest that the FN and PE may be related to the same biobehavioral approach system. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Enhancing the benefits of written emotional disclosure through response training.
Konig, Andrea; Eonta, Alison; Dyal, Stephanie R; Vrana, Scott R
2014-05-01
Writing about a personal stressful event has been found to have psychological and physical health benefits, especially when physiological response increases during writing. Response training was developed to amplify appropriate physiological reactivity in imagery exposure. The present study examined whether response training enhances the benefits of written emotional disclosure. Participants were assigned to either a written emotional disclosure condition (n=113) or a neutral writing condition (n=133). Participants in each condition wrote for 20 minutes on 3 occasions and received response training (n=79), stimulus training (n=84) or no training (n=83). Heart rate and skin conductance were recorded throughout a 10-minute baseline, 20-minute writing, and a 10-minute recovery period. Self-reported emotion was assessed in each session. One month after completing the sessions, participants completed follow-up assessments of psychological and physical health outcomes. Emotional disclosure elicited greater physiological reactivity and self-reported emotion than neutral writing. Response training amplified physiological reactivity to emotional disclosure. Greater heart rate during emotional disclosure was associated with the greatest reductions in event-related distress, depression, and physical illness symptoms at follow-up, especially among response trained participants. Results support an exposure explanation of emotional disclosure effects and are the first to demonstrate that response training facilitates emotional processing and may be a beneficial adjunct to written emotional disclosure. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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Enhancing the Benefits of Written Emotional Disclosure through Response Training
Konig, Andrea; Eonta, Alison; Dyal, Stephanie R.; Vrana, Scott R.
2014-01-01
Writing about a personal stressful event has been found to have psychological and physical health benefits, especially when physiological response increases during writing. Response training was developed to amplify appropriate physiological reactivity in imagery exposure. The present study examined whether response training enhances the benefits of written emotional disclosure. Participants were assigned to either a written emotional disclosure condition (n = 113) or a neutral writing condition (n = 133). Participants in each condition wrote for 20 minutes on three occasions and received response training (n = 79), stimulus training (n = 84) or no training (n = 83). Heart rate and skin conductance were recorded throughout a 10-minute baseline, 20-minute writing, and a 10-minute recovery period. Self-reported emotion was assessed in each session. One month after completing the sessions, participants completed follow-up assessments of psychological and physical health outcomes. Emotional disclosure elicited greater physiological reactivity and self-reported emotion than neutral writing. Response training amplified physiological reactivity to emotional disclosure. Greater heart rate during emotional disclosure was associated with the greatest reductions in event-related distress, depression, and physical illness symptoms at follow-up, especially among response trained participants. Results support an exposure explanation of emotional disclosure effects and are the first to demonstrate that response training facilitates emotional processing and may be a beneficial adjunct to written emotional disclosure. PMID:24680230
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"Mad Scared" versus "I Was Sad": Emotional expression and response in urban adolescent males.
Reigeluth, Christopher S; Pollastri, Alisha R; Cardemil, Esteban V; Addis, Michael E
2016-06-01
Decades of masculinity research have concluded that society places higher demands on males to adhere to norms for low emotional expression; yet, countless studies find that emotional expression is integral to well-being. Unfortunately, this contradiction places boys and men in a tenuous position as they must navigate a bombardment of societal messages about the importance of emotional stoicism and invincibility. For urban adolescents, the situation is more complicated as they encounter environmental stressors that place greater emphasis on projecting a tough façade. Thus, our primary aim was to assess to what degree dyads of close adolescent male friends from urban, low-income neighborhoods are able to engage in emotional expression and response and to explore some of the underlying mechanisms and interpersonal processes. Qualitative findings from our sample suggest that urban boys exhibit a wide range of behaviors when participating in dyadic emotional disclosure and response, including being highly emotionally expressive and supportive in the context of close male friendship. Copyright © 2016 The Foundation for Professionals in Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Overbeek, Thérèse J M; van Boxtel, Anton; Westerink, Joyce H D M
2012-09-01
The literature shows large inconsistencies in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) responses to induced emotional states. This may be caused by differences in emotion induction methods, RSA quantification, and non-emotional demands of the situation. In 83 healthy subjects, we studied RSA responses to pictures and film fragments eliciting six different discrete emotions relative to neutral baseline stimuli. RSA responses were quantified in the time and frequency domain and were additionally corrected for differences in mean heart rate and respiration rate, resulting in eight different RSA response measures. Subjective ratings of emotional stimuli and facial electromyographic responses indicated that pictures and film fragments elicited the intended emotions. Although RSA measures showed various emotional effects, responses were quite heterogeneous and frequently nonsignificant. They were substantially influenced by methodological factors, in particular time vs. frequency domain response measures, correction for changes in respiration rate, use of pictures vs. film fragments, and sex of participants. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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5-HTTLPR differentially predicts brain network responses to emotional faces
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Fisher, Patrick M; Grady, Cheryl L; Madsen, Martin K
2015-01-01
The effects of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism on neural responses to emotionally salient faces have been studied extensively, focusing on amygdala reactivity and amygdala-prefrontal interactions. Despite compelling evidence that emotional face paradigms engage a distributed network of brain regions...... to fearful faces was significantly greater in S' carriers compared to LA LA individuals. These findings provide novel evidence for emotion-specific 5-HTTLPR effects on the response of a distributed set of brain regions including areas responsive to emotionally salient stimuli and critical components...... involved in emotion, cognitive and visual processing, less is known about 5-HTTLPR effects on broader network responses. To address this, we evaluated 5-HTTLPR differences in the whole-brain response to an emotional faces paradigm including neutral, angry and fearful faces using functional magnetic...
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Liu, T Y; Chen, Y S; Su, T P; Hsieh, J C; Chen, L F
2014-01-01
This study investigates the cortical abnormalities of early emotion perception in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD) using gamma oscillations. Twenty-three MDD patients, twenty-five BD patients, and twenty-four normal controls were enrolled and their event-related magnetoencephalographic responses were recorded during implicit emotional tasks. Our results demonstrated abnormal gamma activity within 100 ms in the emotion-related regions (amygdala, orbitofrontal (OFC) cortex, anterior insula (AI), and superior temporal pole) in the MDD patients, suggesting that these patients may have dysfunctions or negativity biases in perceptual binding of emotional features at very early stage. Decreased left superior medial frontal cortex (smFC) responses to happy faces in the MDD patients were correlated with their serious level of depression symptoms, indicating that decreased smFC activity perhaps underlies irregular positive emotion processing in depressed patients. In the BD patients, we showed abnormal activation in visual regions (inferior/middle occipital and middle temporal cortices) which responded to emotional faces within 100 ms, supporting that the BD patients may hyperactively respond to emotional features in perceptual binding. The discriminant function of gamma activation in the left smFC, right medial OFC, right AI/inferior OFC, and the right precentral cortex accurately classified 89.6% of patients as unipolar/bipolar disorders.
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EEG and EMG responses to emotion-evoking stimuli processed without conscious awareness.
Wexler, B E; Warrenburg, S; Schwartz, G E; Janer, L D
1992-12-01
Dichotic stimulus pairs were constructed with one word that was emotionally neutral and another that evoked either negative or positive feelings. Temporal and spectral overlap between the members of each pair was so great that the two words fused into a single auditory percept. Subjects were consciously aware of hearing only one word from most pairs; sometimes the emotion-evoking word was heard consciously, other times the neutral word was heard consciously. Subjects were instructed to let their thoughts wander in response to the word they heard, during which time EEG alpha activity over left and right frontal regions, and muscle activity (EMG) in the corrugator ("frowning") and zygomatic ("smiling") regions were recorded. Both EEG and EMG provided evidence of emotion-specific responses to stimuli that were processed without conscious awareness. Moreover both suggested relatively greater right hemisphere activity with unconscious rather than conscious processing.
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Emotional Responsiveness and Emotional Stability in Three Religious Communities of India.
Prakash, Jai; Shukla, Anand Prakash
The present study investigated personality dispositions such as emotional responsiveness and emotional stability in religious communities of India. The religious ideology and particular system of religious practices of each individual may influence his personality structure. A review of the literature shows that studies available in this area have…
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Vinci, Christine; Li, Liang; Wu, Cai; Lam, Cho Y; Guo, Lin; Correa-Fernández, Virmarie; Spears, Claire A; Hoover, Diana S; Etcheverry, Paul E; Wetter, David W
2017-11-01
Individuals attempting to quit smoking typically have poor success rates, and the majority fail to maintain long-term abstinence. Although a large body of evidence documents the impact of negative affect on reducing abstinence, there is a much smaller body of research on positive emotions, which could be an important mechanism that is associated with successful cessation. As such, this study examined positive emotions in real-time via ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to determine whether discrete positive emotions were uniquely related to 2 cessation milestones: quit day lapse and first lapse. Participants were 391 smokers who received tobacco cessation treatment. EMAs were completed pre- and postquit, and positive emotion was assessed with 3 items (enthusiastic, happy, and relaxed) rated on 5-point Likert scales. Analyses examined the associations of the means and slopes of each emotion on the current day with the likelihood of lapse on the following day. When controlling for relevant covariates, prequit positive emotions were not related to quit day lapse. However, postquit positive emotions were associated with first lapse. Specifically, high levels of happiness and relaxation, as well as increasing levels of enthusiasm, happiness, and relaxation were related to a lower likelihood of next day lapse. These are some of the first real-time, real-world data to demonstrate that distinct positive emotions are associated with a lower risk of lapse during the postquit period among smokers attempting to quit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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Pramudya, Ragita C.; Seo, Han-Seok
2018-01-01
Coffee and green tea are popular beverages consumed at both hot and cold temperatures. When people consume hot beverages concurrently with other activities, they may experience at different temperatures over the period of consumption. However, there has been limited research investigating the effects of product temperatures on emotional responses and sensory attributes of beverages. This study aimed to determine whether emotional responses to, and sensory attributes of, brewed coffee and green tea vary as a function of sample temperature. Using a check-all-that-apply (CATA) method, 157 participants (79 for coffee and 78 for green tea) were asked to evaluate either coffee or green tea samples served at cold (5°C), ambient (25°C), and hot (65°C) temperatures with respect to emotional responses and sensory attributes. The results showed that sample temperature could have significant influences on emotional responses to, and sensory attributes of, coffee and green tea samples. More specifically, 6 and 18 sensory attributes of coffee and green tea samples, respectively, significantly differed with sample temperature. Beverage samples evaluated at 65°C were characterized, regardless of activation/arousal level, by positive emotional responses terms and favorable sensory attributes. While beverages evaluated at 25°C were associated more with negative emotional responses with low activation/arousal, those evaluated at 5°C were more frequently characterized as having negative emotional responses with high activation/arousal. Sensory and emotional drivers of liking for both coffee and green tea differed both with sample temperature and gender. While both emotional responses and sensory attributes were identified as drivers of liking among females, only emotional responses were identified as drivers of liking among males. In conclusion, this study provides empirical evidence that both emotional responses to, and sensory attributes of, coffee and green tea beverages can
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LSD enhances the emotional response to music.
Kaelen, M; Barrett, F S; Roseman, L; Lorenz, R; Family, N; Bolstridge, M; Curran, H V; Feilding, A; Nutt, D J; Carhart-Harris, R L
2015-10-01
There is renewed interest in the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). LSD was used extensively in the 1950s and 1960s as an adjunct in psychotherapy, reportedly enhancing emotionality. Music is an effective tool to evoke and study emotion and is considered an important element in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy; however, the hypothesis that psychedelics enhance the emotional response to music has yet to be investigated in a modern placebo-controlled study. The present study sought to test the hypothesis that music-evoked emotions are enhanced under LSD. Ten healthy volunteers listened to five different tracks of instrumental music during each of two study days, a placebo day followed by an LSD day, separated by 5-7 days. Subjective ratings were completed after each music track and included a visual analogue scale (VAS) and the nine-item Geneva Emotional Music Scale (GEMS-9). Results demonstrated that the emotional response to music is enhanced by LSD, especially the emotions "wonder", "transcendence", "power" and "tenderness". These findings reinforce the long-held assumption that psychedelics enhance music-evoked emotion, and provide tentative and indirect support for the notion that this effect can be harnessed in the context of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Further research is required to test this link directly.
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Morgan, James; Atkin, Lisa
2016-05-13
The aim of the present pilot study was to assess the effect of a brief work-related self-affirming implementation intention (WS-AII) on the well-being of primary school teachers. Participants were randomly allocated to one of two conditions: one in which they were asked to create a WS-AII or one in which they were asked to create a control implementation intention (C-II). State anxiety was measured pre- and post-manipulation, self-efficacy at post-manipulation only, and emotions in teaching and emotion regulation at baseline and at a two-week follow-up. There were statistically significant differences between the WS-AII condition and the control. Teachers who created work-related self-affirming implementation intentions reported an immediate reduction in state anxiety. Positive effects extended over the two-week period, with teachers in the WS-AII condition also reporting more positive emotions in teaching and the use of reappraisal emotion regulation strategies rather than emotion suppression. Results suggest that the integration of the WS-AII into existing organisational practice may be of benefit to the well-being of teachers and other highly stressed workers.
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Gender moderates valence effects on the late positive potential to emotional distracters
Syrjänen, Elmeri
2013-01-01
Attention is captured more strongly by emotional pictures than by neutral pictures. This allocation of attention to emotional pictures is commonly indexed by the late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP) that is larger for negative and positive pictures than for neutral pictures. However, findings are mixed in regards to valence effects, that is, whether the LPP is larger for negative pictures than for positive pictures (negativity bias) or vice versa (positivity bias). ...
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Event-related brain responses to emotional words, pictures, and faces – a cross-domain comparison
Bayer, Mareike; Schacht, Annekathrin
2014-01-01
Emotion effects in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) have previously been reported for a range of visual stimuli, including emotional words, pictures, and facial expressions. Still, little is known about the actual comparability of emotion effects across these stimulus classes. The present study aimed to fill this gap by investigating emotion effects in response to words, pictures, and facial expressions using a blocked within-subject design. Furthermore, ratings of stimulus arousal and valence were collected from an independent sample of participants. Modulations of early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive complex (LPC) were visible for all stimulus domains, but showed clear differences, particularly in valence processing. While emotion effects were limited to positive stimuli for words, they were predominant for negative stimuli in pictures and facial expressions. These findings corroborate the notion of a positivity offset for words and a negativity bias for pictures and facial expressions, which was assumed to be caused by generally lower arousal levels of written language. Interestingly, however, these assumed differences were not confirmed by arousal ratings. Instead, words were rated as overall more positive than pictures and facial expressions. Taken together, the present results point toward systematic differences in the processing of written words and pictorial stimuli of emotional content, not only in terms of a valence bias evident in ERPs, but also concerning their emotional evaluation captured by ratings of stimulus valence and arousal. PMID:25339927
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Positive effects of television content on emotional and social behavior of children
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Popović-Ćitić Branislava
2012-01-01
Full Text Available For decades, the dominance of studies with various aspects of the negative impact of television content as their subject of interest is evident in the field of theoretical and empirical analysis of the impact of television content on the development of children and youth, while the consideration of positive impact was mostly beyond the systematic interest of scientists and researchers. Even though the general assessment is that viewing prosocial television content may result in positive changes in social and emotional behavior of young people, research studies committed to the positive effects of television content on emotional and social behavior of children are scarce and insufficiently perceive the character and nature of the impact of television on the development of emotions and prosocial behavior during childhood. Based on the critical review of the findings of a number of foreign empirical studies, this article summarizes the research evidence of the positive effects of television content on emotional empathy, altruism, learning about emotions, social interaction and acceptance of diversity, with presentation of conclusions about potential mediator factors that may interact with the influences of television portrayals.
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Huber, Annika; Barber, Anjuli L A; Faragó, Tamás; Müller, Corsin A; Huber, Ludwig
2017-07-01
Emotional contagion, a basic component of empathy defined as emotional state-matching between individuals, has previously been shown in dogs even upon solely hearing negative emotional sounds of humans or conspecifics. The current investigation further sheds light on this phenomenon by directly contrasting emotional sounds of both species (humans and dogs) as well as opposed valences (positive and negative) to gain insights into intra- and interspecies empathy as well as differences between positively and negatively valenced sounds. Different types of sounds were played back to measure the influence of three dimensions on the dogs' behavioural response. We found that dogs behaved differently after hearing non-emotional sounds of their environment compared to emotional sounds of humans and conspecifics ("Emotionality" dimension), but the subjects responded similarly to human and conspecific sounds ("Species" dimension). However, dogs expressed more freezing behaviour after conspecific sounds, independent of the valence. Comparing positively with negatively valenced sounds of both species ("Valence" dimension), we found that, independent of the species from which the sound originated, dogs expressed more behavioural indicators for arousal and negatively valenced states after hearing negative emotional sounds. This response pattern indicates emotional state-matching or emotional contagion for negative sounds of humans and conspecifics. It furthermore indicates that dogs recognized the different valences of the emotional sounds, which is a promising finding for future studies on empathy for positive emotional states in dogs.
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Gazzillo, Francesco; Lingiardi, Vittorio; Del Corno, Franco; Genova, Federica; Bornstein, Robert F; Gordon, Robert M; McWilliams, Nancy
2015-06-01
The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between level of personality organization and type of personality disorder as assessed with the categories in the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM; PDM Task Force, 2006) and the emotional responses of treating clinicians. We asked 148 Italian clinicians to assess 1 of their adult patients in treatment for personality disorders with the Psychodiagnostic Chart (PDC; Gordon & Bornstein, 2012) and the Personality Diagnostic Prototype (PDP; Gazzillo, Lingiardi, & Del Corno, 2012) and to complete the Therapist Response Questionnaire (TRQ; Betan, Heim, Zittel-Conklin, & Westen, 2005). The patients' level of overall personality pathology was positively associated with helpless and overwhelmed responses in clinicians and negatively associated with positive emotional responses. A parental and disengaged response was associated with the depressive, anxious, and dependent personality disorders; an exclusively parental response with the phobic personality disorder; and a parental and criticized response with narcissistic disorder. Dissociative disorder evoked a helpless and parental response in the treating clinicians whereas somatizing disorder elicited a disengaged reaction. An overwhelmed and disengaged response was associated with sadistic and masochistic personality disorders, with the latter also associated with a parental and hostile/criticized reaction; an exclusively overwhelmed response with psychopathic patients; and a helpless response with paranoid patients. Finally, patients with histrionic personality disorder evoked an overwhelmed and sexualized response in their clinicians whereas there was no specific emotional reaction associated with the schizoid and the obsessive-compulsive disorders. Clinical implications of these findings were discussed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
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Hemispheric Lateralization in Processing Emotional and Non-Emotional Kanji Words
NAGAE, Seiji
2013-01-01
The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of both hemispheres to the processing of positive, negative, and non-emotional Kanji words in normal individuals. Right-handed subjects were asked to read aloud the Kanji word presented in the visual half-field. Results showed that responses to positive and non-emotional words were more accurate in RVF than those in LVF, but no difference was found fornegative emotional words. Reaction time results indicated that processing of nega...
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Positive emotion communication: Fostering well-being at end of life.
Terrill, Alexandra L; Ellington, Lee; John, Kevin K; Latimer, Seth; Xu, Jiayun; Reblin, Maija; Clayton, Margaret F
2018-04-01
Little is known about positive emotion communication (PEC) in end-of-life care. This study aims to identify types and patterns of PEC among hospice nurses, caregivers, and patients. A coding system based on positive psychology theory was applied as a secondary analysis to audio recordings of hospice nurse home visits with cancer patients and family caregivers, collected as part of a prospective longitudinal study. Eighty recordings (4 visits from 20 triads) were coded for humor, connection, praise, positive focus, gratitude, taking joy/savoring, and perfunctory statements. Descriptive statistics revealed the greatest proportion of PEC was made by nurses. Humor was most frequently used across all speakers. Cluster analysis revealed four PEC visit types: Savor/Take Joy; Humor; Perfunctory; and Other-focused Expressions of Positive Emotions. Linear mixed effect regression was used to estimate the trajectory of PEC over time, but no significant change was found. We found that positive emotions are common in nurse, caregiver and patient communication at end-of-life and do not decline closer to death. This study is among the first to explore PEC at end-of-life, and offers a way to bring strengths-based approaches into end of life communication research. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Salivary cytokine response in the aftermath of stress: An emotion regulation perspective.
Newton, Tamara L; Fernandez-Botran, Rafael; Lyle, Keith B; Szabo, Yvette Z; Miller, James J; Warnecke, Ashlee J
2017-09-01
Elevated inflammation in the context of stress has been implicated in mental and physical health. Approaching this from an emotion regulation perspective, we tested whether the salivary cytokine response to stress is dampened by using distraction to minimize opportunity for poststressor rumination. Healthy young adults were randomized to an acute stressor: modified Trier Social Stress Test (TSST, Study 1) or angry memory retrieval (Study 2). Within each study, participants were randomized to poststressor condition-rest or distraction-at a 3:1 ratio. Saliva, collected before and 40 min after the end of each stressor, was assayed for proinflammatory cytokines (PICs): interleukin-1β (IL-1β), TNF-α, and IL-6. Both stressors increased all PICs, and both provoked negative emotion. At 40 min post-TSST, salivary PIC increases did not differ between distraction and rest, but correlated positively with emotional reactivity to stress. At 40 min after memory retrieval, IL-1β increases and intrusive rumination were lower during distraction than rest, but did not correlate with emotional reactivity. Trait rumination and interference control mechanisms, also measured, played little role in PIC increases. Overall, after some stressors, some salivary cytokine responses are lower during distraction than rest. The roles of specific emotions, emotional intensity, and poststressor timing of saliva collection in this finding require clarification. Furthermore, the possibility of two affective paths to inflammation in the context of stress-one sensitive to opportunities for early occurring emotion regulation (as reflected in emotional reactivity), and one sensitive to late-occurring emotion regulation (as reflected in distraction after stress)-deserves attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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Cservenka, Anita; Stroup, Madison L.; Etkin, Amit; Nagel, Bonnie J.
2015-01-01
While cognitive and emotional systems both undergo development during adolescence, few studies have explored top-down inhibitory control brain activity in the context of affective processing, critical to informing adolescent psychopathology. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain response during an Emotional Conflict (EmC) Task across 10–15-year-old youth. During the EmC Task, participants indicated the emotion of facial expressions, while disregarding emotion-congruent and incongruent words printed across the faces. We examined the relationships of age, sex, and gonadal hormones with brain activity on Incongruent vs. Congruent trials. Age was negatively associated with middle frontal gyrus activity, controlling for performance and movement confounds. Sex differences were present in occipital and parietal cortices, and were driven by activation in females, and deactivation in males to Congruent trials. Testosterone was negatively related with frontal and striatal brain response in males, and cerebellar and precuneus response in females. Estradiol was negatively related with fronto-cerebellar, cingulate, and precuneus brain activity in males, and positively related with occipital response in females. To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting the effects of age, sex, and sex steroids during an emotion-cognition task in adolescents. Further research is needed to examine longitudinal development of emotion-cognition interactions and deviations in psychiatric disorders in adolescence. PMID:26175008
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Creating a Positive Social-Emotional Climate in Your Elementary Physical Education Program
Gagnon, Amy G.
2016-01-01
Creating a positive social-emotional climate must be the backbone of a quality elementary physical education program. The need to belong, have friends, and feel emotionally safe are basic needs everyone has, but meeting these needs in the classroom can be challenging at times. Strategies regarding how to implement a positive social-emotional…
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Impact of emotion on consciousness: positive stimuli enhance conscious reportability.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Kristine Rømer Thomsen
2011-04-01
Full Text Available Emotion and reward have been proposed to be closely linked to conscious experience, but empirical data are lacking. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC plays a central role in the hedonic dimension of conscious experience; thus potentially a key region in interactions between emotion and consciousness. Here we tested the impact of emotion on conscious experience, and directly investigated the role of the ACC. We used a masked paradigm that measures conscious reportability in terms of subjective confidence and objective accuracy in identifying the briefly presented stimulus in a forced-choice test. By manipulating the emotional valence (positive, neutral, negative and the presentation time (16 ms, 32 ms, 80 ms we measured the impact of these variables on conscious and subliminal (i.e. below threshold processing. First, we tested normal participants using face and word stimuli. Results showed that participants were more confident and accurate when consciously seeing happy versus sad/neutral faces and words. When stimuli were presented subliminally, we found no effect of emotion. To investigate the neural basis of this impact of emotion, we recorded local field potentials (LFPs directly in the ACC in a chronic pain patient. Behavioural findings were replicated: the patient was more confident and accurate when (consciously seeing happy versus sad faces, while no effect was seen in subliminal trials. Mirroring behavioural findings, we found significant differences in the LFPs after around 500 ms (lasting 30 ms in conscious trials between happy and sad faces, while no effect was found in subliminal trials. We thus demonstrate a striking impact of emotion on conscious experience, with positive emotional stimuli enhancing conscious reportability. In line with previous studies, the data indicate a key role of the ACC, but goes beyond earlier work by providing the first direct evidence of interaction between emotion and conscious experience in the human
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Ivanete Schneider Hahn; Flavia Luciane Scherer; Kenny Basso; Marindia Brachak dos Santos
2016-01-01
Social media is becoming an important part of an organization's media strategy. This study examines the effects of trust and consumer emotional response to advertisements on brand evaluation in an online social media context. The study used a survey method, and the studied population consisted of 927 Brazilian social media users (Facebook subscribers). The results showed the following: (1) the emotional response to advertising on social media had a positive influence on brand evaluation; and ...
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Campos, Belinda; Shiota, Michelle N; Keltner, Dacher; Gonzaga, Gian C; Goetz, Jennifer L
2013-01-01
Understanding positive emotions' shared and differentiating features can yield valuable insight into the structure of positive emotion space and identify emotion states, or aspects of emotion states, that are most relevant for particular psychological processes and outcomes. We report two studies that examined core relational themes (Study 1) and expressive displays (Study 2) for eight positive emotion constructs--amusement, awe, contentment, gratitude, interest, joy, love, and pride. Across studies, all eight emotions shared one quality: high positive valence. Distinctive core relational theme and expressive display patterns were found for four emotions--amusement, awe, interest, and pride. Gratitude was associated with a distinct core relational theme but not an expressive display. Joy and love were each associated with a distinct expressive display but their core relational themes also characterised pride and gratitude, respectively. Contentment was associated with a distinct expressive display but not a core relational theme. The implications of this work for the study of positive emotion are discussed.
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Gomez-Baya, Diego; Mendoza, Ramon; Gaspar, Tania; Gomes, Paulo
2018-05-11
During middle adolescence, elevated stress and a greater presence of psychological disorders have been documented. The research has paid little attention to the regulation of positive affective states. Fredrickson's broaden-and-build theory suggests that cultivating positive emotions helps to build resources that boost well-being. The current research aimed to examine the longitudinal associations between responses to positive affect (emotion-focused positive rumination, self-focused positive rumination, and dampening) and psychological adjustment (self-esteem and life satisfaction) during middle adolescence. A longitudinal study with two waves separated by one year was conducted, assessing 977 adolescents (M = 13.81, SD = 0.79; 51.5% boys) with self-report measures. A cross-lagged panel analysis was performed by including within the same model the relationships between all of the variables in the two assessment points. The results indicated cross-lagged positive relationships of self-focused positive rumination with both self-esteem and life satisfaction, while dampening showed a negative cross-lagged relationship with self-esteem. Moreover, higher self-esteem predicted more emotion-focused positive rumination, and more dampening predicted lower life satisfaction. Thus, the use of adaptive responses to positive affect and a better psychological adjustment were found to be prospectively interrelated at the one-year follow-up during middle adolescence. The discussion argues for the need to implement programmes to promote more adaptive responses to positive affect to enhance psychological adjustment in the adolescent transition to adulthood. © 2018 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Hormonal contraception use alters stress responses and emotional memory.
Nielsen, Shawn E; Segal, Sabrina K; Worden, Ian V; Yim, Ilona S; Cahill, Larry
2013-02-01
Emotionally arousing material is typically better remembered than neutral material. Since norepinephrine and cortisol interact to modulate emotional memory, sex-related influences on stress responses may be related to sex differences in emotional memory. Two groups of healthy women - one naturally cycling (NC women, n=42) and one using hormonal contraceptives (HC women, n=36) - viewed emotionally arousing and neutral images. Immediately after, they were assigned to Cold Pressor Stress (CPS) or a control procedure. One week later, participants received a surprise free recall test. Saliva samples were collected and later assayed for salivary alpha-amylase (biomarker for norepinephrine) and cortisol. Compared to NC women, HC women exhibited significantly blunted stress hormone responses to the images and CPS. Recall of emotional images differed between HC and NC women depending on noradrenergic and cortisol responses. These findings may have important implications for understanding the neurobiology of emotional memory disorders, especially those that disproportionately affect women. Published by Elsevier B.V.
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Era, Vanessa; Candidi, Matteo; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria
2015-11-01
Emotions have a profound influence on aesthetic experiences. Studies using affective priming procedures demonstrate, for example, that inducing a conscious negative emotional state biases the perception of abstract stimuli towards the sublime (Eskine et al. Emotion 12:1071-1074, 2012. doi: 10.1037/a0027200). Moreover, subliminal happy facial expressions have a positive impact on the aesthetic evaluation of abstract art (Flexas et al. PLoS ONE 8:e80154, 2013). Little is known about how emotion influences aesthetic perception of non-abstract, representational stimuli, especially those that are particularly relevant for social behaviour, like human bodies. Here, we explore whether the subliminal presentation of emotionally charged visual primes modulates the explicit subjective aesthetic judgment of body images. Using a forward/backward masking procedure, we presented subliminally positive and negative, arousal-matched, emotional or neutral primes and measured their effect on the explicit evaluation of perceived beauty (high vs low) and emotion (positive vs negative) evoked by abstract and body images. We found that negative primes increased subjective aesthetic evaluations of target bodies or abstract images in comparison with positive primes. No influence of primes on the emotional dimension of the targets was found, thus ruling out an unspecific arousal effect and strengthening the link between emotional valence and aesthetic appreciation. More specifically, that subliminal negative primes increase beauty ratings compared to subliminal positive primes indicates a clear link between negative emotions and positive aesthetic evaluations and vice versa, suggesting a possible link between negative emotion and the experience of sublime in art. The study expands previous research by showing the effect of subliminal negative emotions on the subjective aesthetic evaluation not only of abstract but also of body images.
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Can conflict be energizing? a study of task conflict, positive emotions, and job satisfaction.
Todorova, Gergana; Bear, Julia B; Weingart, Laurie R
2014-05-01
Scholars have assumed that the presence of negative emotions during task conflict implies the absence of positive emotions. However, emotions researchers have shown that positive and negative emotions are not 2 ends of a bipolar continuum; rather, they represent 2 separate, orthogonal dimensions. Drawing on affective events theory, we develop and test hypotheses about the effects of task conflict on positive emotions and job satisfaction. To this end, we distinguish among the frequency, intensity, and information gained from task conflict. Using field data from 232 employees in a long-term health care organization, we find that more frequent mild task conflict expression engenders more information acquisition, but more frequent intense task conflict expression hinders it. Because of the information gains from mild task conflict expression, employees feel more active, energized, interested, and excited, and these positive active emotions increase job satisfaction. The information gained during task conflict, however, is not always energizing: It depends on the extent to which the behavioral context involves active learning and whether the conflict is cross-functional. We discuss theoretical implications for conflict, emotions, and job satisfaction in organizations. (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.
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Emotionally Intense Science Activities
King, Donna; Ritchie, Stephen; Sandhu, Maryam; Henderson, Senka
2015-01-01
Science activities that evoke positive emotional responses make a difference to students' emotional experience of science. In this study, we explored 8th Grade students' discrete emotions expressed during science activities in a unit on Energy. Multiple data sources including classroom videos, interviews and emotion diaries completed at the end of…
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Ability to maintain internal arousal and motivation modulates brain responses to emotions.
Sterpenich, Virginie; Schwartz, Sophie; Maquet, Pierre; Desseilles, Martin
2014-01-01
Persistence (PS) is defined as the ability to generate and maintain arousal and motivation internally in the absence of immediate external reward. Low PS individuals tend to become discouraged when expectations are not rapidly fulfilled. The goal of this study was to investigate whether individual differences in PS influence the recruitment of brain regions involved in emotional processing and regulation. In a functional MRI study, 35 subjects judged the emotional intensity of displayed pictures. When processing negative pictures, low PS (vs. high PS) subjects showed higher amygdala and right orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) activity but lower left OFC activity. This dissociation in OFC activity suggests greater prefrontal cortical asymmetry for approach/avoidance motivation, suggesting an avoidance response to aversive stimuli in low PS. For positive or neutral stimuli, low PS subjects showed lower activity in the amygdala, striatum, and hippocampus. These results suggest that low PS may involve an imbalance in processing distinct emotional inputs, with greater reactivity to aversive information in regions involved in avoidance behaviour (amygdala, OFC) and dampened response to positive and neutral stimuli across circuits subserving motivated behaviour (striatum, hippocampus, amygdala). Low PS affective style was associated with depression vulnerability. These findings in non-depressed subjects point to a neural mechanism whereby some individuals are more likely to show systematic negative emotional biases, as frequently observed in depression. The assessment of these individual differences, including those that may cause vulnerability to depressive disorders, would therefore constitute a promising approach to risk assessment for depression.
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Bonanno, George A; Colak, Deniz M; Keltner, Dacher; Shiota, Michelle N; Papa, Anthony; Noll, Jennie G; Putnam, Frank W; Trickett, Penelope K
2007-11-01
Positive emotions promote adjustment to aversive life events. However, evolutionary theory and empirical research on trauma disclosure suggest that in the context of stigmatized events, expressing positive emotions might incur social costs. To test this thesis, the authors coded genuine (Duchenne) smiling and laughter and also non-Duchenne smiling from videotapes of late-adolescent and young adult women, approximately half with documented histories of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), as they described the most distressing event of their lives. Consistent with previous studies, genuine positive emotional expression was generally associated with better social adjustment two years later. However, as anticipated, CSA survivors who expressed positive emotion in the context of describing a past CSA experience had poorer long-term social adjustment, whereas CSA survivors who expressed positive emotion while describing a nonabuse experience had improved social adjustment. These findings suggest that the benefits of positive emotional expression may often be context specific.
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Dys, Sebastian P; Malti, Tina
2016-12-01
This study examined children's automatic, spontaneous emotional reactions to everyday moral transgressions and their relations with self-reported emotions, which are more complex and infused with controlled cognition. We presented children (N=242 4-, 8-, and 12-year-olds) with six everyday moral transgression scenarios in an experimental setting, and both their spontaneous facial emotional reactions and self-reported emotions in the role of the transgressor were recorded. We found that across age self-reported guilt was positively associated with spontaneous fear, and self-reported anger was positively related to spontaneous sadness. In addition, we found a developmental increase in spontaneous sadness and decrease in spontaneous happiness. These results support the importance of automatic and controlled processes in evoking children's emotional responses to everyday moral transgressions. We conclude by providing potential explanations for how automatic and controlled processes function in children's everyday moral experiences and how these processes may change with age. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Caillaud, Sabine; Bonnot, Virginie; Ratiu, Eugenia; Krauth-Gruber, Silvia
2016-06-01
This study explores the way groups cope with collective responsibility for ecological problems. The social representations approach was adopted, and the collective symbolic coping model was used as a frame of analysis, integrating collective emotions to enhance the understanding of coping processes. The original feature of this study is that the analysis is at group level. Seven focus groups were conducted with French students. An original use of focus groups was proposed: Discussions were structured to induce feelings of collective responsibility and enable observation of how groups cope with such feelings at various levels (social knowledge; social identities; group dynamics). Two analyses were conducted: Qualitative analysis of participants' use of various kinds of knowledge, social categories and the group dynamics, and lexicometric analysis to reveal how emotions varied during the different discussion phases. Results showed that groups' emotional states moved from negative to positive: They used specific social categories and resorted to shared stereotypes to cope with collective responsibility and maintain the integrity of their worldview. Only then did debate become possible again; it was anchored in the nature-culture dichotomy such that groups switched from group-based to system-based emotions. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.
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Suslow, Thomas; Kugel, Harald; Rufer, Michael; Redlich, Ronny; Dohm, Katharina; Grotegerd, Dominik; Zaremba, Dario; Dannlowski, Udo
2016-02-04
Alexithymia is a clinically relevant personality trait related to difficulties in recognizing and describing emotions. Previous studies examining the neural correlates of alexithymia have shown mainly decreased response of several brain areas during emotion processing in healthy samples and patients suffering from autism or post-traumatic stress disorder. In the present study, we examined the effect of alexithymia on automatic brain reactivity to negative and positive facial expressions in clinical depression. Brain activation in response to sad, happy, neutral, and no facial expression (presented for 33 ms and masked by neutral faces) was measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3 T in 26 alexithymic and 26 non-alexithymic patients with major depression. Alexithymic patients manifested less activation in response to masked sad and happy (compared to neutral) faces in right frontal regions and right caudate nuclei than non-alexithymic patients. Our neuroimaging study provides evidence that the personality trait alexithymia has a modulating effect on automatic emotion processing in clinical depression. Our findings support the idea that alexithymia could be associated with functional deficits of the right hemisphere. Future research on the neural substrates of emotion processing in depression should assess and control alexithymia in their analyses.
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Jacob, Gitta A; Ower, Nicole; Buchholz, Angela
2013-03-01
Experiential avoidance (EA) is an important factor in maintaining different forms of psychopathology including borderline personality pathology (BPD). So far little is known about the functions of EA, BPD features and general psychopathology for positive emotions. In this study we investigated three different anticipated pathways of their influence on positive emotions. A total of 334 subjects varying in general psychopathology &/or BPD features completed an online survey including self-ratings of BPD features, psychopathology, negative and positive emotions, and EA. Measures of positive emotions included both a general self-rating (PANAS) and emotional changes induced by two positive movie clips. Data were analyzed by means of path analysis. In comparing the three path models, one model was found clearly superior: In this model, EA acts as a mediator of the influence of psychopathology, BPD features, and negative emotions in the prediction of both measures of positive emotions. EA plays a central role in maintaining lack of positive emotions. Therapeutic implications and study limitations are discussed. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Lin, Huiyan; Liang, Jiafeng; Jin, Hua; Zhao, Dongmei
2018-07-01
Previous studies have investigated whether uncertainty influences neural responses to emotional events. The findings of such studies, particularly with respect to event-related potentials (ERPs), have been controversial due to several factors, such as the stimuli that serve as cues and the emotional content of the events. However, it is still unknown whether the effects of uncertainty on ERP responses to emotional events are influenced by anticipation patterns (e.g., explicit or implicit anticipation). To address this issue, participants in the present study were presented with anticipatory cues and then emotional (negative and neutral) pictures. The cues either did or did not signify the emotional content of the upcoming picture. In the inter-stimulus intervals between cues and pictures, participants were asked to estimate the expected probability of the occurrence of a specific emotional category of the subsequent picture based on a scale in the explicit anticipation condition, while in the implicit condition, participants were asked to indicate, using a number on a scale, which color was different from the others. The results revealed that in the explicit condition, uncertainty increased late positive potential (LPP) responses, particularly for negative pictures, whereas LPP responses were larger for certain negative pictures than for uncertain negative pictures in the implicit condition. The findings in the present study suggest that the anticipation pattern influences the effects of uncertainty when evaluation of negative events. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Harker, L; Keltner, D
2001-01-01
To test hypotheses about positive emotion, the authors examined the relationship of positive emotional expression in women's college pictures to personality, observer ratings, and life outcomes. Consistent with the notion that positive emotions help build personal resources, positive emotional expression correlated with the self-reported personality traits of affiliation, competence, and low negative emotionality across adulthood and predicted changes in competence and negative emotionality. Observers rated women displaying more positive emotion more favorably on several personality dimensions and expected interactions with them to be more rewarding; thus, demonstrating the beneficial social consequences of positive emotions. Finally, positive emotional expression predicted favorable outcomes in marriage and personal well-being up to 30 years later. Controlling for physical attractiveness and social desirability had little impact on these findings.
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The effect of teacher’s positive personal resource of features of students’ emotional states
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
R.A. Trulyaev
2013-10-01
Full Text Available We reveal the psychological mechanisms of impact of the formation level of the teacher’s positive values on the academic performance of students, one of the key components of which are the emotional states of students. We describe a study aimed to test the hypothesis that the positive values and standing behind them “strong” character traits of the teacher determine the emotional states specific of his students during the lesson. The study involved 241 teachers of school subjects and 498 pupils of VI, VIII, X, XI grades of several schools in Krivoy Rog. The study demonstrated that a high level of expression of teacher’s positive values, reflected in his professional qualities, provide the appearance of positive emotional states of students. We also revealed patterns of influence of teacher’s positive personal resource on the intensity of the emotional states experienced by students during lessons.
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Children's Moral Emotion Attribution in the Happy Victimizer Task: The Role of Response Format.
Gummerum, Michaela; López-Pérez, Belén; Ambrona, Tamara; Rodríguez-Cano, Sonia; Dellaria, Giulia; Smith, Gary; Wilson, Ellie
2016-01-01
Previous research in the happy victimizer tradition indicated that preschool and early elementary school children attribute positive emotions to the violator of a moral norm, whereas older children attribute negative (moral) emotions. Cognitive and motivational processes have been suggested to underlie this developmental shift. The current research investigated whether making the happy victimizer task less cognitively demanding by providing children with alternative response formats would increase their attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation. In Study 1, 93 British children aged 4-7 years old responded to the happy victimizer questions either in a normal condition (where they spontaneously pointed with a finger), a wait condition (where they had to wait before giving their answers), or an arrow condition (where they had to point with a paper arrow). In Study 2, 40 Spanish children aged 4 years old responded to the happy victimizer task either in a normal or a wait condition. In both studies, participants' attribution of moral emotions and moral motivation was significantly higher in the conditions with alternative response formats (wait, arrow) than in the normal condition. The role of cognitive abilities for emotion attribution in the happy victimizer task is discussed.
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Emotion-Bracelet: A Web Service for Expressing Emotions through an Electronic Interface.
Martinez, Alicia; Estrada, Hugo; Molina, Alejandra; Mejia, Manuel; Perez, Joaquin
2016-11-24
The mechanisms to communicate emotions have dramatically changed in the last 10 years with social networks, where users massively communicate their emotional states by using the Internet. However, people with socialization problems have difficulty expressing their emotions verbally or interpreting the environment and providing an appropriate emotional response. In this paper, a novel solution called the Emotion-Bracelet is presented that combines a hardware device and a software system. The proposed approach identifies the polarity and emotional intensity of texts published on a social network site by performing real-time processing using a web service. It also shows emotions with a LED matrix using five emoticons that represent positive, very positive, negative, very negative, and neutral states. The Emotion-Bracelet is designed to help people express their emotions in a non-intrusive way, thereby expanding the social aspect of human emotions.
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Gallant, Sara N; Yang, Lixia
2014-01-01
Consistent with their emphasis on emotional goals, older adults often exhibit a positivity bias in attention and memory relative to their young counterparts (i.e., a positivity effect). The current study sought to determine how this age-related positivity effect would impact intentional forgetting of emotional words, a process critical to efficient operation of memory. Using an item-based directed forgetting task, 36 young and 36 older adults studied a series of arousal-equivalent words that varied in valence (i.e., positive, negative, and neutral). Each word was followed by a cue to either remember or forget the word. A subsequent "tagging" recognition task required classification of items as to-be-remembered (TBR), to-be-forgotten (TBF), or new as a measure of directed forgetting and source attribution in participants' memory. Neither young nor older adults' intentional forgetting was affected by the valence of words. A goal-consistent valence effect did, however, emerge in older adults' source attribution performance. Specifically, older adults assigned more TBR-cues to positive words and more TBF-cues to negative words. Results are discussed in light of existing literature on emotion and directed forgetting as well as the socioemotional selectivity theory underlying the age-related positivity effect.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sara N. Gallant
2014-11-01
Full Text Available Consistent with their emphasis on emotional goals, older adults often exhibit a positivity bias in attention and memory relative to their young counterparts (i.e., a positivity effect. The current study sought to determine how this age-related positivity effect would impact intentional forgetting of emotional words, a process critical to efficient operation of memory. Using an item-based directed forgetting task, 36 young and 36 older adults studied a series of arousal-equivalent words that varied in valence (i.e., positive, negative, and neutral. Each word was followed by a cue to either remember or forget the word. A subsequent tagging recognition task required classification of items as to-be-remembered (TBR, to-be-forgotten (TBF, or new as a measure of directed forgetting and source attribution in participants’ memory. Valence did not affect intentional forgetting in both young and older age groups. A goal-consistent valence effect did, however, emerge in older adults’ source attribution performance. Specifically, older adults assigned more TBR-cues to positive words and more TBF-cues to negative words. Results are discussed in light of existing literature on emotion and directed forgetting as well as the socioemotional selectivity theory underlying the age-related positivity effect.
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Development of the PROMIS positive emotional and sensory expectancies of smoking item banks.
Tucker, Joan S; Shadel, William G; Edelen, Maria Orlando; Stucky, Brian D; Li, Zhen; Hansen, Mark; Cai, Li
2014-09-01
The positive emotional and sensory expectancies of cigarette smoking include improved cognitive abilities, positive affective states, and pleasurable sensorimotor sensations. This paper describes development of Positive Emotional and Sensory Expectancies of Smoking item banks that will serve to standardize the assessment of this construct among daily and nondaily cigarette smokers. Data came from daily (N = 4,201) and nondaily (N =1,183) smokers who completed an online survey. To identify a unidimensional set of items, we conducted item factor analyses, item response theory analyses, and differential item functioning analyses. Additionally, we evaluated the performance of fixed-item short forms (SFs) and computer adaptive tests (CATs) to efficiently assess the construct. Eighteen items were included in the item banks (15 common across daily and nondaily smokers, 1 unique to daily, 2 unique to nondaily). The item banks are strongly unidimensional, highly reliable (reliability = 0.95 for both), and perform similarly across gender, age, and race/ethnicity groups. A SF common to daily and nondaily smokers consists of 6 items (reliability = 0.86). Results from simulated CATs indicated that, on average, less than 8 items are needed to assess the construct with adequate precision using the item banks. These analyses identified a new set of items that can assess the positive emotional and sensory expectancies of smoking in a reliable and standardized manner. Considerable efficiency in assessing this construct can be achieved by using the item bank SF, employing computer adaptive tests, or selecting subsets of items tailored to specific research or clinical purposes. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
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Behavioral neuroscience of emotion in aging.
Kaszniak, Alfred W; Menchola, Marisa
2012-01-01
Recent research on emotion and aging has revealed a stability of emotional experience from adulthood to older age, despite aging-related decrements in the perception and categorization of emotionally relevant stimuli. Research also shows that emotional expression remains intact with aging. In contrast, other studies provide evidence for an age-related decrease in autonomic nervous system physiological arousal, particularly in response to emotionally negative stimuli, and for shifts in central nervous system physiologic response to emotional stimuli, with increased prefrontal cortex activation and decreased amygdala activation in aging. Research on attention and memory for emotional information supports a decreased processing of negative emotional stimuli (i.e., a decrease in the negativity effect seen in younger adults), and a relative increase in the processing of emotionally positive stimuli (positivity effect). These physiological response and attentional/memory preference differences across increasingly older groups have been interpreted, within socioemotional selectivity theory, as reflecting greater motivation for emotion regulation with aging. According to this theory, as persons age, their perceived future time horizon shrinks, and a greater value is placed upon cultivating close, familiar, and meaningful relationships and other situations that give rise to positive emotional experience, and avoiding, or shifting attention from, those people and situations that are likely to elicit negative emotion. Even though there are central nervous system structural changes in emotion-relevant brain regions with aging, this shift in socioemotional selectivity, and perhaps the decreased autonomic nervous system physiological arousal of emotion with aging, facilitate enhanced emotion regulation with aging.
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Tartar, Jaime L; McIntosh, Roger C; Rosselli, Monica; Widmayer, Susan M; Nash, Allan J
2014-06-01
Although HIV is associated with decreased emotional and cognitive functioning, the mechanisms through which affective changes can alter cognitive processes in HIV-infected individuals are unknown. We aimed to clarify this question through testing the extent to which emotionally negative stimuli prime attention to a subsequent infrequently occurring auditory tone in HIV+ compared to HIV- females. Attention to emotional compared to non-emotional pictures was measured via the LPP ERP. Subsequent attention was indexed through the N1 and late processing negativity ERP. We also assessed mood and cognitive functioning in both groups. In HIV- females, emotionally negative pictures, compared to neutral pictures, resulted in an enhanced LPP to the pictures and an enhanced N1 to subsequent tones. The HIV+ group did not show a difference in the LPP measure between picture categories, and accordingly, did not show a priming effect to the subsequent infrequent tones. The ERP findings, combined with neuropsychological deficits, suggest that HIV+ females show impairments in attention to emotionally-laden stimuli and that this impairment might be related to a loss of affective priming. This study is the first to provide physiological evidence that the LPP, a measure of attention to emotionally-charged visual stimuli, is reduced in HIV-infected individuals. These results set the stage for future work aimed at localizing brain activation to emotional stimuli in HIV+ individuals. Copyright © 2013 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Emotion response coherence: A dual-process perspective
Evers, C.; Hopp, H.; Gross, J.J.; Fischer, A.H.; Manstead, A.S.R.; Mauss, I.B.
2014-01-01
Emotions are widely thought to involve coordinated responses across multiple responses (e.g., experiential, behavioral, and physiological). However, empirical support for this general "response coherence" postulate is inconsistent. The present research takes a dual-process perspective, suggesting
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Emotion response coherence : a dual-process perspective
Evers, Catharine; Hopp, Henrik; Gross, James J; Fischer, Agneta H; Manstead, Antony S R; Mauss, Iris B
Emotions are widely thought to involve coordinated responses across multiple responses (e.g., experiential, behavioral, and physiological). However, empirical support for this general "response coherence" postulate is inconsistent. The present research takes a dual-process perspective, suggesting
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Physiological and Emotional Responses of Disabled Children to Therapeutic Clowns: A Pilot Study
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Shauna Kingsnorth
2011-01-01
Full Text Available This pilot study examined the effects of Therapeutic Clowning on inpatients in a pediatric rehabilitation hospital. Ten disabled children with varied physical and verbal expressive abilities participated in all or portions of the data collection protocol. Employing a mixed-method, single-subject ABAB study design, measures of physiological arousal, emotion and behavior were obtained from eight children under two conditions—television exposure and therapeutic clown interventions. Four peripheral autonomic nervous system (ANS signals were recorded as measures of physiological arousal; these signals were analyzed with respect to measures of emotion (verbal self reports of mood and behavior (facial expressions and vocalizations. Semistructured interviews were completed with verbally expressive children (n = 7 and nurses of participating children (n = 13. Significant differences among children were found in response to the clown intervention relative to television exposure. Physiologically, changes in ANS signals occurred either more frequently or in different patterns. Emotionally, children's (self and nurses' (observed reports of mood were elevated positively. Behaviorally, children exhibited more positive and fewer negative facial expressions and vocalizations of emotion during the clown intervention. Content and themes extracted from the interviews corroborated these findings. The results suggest that this popular psychosocial intervention has a direct and positive impact on hospitalized children. This pilot study contributes to the current understanding of the importance of alternative approaches in promoting well-being within healthcare settings.
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Don't grin when you win: the social costs of positive emotion expression in performance situations.
Kalokerinos, Elise K; Greenaway, Katharine H; Pedder, David J; Margetts, Elise A
2014-02-01
People who express positive emotion usually have better social outcomes than people who do not, and suppressing the expression of emotions can have interpersonal costs. Nevertheless, social convention suggests that there are situations in which people should suppress the expression of positive emotions, such as when trying to appear humble in victory. The present research tested whether there are interpersonal costs to expressing positive emotions when winning. In Experiment 1, inexpressive winners were evaluated more positively and rated as lower in hubristic-but not authentic-pride compared with expressive winners. Experiment 2 confirmed that inexpressive winners were perceived as using expressive suppression to downregulate their positive emotion expression. Experiment 3 replicated the findings of Experiment 1, and also found that people were more interested in forming a friendship with inexpressive winners than expressive winners. The effects were mediated by the perception that the inexpressive winner tried to protect the loser's feelings. This research is the first to identify social costs of expressing positive emotion, and highlights the importance of understanding the situational context when determining optimal emotion regulation strategies. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.
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Psoriasis lesions are associated with specific types of emotions. Emotional profile in psoriasis.
Martín-Brufau, Ramón; Romero-Brufau, Santiago; Martín-Gorgojo, Alejandro; Brufau Redondo, Carmen; Corbalan, Javier; Ulnik, Jorge
2015-01-01
At present there is still controversy about the relationship between emotional stress and psoriasis lesions. Most of the published literature does not include the broad spectrum of emotional response. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between skin lesions and emotional state in a large sample of patients with psoriasis. 823 psoriasis patients were recruited (mean age 45.9 years, 55.7% female) and answered two online questionnaires: lesion severity and current extension were evaluated using a self-administered psoriasis severity index (SAPASI); emotional state was assessed using the positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS). Second order factors were calculated and correlated with the SAPASI. We found positive associations between the extent and severity of skin lesions and the negative and submissive emotions, a negative correlation with dominance emotions and no association with positive emotions. Our data supports the relationship between emotions and skin lesions. It also allows for discrimination of the associations between psoriasis lesions and the specific type of emotions.
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Van Schuerbeek, Peter; Baeken, Chris; Luypaert, Robert; De Raedt, Rudi; De Mey, Johan
2014-05-07
The affective personality trait 'harm avoidance' (HA) from Cloninger's psychobiological personality model determines how an individual deals with emotional stimuli. Emotional stimuli are processed by a neural network that include the left and right amygdalae as important key nodes. Explicit, implicit and passive processing of affective stimuli are known to activate the amygdalae differently reflecting differences in attention, level of detailed analysis of the stimuli and the cognitive control needed to perform the required task. Previous studies revealed that implicit processing or passive viewing of affective stimuli, induce a left amygdala response that correlates with HA. In this new study we have tried to extend these findings to the situation in which the subjects were required to explicitly process emotional stimuli. A group of healthy female participants was asked to rate the valence of positive and negative stimuli while undergoing fMRI. Afterwards the neural responses of the participants to the positive and to the negative stimuli were separately correlated to their HA scores and compared between the low and high HA participants. Both analyses revealed increased neural activity in the left laterobasal (LB) amygdala of the high HA participants while they were rating the positive and the negative stimuli. Our results indicate that the left amygdala response to explicit processing of affective stimuli does correlate with HA.
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Reichenberger, Julia; Wiggert, Nicole; Agroskin, Dmitrij; Wilhelm, Frank H; Blechert, Jens
2017-03-01
Depression is characterized by depressed mood and loss of interest or pleasure. Resulting alterations in emotional reactivity have been explained by three different accounts: 'positive attenuation', 'negative potentiation', and 'emotion context insensitivity'. Despite the importance of depression-related emotional alteration in social interactions, research with naturalistic interpersonal stimuli is scarce and underlying mechanisms largely unknown. Hence, the present study examined subjective emotional reactivity to brief negative, positive, and neutral social-evaluative videos as a function of depressive symptoms in an adult sample (N = 84). Fear of positive evaluation (FPE) and fear of negative evaluation (FNE), often conceptualized as cognitive components of social anxiety, were examined as possible mediators. Results revealed that more depression symptoms were related to diminished pleasantness responses to both positive and neutral videos. When considering all three video conditions simultaneously, only responses to positive videos remained significantly related to depression scores, supporting the 'positive attenuation' account. Moreover, FPE was found to uniquely mediate the relationship between depressive symptoms and pleasantness responses to positive videos. Results indicate that emotional reactivity to positive interpersonal stimuli is relevant for theoretical and clinical considerations of depression. This research underlines the importance of FPE not only for understanding social anxiety but also depression. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Heyn, Lena; Ellington, Lee; Eide, Hilde
2017-11-01
We don´t know how positive emotions are being expressed by patients and health care providers in consultations. The aim of this study is to identify positive emotions expressed by older people and nurse assistants to discuss the function of these in the visits. This paper presents secondary analysis of consultations in the COMHOME project. In this pilot study, six transcribed consultations between nurse assistants and older people in home health care were analysed using a coding system for positive emotions with seven categories capturing both content and emotional intensity of positive affect. We found 114 expressions of positive emotions, 63% from nurse assistants and 37% from patients. Patients mostly expressed gratitude, indicating that patients are grateful for being helped. Nurse assistants mostly expressed Praise or Support, indicating that they gave their patients positive affirmation. The praise and support given by nurse assistants to older people in home health care seemed effective in fostering relationships and maintaining patient resilience. Thus, we claim that emotional talk in communication also should include positive emotions. Teaching health care providers about the importance of expressions of positive emotions should be integrated in communication skills training. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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de Zambotti, Massimiliano; Pizza, Fabio; Covassin, Naima; Vandi, Stefano; Cellini, Nicola; Stegagno, Luciano; Plazzi, Giuseppe
2014-08-01
Narcolepsy with cataplexy is a complex sleep disorder that affects the modulation of emotions: cataplexy, the key symptom of narcolepsy, is indeed strongly linked with emotions that usually trigger the episodes. Our study aimed to investigate haemodynamic and behavioural responses during emotional stimulation in narco-cataplexy. Twelve adult drug-naive narcoleptic patients (five males; age: 33.3 ± 9.4 years) and 12 healthy controls (five males; age: 30.9 ± 9.5 years) were exposed to emotional stimuli (pleasant, unpleasant and neutral pictures). Heart rate, arterial blood pressure and mean cerebral blood flow velocity of the middle cerebral arteries were continuously recorded using photoplethysmography and Doppler ultrasound. Ratings of valence and arousal and coping strategies were scored by the Self-Assessment Manikin and by questionnaires, respectively. Narcoleptic patients' haemodynamic responses to pictures overlapped with the data obtained from controls: decrease of heart rate and increase of mean cerebral blood flow velocity regardless of pictures' content, increase of systolic blood pressure during the pleasant condition, and relative reduction of heart rate during pleasant and unpleasant conditions. However, when compared with controls, narcoleptic patients reported lower arousal scores during the pleasant and neutral stimulation, and lower valence scores during the pleasant condition, respectively, and also a lower score at the 'focus on and venting of emotions' dimensions of coping. Our results suggested that adult narcoleptic patients, compared with healthy controls, inhibited their emotion-expressive behaviour to emotional stimulation, and that may be related to the development of adaptive cognitive strategies to face emotions avoiding cataplexy. © 2014 European Sleep Research Society.
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Chimpanzees and bonobos exhibit emotional responses to decision outcomes.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alexandra G Rosati
Full Text Available The interface between cognition, emotion, and motivation is thought to be of central importance in understanding complex cognitive functions such as decision-making and executive control in humans. Although nonhuman apes have complex repertoires of emotional expression, little is known about the role of affective processes in ape decision-making. To illuminate the evolutionary origins of human-like patterns of choice, we investigated decision-making in humans' closest phylogenetic relatives, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes and bonobos (Pan paniscus. In two studies, we examined these species' temporal and risk preferences, and assessed whether apes show emotional and motivational responses in decision-making contexts. We find that (1 chimpanzees are more patient and more risk-prone than are bonobos, (2 both species exhibit affective and motivational responses following the outcomes of their decisions, and (3 some emotional and motivational responses map onto species-level and individual-differences in decision-making. These results indicate that apes do exhibit emotional responses to decision-making, like humans. We explore the hypothesis that affective and motivational biases may underlie the psychological mechanisms supporting value-based preferences in these species.
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Yang, Hongfei; Li, Juan
2016-01-01
The present study examined the associations between linking, response to positive affect, and psychological functioning in Chinese college students. The results of conducting multiple mediation analyses indicated that emotion- and self-focused positive rumination mediated the relationship between linking and psychological functioning, whereas…
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Khosravani, Vahid; Sharifi Bastan, Farangis; Ghorbani, Fatemeh; Kamali, Zoleikha
2017-08-01
The aim of this study was to assess the mediating effects of difficulties in emotion regulation (DER) on the relations of negative and positive affects to craving in alcoholic patients. 205 treatment-seeking alcoholic outpatients were included. DER, positive and negative affects as well as craving were evaluated by the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), the Positive/Negative Affect Scales, and the Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (OCDS) respectively. Clinical factors including depression and severity of alcohol dependence were investigated by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) respectively. Results revealed that both increased negative affect and decreased positive affect indirectly influenced craving through limited access to emotion regulation strategies. It was concluded that limited access to emotion regulation strategies may be important in predicting craving for alcoholics who experience both increased negative affect and decreased positive affect. This suggests that treatment and prevention efforts focused on increasing positive affect, decreasing negative affect and teaching effective regulation strategies may be critical in reducing craving in alcoholic patients. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Modeling listeners' emotional response to music.
Eerola, Tuomas
2012-10-01
An overview of the computational prediction of emotional responses to music is presented. Communication of emotions by music has received a great deal of attention during the last years and a large number of empirical studies have described the role of individual features (tempo, mode, articulation, timbre) in predicting the emotions suggested or invoked by the music. However, unlike the present work, relatively few studies have attempted to model continua of expressed emotions using a variety of musical features from audio-based representations in a correlation design. The construction of the computational model is divided into four separate phases, with a different focus for evaluation. These phases include the theoretical selection of relevant features, empirical assessment of feature validity, actual feature selection, and overall evaluation of the model. Existing research on music and emotions and extraction of musical features is reviewed in terms of these criteria. Examples drawn from recent studies of emotions within the context of film soundtracks are used to demonstrate each phase in the construction of the model. These models are able to explain the dominant part of the listeners' self-reports of the emotions expressed by music and the models show potential to generalize over different genres within Western music. Possible applications of the computational models of emotions are discussed. Copyright © 2012 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.
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Premkumar, Preethi; Fannon, Dominic; Sapara, Adegboyega; Peters, Emmanuelle R; Anilkumar, Anantha P; Simmons, Andrew; Kuipers, Elizabeth; Kumari, Veena
2015-03-30
Grey matter volume (GMV) in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) may relate to better response to cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis (CBTp) because of the region׳s role in emotional decision-making and cognitive flexibility. This study aimed to determine the relation between pre-therapy OFC GMV or asymmetry, emotional decision-making and CBTp responsiveness. Emotional decision-making was measured by the Iowa Gambling task (IGT). Thirty patients received CBTp+standard care (CBTp+SC; 25 completers) for 6-8 months. All patients (before receiving CBTp) and 25 healthy participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging. Patients׳ symptoms were assessed before and after therapy. Pre-therapy OFC GMV was measured using a region-of-interest approach, and IGT performance was measured as overall learning, attention to reward, memory for past outcomes and choice consistency. Both these measures, were comparable between patient and healthy groups. In the CBTp+SC group, greater OFC GMV correlated with positive symptom improvement, specifically hallucinations and persecution. Greater rightward OFC asymmetry correlated with improvement in several negative and general psychopathology symptoms. Greater left OFC GMV was associated with lower IGT attention to reward. The findings suggest that greater OFC volume and rightward asymmetry, which maintain the OFC׳s function in emotional decision-making and cognitive flexibility, are beneficial for CBTp responsiveness. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.
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Emotion-Bracelet: A Web Service for Expressing Emotions through an Electronic Interface
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alicia Martinez
2016-11-01
Full Text Available The mechanisms to communicate emotions have dramatically changed in the last 10 years with social networks, where users massively communicate their emotional states by using the Internet. However, people with socialization problems have difficulty expressing their emotions verbally or interpreting the environment and providing an appropriate emotional response. In this paper, a novel solution called the Emotion-Bracelet is presented that combines a hardware device and a software system. The proposed approach identifies the polarity and emotional intensity of texts published on a social network site by performing real-time processing using a web service. It also shows emotions with a LED matrix using five emoticons that represent positive, very positive, negative, very negative, and neutral states. The Emotion-Bracelet is designed to help people express their emotions in a non-intrusive way, thereby expanding the social aspect of human emotions.
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“Monstrous Appetites and Positive Emotions in True Blood, The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead.”
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Schubart, Rikke
2013-01-01
Looking at television series True Blood (2008–), The Vampire Diaries (2009–), and The Walking Dead (2010–) the article analyzes positive emotions in horror: the sexual emotions, trust, and hope. First part substitutes the positive-negative dichotomy of emotions with seeing emotions as coming......, positive and negative, from a functional and evolutionary perspective. Comparing horror to play-fighting and fiction to the pretend of play, the article suggests four reasons why horror is attractive: we learn to feel emotions (sensation), to react to emotions (evaluation), control our emotions (action...... tendency in the here-and-now), and to experiment (action tendency and planning for what-comes-next)....
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Improved emotional conflict control triggered by the processing priority of negative emotion.
Yang, Qian; Wang, Xiangpeng; Yin, Shouhang; Zhao, Xiaoyue; Tan, Jinfeng; Chen, Antao
2016-04-18
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for emotional conflict resolution, and this control mechanism is affected by the emotional valence of distracting stimuli. In the present study, we investigated effects of negative and positive stimuli on emotional conflict control using a face-word Stroop task in combination with functional brain imaging. Emotional conflict was absent in the negative face context, in accordance with the null activation observed in areas regarding emotional face processing (fusiform face area, middle temporal/occipital gyrus). Importantly, these visual areas negatively coupled with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, the significant emotional conflict was observed in the positive face context, this effect was accompanied by activation in areas associated with emotional face processing, and the default mode network (DMN), here, DLPFC mainly negatively coupled with DMN, rather than visual areas. These results suggested that the conflict control mechanism exerted differently between negative faces and positive faces, it implemented more efficiently in the negative face condition, whereas it is more devoted to inhibiting internal interference in the positive face condition. This study thus provides a plausible mechanism of emotional conflict resolution that the rapid pathway for negative emotion processing efficiently triggers control mechanisms to preventively resolve emotional conflict.
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Situational Variability of Means of Expression of Positive Emotions in Modern English
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alina K. Kisil
2017-06-01
Full Text Available The article investigates situational variability of means of expression of positive emotions in Modern English. This problem is topical for linguistics of emotions, pragma- and sociolinguistics. The author analyzes verbal, paraverbal and nonverbal means of expressing positive emotions of joy and surprise in three communicative registers: official, neutral and unofficial. These registers are singled out on the basis of situational context and participants of the situation. The investigation gave the author the opportunity to come to the conclusion that in the official register emotions are controlled and very often are subject to strategic purposes. They implement the upgrading strategy the aim of which is to give a high evaluation of the addressee and of everything what is happening. It stipulates the use of corresponding expressive words and word combinations, exclamatory sentences, repetitions and rhetorical questions. Paraverbal means include only light laughter and nonverbal – a smile, the expression of the eyes, nods and tangled breath. The range of the means in question is wider in the neutral register where the speaker can use such verbal means as interjections with long sounds, expletives, pauses, descriptions of own emotions. Such paraverbal means as the emotional color of the voice and its volume, intonation, different kinds of laughter and such nonverbal means as different kinds of smile, the expression of the face, gestures and movements are also used. Unofficial register is especially rich in means of expressing positive emotions. Besides means typical of other registers such verbal means as obscene lexicon, phrasal words and graphical means are used here. Paraverbal means include numerous verbs reflecting the volume of voice and nonverbal – rich mimic, friendly hugs and kisses.
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Evidence for endogenous opioid release in the amygdala during positive emotion.
Koepp, M J; Hammers, A; Lawrence, A D; Asselin, M C; Grasby, P M; Bench, C J
2009-01-01
Endogenous opioid release has been linked to relief from aversive emotional memories, thereby promoting a euphoric state and subsequent interactions towards social stimuli resulting in the formation of social preferences. However, this theory remains controversial. Using positron emission tomography and [(11)C]diprenorphine (DPN) in healthy volunteers, we found significantly reduced DPN binding to opioid receptor in the hippocampus during positive mood induction compared to neutral mood. Furthermore, the magnitude of positive mood change correlated negatively with DPN binding in the amygdala bilaterally. Our finding of reduced DPN binding is consistent with increased release of endogenous opioids, providing direct evidence that localised release of endogenous opioids is involved in the regulation of positive emotion in humans.
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Emotions, Emotional Intelligence and Leadership: A Brief, Pragmatic Perspective
Ingram, Jay; Cangemi, Joseph
2012-01-01
When people think of emotions, usually they think of different states of being, such as happiness, sadness, or anger. However, emotions generate very powerful chemicals that can create positive feelings, such as motivation and enthusiasm, or they can create more negative responses, such as offending and even attacking others. When an emotionally…
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Khan, I. (Iqra)
2017-01-01
Abstract Emotional intelligence and risk taking behaviour are considered as significant factors through which people engage in organizations and in daily life. This dissertation formulates the linkage between emotional intelligence, positive affect, negative affect and risk taking behavior. The underlying principle of this study was to develop a sense of relationship between emotional intelligence, positive affect, negative...
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Affective responses to emotional words are boosted in communicative situations.
Rohr, Lana; Abdel Rahman, Rasha
2015-04-01
Emotional verbal messages are typically encountered in meaningful contexts, for instance, during face-to-face communication in social situations. Yet, they are often investigated by confronting single participants with isolated words on a computer screen, thus potentially lacking ecological validity. In the present study we recorded event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during emotional word processing in communicative situations provided by videos of a speaker, assuming that emotion effects should be augmented by the presence of a speaker addressing the listener. Indeed, compared to non-communicative situations or isolated word processing, emotion effects were more pronounced, started earlier and lasted longer in communicative situations. Furthermore, while the brain responded most strongly to negative words when presented in isolation, a positivity bias with more pronounced emotion effects for positive words was observed in communicative situations. These findings demonstrate that communicative situations--in which verbal emotions are typically encountered--strongly enhance emotion effects, underlining the importance of social and meaningful contexts in processing emotional and verbal messages. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Emotion words and categories: evidence from lexical decision.
Scott, Graham G; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C
2014-05-01
We examined the categorical nature of emotion word recognition. Positive, negative, and neutral words were presented in lexical decision tasks. Word frequency was additionally manipulated. In Experiment 1, "positive" and "negative" categories of words were implicitly indicated by the blocked design employed. A significant emotion-frequency interaction was obtained, replicating past research. While positive words consistently elicited faster responses than neutral words, only low frequency negative words demonstrated a similar advantage. In Experiments 2a and 2b, explicit categories ("positive," "negative," and "household" items) were specified to participants. Positive words again elicited faster responses than did neutral words. Responses to negative words, however, were no different than those to neutral words, regardless of their frequency. The overall pattern of effects indicates that positive words are always facilitated, frequency plays a greater role in the recognition of negative words, and a "negative" category represents a somewhat disparate set of emotions. These results support the notion that emotion word processing may be moderated by distinct systems.
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Emotion regulation during the encoding of emotional stimuli: Effects on subsequent memory.
Leventon, Jacqueline S; Bauer, Patricia J
2016-02-01
In the adult literature, emotional arousal is regarded as a source of the enhancing effect of emotion on subsequent memory. Here, we used behavioral and electrophysiological methods to examine the role of emotional arousal on subsequent memory in school-age children. Furthermore, we implemented a reappraisal instruction to manipulate (down-regulate) emotional arousal at encoding to examine the relation between emotional arousal and subsequent memory. Participants (8-year-old girls) viewed emotional scenes as electrophysiological (EEG) data were recorded and participated in a memory task 1 to 5days later where EEG and behavioral responses were recorded; participants provided subjective ratings of the scenes after the memory task. The reappraisal instruction successfully reduced emotional arousal responses to negative stimuli but not positive stimuli. Similarly, recognition performance in both event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavior was impaired for reappraised negative stimuli but not positive stimuli. The findings indicate that ERPs are sensitive to the reappraisal of negative stimuli in children as young as 8years. Furthermore, the findings suggest an interaction of emotion and memory during the school years, implicating the explanatory role of emotional arousal at encoding on subsequent memory performance in female children as young as 8years. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Emotional organization of autobiographical memory.
Schulkind, Matthew D; Woldorf, Gillian M
2005-09-01
The emotional organization of autobiographical memory was examined by determining whether emotional cues would influence autobiographical retrieval in younger and older adults. Unfamiliar musical cues that represented orthogonal combinations of positive and negative valence and high and low arousal were used. Whereas cue valence influenced the valence of the retrieved memories, cue arousal did not affect arousal ratings. However, high-arousal cues were associated with reduced response latencies. A significant bias to report positive memories was observed, especially for the older adults, but neither the distribution of memories across the life span nor response latencies varied across memories differing in valence or arousal. These data indicate that emotional information can serve as effective cues for autobiographical memories and that autobiographical memories are organized in terms of emotional valence but not emotional arousal. Thus, current theories of autobiographical memory must be expanded to include emotional valence as a primary dimension of organization.
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Short alleles, bigger smiles? The effect of 5-HTTLPR on positive emotional expressions.
Haase, Claudia M; Beermann, Ursula; Saslow, Laura R; Shiota, Michelle N; Saturn, Sarina R; Lwi, Sandy J; Casey, James J; Nguyen, Nguyen K; Whalen, Patrick K; Keltner, Dacher; Levenson, Robert W
2015-08-01
The present research examined the effect of the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene on objectively coded positive emotional expressions (i.e., laughing and smiling behavior objectively coded using the Facial Action Coding System). Three studies with independent samples of participants were conducted. Study 1 examined young adults watching still cartoons. Study 2 examined young, middle-aged, and older adults watching a thematically ambiguous yet subtly amusing film clip. Study 3 examined middle-aged and older spouses discussing an area of marital conflict (that typically produces both positive and negative emotion). Aggregating data across studies, results showed that the short allele of 5-HTTLPR predicted heightened positive emotional expressions. Results remained stable when controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, and depressive symptoms. These findings are consistent with the notion that the short allele of 5-HTTLPR functions as an emotion amplifier, which may confer heightened susceptibility to environmental conditions. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).
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Travain, Tiziano; Colombo, Elisa Silvia; Grandi, Laura Clara; Heinzl, Eugenio; Pelosi, Annalisa; Prato Previde, Emanuela; Valsecchi, Paola
2016-05-15
Understanding how animals express positive emotions is becoming an interesting and promising area of research in the study of animal emotions and affective experiences. In the present study, we used infrared thermography in combination with behavioral measures, heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV), to investigate dogs' emotional responses to a potentially pleasant event: receiving palatable food from the owner. Nineteen adult pet dogs, 8 females and 11 males, were tested and their eye temperature, HR, HRV and behavior were recorded during a 30-minutestestconsisting of three 10-minute consecutive phases: Baseline (Phase 1), positive stimulation through the administration of palatable treats (Feeding, Phase 2) and Post-feeding condition following the positive stimulation (Phase 3). Dogs' eye temperature and mean HR significantly increased during the positive stimulation phase compared with both Baseline and Post-feeding phases. During the positive stimulation with food (Phase 2), dogs engaged in behaviors indicating a positive emotional state and a high arousal, being focused on food treats and increasing tail wagging. However, there was no evidence of an increase in HRV during Phase 2 compared to the Phase 1, with SDNN significantly increasing only in Phase 3, after the positive stimulation occurred. Overall results point out that IRT may be a useful tool in assessing emotional states in dogs in terms of arousal but fails to discriminate emotional valence, whose interpretation cannot disregard behavioral indexes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Kashdan, Todd B.; Breen, William E.
2008-01-01
The purpose of the present study was to examine social anxiety as a predictor of positive emotions using a short-term prospective design. We examined whether the effects of social anxiety on positive emotions are moderated by tendencies to openly express or suppress emotions. Over the course of a 3-month interval, people with excessive social…
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Jeon, Lieny; Hur, Eunhye; Buettner, Cynthia K
2016-12-01
Teachers in early child-care settings are key contributors to children's development. However, the role of teachers' emotional abilities (i.e., emotion regulation and coping skills) and the role of teacher-perceived environmental chaos in relation to their responsiveness to children are understudied. The current study explored the direct and indirect associations between teachers' perceptions of child-care chaos and their self-reported contingent reactions towards children's negative emotions and challenging social interactions via teachers' emotional regulation and coping strategies. The sample consisted of 1129 preschool-aged classroom teachers in day care and public pre-K programs across the US. We first found that child-care chaos was directly associated with teachers' non-supportive reactions after controlling for multiple program and teacher characteristics. In addition, teachers in more chaotic child-care settings had less reappraisal and coping skills, which in turn, was associated with lower levels of positive responsiveness to children. Teachers reporting a higher degree of chaos used more suppression strategies, which in turn, was associated with teachers' non-supportive reactions and fewer expressive encouragement reactions to children's emotions. Results of this exploratory study suggest that it is important to prepare teachers to handle chaotic environments with clear guidelines and rules. In order to encourage teachers' supportive responses to children, intervention programs are needed to address teachers' coping and emotion regulation strategies in early childhood education. Copyright © 2016 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Wacker, Jan
2018-01-01
The influence of positive emotions on the balance between cognitive stability and flexibility has been suggested to (a) differ among various positive emotional/motivational states (e.g., of varying approach motivation intensity), and (b) be mediated by brain dopamine (DA). Frontal EEG alpha asymmetry (ASY) is considered an indicator of approach motivational states and may be modulated by DA. The personality trait of extraversion is strongly linked to positive emotions and is now thought to reflect DA-based individual differences in incentive/approach motivation. The present study independently manipulated positive emotion (high approach wanting-expectancy [WE] vs. low approach warmth-liking [WL]) and dopamine (placebo vs. DA D2 blocker sulpiride) to examine their effects on both cognitive stability-flexibility and emotion-related ASY changes. The results showed numerically lower stability-flexibility in WE versus WL under placebo and a complete reversal of this effect under the D2 blocker, no differentiation between WE and WL groups in terms of emotion-related ASY change, but an association between self-reported WE and WL and ASY changes toward left and right frontal cortical activity, respectively. Finally, extraversion was positively associated with both stability-flexibility and ASY changes toward left frontal cortical activity under placebo, and these associations were completely reversed under the D2 blocker. The results (a) support a dopaminergic basis for frontal EEG asymmetry, extraversion, and the modulating effect of positive emotions on stability-flexibility, and (b) extend previous reports of cognitive differences between introverts and extraverts. © 2017 Society for Psychophysiological Research.
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Tuck, Natalie L; Adams, Kathryn S; Pressman, Sarah D; Consedine, Nathan S
2017-12-01
Positive emotion is associated with lower cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, yet some mechanisms remain unclear. One potential pathway is via emotional competencies/skills. The present study tests whether the ability to facially express positive emotion is associated with CVD risk scores, while controlling for potential confounds and testing for sex moderation. Eighty-two men and women underwent blood draws before completing self-report assessments and a performance test of expressive skill. Positive expressions were scored for degree of 'happiness' using expression coding software. CVD risk scores were calculated using established algorithms based on biological, demographic, and behavioral risk factors. Linear regressions revealed a main effect for skill, with skill in expressing positive emotion associated with lower CVD risk scores. Analyses also revealed a sex-by-skill interaction whereby links between expressive skill and CVD risk scores were stronger among men. Objective tests of expressive skill have methodological advantages, appear to have links to physical health, and offer a novel avenue for research and intervention.
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Kinner, Valerie L; Kuchinke, Lars; Dierolf, Angelika M; Merz, Christian J; Otto, Tobias; Wolf, Oliver T
2017-04-01
Emotion regulation is essential for adaptive behavior and mental health. Strategies applied to alter emotions are known to differ in their impact on psychological and physiological aspects of the emotional response. However, emotion regulation outcome has primarily been assessed via self-report, and studies comparing regulation strategies with regard to their peripheral physiological mechanisms are limited in number. In the present study, we therefore aimed to investigate the effects of different emotion regulation strategies on pupil dilation, skin conductance responses, and subjective emotional responses. Thirty healthy females were presented with negative and neutral pictures and asked to maintain or up- and downregulate their upcoming emotional responses through reappraisal or distraction. Pupil dilation and skin conductance responses were significantly enhanced when viewing negative relative to neutral pictures. For the pupil, this emotional arousal effect manifested specifically late during the pupillary response. In accordance with subjective ratings, increasing negative emotions through reappraisal led to the most prominent pupil size enlargements, whereas no consistent effect for downregulation was found. In contrast, early peak dilations were enhanced in all emotion regulation conditions independent of strategy. Skin conductance responses were not further modulated by emotion regulation. These results indicate that pupil diameter is modulated by emotional arousal, but is initially related to the extent of mental effort required to regulate automatic emotional responses. Our data thus provide first evidence that the pupillary response might comprise two distinct temporal components reflecting cognitive emotion regulation effort on the one hand and emotion regulation success on the other hand. © 2017 Society for Psychophysiological Research.
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Pélissolo, A; Rolland, J-P; Perez-Diaz, F; Jouvent, R; Allilaire, J-F
2007-01-01
This paper reports the first validation study of the EPN-31 scale (Positive and Negative Emotionality scale, 31 items) in a French psychiatric sample. This questionnaire has been adapted by Rolland from an emotion inventory developed by Diener, and is also in accordance with Watson and Clark's tripartite model of affects. Respondents were asked to rate the frequency with which they had experienced each affect (31 basic emotional states) during the last month. The answer format was a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 "Not experienced at all" to 7 "Experienced this affect several times each day". Three main scores were calculated (positive affects, negative affects, and surprise affects), as well as six sub-scores (joy, tenderness, anger, fear, sadness, shame). Four hundred psychiatric patients were included in this study, and completed the EPN-31 scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression (HAD) scale. The Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale was rated, as well as DSM IV diagnostic criteria. We performed a principal component analysis, with Varimax orthogonal transformation, and explored the factorial structure of the questionnaire, the internal consistency of each dimension, and the correlations between EPN-31 scores and HAD scores. The factorial structure of the EPN-31 was well-defined as expected, with a three-factor (positive, negative and surprise affects) solution accounting for 58.2% of the variance of the questionnaire. No correlation was obtained between positive and negative affects EPN-31 scores (r=0.006). All alpha Cronbach coefficients were between 0.80 and 0.95 for main scores, and between 0.72 and 0.90 for sub-scores. GAF scores were significantly correlated with EPN-31 positive affects scores (r=0.21; p=0.001) and with EPN-31 negative affects scores (r=- 0.45; p=0.001). We obtained significant correlations between positive affects score and HAD depression score (r=- 0.45; pemotionality. Significantly higher EPN-31 positive affect mean scores
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Emotion word processing: does mood make a difference?
Sereno, Sara C.; Scott, Graham G.; Yao, Bo; Thaden, Elske J.; O'Donnell, Patrick J.
2015-01-01
Visual emotion word processing has been in the focus of recent psycholinguistic research. In general, emotion words provoke differential responses in comparison to neutral words. However, words are typically processed within a context rather than in isolation. For instance, how does one's inner emotional state influence the comprehension of emotion words? To address this question, the current study examined lexical decision responses to emotionally positive, negative, and neutral words as a function of induced mood as well as their word frequency. Mood was manipulated by exposing participants to different types of music. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions—no music, positive music, and negative music. Participants' moods were assessed during the experiment to confirm the mood induction manipulation. Reaction time results confirmed prior demonstrations of an interaction between a word's emotionality and its frequency. Results also showed a significant interaction between participant mood and word emotionality. However, the pattern of results was not consistent with mood-congruency effects. Although positive and negative mood facilitated responses overall in comparison to the control group, neither positive nor negative mood appeared to additionally facilitate responses to mood-congruent words. Instead, the pattern of findings seemed to be the consequence of attentional effects arising from induced mood. Positive mood broadens attention to a global level, eliminating the category distinction of positive-negative valence but leaving the high-low arousal dimension intact. In contrast, negative mood narrows attention to a local level, enhancing within-category distinctions, in particular, for negative words, resulting in less effective facilitation. PMID:26379570
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Petrican, Raluca; Moscovitch, Morris; Grady, Cheryl
2014-01-01
Evidence is accruing that positive emotions play a crucial role in shaping a healthy interpersonal climate. Inspired by this research, the current investigation sought to shed light on the link between proficiency in identifying positive vs. negative emotions and a close partner's well-being. To this end, we conducted two studies with neurologically intact elderly married couples (Study 1) and an age-matched clinical sample, comprising married couples in which one spouse had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease (Study 2), which tends to hinder emotional expressivity. To assess proficiency in identifying emotions from whole body postures, we had participants in both studies complete a pointlight walker task, featuring four actors (two male, two female) expressing one positive (i.e., happiness) and three negative (i.e., sadness, anger, fear) basic emotions. Participants also filled out measures of subjective well-being. Among Study 1's neurologically intact spouses, greater expertise in identifying positive (but not negative) emotions was linked to greater partner life satisfaction (but not hedonic balance). Spouses of PD patients exhibited increased proficiency in identifying positive emotions relative to controls, possibly reflective of compensatory mechanisms. Complementarily, relative to controls, spouses of PD patients exhibited reduced proficiency in identifying negative emotions and a tendency to underestimate their intensity. Importantly, all of these effects attenuated with longer years from PD onset. Finally, there was evidence that it was increased partner expertise in identifying negative (rather than positive) emotional states that predicted greater life satisfaction levels among the PD patients and their spouses. Our results thus suggest that positive vs. negative emotions may play distinct roles in close relationship dynamics as a function of neurological status and disability trajectory.
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van Kleef, G.A.
2014-01-01
Emotions have a pervasive impact on organizational behavior. They do not just influence people’s own actions; when expressed, emotions may also exert influence on other organization members who perceive the expressions. Sometimes emotional expressions have ‘symmetrical’ effects, in that positive
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Kheirzadeh, Shiela; Hajiabed, Mohammadreza
2016-01-01
The present interdisciplinary research investigates the differential emotional expression between Persian monolinguals and Persian-English bilinguals. In other words, the article was an attempt to answer the questions whether bilinguals and monolinguals differ in the expression of positive and negative emotions elicited through sad and happy…
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Parental Socialization of Emotion: How Mothers Respond to their Children’s Emotions in Turkey
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ebru Ersay
2014-04-01
Full Text Available Several research studies suggest a link between parents’ emotion socialization and children’s social competence and behavior problems. Parents contribute to their children’s emotion socialization, more directly, through responses to their children’s emotions. Early emotion socialization experiences with parents establish patterns of emotion experience, expression, and regulation that children carry into their broader social circles. Few scales exist to document parents’ responses to children’s emotions. The aim of this study was to document mothers’ responses to their children’s sadness, anger, fear, and being overjoyed. A study sample of 868 mothers of preschoolers completed the questionnaire in Turkey. The validity and reliability properties of the Responses to Children’s Emotions (RCE Questionnaire were also examined. We found that mothers in Turkey preferred to respond differently to children’s different emotions. Mothers’ responses generally did not differ according to the gender of their children; the only difference was found for sadness. Mothers’ responses to their children’s emotions related to the children’s and mothers’ ages, monthly family income, levels of mothers’ education, mothers’ employment status, birth order of children, and the city they lived in. This study is important in that it is the first to document mothers’ emotion socialization strategies for their children in terms of one positive and three negative emotions.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Arash eJavanbakht
2015-06-01
Full Text Available Childhood poverty negatively impacts physical and mental health in adulthood. Altered brain development in response to social and environmental factors associated with poverty likely contributes to this effect, engendering maladaptive patterns of social attribution and/or elevated physiological stress. In this fMRI study, we examined the association between childhood poverty and neural processing of social signals (i.e., emotional faces in adulthood. 52 subjects from a longitudinal prospective study recruited as children, participated in a brain imaging study at 23-25 years of age using the Emotional Faces Assessment Task (EFAT. Childhood poverty, independent of concurrent adult income, was associated with higher amygdala and mPFC responses to threat vs. happy faces. Also, childhood poverty was associated with decreased functional connectivity between left amygdala and mPFC. This study is unique because it prospectively links childhood poverty to emotional processing during adulthood, suggesting a candidate neural mechanism for negative social-emotional bias. Adults who grew up poor appear to be more sensitive to social threat cues and less sensitive to positive social cues.
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Aarts, J W M; van Oers, A M; Faber, M J; Cohlen, B J; Nelen, W L D M; Kremer, J A M; van Dulmen, A M
2015-01-01
Online patient-provider communication has become increasingly popular in fertility care. However, it is not known to what extent patients express cues or concerns and how providers respond. In this study, we investigated cues and responses that occur in online patient-provider communication at an infertility-specific expert forum. We extracted 106 threads from the multidisciplinary expert forum of two Dutch IVF clinics. We performed the following analyses: (1) thematic analysis of patients' questions; and (2) rating patients' emotional and informational cues and subsequent professionals' responses using an adaptation of the validated Medical Interview Aural Rating Scale. Frequencies of themes, frequencies of cues and responses, and sequences (what cue is followed by what response) were extracted. Sixty-five infertile patients and 19 providers participated. The most common themes included medication and lifestyle. Patients gave more informational than emotional cues (106 versus 64). Responses to informational cues were mostly adequate (61%). The most common response to emotional cues was empathic acknowledgment (72%). Results indicate that an online expert forum could have a positive effect on patient outcomes, which should guide future research. Offering infertile patients an expert forum to communicate with providers can be a promising supplement to usual care in both providing information and addressing patients' concerns.
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Emotion regulation reduces loss aversion and decreases amygdala responses to losses.
Sokol-Hessner, Peter; Camerer, Colin F; Phelps, Elizabeth A
2013-03-01
Emotion regulation strategies can alter behavioral and physiological responses to emotional stimuli and the neural correlates of those responses in regions such as the amygdala or striatum. The current study investigates the brain systems engaged when using an emotion regulation technique during financial decisions. In decision making, regulating emotion with reappraisal-focused strategies that encourage taking a different perspective has been shown to reduce loss aversion as observed both in choices and in the relative arousal responses to actual loss and gain outcomes. In the current study, we find using fMRI that behavioral loss aversion correlates with amygdala activity in response to losses relative to gains. Success in regulating loss aversion also correlates with the reduction in amygdala responses to losses but not to gains. Furthermore, across both decisions and outcomes, we find the reappraisal strategy increases baseline activity in dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the striatum. The similarity of the neural circuitry observed to that seen in emotion regulation, despite divergent tasks, serves as further evidence for a role of emotion in decision making, and for the power of reappraisal to change assessments of value and thereby choices.
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Perceived duration of emotional events: evidence for a positivity effect in older adults.
Nicol, Jeffrey R; Tanner, Jessica; Clarke, Kelly
2013-01-01
BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Arousal and negative affect modulate the effect of emotion on the subjective experience of the passage of time. Given that older adults are less aroused by negative emotional stimuli, and report lower levels of negative affect, compared with younger adults, the present study examined whether the effect of emotion on time perception differed in older and younger adults. Participants performed a temporal bisection task for emotional (i.e., angry, sad, happy) and neutral facial expressions presented at varying temporal intervals. Older adults perceived the duration of both positive and threatening events longer than neutral events, whereas younger adults only perceived threatening events longer than neutral events. The results, which are partially consistent with the positivity effect of aging postulated by the socioemotional selectivity theory, are the first to show how the effect of emotion on perceived duration affects older adults, and support previous research indicating that only threatening events prolong perceived duration in younger adults.
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Positive emotional change: mediating effects of forgiveness and spirituality.
Levenson, Michael R; Aldwin, Carolyn M; Yancura, Loriena
2006-01-01
We evaluated the efficacy of an emotional education program that seeks to reduce the intergenerational transmission of negative interaction patterns by increasing forgiveness and spirituality. We examined both reduction of psychological symptoms and increase in positive psychological outcomes over the course of a year, as well as the mediators of this change. At baseline, the sample consisted of 99 participants and 47 waiting list controls. Comparisons of scores from baseline (Time 1) to one week after the Hoffman Quadrinity Process (Time 2) showed large declines in negative affect (depressive symptoms) and increases in both positive outcomes (mastery, empathy, emotional intelligence, life satisfaction, forgiveness, and spiritual experience) and health and well-being. Over the course of a year, most of these gains were sustained, in comparison with the control group. Further, increases in forgiveness and spirituality mediated the effect of program participation on depressive symptoms.
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Feigal, Jacob P; Boyle, Stephen H; Samad, Zainab; Velazquez, Eric J; Wilson, Jennifer L; Becker, Richard C; Williams, Redford B; Kuhn, Cynthia M; Ortel, Thomas L; Rogers, Joseph G; O'Connor, Christopher M; Jiang, Wei
2017-02-01
Depressive symptoms have been associated with myocardial ischemia induced by mental (MSIMI) and exercise (ESIMI) stress in clinically stable ischemic heart disease (IHD) patients, but the association between positive emotions and inducible ischemia is less well characterized. The objective of this study was to examine the associations between ratings of well-being and stress-induced ischemia. Subjects were adult patients with documented IHD underwent mental and exercise stress testing for the Responses of Myocardial Ischemia to Escitalopram Treatment (REMIT) trial. The General Well-Being Schedule (GWBS), with higher scores reflecting greater subjective well-being, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) were obtained from the REMIT participants. Echocardiography was used to measure ischemic responses to mental stress and Bruce protocol treadmill exercise testing. Data were analyzed using logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, resting left-ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), and resting wall motion score index, as well as health-related behaviors. GWBS scores were obtained for 210 individuals, with MSIMI present in 92 (43.8%) and ESIMI present in 64 (30.5%). There was a significant inverse correlation between GWBS-PE (Positive Emotion subscale) scores and probability of ESIMI (OR=0.55 (95%CI 0.36-0.83), p=0.005). This association persisted after additional control for CESD subscales measuring negative and positive emotions and for variables reflecting health-related behaviors. A similar inverse correlation between GWBS-PE and MSIMI was observed, but did not reach statistical significance (OR=0.81 (95%CI 0.54-1.20), p=0.28). This is, to our knowledge, the first study demonstrating that greater levels of self-reported positive emotions are associated with a lower likelihood of ESIMI among patients with known IHD. Our results highlight the important interface functions of the central nervous and cardiovascular systems and underscore
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Fayn, Kirill; Silvia, Paul J; Erbas, Yasemin; Tiliopoulos, Niko; Kuppens, Peter
2018-05-01
The ability to distinguish between emotions is considered indicative of well-being, but does emotion differentiation (ED) in an aesthetic context also reflect deeper and more knowledgeable aesthetic experiences? Here we examine whether positive and negative ED in response to artistic stimuli reflects higher fluency in an aesthetic domain. Particularly, we test whether knowledge of the arts and curiosity are associated with more fine-grained positive and negative aesthetic experiences. A sample of 214 people rated their positive and negative feelings in response to various artworks including positive and negative themes. Positive ED was associated with the embracing sub-trait of curiosity that reflects engagement and enjoyment of novelty and complexity, but was unrelated to artistic knowledge and perceived comprehension. Negative ED was associated with higher curiosity and particularly more knowledge of the arts. This relationship was mediated by appraised comprehension suggesting that deeper engagement with art, by those with more art knowledge, is associated with more fine-grained emotional experiences. This finding extends ED beyond well-being research and suggests that more nuanced emotional experiences are more likely for those with expertise in the arts and motivation for exploration.
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O'Connor, Daryl B; Ashley, Laura
2008-09-01
This study had three aims: 1) to investigate whether cardiovascular responses to laboratory stress and levels of emotional distress were attenuated following written emotional disclosure; 2) to test, in addition to the potential main effects, whether levels of alexithymia moderated the impact of writing; and 3) to examine whether alexithymics who successfully disclosed emotion in their essays would experience positive effects following writing. Eighty-seven participants wrote about their most stressful life experience or about a non-stressful experience, for 15 minutes, over 3 consecutive days. Two weeks later, blood pressure (BP) responses to laboratory stress and levels of emotional distress were assessed. Emotional characteristics of the disclosure essays were analysed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count programme and alexithymia was assessed at baseline using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. Analyses found no evidence in support of the main effects of disclosure on cardiovascular responses to stress or on emotional distress. However, alexithymia was found to moderate the impact of writing such that non-alexithymic participants in the experimental condition reported significantly lower emotional distress 2 weeks later. In addition, alexithymic participants who disclosed a greater number of negative when compared with positive emotion words exhibited reduced systolic and diastolic responses to stress. Conversely, non-alexithymic participants who disclosed more positive and less negative emotion words displayed attenuated BP reactivity to stress. The results of this exploratory study are important as they highlighted, in the absence of main effects, the importance of examining potential moderators of the emotional writing process. These findings may have implications for the development of cardiovascular health interventions.
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Impaired autonomic responses to emotional stimuli in autoimmune limbic encephalitis
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Olga eSchröder
2015-11-01
Full Text Available Limbic encephalitis (LE is an autoimmune-mediated disorder that affects structures of the limbic system, in particular the amygdala. The amygdala constitutes a brain area substantial for processing of emotional, especially fear-related signals. The amygdala is also involved in neuroendocrine and autonomic functions, including skin conductance responses (SCRs to emotionally arousing stimuli. This study investigates behavioral and autonomic responses to discrete emotion-evoking and neutral film clips in a patient suffering from LE associated with contactin-associated protein-2 (CASPR2-antibodies as compared to a healthy control group. Results show a lack of SCRs in the patient while watching the film clips, with significant differences compared to healthy controls in the case of fear-inducing videos. There was no comparable impairment in behavioral data (emotion report, valence and arousal ratings. The results point to a defective modulation of sympathetic responses during emotional stimulation in patients with LE, probably due to impaired functioning of the amygdala.
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Emotional Capital Development, Positive Psychology and Mindful Teaching: Which Links?
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Bénédicte Gendron
2016-04-01
Full Text Available The start of university life requires a period of adaptation, which can sometimes have an impact on the mental health of students. The latest results from the Observatoire National de la Vie Etudiante (OVE, 2013 show that more that 40% of university students report symptoms of psychological fragility (sleep problems, fatigue, depression, stress or loneliness, which can impact their level of wellbeing and performance. Beyond Savoirs [knowledge], Savoir Faire [knowing what to do], the role of Savoir Être [knowing how to be] referring to a set of emotional competencies, is crucial in sustaining human capital in a broad sense, personal development and health (Gendron 2004. During the Initiatives d'Excellence en Formations Innovantes (IDEFI Programme, [Initiatives of Excellence in Innovative Training] 132 first year university students of education underwent an intervention (a minimum of six workshops of four hours aimed at developing their emotional capital. Using two approaches PIA2 (European Management and Project Management Methodology and ACT Training derived from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT the objective was to develop trainees’ social and personal emotional competencies such as self-esteem, self-knowledge, empathy and conflict management. Using an interdisciplinary approach drawing on educational theory, theory of human resources and positive psychology, the results show that emotional capital, developed using positive psychology tools, can improve wellbeing and contribute to a holistic personal development.
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Hormonal contraception use alters stress responses and emotional memory
Nielsen, Shawn E.; Segal, Sabrina K.; Worden, Ian V.; Yim, Ilona S.; Cahill, Larry
2012-01-01
Emotionally arousing material is typically better remembered than neutral material. Since norepinephrine and cortisol interact to modulate emotional memory, sex-related influences on stress responses may be related to sex differences in emotional memory. Two groups of healthy women – one naturally cycling (NC women, N = 42) and one using hormonal contraceptives (HC women, N = 36) – viewed emotionally arousing and neutral images. Immediately after, they were assigned to Cold Pressor Stress (CP...
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Yeung, Dannii Y; Fung, Helene H
2012-11-01
Past studies have demonstrated that older adults used less emotional suppression to regulate their emotions than did younger adults, but the effectiveness of using this emotion regulatory strategy on psychosocial well-being across age remains largely unexplored. The present study adopted an experience-sampling method to examine whether the impacts of momentary employment of emotional suppression on momentary positive and negative emotions and job performance would be different by age. Eighty-seven Chinese insurance workers, aged between 18 and 61 years, participated in a 5-day sampling study. Their affective responses at work, momentary task performance, and sales productivity were recorded. Results showed that older workers' greater use of suppression at work was associated with lower intensity of negative emotions, whereas such association was not found among younger workers. Moreover, greater use of suppression over the sampling period was significantly predictive of sales productivity of older workers, but such a positive association was not shown in younger workers. These findings reveal that the use of suppression at work may be more effective for older workers than for younger workers.
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Waugh, Christian E; Fredrickson, Barbara L
2006-04-01
Based on Fredrickson's ((1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300-319.; (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226) broaden-and-build theory and Aron and Aron's ((1986). Love as expansion of the self: Understanding attraction and satisfaction. New York: Hemisphere) self-expansion theory, it was hypothesized that positive emotions broaden people's feelings of self-other overlap in the beginning of a new relationship. In a prospective study of first-year college students, we found that, after 1 week in college, positive emotions predicted increased self-other overlap with new roommates, which in turn predicted a more complex understanding of the roommate. In addition, participants who experienced a high ratio of positive to negative emotions throughout the first month of college reported a greater increase in self-other overlap and complex understanding than participants with a low positivity ratio. Implications for the role of positive emotions in the formation of new relationships are discussed.
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WAUGH, CHRISTIAN E.; FREDRICKSON, BARBARA L.
2007-01-01
Based on Fredrickson's ((1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300–319.; (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218–226) broaden-and-build theory and Aron and Aron's ((1986). Love as expansion of the self: Understanding attraction and satisfaction. New York: Hemisphere) self-expansion theory, it was hypothesized that positive emotions broaden people's feelings of self–other overlap in the beginning of a new relationship. In a prospective study of first-year college students, we found that, after 1 week in college, positive emotions predicted increased self–other overlap with new roommates, which in turn predicted a more complex understanding of the roommate. In addition, participants who experienced a high ratio of positive to negative emotions throughout the first month of college reported a greater increase in self–other overlap and complex understanding than participants with a low positivity ratio. Implications for the role of positive emotions in the formation of new relationships are discussed. PMID:21691460
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Physiological responses to rational-emotive self-verbalizations.
Master, S; Gershman, L
1983-12-01
This study tested Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) theory which predicts that cognitive beliefs, not the stimulus situation, generate human emotions. According to RET, emotions created by rational beliefs are adaptive, while irrational beliefs result in an unadaptive anxiety level. Results demonstrated that at high levels of problem relevance there was (1) a significantly greater GSR in direct response to the stimulus situation, and also to irrational statements, than to rational and control statements, and (2) no significant difference between rational and neutral control statements. The authors argue that these results are more parsimoniously explained by conditioning theory than by RET theory.
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Child Maltreatment and Neural Systems Underlying Emotion Regulation.
McLaughlin, Katie A; Peverill, Matthew; Gold, Andrea L; Alves, Sonia; Sheridan, Margaret A
2015-09-01
The strong associations between child maltreatment and psychopathology have generated interest in identifying neurodevelopmental processes that are disrupted following maltreatment. Previous research has focused largely on neural response to negative facial emotion. We determined whether child maltreatment was associated with neural responses during passive viewing of negative and positive emotional stimuli and effortful attempts to regulate emotional responses. A total of 42 adolescents aged 13 to 19 years, half with exposure to physical and/or sexual abuse, participated. Blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) response was measured during passive viewing of negative and positive emotional stimuli and attempts to modulate emotional responses using cognitive reappraisal. Maltreated adolescents exhibited heightened response in multiple nodes of the salience network, including amygdala, putamen, and anterior insula, to negative relative to neutral stimuli. During attempts to decrease responses to negative stimuli relative to passive viewing, maltreatment was associated with greater recruitment of superior frontal gyrus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and frontal pole; adolescents with and without maltreatment down-regulated amygdala response to a similar degree. No associations were observed between maltreatment and neural response to positive emotional stimuli during passive viewing or effortful regulation. Child maltreatment heightens the salience of negative emotional stimuli. Although maltreated adolescents modulate amygdala responses to negative cues to a degree similar to that of non-maltreated youths, they use regions involved in effortful control to a greater degree to do so, potentially because greater effort is required to modulate heightened amygdala responses. These findings are promising, given the centrality of cognitive restructuring in trauma-focused treatments for children. Copyright © 2015 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
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The role of empathic positive emotions in the social behavior of Argentinean teenagers
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Noely Gisela de la Vega
2015-07-01
Full Text Available The purpose of the present investigation was to analyze if the empathic po- sitive emotions, sympathy and gratitude influence teenager’s social behavior. The sample was composed of 255 participants of both sexes (109 women and 146 men, aged 14-18 (M =15.97, DE = 1.18, who attended different schools in Buenos Aires province. In order to get the information, it was used: a the Index of Empathy for children and teenagers (Frías, Mestre, Perez and Samper, 1999; b the gratitude scale corresponding to the Questionnaire of Positive Emotions for teenagers (Schmidt, 2005 and c the Assertive Behavior scale (Michelson, Sugay, Wood and Kasdin, 1987. The results from MANO-VAs (Multivariate analysis of variance show that both sympathy and gratitude influence signifi- cantly teenager’s social behavior. Participants with high sympathy and gratitude show more assertive behaviors and less aggressive strategies in their social re- lationships. It corroborates the hypothesis that empathic emotion can enhance the development and performance of socially skilled behavior. Nevertheless, is important to note that this relation may not be unidirectional, but those positive emotions can enhance assertive behavior and this, in turn, provide feedback for positive emotional experience as it is expressed by the model of rising spiral by Fredrickson (Fredrickson, 2002.
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Gender differences in human single neuron responses to male emotional faces.
Newhoff, Morgan; Treiman, David M; Smith, Kris A; Steinmetz, Peter N
2015-01-01
Well-documented differences in the psychology and behavior of men and women have spurred extensive exploration of gender's role within the brain, particularly regarding emotional processing. While neuroanatomical studies clearly show differences between the sexes, the functional effects of these differences are less understood. Neuroimaging studies have shown inconsistent locations and magnitudes of gender differences in brain hemodynamic responses to emotion. To better understand the neurophysiology of these gender differences, we analyzed recordings of single neuron activity in the human brain as subjects of both genders viewed emotional expressions. This study included recordings of single-neuron activity of 14 (6 male) epileptic patients in four brain areas: amygdala (236 neurons), hippocampus (n = 270), anterior cingulate cortex (n = 256), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (n = 174). Neural activity was recorded while participants viewed a series of avatar male faces portraying positive, negative or neutral expressions. Significant gender differences were found in the left amygdala, where 23% (n = 15∕66) of neurons in men were significantly affected by facial emotion, vs. 8% (n = 6∕76) of neurons in women. A Fisher's exact test comparing the two ratios found a highly significant difference between the two (p differences between genders at the single-neuron level in the human amygdala. These differences may reflect gender-based distinctions in evolved capacities for emotional processing and also demonstrate the importance of including subject gender as an independent factor in future studies of emotional processing by single neurons in the human amygdala.
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Raluca ePetrican
2014-04-01
Full Text Available Evidence is accruing that positive emotions play a crucial role in shaping a healthy interpersonal climate. Inspired by this research, the current investigation sought to shed light on the link between proficiency in identifying positive versus negative emotions and a close partner’s well-being. To this end, we conducted two studies with neurologically intact elderly married couples (Study 1 and an age-matched clinical sample, comprising married couples in which one spouse had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (Study 2, which tends to hinder emotional expressivity. To assess proficiency in identifying emotions from whole body postures, we had participants in both studies complete a pointlight walker task, featuring four actors (two male, two female expressing one positive (i.e., happiness and three negative (i.e., sadness, anger, fear basic emotions. Participants also filled out measures of subjective well-being. Among Study 1’s neurologically intact spouses, greater expertise in identifying positive (but not negative emotions was linked to greater partner life satisfaction (but not hedonic balance. Spouses of PD patients exhibited increased proficiency in identifying positive emotions relative to controls, possibly reflective of compensatory mechanisms. Complementarily, relative to controls, spouses of PD patients exhibited reduced proficiency in identifying negative emotions and a tendency to underestimate their intensity. Importantly, all of these effects attenuated with longer years from PD onset. Finally, there was evidence that it was increased partner expertise in identifying negative (rather than positive emotional states that predicted greater life satisfaction levels among the PD patients and their spouses. Our results thus suggest that positive versus negative emotions may play distinct roles in close relationship dynamics as a function of neurological status and disability trajectory.
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Persuasion Model and Its Evaluation Based on Positive Change Degree of Agent Emotion
Jinghua, Wu; Wenguang, Lu; Hailiang, Meng
For it can meet needs of negotiation among organizations take place in different time and place, and for it can make its course more rationality and result more ideal, persuasion based on agent can improve cooperation among organizations well. Integrated emotion change in agent persuasion can further bring agent advantage of artificial intelligence into play. Emotion of agent persuasion is classified, and the concept of positive change degree is given. Based on this, persuasion model based on positive change degree of agent emotion is constructed, which is explained clearly through an example. Finally, the method of relative evaluation is given, which is also verified through a calculation example.
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Emotion and memory: a recognition advantage for positive and negative words independent of arousal.
Adelman, James S; Estes, Zachary
2013-12-01
Much evidence indicates that emotion enhances memory, but the precise effects of the two primary factors of arousal and valence remain at issue. Moreover, the current knowledge of emotional memory enhancement is based mostly on small samples of extremely emotive stimuli presented in unnaturally high proportions without adequate affective, lexical, and semantic controls. To investigate how emotion affects memory under conditions of natural variation, we tested whether arousal and valence predicted recognition memory for over 2500 words that were not sampled for their emotionality, and we controlled a large variety of lexical and semantic factors. Both negative and positive stimuli were remembered better than neutral stimuli, whether arousing or calming. Arousal failed to predict recognition memory, either independently or interactively with valence. Results support models that posit a facilitative role of valence in memory. This study also highlights the importance of stimulus controls and experimental designs in research on emotional memory. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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A Psychometric Evaluation of the Dutch Version of the Responses to Positive Affect Questionnaire
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Filip Raes
2010-12-01
Full Text Available In 698 respondents selected from the community, the authors examined the psychometric properties of the Dutch version of the Responses to Positive Affect questionnaire (RPA; Feldman, Joormann, & Johnson, 2008 which measures ruminative and dampening thoughts in response to positive affect. In a first sample ('n' = 170, exploratory factor analyses largely replicated the 3-factor model obtained by Feldman et al. (2008 with the following factors: Dampening, Self-focused positive rumination, and Emotion-focused positive rumination. The 3-factor model revealed in the first sample was confirmed using confirmatory factor analyses in a second independent sample of 528 respondents. All subscales showed adequate internal consistency and evidence of convergent and incremental validity with concurrent measures of depressive rumination, depressive symptoms, trait hypomania, and positive and negative affect. Results underscore the value of assessing responses to positive as well as negative affect in the study of mood disorders.
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WAUGH, CHRISTIAN E.; FREDRICKSON, BARBARA L.
2006-01-01
Based on Fredrickson's ((1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General Psychology, 2, 300–319.; (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218–226) broaden-and-build theory and Aron and Aron's ((1986). Love as expansion of the self: Understanding attraction and satisfaction. New York: Hemisphere) self-expansion theory, it was hypothesized that positive emotions broaden people's feeling...
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Bourdier, L; Morvan, Y; Kotbagi, G; Kern, L; Romo, L; Berthoz, S
2018-04-01
It is now recognized that emotions can influence food intake. While some people report eating less when distressed, others report either no change of eating or eating more in the same condition. The question whether this interindividual variability also occurs in response to positive emotions has been overlooked in most studies on Emotional Eating (EE). Using the Emotional Appetite Questionnaire (EMAQ) and Latent Profile Analysis, this study aimed to examine the existence of latent emotion-induced changes in eating profiles, and explore how these profiles differ by testing their relations with 1) age and sex, 2) BMI and risk for eating disorders (ED) and 3) factors that are known to be associated with EE such as perceived positive/negative feelings, depression, anxiety, stress symptoms and impulsivity. Among 401 university students (245 females) who completed the EMAQ, 3 profiles emerged (P1:11.2%, P2:60.1%, P3:28.7%), with distinct patterns of eating behaviors in response to negative emotions and situations but few differences regarding positive ones. Negative emotional overeaters (P1) and negative emotional undereaters (P3) reported similar levels of emotional distress and positive feelings, and were at greater risk for ED. However, the people in the former profile i) reported decreasing their food intake in a positive context, ii) were in majority females, iii) had higher BMI and iv) were more prone to report acting rashly when experiencing negative emotions. Our findings suggest that a person-centred analysis of the EMAQ scores offers a promising way to capture the inter-individual variability of emotionally-driven eating behaviors. These observations also add to the growing literature underscoring the importance of further investigating the role of different facets of impulsivity in triggering overeating and to develop more targeted interventions of EE. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Laura M. Tully, PhD
2014-01-01
Full Text Available LPFC dysfunction is a well-established neural impairment in schizophrenia and is associated with worse symptoms. However, how LPFC activation influences symptoms is unclear. Previous findings in healthy individuals demonstrate that lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC activation during cognitive control of emotional information predicts mood and behavior in response to interpersonal conflict, thus impairments in these processes may contribute to symptom exacerbation in schizophrenia. We investigated whether schizophrenia participants show LPFC deficits during cognitive control of emotional information, and whether these LPFC deficits prospectively predict changes in mood and symptoms following real-world interpersonal conflict. During fMRI, 23 individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 24 healthy controls completed the Multi-Source Interference Task superimposed on neutral and negative pictures. Afterwards, schizophrenia participants completed a 21-day online daily-diary in which they rated the extent to which they experienced mood and schizophrenia-spectrum symptoms, as well as the occurrence and response to interpersonal conflict. Schizophrenia participants had lower dorsal LPFC activity (BA9 during cognitive control of task-irrelevant negative emotional information. Within schizophrenia participants, DLPFC activity during cognitive control of emotional information predicted changes in positive and negative mood on days following highly distressing interpersonal conflicts. Results have implications for understanding the specific role of LPFC in response to social stress in schizophrenia, and suggest that treatments targeting LPFC-mediated cognitive control of emotion could promote adaptive response to social stress in schizophrenia.
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Child Care Teachers' Response to Children's Emotional Expression
Ahn, Hey Jun; Stifter, Cynthia
2006-01-01
This observational study examined practices through which child care teachers socialize children's emotion. A specific aim was to describe strategies of teacher intervention in response to emotion displayed by children in child care centers, and to answer the question of differential interactions based on children's age and gender. The results of…
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Enhancing the Benefits of Written Emotional Disclosure through Response Training
Konig, Andrea; Eonta, Alison; Dyal, Stephanie R.; Vrana, Scott R.
2013-01-01
Writing about a personal stressful event has been found to have psychological and physical health benefits, especially when physiological response increases during writing. Response training was developed to amplify appropriate physiological reactivity in imagery exposure. The present study examined whether response training enhances the benefits of written emotional disclosure. Participants were assigned to either a written emotional disclosure condition (n = 113) or a neutral writing condit...
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Matthias Michal
Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Patients with depersonalization disorder (DPD typically complain about emotional detachment. Previous studies found reduced autonomic responsiveness to emotional stimuli for DPD patients as compared to patients with anxiety disorders. We aimed to investigate autonomic responsiveness to emotional auditory stimuli of DPD patients as compared to patient controls. Furthermore, we examined the modulatory effect of mindful breathing on these responses as well as on depersonalization intensity. METHODS: 22 DPD patients and 15 patient controls balanced for severity of depression and anxiety, age, sex and education, were compared regarding 1 electrodermal and heart rate data during a resting period, and 2 autonomic responses and cognitive appraisal of standardized acoustic affective stimuli in two conditions (normal listening and mindful breathing. RESULTS: DPD patients rated the emotional sounds as significantly more neutral as compared to patient controls and standardized norm ratings. At the same time, however, they responded more strongly to acoustic emotional stimuli and their electrodermal response pattern was more modulated by valence and arousal as compared to patient controls. Mindful breathing reduced severity of depersonalization in DPD patients and increased the arousal modulation of electrodermal responses in the whole sample. Finally, DPD patients showed an increased electrodermal lability in the rest period as compared to patient controls. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrated that the cognitive evaluation of emotional sounds in DPD patients is disconnected from their autonomic responses to those emotional stimuli. The increased electrodermal lability in DPD may reflect increased introversion and cognitive control of emotional impulses. The findings have important psychotherapeutic implications.
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Updating schematic emotional facial expressions in working memory: Response bias and sensitivity.
Tamm, Gerly; Kreegipuu, Kairi; Harro, Jaanus; Cowan, Nelson
2017-01-01
It is unclear if positive, negative, or neutral emotional expressions have an advantage in short-term recognition. Moreover, it is unclear from previous studies of working memory for emotional faces whether effects of emotions comprise response bias or sensitivity. The aim of this study was to compare how schematic emotional expressions (sad, angry, scheming, happy, and neutral) are discriminated and recognized in an updating task (2-back recognition) in a representative sample of birth cohort of young adults. Schematic facial expressions allow control of identity processing, which is separate from expression processing, and have been used extensively in attention research but not much, until now, in working memory research. We found that expressions with a U-curved mouth (i.e., upwardly curved), namely happy and scheming expressions, favoured a bias towards recognition (i.e., towards indicating that the probe and the stimulus in working memory are the same). Other effects of emotional expression were considerably smaller (1-2% of the variance explained)) compared to a large proportion of variance that was explained by the physical similarity of items being compared. We suggest that the nature of the stimuli plays a role in this. The present application of signal detection methodology with emotional, schematic faces in a working memory procedure requiring fast comparisons helps to resolve important contradictions that have emerged in the emotional perception literature. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale: a cognitive-developmental measure of emotion.
Lane, R D; Quinlan, D M; Schwartz, G E; Walker, P A; Zeitlin, S B
1990-01-01
The Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) is based on a new cognitive-developmental model of emotional experience. The scale poses evocative interpersonal situations and elicits descriptions of the emotional responses of self and others which are scored using specific structural criteria. Forty undergraduates (20 of each sex) were tested. Interrater reliability and intratest homogeneity of the LEAS were strong. The LEAS was significantly correlated with two measures of maturity: the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (SCT) of Ego Development, and the Parental Descriptions Scale-a cognitive-developmental measure of object representation. In addition, the LEAS correlated positively with openness to experience and emotional range but not with measures of specific emotions, repression or the number of words used in the LEAS responses. These findings suggest that it is the level of emotion, not the specific quality of emotion, that is tapped by the LEAS.
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The Influence of Sleep on the Consolidation of Positive Emotional Memories: Preliminary Evidence
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Alexis M. Chambers
2014-05-01
Full Text Available Studies have not only shown that a period of sleep following learning offers greater benefits to later memory than a period of wakefulness, but also that sleep actively promotes those components of memories that are emotionally salient. However, sleep's role in emotional memory consolidation has largely been investigated with memories that are specifically negative in content, such as memory for negative images or texts, leaving open the question of whether sleep influences positive memories in a similar manner. The current study investigated the emotional memory trade-off effect for positive versus neutral information. Scenes in which a positive or neutral object was placed on a neutral background were encoded prior to a period of polysomnographically-monitored nocturnal sleep or daytime wakefulness. Recognition memory was tested for the objects and backgrounds separately following the delay using the Remember/Know paradigm. Compared to wake participants, those who slept during the delay had increased recollection memory performance for positive objects, but not the neutral components of the studied scenes. Further, familiarity of positive objects was negatively correlated with REM latency. These results provide preliminary evidence that sleep contributes to the selective processing of positive memories, and point toward a role for REM sleep in positive memory formation.
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Kraus, Nicole; Lindenberg, Julia; Zeeck, Almut; Kosfelder, Joachim; Vocks, Silja
2015-09-01
Cognitive-behavioural models of eating disorders state that body checking arises in response to negative emotions in order to reduce the aversive emotional state and is therefore negatively reinforced. This study empirically tests this assumption. For a seven-day period, women with eating disorders (n = 26) and healthy controls (n = 29) were provided with a handheld computer for assessing occurring body checking strategies as well as negative and positive emotions. Serving as control condition, randomized computer-emitted acoustic signals prompted reports on body checking and emotions. There was no difference in the intensity of negative emotions before body checking and in control situations across groups. However, from pre- to post-body checking, an increase in negative emotions was found. This effect was more pronounced in women with eating disorders compared with healthy controls. Results are contradictory to the assumptions of the cognitive-behavioural model, as body checking does not seem to reduce negative emotions. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marcello Mortillaro
2018-05-01
Full Text Available The majority of research on emotion expression has focused on static facial prototypes of a few selected, mostly negative emotions. Implicitly, most researchers seem to have considered all positive emotions as sharing one common signal (namely, the smile, and consequently as being largely indistinguishable from each other in terms of expression. Recently, a new wave of studies has started to challenge the traditional assumption by considering the role of multiple modalities and the dynamics in the expression and recognition of positive emotions. Based on these recent studies, we suggest that positive emotions are better expressed and correctly perceived when (a they are communicated simultaneously through the face and body and (b perceivers have access to dynamic stimuli. Notably, we argue that this improvement is comparatively more important for positive emotions than for negative emotions. Our view is that the misperception of positive emotions has fewer immediate and potentially life-threatening consequences than the misperception of negative emotions; therefore, from an evolutionary perspective, there was only limited benefit in the development of clear, quick signals that allow observers to draw fine distinctions between them. Consequently, we suggest that the successful communication of positive emotions requires a stronger signal than that of negative emotions, and that this signal is provided by the use of the body and the way those movements unfold. We hope our contribution to this growing field provides a new direction and a theoretical grounding for the many lines of empirical research on the expression and recognition of positive emotions.
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Kilic, Sukran
2015-01-01
The goal of the present study was to investigate preschool teachers' emotion socialization responses to Turkish preschoolers' emotional expressions based on children's age and gender. The participants in the current study were 12 preschool full time teachers from 4 preschool and 288 preschoolers ranging in age from 4 to 6 years in Aksaray. In…
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Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study
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Juan Zhang
2017-09-01
Full Text Available It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in which they should judge whether a two-character compound stimulus was a real word or not. Results showed that (1 emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicited similar P100 at the posteriors sites, (2 larger N170 was found for emotion-label words than for emotion-laden words at the occipital sites on the right hemisphere, and (3 negative emotion-label words elicited larger Late Positivity Complex (LPC on the right hemisphere than on the left hemisphere while such effect was not found for emotion-laden words and positive emotion-label words. The results indicate that emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicit different cortical responses at both early (N170 and late (LPC stages. In addition, right hemisphere advantage for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words can be observed in certain time windows (i.e., N170 and LPC while fails to be detected in some other time window (i.e., P100. The implications of the current findings for future emotion research were discussed.
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Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study.
Zhang, Juan; Wu, Chenggang; Meng, Yaxuan; Yuan, Zhen
2017-01-01
It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding) can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in which they should judge whether a two-character compound stimulus was a real word or not. Results showed that (1) emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicited similar P100 at the posteriors sites, (2) larger N170 was found for emotion-label words than for emotion-laden words at the occipital sites on the right hemisphere, and (3) negative emotion-label words elicited larger Late Positivity Complex (LPC) on the right hemisphere than on the left hemisphere while such effect was not found for emotion-laden words and positive emotion-label words. The results indicate that emotion-label words and emotion-laden words elicit different cortical responses at both early (N170) and late (LPC) stages. In addition, right hemisphere advantage for emotion-label words over emotion-laden words can be observed in certain time windows (i.e., N170 and LPC) while fails to be detected in some other time window (i.e., P100). The implications of the current findings for future emotion research were discussed.
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Samant, Shilpa S; Chapko, Matthew J; Seo, Han-Seok
2017-10-01
Traditional methods of sensory testing focus on capturing information about multisensory perceptions, but do not necessarily measure emotions elicited by these food and beverages. The objective of this study was to develop an optimum model of predicting overall liking (rating) and preference (choice) based on taste intensity and evoked emotions. One hundred and two participants (51 females) were asked to taste water, sucrose, citric acid, salt, and caffeine solutions. Their emotional responses toward each sample were measured by a combination of a self-reported emotion questionnaire (EsSense25), facial expressions, and autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses. In addition, their perceived intensity and overall liking were measured. After a break, participants re-tasted the samples and ranked them according to their preference. The results showed that emotional responses measured using self-reported emotion questionnaire and facial expression analysis along with perceived taste intensity performed best to predict overall liking as well as preference, while ANS measures showed limited contribution. Contrary to some previous research, this study demonstrated that not only negative emotions, but also positive ones could help predict consumer liking and preference. In addition, since there were subtle differences in the prediction models of overall liking and preference, both aspects should be taken into account to understand consumer behavior. In conclusion, combination of evoked emotions along with sensory perception could help better understand consumer acceptance as well as preference toward basic taste solutions. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
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Kim, Geunyoung; Walden, Tedra A; Knieps, Linda J
2010-04-01
Studies of infant social referencing have indicated that infants might be more influenced by vocal information contained in emotional messages than by facial expression, especially during fearful message conditions. The present study investigated the characteristics of emotional channels that parents used during social referencing, and corresponding infants' behavioral changes. Results of Study 1 indicated that parents used more vocal information during positive message conditions. Unlike previous findings, infants' behavioral change was related to the frequency of vocal information during positive condition. For fearful messages, infants were more influenced by the number of multi-modal channels used and the frequency of visual information. Study 2 further showed that the intensity of vocal tone was related to infant regulation only during positive message conditions. The results imply that understanding of social context is important to make sense of parent-infant's emotional interaction. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Positive Emotional Responses to Hybridised Writing about a Socio-Scientific Issue
Tomas, Louisa; Ritchie, Stephen M.
2012-01-01
In order to understand better the role of affect in learning about socio-scientific issues (SSI), this study investigated Year 12 students' emotional arousal as they participated in an online writing-to-learn science project about the socio-scientific issue of biosecurity. Students wrote a series of hybridised scientific narratives, or BioStories,…
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Brassen, Stefanie; Gamer, Matthias; Büchel, Christian
2011-07-15
Behavioral studies consistently reported an increased preference for positive experiences in older adults. The socio-emotional selectivity theory explains this positivity effect with a motivated goal shift in emotion regulation, which probably depends on available cognitive resources. The present study investigates the neurobiological mechanism underlying this hypothesis. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired in 21 older and 22 young subjects while performing a spatial-cueing paradigm that manipulates attentional load on emotional face distracters. We focused our analyses on the anterior cingulate cortex as a key structure of cognitive control of emotion. Elderly subjects showed a specifically increased distractibility by happy faces when more attentional resources were available for face processing. This effect was paralleled by an increased engagement of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex, and this frontal engagement was significantly correlated with emotional stability. The current study highlights how the brain might mediate the tendency to preferentially engage in positive information processing in healthy aging. The finding of a resource-dependency of this positivity effect suggests demanding self-regulating processes that are related to emotional well-being. These findings are of particular relevance regarding implications for the understanding, treatment, and prevention of nonsuccessful aging like highly prevalent late-life depression. Copyright © 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Fitzgibbon, Bernadette M; Kirkovski, Melissa; Fornito, Alex; Paton, Bryan; Fitzgerald, Paul B; Enticott, Peter G
2016-04-01
Recent neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that activation of the putative human mirror neuron system (MNS) can be elicited via visuomotor training. This is generally interpreted as supporting an associative learning account of the mirror neuron system (MNS) that argues against the ontogeny of the MNS to be an evolutionary adaptation for social cognition. The current study assessed whether a central component of social cognition, emotion processing, would influence the MNS activity to trained visuomotor associations, which could support a broader role of the MNS in social cognition. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we assessed repetition suppression to the presentation of stimulus pairs involving a simple hand action and a geometric shape that was either congruent or incongruent with earlier association training. Each pair was preceded by an image of positive, negative, or neutral emotionality. In support of an associative learning account of the MNS, repetition suppression was greater for trained pairs compared with untrained pairs in several regions, primarily supplementary motor area (SMA) and right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG). This response, however, was not modulated by the valence of the emotional images. These findings argue against a fundamental role of emotion processing in the mirror neuron response, and are inconsistent with theoretical accounts linking mirror neurons to social cognition. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Moore, Philip J; Chrabaszcz, Jeffrey S; Peterson, Rolf A; Rohrbeck, Cynthia A; Roemer, Enid C; Mercurio, Andrea E
2014-01-01
This research examined the impact of affectivity and coping on state anxiety and positive emotions among young adults living in the Washington, DC metro area both during and after the Washington, DC sniper killings. Participants completed questionnaires during three waves of data collection: (1) during the sniper attacks (n=92); (2) within two weeks after the snipers were captured (n=45); and (3) six months later (n=43). Affectivity (measured by neuroticism) was significantly associated with state anxiety and positive emotions during all three time periods. Coping (measured by constructive thinking) predicted state anxiety and positive emotions during the shootings, but was unrelated to either outcome immediately after the attacks, and marginally related to them six months later. Consistent with the Dynamic Model of Affect, state anxiety and positive emotions were more strongly (and negatively) correlated with each other during the killings than they were after the snipers were apprehended. Taken together, these results support transactional models of stress that emphasize the interaction between dispositional and situational influences, and they suggest that affectivity reflects a fundamental set of reactions to one's environment, while coping dispositions result in more stress-specific responses. Additional theoretical and practical implications of these findings are also discussed.
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Divergent Effects of Different Positive Emotions on Moral Judgment
Strohminger, Nina; Lewis, Richard L.; Meyer, David E.
2011-01-01
Positive emotions are often treated as relatively similar in their cognitive-behavioral effects, and as having unambiguously beneficial consequences. For example, Valdesolo and DeSteno (2006) reported that a humorous video made people more prone to choose a utilitarian solution to a moral dilemma. They attributed this finding to increased positive…
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Perry, Nicole B; Calkins, Susan D; Nelson, Jackie A; Leerkes, Esther M; Marcovitch, Stuart
2012-07-01
The current study examined the moderating effect of children's cardiac vagal suppression on the association between maternal socialization of negative emotions (supportive and nonsupportive responses) and children's emotion regulation behaviors. One hundred and ninety-seven 4-year-olds and their mothers participated. Mothers reported on their reactions to children's negative emotions and children's regulatory behaviors. Observed distraction, an adaptive self-regulatory strategy, and vagal suppression were assessed during a laboratory task designed to elicit frustration. Results indicated that children's vagal suppression moderated the association between mothers' nonsupportive emotion socialization and children's emotion regulation behaviors such that nonsupportive reactions to negative emotions predicted lower observed distraction and lower reported emotion regulation behaviors when children displayed lower levels of vagal suppression. No interaction was found between supportive maternal emotion socialization and vagal suppression for children's emotion regulation behaviors. Results suggest physiological regulation may serve as a buffer against nonsupportive emotion socialization. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Gender Differences in Human Single Neuron Responses to Male Emotional Faces
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Morgan eNewhoff
2015-09-01
Full Text Available Well-documented differences in the psychology and behavior of men and women have spurred extensive exploration of gender's role within the brain, particularly regarding emotional processing. While neuroanatomical studies clearly show differences between the sexes, the functional effects of these differences are less understood. Neuroimaging studies have shown inconsistent locations and magnitudes of gender differences in brain hemodynamic responses to emotion. To better understand the neurophysiology of these gender differences, we analyzed recordings of single neuron activity in the human brain as subjects of both genders viewed emotional expressions.This study included recordings of single-neuron activity of 14 (6 male epileptic patients in four brain areas: amygdala (236 neurons, hippocampus (n=270, anterior cingulate cortex (n=256, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (n=174. Neural activity was recorded while participants viewed a series of avatar male faces portraying positive, negative or neutral expressions.Significant gender differences were found in the left amygdala, where 23% (n=15/66 of neurons in men were significantly affected by facial emotion, versus 8% (n=6/76 of neurons in women. A Fisher's exact test comparing the two ratios found a highly significant difference between the two (p<0.01. These results show specific differences between genders at the single-neuron level in the human amygdala. These differences may reflect gender-based distinctions in evolved capacities for emotional processing and also demonstrate the importance of including subject gender as an independent factor in future studies of emotional processing by single neurons in the human amygdala.
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Manera, Valeria; Grandi, Elisa; Colle, Livia
2013-01-01
A smile is a context-dependent emotional expression. A smiling face can signal the experience of enjoyable emotions, but people can also smile to convince another person that enjoyment is occurring when it is not. For this reason, the ability to discriminate between felt and faked enjoyment expressions is a crucial social skill. Despite its importance, adults show remarkable individual variation in this ability. Revealing the factors responsible for these huge individual differences is a key challenge in this domain. Here we investigated, on a large sample of participants, whether individual differences in smile authenticity recognition are accounted for by differences in the predisposition to experience other people's emotions, i.e., by susceptibility to emotional contagion. Results showed that susceptibility to emotional contagion for negative emotions increased smile authenticity detection, while susceptibility to emotional contagion for positive emotions worsened detection performance, because it leaded to categorize most of the faked smiles as sincere. These findings suggest that susceptibility to emotional contagion plays a key role in complex emotion recognition, and point out the importance of analyzing the tendency to experience other people's positive and negative emotions as separate abilities.
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Amygdala responses to unpleasant pictures are influenced by task demands and positive affect trait.
Sanchez, Tiago A; Mocaiber, Izabela; Erthal, Fatima S; Joffily, Mateus; Volchan, Eliane; Pereira, Mirtes G; de Araujo, Draulio B; Oliveira, Leticia
2015-01-01
The role of attention in emotional processing is still the subject of debate. Recent studies have found that high positive affect in approach motivation narrows attention. Furthermore, the positive affect trait has been suggested as an important component for determining human variability in threat reactivity. We employed functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate whether different states of attention control would modulate amygdala responses to highly unpleasant pictures relative to neutral and whether this modulation would be influenced by the positive affect trait. Participants (n = 22, 12 male) were scanned while viewing neutral (people) or unpleasant pictures (mutilated bodies) flanked by two peripheral bars. They were instructed to (a) judge the picture content as unpleasant or neutral or (b) to judge the difference in orientation between the bars in an easy condition (0 or 90(∘) orientation difference) or (c) in a hard condition (0 or 6(∘) orientation difference). Whole brain analysis revealed a task main effect of brain areas related to the experimental manipulation of attentional control, including the amygdala, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and posterior parietal cortex. Region of interest analysis showed an inverse correlation (r = -0.51, p pictures. In conclusion, the current study suggests that positive affect modulates attention effect on unpleasant pictures, therefore attenuating emotional responses.
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Ou, Yi-Chun; Verhoef, Peter C.
2017-01-01
Customer equity drivers (CEDs) include value, brand, and relationship equity, which have a strong link with loyalty intentions. This study aims to examine the incremental effects of positive and negative emotions on loyalty intentions and to determine whether these emotions moderate the positive link between CEDs and loyalty intentions. We use customer data with 102 leading firms across eighteen services industries in the Netherlands. The results show that (1) positive and negative emotions h...
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Batenburg, Anika; Das, Enny
2014-01-01
How can we best support others in difficult times? Studies testing the effects of supportive communication revealed mixed findings. The current study focuses on the effects of supportive communication following different disclosure styles, and includes outcome measures to assess emotional well-being. Hypotheses were tested in a 2 (disclosure style: cognitive reappraisal disclosure vs. emotional disclosure) ×3 (support message: cognitive reappraisal response vs. socio-affective response vs. no response) between subjects factorial design. Receiving a cognitive reappraisal response, rather than a socio-affective response or no response, decreased emotional distress in the emotional disclosure group. Support messages showed no effects in the cognitive reappraisal disclosure group. Although socio-affective responses were positively evaluated, cognitive reappraisal responses may be more effective during emotional upheaval because they provide a positive way out of negative emotions. PMID:25531509
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van Winkel, Mark; Peeters, Frenk; van Winkel, Ruud; Kenis, Gunter; Collip, Dina; Geschwind, Nicole; Jacobs, Nele; Derom, Catherine; Thiery, Evert; van Os, Jim; Myin-Germeys, Inez; Wichers, Marieke
2014-06-01
A previous study reported that social stress sensitivity is moderated by the brain-derived-neurotrophic-factor(Val66Met) (BDNF rs6265) genotype. Additionally, positive emotions partially neutralize this moderating effect. The current study aimed to: (i) replicate in a new independent sample of subjects with residual depressive symptoms the moderating effect of BDNF(Val66Met) genotype on social stress sensitivity, (ii) replicate the neutralizing impact of positive emotions, (iii) extend these analyses to other variations in the BDNF gene in the new independent sample and the original sample of non-depressed individuals. Previous findings were replicated in an experience sampling method (ESM) study. Negative Affect (NA) responses to social stress were stronger in "Val/Met" carriers of BDNF(Val66Met) compared to "Val/Val" carriers. Positive emotions neutralized the moderating effect of BDNF(Val66Met) genotype on social stress sensitivity in a dose-response fashion. Finally, two of four additional BDNF SNPs (rs11030101, rs2049046) showed similar moderating effects on social stress-sensitivity across both samples. The neutralizing effect of positive emotions on the moderating effects of these two additional SNPs was found in one sample. In conclusion, ESM has important advantages in gene-environment (GxE) research and may attribute to more consistent findings in future GxE research. This study shows how the impact of BDNF genetic variation on depressive symptoms may be explained by its impact on subtle daily life responses to social stress. Further, it shows that the generation of positive affect (PA) can buffer social stress sensitivity and partially undo the genetic susceptibility. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.
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Hirschler-Guttenberg, Yael; Golan, Ofer; Ostfeld-Etzion, Sharon; Feldman, Ruth
2015-05-01
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit difficulties in regulating emotions and authors have called to study the specific processes underpinning emotion regulation (ER) in ASD. Yet, little observational research examined the strategies preschoolers with ASD use to regulate negative and positive emotions in the presence of their mothers and fathers. Forty preschoolers with ASD and 40 matched typically developing children and their mothers and fathers participated. Families were visited twice for identical battery of paradigms with mother or father. Parent-child interactions were coded for parent and child behaviors and children engaged in ER paradigms eliciting negative (fear) and positive (joy) emotions with each parent. ER paradigms were microcoded for negative and positive emotionality, ER strategies, and parent regulation facilitation. During free play, mothers' and fathers' sensitivity and warm discipline were comparable across groups; however, children with ASD displayed lower positive engagement and higher withdrawal. During ER paradigms, children with ASD expressed less positive emotionality overall and more negative emotionality during fear with father. Children with ASD used more simple self-regulatory strategies, particularly during fear, but expressed comparable levels of assistance seeking behavior toward mother and father in negative and positive contexts. Parents of children with ASD used less complex regulation facilitation strategies, including cognitive reappraisal and emotional reframing, and employed simple tactics, such as physical comforting to manage fear and social gaze to maintain joy. Findings describe general and parent- and emotion-specific processes of child ER and parent regulation facilitation in preschoolers with ASD. Results underscore the ability of such children to seek parental assistance during moments of high arousal and the parents' sensitive adaptation to their children's needs. Reduced positive emotionality
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Back to basics: a naturalistic assessment of the experience and regulation of emotion.
Heiy, Jane E; Cheavens, Jennifer S
2014-10-01
Emotion regulation research links regulatory responding to important outcomes in psychological well-being, physical health, and interpersonal relations, but several fundamental questions remain. As much of the previous research has addressed generalized regulatory habits, far less is known about the ways in which individuals respond to emotions in daily life. The literature is particularly sparse in explorations of positive emotion regulation. In the current study, we provide an assessment of naturalistic experiences and regulation of emotion, both positive and negative in valence. Using an electronic experience sampling methodology, participants reported on their use of 40 regulatory strategies in response to 14 emotions for 10 consecutive days. On average, participants used 15 different regulatory strategies in response to negative emotions over this time, most frequently relying on acceptance, behavioral activation, and rumination. Participants used a similarly large repertoire of strategies, approximately 16 total, in response to positive emotions, particularly savoring, future focus, and behavioral activation. Participants' mood ratings following strategy use, however, indicated that the most frequently used strategies were often not the most effective strategies. The results of this study provide estimates of the frequency and effectiveness of a large number of emotion regulation strategies in response to both negative and positive emotions. Such findings characterize naturalistic emotion regulation, and estimates of normative emotion regulation processes are imperative to determining the ways in which deviations (e.g., small emotion regulation repertoires, insufficient attention to regulation of positive emotions) impact emotional functioning. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.
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Endo, Hiroko; Yukawa, Shintaro
2013-04-01
The relationship between a recipient's response to a disclosure of negative emotional experiences, and the resulting negative emotions, hesitation in self-disclosure (interpersonal and intra-personal hesitation), and negatively-confused thoughts of the person making the disclosure were investigated. Female undergraduates (N=271) were asked to write about angry or sad events in their interpersonal relationships that they had disclosed to someone. Then they completed a questionnaire assessing the recipient's responses, negative emotions such as anger and depression caused by the recipient's responses, hesitation in self-disclosure about the events, and negatively-confused thoughts about the events. The results of covariance structure analysis indicated that a recipient's rejection in response to the disclosure of negative emotional experiences resulted in negative thoughts caused by an increase of negative emotions and hesitation in self-disclosure. The results also showed that a recipient's acceptance also increased depression in the person making the self-disclosure, which intensified the intra-personal hesitation, and increased negatively-confused thoughts.
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Teacher Support and Math Engagement: Roles of Academic Self-Efficacy and Positive Emotions
Liu, Ru-De; Zhen, Rui; Ding, Yi; Liu, Ying; Wang, Jia; Jiang, Ronghuan; Xu, Le
2018-01-01
The current study assessed 869 elementary school students in China using self-report questionnaires, to examine the multiple mediating effects of academic self-efficacy and positive academic emotions (enjoyment and relief) in the relations between teacher support and academic engagement (cognitive, behavioural and emotional aspects) within a math…
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The sound of feelings: electrophysiological responses to emotional speech in alexithymia.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Katharina Sophia Goerlich
Full Text Available Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties in the cognitive processing of emotions (cognitive dimension and in the experience of emotions (affective dimension. Previous research focused mainly on visual emotional processing in the cognitive alexithymia dimension. We investigated the impact of both alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses to emotional speech in 60 female subjects.During unattended processing, subjects watched a movie while an emotional prosody oddball paradigm was presented in the background. During attended processing, subjects detected deviants in emotional prosody. The cognitive alexithymia dimension was associated with a left-hemisphere bias during early stages of unattended emotional speech processing, and with generally reduced amplitudes of the late P3 component during attended processing. In contrast, the affective dimension did not modulate unattended emotional prosody perception, but was associated with reduced P3 amplitudes during attended processing particularly to emotional prosody spoken in high intensity.Our results provide evidence for a dissociable impact of the two alexithymia dimensions on electrophysiological responses during the attended and unattended processing of emotional prosody. The observed electrophysiological modulations are indicative of a reduced sensitivity to the emotional qualities of speech, which may be a contributing factor to problems in interpersonal communication associated with alexithymia.
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Li, Menglong; Jiang, Xia; Ren, Yujia
2017-06-01
Depression is a common mental disorder that is widely seen among adolescents suffering from mobile phone addiction. While it is well known that both positive emtions in adolescents wiotions and social support can have a positive impact by helping individuals to maintain a positive attitude, the correlation between positive emotions, social support, and depression among these adolescents remains to be investigated. This study examined the mediator effects of positive emotions on the relationship between social support and depression among adolescents suffering from mobile phone addiction. For this study, conducted in 2016, we selected 1,346 adolescent students from three middle schools (ranging from Junior Grade One to Senior Grade Three) in Hunan Province of China, to participate in the survey. Participants were selected using the stratified cluster random sampling method, and all participants remained anonymous throughout the study. Each participant completed the Self-made General Situation Questionnaire, the Social Support Rating Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and the Mobile Phone Addiction Tendency Scale. There was significant positive correlation between positive emotions and social support. Both positive emotions and social support demonstrated significant negative correlation with depression. Positive emotions had partial mediator effects on the relationship between social support and depression (Pphone addiction. Social support contributes to positive emoth mobile phone addiction, thereby reducing their levels of depression. These findings suggest that more support and care should be given to this particular adolescent population.
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Selby, Edward A.; Cornelius, Talea; Fehling, Kara B.; Kranzler, Amy; Panza, Emily A.; Lavender, Jason M.; Wonderlich, Stephen A.; Crosby, Ross D.; Engel, Scott G.; Mitchell, James E.; Crow, Scott J.; Peterson, Carol B.; Grange, Daniel Le
2015-01-01
Growing evidence indicates that both positive and negative emotion potentially influence the development and maintenance of anorexia nervosa, through both positive and negative reinforcement of weight loss activities. Such reactive emotional experience may be characterized by frequent and intense fluctuations in emotion, a construct known as “emotional instability.” The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between positive emotional instability and weight loss activities in anorexia nervosa, and to investigate the synergistic effects of positive and negative emotional instability on promoting weight loss activities. Using ecological momentary assessment methods, 118 participants with anorexia nervosa reported their emotional experiences and behaviors at least six times daily over 2 weeks using a portable digital device. Using generalized linear modeling, results indicated that high levels of both positive and negative emotional instability, and the interaction between the two, were associated with more frequent weight-loss activities, beyond anorexia subtype and mean levels of emotional intensity. These findings indicate that when women with anorexia exhibit both high levels of both positive and negative emotional instability they are more prone to a variety of weight loss activities. The importance of addressing the role of both positive and negative emotion in anorexia treatment is discussed. PMID:26379588
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Peter eKoval
2016-01-01
Full Text Available Previous studies have linked higher emotional inertia (i.e., a stronger autoregressive slope of emotions with lower well-being. We aimed to replicate these findings, while extending upon previous research by addressing a number of unresolved issues and controlling for potential confounds. Specifically, we report results from two studies (Ns = 100 & 202 examining how emotional inertia, assessed in response to a standardized sequence of emotional stimuli in the lab, correlates with several measures of well-being. The current studies build on previous research by examining how inertia of both positive emotions (PE and negative emotions (NE are related to both positive (e.g., life satisfaction and negative (e.g., depressive symptoms indicators of well-being, while controlling for between-person differences in the mean level and variability of emotions. Our findings replicated previous research and further revealed that a NE inertia was more strongly associated with lower well-being than PE inertia; b emotional inertia correlated more consistently with negative indicators (e.g., depressive symptoms than positive indicators (e.g., life satisfaction of well-being; and c these relationships were independent of individual differences in mean level and variability of emotions. We conclude, in line with recent findings, that higher emotional inertia, particularly of NE, may indicate increased vulnerability to depression.
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Mohammadipour, Mohammad; Rashid, Sabariah Md; Rafik-Galea, Shameem; Thai, Yap Ngee
2018-01-01
Emotions are an indispensable part of second language learning. The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between the use of language learning strategies and positive emotions. The present study adopted a sequential mixed methods design. The participants were 300 Malaysian ESL undergraduates selected through stratified random sampling…
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Alomari, Rima A; Fernandez, Mercedes; Banks, Jonathan B; Acosta, Juliana; Tartar, Jaime L
2015-05-20
Stress can increase emotional vigilance at the cost of a decrease in attention towards non-emotional stimuli. However, the time-dependent effects of acute stress on emotion processing are uncertain. We tested the effects of acute stress on subsequent emotion processing up to 40 min following an acute stressor. Our measure of emotion processing was the late positive potential (LPP) component of the visual event-related potential (ERP), and our measure of non-emotional attention was the sustained attention to response task (SART). We also measured cortisol levels before and after the socially evaluated cold pressor test (SECPT) induction. We found that the effects of stress on the LPP ERP emotion measure were time sensitive. Specifically, the LPP ERP was only altered in the late time-point (30-40 min post-stress) when cortisol was at its highest level. Here, the LPP no longer discriminated between the emotional and non-emotional picture categories, most likely because neutral pictures were perceived as emotional. Moreover, compared to the non-stress condition, the stress-condition showed impaired performance on the SART. Our results support the idea that a limit in attention resources after an emotional stressor is associated with the brain incorrectly processing non-emotional stimuli as emotional and interferes with sustained attention.
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Citron, Francesca M M; Abugaber, David; Herbert, Cornelia
2015-01-01
The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behavior (approach vs. withdrawal) and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL) are associated with an implicit tendency to approach a stimulus, whereas negative valence and high arousal (NH) are associated with withdrawal. Hence, positive, high-arousal (PH) and negative, low-arousal (NL) stimuli elicit conflicting action tendencies. By extending previous research that used several tasks and methods, the present study investigated whether and how emotional valence and arousal affect subjective approach vs. withdrawal tendencies toward emotional words during two novel tasks. In Study 1, participants had to decide whether they would approach or withdraw from concepts expressed by written words. In Studies 2 and 3 participants had to respond to each word by pressing one of two keys labeled with an arrow pointing upward or downward. Across experiments, positive and negative words, high or low in arousal, were presented. In Study 1 (explicit task), in line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, PH and NL words were responded to more slowly than PL and NH words. In addition, participants decided to approach positive words more often than negative words. In Studies 2 and 3, participants responded faster to positive than negative words, irrespective of their level of arousal. Furthermore, positive words were significantly more often associated with "up" responses than negative words, thus supporting the existence of implicit associations between stimulus valence and response coding (positive is up and negative is down). Hence, in contexts in which participants' spontaneous responses are
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
hosein Ebrahimi moghadam
2015-05-01
Full Text Available Background: Since the essential of positive psychological components, as compliment of deficiency oriented approaches, has begun in recent days,we decided to take into account this new branch of psychology which scientifically considers studying forces of human, as well as because of the importance of this branch of psychology, we also tried to search the contribution of emotional intelligence and parenting styles components to predict positive psychological components. Materials and Methods:In this cross sectional study 200 psychological students of Azad university (Rudehen branch selected using cluster sampling method. Then they were estimated by Bradbery and Grivers emotional intelligence questionnaire , Bamrind parenting styles and Rajayi et al positive psychological components questionnaire. Research data was analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation, inferential statistics (multiple regression and Pierson correlation coefficient and SPSS software. Results:Among the components of emotional intelligence, the component of emotional self consciousness (β=0.464 had the greatest predictable , and reaction leadership showed no predictability in this research between parenting styles , authority parenting styles had positive significance relationship with positive psychological components. And no significant relationship was found between despot parenting styles and positive psychological components. Conclusion: Regarding the results of this research and importance of positive psychological components, it is suggested to treat the emotional intelligence from childhood and to learn it to parents and remind them the parenting way to decrease the satisfaction of individuals which leads to promotion of society mental health.
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Jessen, Sarah; Altvater-Mackensen, Nicole; Grossmann, Tobias
2016-05-01
Sensitive responding to others' emotions is essential during social interactions among humans. There is evidence for the existence of subcortically mediated emotion discrimination processes that occur independent of conscious perception in adults. However, only recently work has begun to examine the development of automatic emotion processing systems during infancy. In particular, it is unclear whether emotional expressions impact infants' autonomic nervous system regardless of conscious perception. We examined this question by measuring pupillary responses while subliminally and supraliminally presenting 7-month-old infants with happy and fearful faces. Our results show greater pupil dilation, indexing enhanced autonomic arousal, in response to happy compared to fearful faces regardless of conscious perception. Our findings suggest that, early in ontogeny, emotion discrimination occurs independent of conscious perception and is associated with differential autonomic responses. This provides evidence for the view that automatic emotion processing systems are an early-developing building block of human social functioning. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Goschke, Thomas; Bolte, Annette
2014-09-01
Goal-directed action in changing environments requires a dynamic balance between complementary control modes, which serve antagonistic adaptive functions (e.g., to shield goals from competing responses and distracting information vs. to flexibly switch between goals and behavioral dispositions in response to significant changes). Too rigid goal shielding promotes stability but incurs a cost in terms of perseveration and reduced flexibility, whereas too weak goal shielding promotes flexibility but incurs a cost in terms of increased distractibility. While research on cognitive control has long been conducted relatively independently from the study of emotion and motivation, it is becoming increasingly clear that positive affect and reward play a central role in modulating cognitive control. In particular, evidence from the past decade suggests that positive affect not only influences the contents of cognitive processes, but also modulates the balance between complementary modes of cognitive control. In this article we review studies from the past decade that examined effects of induced positive affect on the balance between cognitive stability and flexibility with a focus on set switching and working memory maintenance and updating. Moreover, we review recent evidence indicating that task-irrelevant positive affect and performance-contingent rewards exert different and sometimes opposite effects on cognitive control modes, suggesting dissociations between emotional and motivational effects of positive affect. Finally, we critically review evidence for the popular hypothesis that effects of positive affect may be mediated by dopaminergic modulations of neural processing in prefrontal and striatal brain circuits, and we refine this "dopamine hypothesis of positive affect" by specifying distinct mechanisms by which dopamine may mediate effects of positive affect and reward on cognitive control. We conclude with a discussion of limitations of current research, point to
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Katzir, Maayan; Eyal, Tal; Meiran, Nachshon; Kessler, Yoav
2010-01-01
"Inhibitory control" is a cognitive mechanism that contributes to successful self-control (i.e., adherence to a long-term goal in the face of an interfering short-term goal). This research explored the effect of imagined positive emotional events on inhibition. The authors proposed that the influence of imagined emotions on inhibition…
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Vatne, Torun M; Ruland, Cornelia M; Ørnes, Knut; Finset, Arnstein
2012-03-01
One function of expressing emotion is to receive support. The aim of this study was to assess how children with heart disease express negative emotions during routine consultations, and examine the interaction between children's expressions and adults' responses. Seventy children, aged 7-13 years, completed measures of anxiety and were videotaped during cardiology visits. Adult-child interactions were analyzed using the Verona Definitions of Emotional Sequences. Children expressed negative emotion, mainly in subtle ways; however, adults rarely recognized and responded to these expressions. The frequency of children's expressions and adults' responses were related to the child's age, level of anxiety, and verbal participation. Children do not openly express negative emotions frequently during routine cardiac consultations; they are more likely to provide subtle cues of negative emotion. When expression of negative emotions does occur, adults may consider using the opportunity to explore the child's emotional experiences.
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Rhythmic Density Affects Listeners' Emotional Response to Microtiming
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Olivier Senn
2017-10-01
– Study A investigates the effect of fixed time displacements within and between the parts played by different musicians. Listeners (n = 160 reacted negatively to irregularities within the drum track, but the mutual displacement of bass vs. drums did not have an effect.– Study B develops three metrics to calculate the average microtiming magnitude in a musical excerpt. The experiment showed that listeners' (n = 160 emotional responses to expert performance microtiming aligned with each other across styles, when microtiming magnitude was adjusted for rhythmic density. This indicates that rhythmic density is a unifying moderator for listeners' emotional response to microtiming in swing and funk.– Study C used the data from both experiments in order to compare the effect of fixed microtiming displacements (from Study A with scaled versions of the originally performed microtiming patterns (from Study B. It showed that fixed snare drum displacements irritated expert listeners more than the more flexible deviations occurring in the original performances. This provides some evidence that listeners' emotional response to microtiming deviations not only depends on the magnitude of the deviations, but also on the kind and origin of the microtiming patterns (fixed lab displacements vs. flexible performance microtiming.
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Zhou, Ya; Siu, Angela F Y
2015-12-01
Recent research on the construct of emotion suggests the integration of a motivational dimension into the traditional two-dimension (subjective valence and physiological arousal) model. The motivational intensity of an emotional state should be taken into account while investigating the emotion-cognition relationship. This study examined how positive emotional states varying in motivational intensity influenced set shifting, after controlling the potential confounding impacts of physiological arousal. In Experiment 1, 155 volunteers performed a set-shifting task after being randomly assigned to five states: high- vs. low-motivating positive affect (interest vs. serenity), high- vs. low-motivating negative affect (disgust vs. anxiety), and neutral state. Eighty-five volunteers participated in Experiment 2, which further examined the effects of higher vs. lower degree of interest. Both experiments measured and compared participants' physiological arousal (blood pressure and pulse rate) under the normal and experimental conditions as the covariate. Results showed no difference in switching performance between the neutral and serenity groups. As compared with the neutral state, the high-motivating positive affect significantly increased set-switching reaction time costs, but reduced error rate costs; the higher the motivational intensity, the greater the time-costs impairment. This indicates a role of the high-motivating positive affect in regulating the balance between the flexible and stable cognitive control. Motivational intensity also modulated the effects of negative emotional states, i.e., disgust caused a larger increase in time costs than anxiety. Further exploration into neurobiological mechanisms that may mediate the emotional effects on set shifting is warranted. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Cabrita, Miriam; Lamers, Sanne M A; Trompetter, Hester R; Tabak, Monique; Vollenbroek-Hutten, Miriam M R
2017-11-01
Literature suggests that positive emotions positively influence physiological parameters but their relation to functioning in the daily life of older adults living independently remains unclear. The present work aims to investigate the relation between positive emotions and functional status in daily life of older people living independently. A systematic literature review was conducted using the PubMed, PsycINFO and Scopus electronic databases. Included works were peer-reviewed empirical studies that analysed the relation between positive emotions and ability to perform activities of daily living with older adults living independently. After removal of duplicates, 10 out of 963 papers met the inclusion criteria. Cross-sectional studies (n = 6) provided limited evidence about a relation between positive emotions and functioning in daily life. However, longitudinal studies (n = 4) provide significant evidence for an interaction between the two factors, suggesting that time influences this interaction. The variety on the design and samples of the studies included in this review does not allow a cohesive conclusion of the results. Nevertheless, limited evidence suggests that higher frequency in the experience of positive emotions might be associated with lower functional limitations. The issue of causality in emotions-functioning remains unclear from the review. Further observational studies are highly recommended, supported by innovative technologies.
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Emotional Self-Efficacy, Emotional Empathy and Emotional Approach Coping as Sources of Happiness
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Tarık Totan
2013-05-01
Full Text Available Among the many variables affecting happiness, there are those that arise from emotional factors. In this study, the hypothesis stating that happiness is affected by emotional self-efficacy, emotional empathy and emotional approach coping has been examined using the path model. A total of 334 university students participated in this study, 229 of whom were females and 105 being males. Oxford Happiness Questionnaire-Short Form, Emotional Self-efficacy Scale, Multi-Dimensional Emotional Empathy Scale, The Emotional Approach Coping Scale and personal information form have been used as data acquisition tools. As a result of path analysis, it was determined that the predicted path from emotional empathy to emotional approach coping was insignificant and thus it was taken out of the model. According to the modified path model, it was determined that there is a positive relationship between emotional self- efficacy and emotional empathy, that emotional self-efficacy positively affects emotional approach coping and happiness, that emotional empathy also positively affects happiness and that emotional approach coping also positively affects happiness.
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Does dual-tasking neutralize emotional memory and reduce conditioned responses?
Engelhard, I.M.; Krypotos, A.M.; Leer, A.; van Dis, E.A.M.
2016-01-01
This experiment tested whether dual-tasking (i.e., recalling the emotional memory while performing a visuospatial dual-task) neutralizes emotional memory, thereby decreasing conditioned responses. Undergraduates completed a differential conditioning paradigm with pictures of food items as
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Saltzman, Jaclyn A; Pineros-Leano, Maria; Liechty, Janet M; Bost, Kelly K; Fiese, Barbara H
2016-08-02
Although it is known that maternal disordered eating is related to restrictive feeding practices, there is little research exploring mechanisms for this association or its effects on other feeding practices. The purpose of this study was to assess whether maternal emotion responses mediate the association between maternal binge eating (BE) and child feeding practices, in order to identify potential risk factors for feeding practices that influence child weight. This longitudinal observational study included (n = 260) mothers and children from the STRONG Kids Panel Survey. At Wave 1, children were an average of 37 months old (SD = 6.9), and at Wave 2 children were an average of 57 months old (SD = 8.3). Mothers self-reported their frequency of binge eating behavior (Wave 1), responses to children's negative emotions (Wave 1), feeding practices (Wave 1 and Wave 2), and child height and weight were measured at both time points. Using bias-corrected bootstrapping procedures, we tested the hypothesis that longitudinal associations between maternal BE and nonresponsive parent feeding practices would be mediated by parents' unsupportive responses to children's negative emotion. We also tested a serial mediation model positing that maternal BE predicts child body mass index (BMI) percentile change 18-24 months later, indirectly through unsupportive responses to negative emotion and nonresponsive feeding practices. Maternal BE predicted use of more nonresponsive feeding practices (e.g. Emotion Regulation, Restriction for Health, Pressure to Eat, and Food as Reward), indirectly through more Distress responses to children's negative emotions. In the serial mediation model, maternal BE was associated with greater use of Distress responses, which indirectly predicted higher child BMI percentile through Food as Reward feeding practices. These results suggest that maternal eating and emotion responsiveness are important for understanding the interpersonal context of
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Emotional Body Odors as Context: Effects on Cardiac and Subjective Responses.
Ferreira, Jacqueline; Parma, Valentina; Alho, Laura; Silva, Carlos F; Soares, Sandra C
2018-05-23
Many studies have indicated that the chemical cues from body odors (BOs) of donors experiencing negative emotions can influence the psychophysiological and behavioral response of the observers. However, these olfactory cues have been used mainly as contextual information for processing visual stimuli. Here, for the first time, we evaluate how emotional BO affects the emotional tone of a subsequent BO message. Axillary sweat samples were taken from 20 donors in 3 separate sessions while they watched fear, disgust, or neutral videos. In a double-blind experiment, we assessed the cardiac and subjective responses from 69 participants who were either exposed to negative emotional or neutral BOs. Our results showed a reduced cardiac parasympathetic activity (HF%)-indicating increased stress-when participants smelled the emotional BOs before the neutral BOs, compared to when they smelled neutral followed by emotional BOs. The intensity of the neutral odor also increased following the exposure to both negative BOs. These findings indicate that BOs contain an emotion-dependent chemical cue that affects the perceiver both at the physiological and subjective levels.
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[Emotional response to music by postlingually-deafened adult cochlear implant users].
Wang, Shuo; Dong, Ruijuan; Zhou, Yun; Li, Jing; Qi, Beier; Liu, Bo
2012-10-01
To assess the emotional response to music by postlingually-deafened adult cochlear implant users. Munich music questionnaire (MUMU) was used to match the music experience and the motivation of use of music between 12 normal-hearing and 12 cochlear implant subjects. Emotion rating test in Musical Sounds in Cochlear Implants (MuSIC) test battery was used to assess the emotion perception ability for both normal-hearing and cochlear implant subjects. A total of 15 pieces of music phases were used. Responses were given by selecting the rating scales from 1 to 10. "1" represents "very sad" feeling, and "10" represents "very happy feeling. In comparison with normal-hearing subjects, 12 cochlear implant subjects made less active use of music for emotional purpose. The emotion ratings for cochlear implant subjects were similar to normal-hearing subjects, but with large variability. Post-lingually deafened cochlear implant subjects on average performed similarly in emotion rating tasks relative to normal-hearing subjects, but their active use of music for emotional purpose was obviously less than normal-hearing subjects.
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Koval, Peter; Sütterlin, Stefan; Kuppens, Peter
2015-01-01
Previous studies have linked higher emotional inertia (i.e., a stronger autoregressive slope of emotions) with lower well-being. We aimed to replicate these findings, while extending upon previous research by addressing a number of unresolved issues and controlling for potential confounds. Specifically, we report results from two studies (Ns = 100 and 202) examining how emotional inertia, assessed in response to a standardized sequence of emotional stimuli in the lab, correlates with several measures of well-being. The current studies build on previous research by examining how inertia of both positive emotions (PE) and negative emotions (NE) relates to positive (e.g., life satisfaction) and negative (e.g., depressive symptoms) indicators of well-being, while controlling for between-person differences in the mean level and variability of emotions. Our findings replicated previous research and further revealed that (a) NE inertia was more strongly associated with lower well-being than PE inertia; (b) emotional inertia correlated more consistently with negative indicators (e.g., depressive symptoms) than positive indicators (e.g., life satisfaction) of well-being; and (c) these relationships were independent of individual differences in mean level and variability of emotions. We conclude, in line with recent findings, that higher emotional inertia, particularly of NE, may be an indicator of increased vulnerability to depression.
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van Roekel, Eeske; Heininga, Vera E; Vrijen, Charlotte; Snippe, Evelien; Oldehinkel, Albertine J
2018-04-19
Anhedonia reflects a dysfunction in the reward system, which can be manifested in an inability to enjoy pleasurable situations (i.e., lack of positive emotions), but also by a lack of motivation to engage in pleasurable activities (i.e., lack of motivation). Little is known about the interrelations between positive emotions and motivation in daily life, and whether these associations are altered in anhedonic individuals. In the present study, we used a network approach to explore the reciprocal, lagged associations between positive emotions and motivation in anhedonic individuals (N = 66) and controls (N = 68). Participants (aged between 18 and 24 years) filled out momentary assessments of affect 3 times per day for 30 consecutive days. Our results showed that (a) anhedonic individuals and controls had similar moment-to-moment transfer of positive emotions; (b) in the anhedonic network feeling cheerful was the node with the highest outstrength, both within this group and compared with the control group; (c) feeling relaxed had the highest outstrength in the control network, and (d) anhedonic individuals had stronger pathways from positive emotions to motivation than controls. Taken together, our findings suggest that low levels of positive emotions lead to decreased motivation in the anhedonic group, which could instigate a negative spiral of low pleasure and low motivation. On a more positive note, we showed that cheerfulness had the highest outstrength in the network of anhedonic participants. Hence, interventions may focus on increasing cheerfulness in anhedonic individuals, as this will likely have the greatest impact on other positive emotions and motivations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
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Frankel, Leslie A; Umemura, Tomo; Jacobvitz, Deborah; Hazen, Nancy
2015-08-01
According to family systems theory, children's emotional development is likely to be influenced by family interactions at multiple levels, including marital, mother-child, and father-child interactions, as well as by interrelations between these levels. The purpose of the present study was to examine parents' marital conflict and mothers' and fathers' distressed responses to their infant's negative emotions, assessed when their child was 8 and 24 months old, in addition to interactions between parents' marital conflict and their distressed responses, as predictors of their toddler's negative and flat/withdrawn affect at 24 months. Higher marital conflict during infancy and toddlerhood predicted both increased negative and increased flat/withdrawn affect during toddlerhood. In addition, toddlers' negative (but not flat) affect was related to mothers' distressed responses, but was only related to father's distressed responses when martial conflict was high. Implications of this study for parent education and family intervention were discussed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Furey, Maura L; Drevets, Wayne C; Szczepanik, Joanna; Khanna, Ashish; Nugent, Allison; Zarate, Carlos A
2015-03-28
Faster acting antidepressants and biomarkers that predict treatment response are needed to facilitate the development of more effective treatments for patients with major depressive disorders. Here, we evaluate implicitly and explicitly processed emotional faces using neuroimaging to identify potential biomarkers of treatment response to the antimuscarinic, scopolamine. Healthy participants (n=15) and unmedicated-depressed major depressive disorder patients (n=16) participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover infusion study using scopolamine (4 μg/kg). Before and following scopolamine, blood oxygen-level dependent signal was measured using functional MRI during a selective attention task. Two stimuli comprised of superimposed pictures of faces and houses were presented. Participants attended to one stimulus component and performed a matching task. Face emotion was modulated (happy/sad) creating implicit (attend-houses) and explicit (attend-faces) emotion processing conditions. The pretreatment difference in blood oxygen-level dependent response to happy and sad faces under implicit and explicit conditions (emotion processing biases) within a-priori regions of interest was correlated with subsequent treatment response in major depressive disorder. Correlations were observed exclusively during implicit emotion processing in the regions of interest, which included the subgenual anterior cingulate (Pemotional faces prior to treatment reflect the potential to respond to scopolamine. These findings replicate earlier results, highlighting the potential for pretreatment neural activity in the middle occipital cortices and subgenual anterior cingulate to inform us about the potential to respond clinically to scopolamine. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CINP 2015. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.
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Piqueras-Fiszman, Betina; Jaeger, Sara R.
2016-01-01
Our memories of past eating experiences are influential in shaping food preferences and consumption behavior, and the emotions that people associate to these memories are linked to their attitudes toward foods and their everyday food-related behaviors. This work studies the impact that food-related memories have on peoples’ emotional state and how this state is projected in a subsequent evaluation of images pertaining to food and food-related behaviors. Focus is placed on guilt and shame emotions. Through an online survey, three memories were investigated (a positive meal, a routine evening meal, and an overeating occasion) among UK consumers (N = 710). Participants primed with the overeating memory evaluated images related to junk food as conveying more feelings of guilt and shame than did participants primed with the memory of a positive meal. Moreover, this effect was moderated by participants’ dietary restraint status. Participants classified as having a high dietary restraint had stronger associations with the emotions guilt and shame than participants classified as low in dietary restraint. In contrast, a memory of a positive meal did not lead to positive valuations of any of the food-related images shown. Overall, the findings from the present study illustrate the partial impact that personal food memories have on consumers’ emotional response toward food-related issues, which in turn has the potential to affect future behavior. This study therefore contributes to the literature about cognitive effects on food attitudes and behavior. Furthermore, the results suggest that the empirical approach may be tapping into possibly unconscious emotions toward foods and food-related behavior. PMID:27445911
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Piqueras-Fiszman, Betina; Jaeger, Sara R
2016-01-01
Our memories of past eating experiences are influential in shaping food preferences and consumption behavior, and the emotions that people associate to these memories are linked to their attitudes toward foods and their everyday food-related behaviors. This work studies the impact that food-related memories have on peoples' emotional state and how this state is projected in a subsequent evaluation of images pertaining to food and food-related behaviors. Focus is placed on guilt and shame emotions. Through an online survey, three memories were investigated (a positive meal, a routine evening meal, and an overeating occasion) among UK consumers (N = 710). Participants primed with the overeating memory evaluated images related to junk food as conveying more feelings of guilt and shame than did participants primed with the memory of a positive meal. Moreover, this effect was moderated by participants' dietary restraint status. Participants classified as having a high dietary restraint had stronger associations with the emotions guilt and shame than participants classified as low in dietary restraint. In contrast, a memory of a positive meal did not lead to positive valuations of any of the food-related images shown. Overall, the findings from the present study illustrate the partial impact that personal food memories have on consumers' emotional response toward food-related issues, which in turn has the potential to affect future behavior. This study therefore contributes to the literature about cognitive effects on food attitudes and behavior. Furthermore, the results suggest that the empirical approach may be tapping into possibly unconscious emotions toward foods and food-related behavior.
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The Contribution of Deficits in Emotional Clarity to Stress Responses and Depression
Flynn, Megan; Rudolph, Karen D.
2010-01-01
This research investigated the contribution of deficits in emotional clarity to children’s socioemotional adjustment. Specifically, this study examined the proposal that deficits in emotional clarity are associated with maladaptive interpersonal stress responses, and that maladaptive interpersonal stress responses act as a mechanism linking deficits in emotional clarity to childhood depressive symptoms. Participants included 345 3rd graders (M age = 8.89, SD = .34) assessed at two waves, appr...
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Positive erotic picture stimuli for emotion research in heterosexual females.
Jacob, Gitta Anne; Arntz, Arnoud; Domes, Gregor; Reiss, Neele; Siep, Nicolette
2011-12-30
In most experimental studies, emotional pictures are widely used as stimulus material. However, there is still a lack of standardization of picture stimuli displaying erotic relationships, despite the association between a number of psychological problems and severe impairments and problems in intimate relationships. The aim of the study was to test a set of erotic stimuli, with the potential to be used in experimental studies, with heterosexual female subjects. Twenty International Affective Picture System (IAPS) pictures and an additional 100 pictures showing romantic but not explicitly sexual scenes and/or attractive single males were selected. All pictures were rated with respect to valence, arousal, and dominance by 41 heterosexual women and compared to pictures with negative, positive, and neutral emotional valence. Erotic IAPS pictures and our additional erotic pictures did not differ in any of the evaluation dimensions. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) for valence, arousal, and dominance comparing different picture valence categories showed strong effects for category. However, valence was not significantly different between erotic and positive pictures, while arousal and control were not significantly different between positive and neutral pictures. The pictures of our new set are as positive for heterosexual women as highly positive IAPS pictures, but higher in arousal and dominance. The picture set can be used in experimental psychiatric studies requiring high numbers of stimuli per category. Limitations are the restriction of stimuli application to heterosexual females only and to self-report data. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Lax decision criteria lead to negativity bias: evidence from the emotional stroop task.
Liu, Guofang; Xin, Ziqiang; Lin, Chongde
2014-06-01
Negativity bias means that negative information is usually given more emphasis than comparable positive information. Under signal detection theory, recent research found that people more frequently and incorrectly identify negative task-related words as having been presented originally than positive words, even when they were not presented. That is, people have lax decision criteria for negative words. However, the response biases for task-unrelated negative words and for emotionally important words are still unclear. This study investigated response bias for these two kinds of words. Study 1 examined the response bias for task-unrelated negative words using an emotional Stroop task. Proportions of correct recognition to negative and positive words were assessed by non-parametric signal detection analysis. Participants have lower (i.e., more lax) decision criteria for task-unrelated negative words than for positive words. Study 2 supported and expanded this result by investigating participants' response bias for highly emotional words. Participants have lower decision criteria for highly emotional words than for less emotional words. Finally, possible evolutionary sources of the response bias were discussed.
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Koval, Peter; Butler, Emily A; Hollenstein, Tom; Lanteigne, Dianna; Kuppens, Peter
2015-01-01
The tendency for emotions to be predictable over time, labelled emotional inertia, has been linked to low well-being and is thought to reflect impaired emotion regulation. However, almost no studies have examined how emotion regulation relates to emotional inertia. We examined the effects of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression on the inertia of behavioural, subjective and physiological measures of emotion. In Study 1 (N = 111), trait suppression was associated with higher inertia of negative behaviours. We replicated this finding experimentally in Study 2 (N = 186). Furthermore, in Study 2, instructed suppressors and reappraisers both showed higher inertia of positive behaviours, and reappraisers displayed higher inertia of heart rate. Neither suppression nor reappraisal were associated with the inertia of subjective feelings in either study. Thus, the effects of suppression and reappraisal on the temporal dynamics of emotions depend on the valence and emotional response component in question.
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Sex differences in emotional contexts modulation on response inhibition.
Ramos-Loyo, Julieta; Angulo-Chavira, Armando; Llamas-Alonso, Luis A; González-Garrido, Andrés A
2016-10-01
The aim of the present study was to explore sex differences in the effects that emotional contexts exert on the temporal course of response inhibition using event-related potentials (ERP). Participants performed a Go-NoGo response inhibition task under 3 context conditions: with 1) neutral background stimuli, and 2) pleasant, and 3) unpleasant emotional contexts. No sex differences were found in relation to accuracy. Women showed higher N2NoGo amplitudes than men in both emotional contexts; whereas during inhibition men tended to show higher P3NoGo amplitudes than women in the unpleasant context. Both groups experienced a relevant effect of the presence of the unpleasant context during inhibition processing, as shown by the enhancement of the N2NoGo amplitudes in frontal regions compared to results from the neutral and pleasant conditions. In addition, women showed differences between the pleasant and unpleasant contexts, with the latter inducing higher amplitude values. Only in men did inhibition accuracy correlate with higher N2NoGo and lower P3NoGo amplitudes in the emotional context conditions. These findings suggest that when an inhibition task is performed in an emotionally-neutral background context no sex differences are observed in either accuracy or ERP components. However, when the emotional context was introduced -especially the unpleasant one- some gender differences did become evident. The higher N2NoGo amplitude at the presence of the unpleasant context may reflect an effect on attention and conflict monitoring. In addition, results suggest that during earlier processing stages, women invested more resources to process inhibition than men. Furthermore, men who invested more neural resources during earlier stages showed better response inhibition than those who did it during later processing stages, more closely-related to cognitive and motor inhibition processes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Stokić Miodrag
2012-01-01
Full Text Available Emotions play a significant role in fluency disorders. In this research we wanted to examine immediate and delayed verbal recall for auditory presented words that carry information about different emotional state (emotion-related words and emotionally neutral words in children who stutter (N=35 and their peers (N=35. Using only word semantics, we wanted to eliminate emotional verbal expression of words as a factor that can influence memory abilities. In addition, we also wanted to examine skin conductance measure as an indicator of autonomic nervous system arousal during short-term memory task for emotion-related and emotionally neutral words. Parental questionnaire (Stuttering Intensity in Children Who Stutter in Positive and Negative Emotion-Related Everyday Situations was given to parents of children who stutter in order to collect data regarding stuttering severity in emotionally arousing situations in everyday life. Differences between the experimental and the control group in global memory capacity are highest in immediate recall (p=0,01 with the tendency for lowering statistical significance with prolongation of retention interval. According to the questionnaire results, children who stutter show a higher degree of stuttering in situations with positive emotional valence (p< 0.00. Skin conductance measurements showed higher autonomic nervous system arousal during perception and free recall of positive emotion-related words in children who stutter when compared to negative and emotionally neutral words. The results indicate higher emotional arousal to positive emotions in children who stutter (p=0.02, leading to either less fluent speech or suppression of verbal short-term memory capacity.
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Ou, Yi-Chun; Verhoef, Peter C.
2017-01-01
Customer equity drivers (CEDs) include value, brand, and relationship equity, which have a strong link with loyalty intentions. This study aims to examine the incremental effects of positive and negative emotions on loyalty intentions and to determine whether these emotions moderate the positive
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Ou, Yi-Chun; Verhoef, Peter C.
Customer equity drivers (CEDs) include value, brand, and relationship equity, which have a strong link with loyalty intentions. This study aims to examine the incremental effects of positive and negative emotions on loyalty intentions and to determine whether these emotions moderate the positive
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Trait and State Positive Emotional Experience in Schizophrenia: A Meta-Analysis
Yan, Chao; Cao, Yuan; Zhang, Yang; Song, Li-Ling; Cheung, Eric F. C.; Chan, Raymond C. K.
2012-01-01
Background Prior meta-analyses indicated that people with schizophrenia show impairment in trait hedonic capacity but retain their state hedonic experience (valence) in laboratory-based assessments. Little is known about what is the extent of differences for state positive emotional experience (especially arousal) between people with schizophrenia and healthy controls. It is also not clear whether negative symptoms and gender effect contribute to the variance of positive affect. Methods and Findings The current meta-analysis examined 21 studies assessing state arousal experience, 40 studies measuring state valence experience, and 47studies assessing trait hedonic capacity in schizophrenia. Patients with schizophrenia demonstrated significant impairment in trait hedonic capacity (Cohen’s d = 0.81). However, patients and controls did not statistically differ in state hedonic (valence) as well as exciting (arousal) experience to positive stimuli (Cohen’s d = −0.24 to 0.06). They also reported experiencing relatively robust state aversion and calmness to positive stimuli compared with controls (Cohen’s d = 0.75, 0.56, respectively). Negative symptoms and gender contributed to the variance of findings in positive affect, especially trait hedonic capacity in schizophrenia. Conclusions Our findings suggest that schizophrenia patients have no deficit in state positive emotional experience but impairment in “noncurrent” hedonic capacity, which may be mediated by negative symptoms and gender effect. PMID:22815785
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Zhishuai, Jin; Hong, Liu; Daxing, Wu; Pin, Zhang; Xuejing, Lu
2017-01-01
Congenital amusia is characterized by lifelong impairments in music perception and processing. It is unclear whether pitch detection deficits impact amusic individuals' perception of musical emotion. In the current work, 19 amusics and 21 healthy controls were subjected to electroencephalography (EEG) while being exposed to music excerpts and emotional faces. We assessed each individual's ability to discriminate positive- and negative-valenced emotional faces and analyzed electrophysiological indices, in the form of event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded at 32 sites, following exposure to emotionally positive or negative music excerpts. We observed smaller N2 amplitudes in response to facial expressions in the amusia group than in the control group, suggesting that amusics were less affected by the musical stimuli. The late-positive component (LPC) in amusics was similar to that in controls. Our results suggest that the neurocognitive deficit characteristic of congenital amusia is fundamentally an impairment in musical information processing rather than an impairment in emotional processing.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jin Zhishuai
2017-01-01
Full Text Available Congenital amusia is characterized by lifelong impairments in music perception and processing. It is unclear whether pitch detection deficits impact amusic individuals' perception of musical emotion. In the current work, 19 amusics and 21 healthy controls were subjected to electroencephalography (EEG while being exposed to music excerpts and emotional faces. We assessed each individual's ability to discriminate positive- and negative-valenced emotional faces and analyzed electrophysiological indices, in the form of event-related potentials (ERPs recorded at 32 sites, following exposure to emotionally positive or negative music excerpts. We observed smaller N2 amplitudes in response to facial expressions in the amusia group than in the control group, suggesting that amusics were less affected by the musical stimuli. The late-positive component (LPC in amusics was similar to that in controls. Our results suggest that the neurocognitive deficit characteristic of congenital amusia is fundamentally an impairment in musical information processing rather than an impairment in emotional processing.
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The impact of verbal framing on brain activity evoked by emotional images.
Kisley, Michael A; Campbell, Alana M; Larson, Jenna M; Naftz, Andrea E; Regnier, Jesse T; Davalos, Deana B
2011-12-01
Emotional stimuli generally command more brain processing resources than non-emotional stimuli, but the magnitude of this effect is subject to voluntary control. Cognitive reappraisal represents one type of emotion regulation that can be voluntarily employed to modulate responses to emotional stimuli. Here, the late positive potential (LPP), a specific event-related brain potential (ERP) component, was measured in response to neutral, positive and negative images while participants performed an evaluative categorization task. One experimental group adopted a "negative frame" in which images were categorized as negative or not. The other adopted a "positive frame" in which the exact same images were categorized as positive or not. Behavioral performance confirmed compliance with random group assignment, and peak LPP amplitude to negative images was affected by group membership: brain responses to negative images were significantly reduced in the "positive frame" group. This suggests that adopting a more positive appraisal frame can modulate brain activity elicited by negative stimuli in the environment.
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Wang, Bo
2013-01-01
Studies have shown that emotion elicited after learning enhances memory consolidation. However, no prior studies have used facial photos as stimuli. This study examined the effect of post-learning positive emotion on consolidation of memory for faces. During the learning participants viewed neutral, positive, or negative faces. Then they were assigned to a condition in which they either watched a 9-minute positive video clip, or a 9-minute neutral video. Then 30 minutes after the learning participants took a surprise memory test, in which they made "remember", "know", and "new" judgements. The findings are: (1) Positive emotion enhanced consolidation of recognition for negative male faces, but impaired consolidation of recognition for negative female faces; (2) For males, recognition for negative faces was equivalent to that for positive faces; for females, recognition for negative faces was better than that for positive faces. Our study provides the important evidence that effect of post-learning emotion on memory consolidation can extend to facial stimuli and such an effect can be modulated by facial valence and facial gender. The findings may shed light on establishing models concerning the influence of emotion on memory consolidation.
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The Contribution of Deficits in Emotional Clarity to Stress Responses and Depression
Flynn, Megan; Rudolph, Karen D.
2010-01-01
This research investigated the contribution of deficits in emotional clarity to children's socioemotional adjustment. Specifically, this study examined the proposal that deficits in emotional clarity are associated with maladaptive interpersonal stress responses, and that maladaptive interpersonal stress responses act as a mechanism linking…
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Behavioral predispositions to approach or avoid emotional words in schizophrenia.
Sevos, Jessica; Grosselin, Anne; Fedotova, Tatyana; Massoubre, Catherine
2016-07-30
Many data suggest a disjunction between decreased emotional expressions and relatively preserved experience of and ability to assess emotions in schizophrenia. Based in an embodied approach of cognition, several studies have highlighted affective stimulus-response congruency effect in healthy subjects that show a direct link between the perception of emotion and associated motor responses. This study investigated whether the categorization of emotional words involves an automatic sensorimotor simulation of approach and avoidance behaviors. We asked 28 subjects with schizophrenia and 28 controls to execute arm movements of approach or avoidance to categorize emotional words, according to their valence (positive or negative). Controls were faster to respond to a positive stimulus with a movement of approach and a negative stimulus with a movement of avoidance (congruent condition) than to perform the inverted response movements (incongruent condition). However, responses of patients with schizophrenia did not differ according to congruence condition. Our results support the apparent non-involvement of covert sensorimotor simulation of approach and avoidance in the categorization of emotional stimuli by patients with schizophrenia, despite their understanding of the emotional valence of words. This absence of affective stimulus-response compatibility effect would imply a decoupling between emotional and bodily states in patients with schizophrenia. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Intuitive Choices Lead to Intensified Positive Emotions: An Overlooked Reason for "Intuition Bias"?
Kirkebøen, Geir; Nordbye, Gro H H
2017-01-01
People have, for many well-documented reasons, a tendency to overemphasize their intuitions and to follow them, even when they should not. This "intuition bias" leads to several kinds of specific intuitive biases in judgments and decision making. Previous studies have shown that characteristics of the decision process have a tendency to "leak" into the experience of the choice outcome. We explore whether intuitive choices influence the experience of the choice outcomes differently from "non-intuitive," analytic choices. Since intuition is feeling based, we examine in particular if intuitive choices have stronger affective consequences than non-intuitive ones. Participants in two scenario studies ( N = 90; N = 126) rated the feelings of decision makers who experienced a conflict between two options, one intuitively appealing and another that appeared preferable on analytic grounds. Choosing the intuitive alternative was anticipated to lead to somewhat more regret after negative outcomes and, in particular, much more satisfaction with positive outcomes. In two autobiographical studies, one with psychology students ( N = 88) and the other with experienced engineers ( N = 99), participants were asked to provide examples of choice conflicts between an intuitive and a non-intuitive option from their own private or professional lives. Both groups showed a tendency to report stronger emotions, in particular positive, after intuitive choices. One well-established explanation for intuition bias focuses on the nature of people's anticipated negative counterfactual thoughts if their decisions were to turn out badly. The present data indicate that intuitive choices intensify positive emotions, anticipated and real, after successful outcomes much more than negative emotions after failures. Positive outcomes are also more commonly expected than negative ones, when we make choices. We argue that markedly amplified emotions, mediated by stronger personal involvement, in the
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Amygdala responses to unpleasant pictures are influenced by task demands and positive affect trait
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Tiago Arruda Sanchez
2015-03-01
Full Text Available The role of attention in emotional processing is still the subject of debate. Recent studies have found that high positive affect in approach motivation narrows attention. Furthermore, the positive affect trait has been suggested as an important component for determining human variability in threat reactivity. We employed fMRI to investigate whether different states of attention control would modulate amygdala responses to highly unpleasant pictures relative to neutral and whether this modulation would be influenced by the positive affect trait. Participants (n=22, 12 male were scanned while viewing neutral (people or unpleasant pictures (mutilated bodies flanked by two peripheral bars. They were instructed to (a judge the picture content as unpleasant or neutral or (b to judge the difference in orientation between the bars in an easy condition (0º or 90º orientation difference or (c in a hard condition (0º or 6º orientation difference. Whole brain analysis revealed a task main effect of brain areas related to the experimental manipulation of attentional control, including the amygdala, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior parietal cortex. ROI analysis showed an inverse correlation (r = -0.51, p < 0.01 between left amygdala activation and positive affect level when participants viewed unpleasant stimuli and judged bar orientation in the easy condition. This result suggests that subjects with high positive affect exhibit lower amygdala reactivity to distracting unpleasant pictures. In conclusion, the current study suggests that positive affect modulates attention effect on unpleasant pictures, therefore attenuating emotional responses.
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Huffmeijer, Renske; Bakermans-Kranenburg, Marian J; Alink, Lenneke R A; van IJzendoorn, Marinus H
2014-06-02
Parental use of love withdrawal is thought to affect children's later psychological functioning because it creates a link between children's performance and relational consequences. In addition, recent studies have begun to show that experiences of love withdrawal also relate to the neural processing of socio-emotional information relevant to a performance-relational consequence link, and can moderate effects of oxytocin on social information processing and behavior. The current study follows-up on our previous results by attempting to confirm and extend previous findings indicating that experiences of maternal love withdrawal are related to electrocortical responses to emotional faces presented with performance feedback. More maternal love withdrawal was related to enhanced early processing of facial feedback stimuli (reflected in more positive VPP amplitudes, and confirming previous findings). However, attentional engagement with and processing of the stimuli at a later stage were diminished in those reporting higher maternal love withdrawal (reflected in less positive LPP amplitudes, and diverging from previous findings). Maternal love withdrawal affects the processing of emotional faces presented with performance feedback differently in different stages of neural processing.
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Memories of social interactions: age differences in emotional intensity.
Charles, Susan Turk; Piazza, Jennifer R
2007-06-01
The current study examined age differences in the intensity of emotions experienced during social interactions. Because emotions are felt most intensely in situations central to motivational goals, age differences in emotional intensity may exist in social situations that meet the goals for one age group more than the other. Guided by theories of emotional intensity and socioemotional selectivity, it was hypothesized that social partner type would elicit different affective responses by age. Younger (n = 71) and older (n = 71) adults recalled experiences of positive and negative emotions with new friends, established friends, and family members from the prior week. Compared with younger adults, older adults reported lower intensity positive emotions with new friends, similarly intense positive emotions with established friends, and higher intensity positive emotions with family members. Older adults reported lower intensity negative emotions for all social partners than did younger adults, but this difference was most pronounced for interactions with new friends. ((c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved).
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Lee, Eunsoon
2012-01-01
The purpose of this study is to expand research on persuasion 1) by examining psychological reactance as a function of threats to positive identity above and beyond threats to freedom and 2) by examining the role of positive emotions. An online survey recruited 478 students from undergraduate courses at several universities in the U.S. The study…
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The Effects of "Positive Action" on Preschoolers' Social-Emotional Competence and Health Behaviors
Schmitt, Sara A.; Lewis, Kendra M.; Duncan, Robert J.; Korucu, Irem; Napoli, Amy R.
2018-01-01
Children from low-income families are at greater risk for poor social-emotional development and physical health and may be in need of intervention. This study examined the extent to which the "Positive Action" ("PA") preschool lessons improved low-income children's social-emotional competence and health behaviors. Mixed…
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Kanske, Philipp; Kotz, Sonja A
2011-02-01
Coherent behavior depends on attentional control that detects and resolves conflict between opposing actions. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging study tested the hypothesis that emotion triggers attentional control to speed up conflict processing in particularly salient situations. Therefore, we presented emotionally negative and neutral words in a version of the flanker task. In response to conflict, we found activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and of the amygdala for emotional stimuli. When emotion and conflict coincided, a region in the ventral ACC was activated, which resulted in faster conflict processing in reaction times. Emotion also increased functional connectivity between the ventral ACC and activation of the dorsal ACC and the amygdala in conflict trials. These data suggest that the ventral ACC integrates emotion and conflict and prioritizes the processing of conflict in emotional trials. This adaptive mechanism ensures rapid detection and resolution of conflict in potentially threatening situations signaled by emotional stimuli. Copyright © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
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Jatzko, Alexander; Schmitt, Andrea; Demirakca, Traute; Weimer, Erik; Braus, Dieter F
2006-03-01
This study was designed to investigate the circuitry underlying movie-induced positive emotional processing in subjects with chronic PTSD. Ten male subjects with chronic PTSD and ten matched controls were studied. In an fMRI-paradigm a sequence of a wellknown Walt Disney cartoon with positive emotional valence was shown. PTSD subjects showed an increased activation in the right posterior temporal, precentral and superior frontal cortex. Controls recruited more emotion-related regions bilateral in the temporal pole and areas of the left fusiform and parahippocampal gyrus. This pilot study is the first to reveal alterations in the processing of positive emotions in PTSD possibly reflecting a neuronal correlate of the symptom of emotional numbness in PTSD.
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Bahremand, Mostafa; Alikhani, Mostafa; Zakiei, Ali; Janjani, Parisa; Aghei, Abbas
2015-05-17
Application of psychological interventions is essential in classic treatments for patient with cardiac diseases. The present study compared cognitive emotion regulation strategies, positive affect, and negative affect for cardiac patients with healthy subjects. This study was a case-control study. Fifty subjects were selected using convenient sampling method from cardiac (coronary artery disease) patients presenting in Imam Ali medical center of Kermanshah, Iran in the spring 2013. Fifty subjects accompanied the patients to the medical center, selected as control group, did not have any history of cardiac diseases. For collecting data, the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire and positive and negative affect scales were used. For data analysis, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) Was applied using the SPSS statistical software (ver. 19.0). In all cognitive emotion regulation strategies, there was a significant difference between the two groups. A significant difference was also detected regarding positive affect between the two groups, but no significant difference was found regarding negative affect. We found as a result that, having poor emotion regulation strategies is a risk factor for developing heart diseases.
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Bahremand, Mostafa; Alikhani, Mostafa; Zakiei, Ali; Janjani, Parisa; Aghaei, Abbas
2016-01-01
Application of psychological interventions is essential in classic treatments for patient with cardiac diseases. The present study compared cognitive emotion regulation strategies, positive affect, and negative affect for cardiac patients with healthy subjects. This study was a case-control study. Fifty subjects were selected using convenient sampling method from cardiac (coronary artery disease) patients presenting in Imam Ali medical center of Kermanshah, Iran in the spring 2013. Fifty subjects accompanied the patients to the medical center, selected as control group, did not have any history of cardiac diseases. For collecting data, the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire and positive and negative affect scales were used. For data analysis, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was applied using the SPSS statistical software (ver. 19.0). In all cognitive emotion regulation strategies, there was a significant difference between the two groups. A significant difference was also detected regarding positive affect between the two groups, but no significant difference was found regarding negative affect. We found as a result that, having poor emotion regulation strategies is a risk factor for developing heart diseases. PMID:26234976
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Sex differences in the time course of emotion.
Gard, Marja Germans; Kring, Ann M
2007-05-01
Conventional wisdom holds that women are more "emotional" than men. However, research evidence suggests that sex differences in emotion are considerably more complex. The authors tested hypotheses about sex differences in the engagement of the approach and avoidance motivational systems thought to underpin emotional responses. The authors measured reported emotional experience and startle response magnitude both during the presentation and after the offset of emotional stimuli that engage these motivational systems to assess whether men and women differ in their patterns of immediate response to emotional stimuli and in their patterns of recovery from these responses. Our findings indicated that women were more experientially reactive to negative, but not positive, emotional pictures compared to men, and that women scored higher than men on measure of aversive motivational system sensitivity. Although both men and women exhibited potentiation of the startle response during the presentation of negative pictures relative to neutral pictures, only women continued to show this relative potentiation during the recovery period, indicating that women were continuing to engage the aversive motivational system after the offset of negative emotional pictures.
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Yoo, Jin
2015-06-01
A variety of theoretical perspectives describe the crucial behavioral roles of motivation and emotion, but how these interact with perceptions of social contexts and behaviors is less well understood. This study examined whether autonomous motivation mediated the relationship between perceived autonomy support and behavioral engagement in physical education and whether this mediating process was moderated by positive emotion. A sample of 592 Korean middle-school students (304 boys, 288 girls; M age = 14.0 yr., SD = 0.8) completed questionnaires. Autonomous motivation partially mediated the positive association between perceived autonomy support and behavioral engagement. Positive emotion moderated the relationship between autonomous motivation and behavioral engagement. This indirect link was stronger as positive emotion increased. These findings suggest the importance of integrating emotion into motivational processes to understand how and when perceived autonomy support is associated with behavioral engagement in physical education.
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Emotional engineers: toward morally responsible design.
Roeser, Sabine
2012-03-01
Engineers are normally seen as the archetype of people who make decisions in a rational and quantitative way. However, technological design is not value neutral. The way a technology is designed determines its possibilities, which can, for better or for worse, have consequences for human wellbeing. This leads various scholars to the claim that engineers should explicitly take into account ethical considerations. They are at the cradle of new technological developments and can thereby influence the possible risks and benefits more directly than anybody else. I have argued elsewhere that emotions are an indispensable source of ethical insight into ethical aspects of risk. In this paper I will argue that this means that engineers should also include emotional reflection into their work. This requires a new understanding of the competencies of engineers: they should not be unemotional calculators; quite the opposite, they should work to cultivate their moral emotions and sensitivity, in order to be engaged in morally responsible engineering. © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
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Mapping aesthetic musical emotions in the brain.
Trost, Wiebke; Ethofer, Thomas; Zentner, Marcel; Vuilleumier, Patrik
2012-12-01
Music evokes complex emotions beyond pleasant/unpleasant or happy/sad dichotomies usually investigated in neuroscience. Here, we used functional neuroimaging with parametric analyses based on the intensity of felt emotions to explore a wider spectrum of affective responses reported during music listening. Positive emotions correlated with activation of left striatum and insula when high-arousing (Wonder, Joy) but right striatum and orbitofrontal cortex when low-arousing (Nostalgia, Tenderness). Irrespective of their positive/negative valence, high-arousal emotions (Tension, Power, and Joy) also correlated with activations in sensory and motor areas, whereas low-arousal categories (Peacefulness, Nostalgia, and Sadness) selectively engaged ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. The right parahippocampal cortex activated in all but positive high-arousal conditions. Results also suggested some blends between activation patterns associated with different classes of emotions, particularly for feelings of Wonder or Transcendence. These data reveal a differentiated recruitment across emotions of networks involved in reward, memory, self-reflective, and sensorimotor processes, which may account for the unique richness of musical emotions.
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Dundon, Carolyn M; Rellini, Alessandra H
2012-10-01
Research suggests that there are three interrelated, yet distinct, emotion-motivation brain systems for human love (lust, romantic love, and attachment), each associated with a unique catecholaminergic and hormonal profile. Of interest for the current study are norepinephrine (NE) and dopamine (DA), which have a hypothesized connection with romantic love. As NE and DA are also known to facilitate sexual arousal, it is plausible that NE and DA may have a greater positive association with the sexual arousal responses of women in romantic love compared with women in lust. This study investigated if the effects of NE and DA activity on sexual arousal responses would differ depending on emotion-motivation state (Lust or Romantic). Physiological sexual arousal was assessed by photoplethysmography and subjective sexual arousal was assessed with a participant-controlled lever. Seventeen women were included in the Lust group and 29 in the Romantic group. All participants provided a urine sample (to assess NE and DA) and completed a psychophysiological assessment. Elevated NE was positively and significantly associated with greater subjective and physiological sexual arousal for the Lust group, but not for the Romantic group. Similarly, elevated DA was positively and significantly associated with greater subjective sexual arousal for the Lust group, but not for the Romantic group. The sexual arousal responses of women in the Lust group, but not in the Romantic group, were positively and significantly associated with elevated NE and DA. It is feasible that, when women are seeking a partner (Lust), NE and DA may facilitate attention toward sexually relevant stimuli. © 2012 International Society for Sexual Medicine.
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Tse, Chi-Shing; Altarriba, Jeanette
2009-02-01
The present study examined the roles of word concreteness and word valence in the immediate serial recall task. Emotion words (e.g. happy) were used to investigate these effects. Participants completed study-test trials with seven-item study lists consisting of positive or negative words with either high or low concreteness (Experiments 1 and 2) and neutral (i.e. non-emotion) words with either high or low concreteness (Experiment 2). For neutral words, the typical word concreteness effect (concrete words are better recalled than abstract words) was replicated. For emotion words, the effect occurred for positive words, but not for negative words. While the word concreteness effect was stronger for neutral words than for negative words, it was not different for the neutral words and the positive words. We conclude that both word valence and word concreteness simultaneously contribute to the item and order retention of emotion words and discuss how Hulme et al.'s (1997) item redintegration account can be modified to explain these findings.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Francesca M. M. Citron
2016-01-01
Full Text Available The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behaviour (approach vs. withdrawal and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL are associated with an implicit tendency to approach a stimulus, whereas negative valence and high arousal (NH are associated with withdrawal. Hence, positive, high-arousal (PH and negative, low-arousal (NL stimuli elicit conflicting action tendencies. By extending previous research that used several tasks and methods, the present study investigated whether and how emotional valence and arousal affect subjective approach vs. withdrawal tendencies towards emotional words during two novel tasks. In Study 1, participants had to decide whether they would approach or withdraw from concepts expressed by written words. In Studies 2 and 3 participants had to respond to each word by pressing one of two keys labelled with an arrow pointing upward or downward. Across experiments, positive and negative words, high or low in arousal, were presented. In Study 1 (explicit task, in line with the valence-arousal conflict theory, PH and NL words were responded to more slowly than PL and NH words. In addition, participants decided to approach positive words more often than negative words. In Studies 2 and 3, participants responded faster to positive than negative words, irrespective of their level of arousal. Furthermore, positive words were significantly more often associated with up responses than negative words, thus supporting the existence of implicit associations between stimulus valence and response coding (positive is up and negative is down. Hence, in contexts in which participants’ spontaneous
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Emotion disrupts neural activity during selective attention in psychopathy.
Sadeh, Naomi; Spielberg, Jeffrey M; Heller, Wendy; Herrington, John D; Engels, Anna S; Warren, Stacie L; Crocker, Laura D; Sutton, Bradley P; Miller, Gregory A
2013-03-01
Dimensions of psychopathy are theorized to be associated with distinct cognitive and emotional abnormalities that may represent unique neurobiological risk factors for the disorder. This hypothesis was investigated by examining whether the psychopathic personality dimensions of fearless-dominance and impulsive-antisociality moderated neural activity and behavioral responses associated with selective attention and emotional processing during an emotion-word Stroop task in 49 adults. As predicted, the dimensions evidenced divergent selective-attention deficits and sensitivity to emotional distraction. Fearless-dominance was associated with disrupted attentional control to positive words, and activation in right superior frontal gyrus mediated the relationship between fearless-dominance and errors to positive words. In contrast, impulsive-antisociality evidenced increased behavioral interference to both positive and negative words and correlated positively with recruitment of regions associated with motivational salience (amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, insula), emotion regulation (temporal cortex, superior frontal gyrus) and attentional control (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex). Individuals high on both dimensions had increased recruitment of regions related to attentional control (temporal cortex, rostral anterior cingulate cortex), response preparation (pre-/post-central gyri) and motivational value (orbitofrontal cortex) in response to negative words. These findings provide evidence that the psychopathy dimensions represent dual sets of risk factors characterized by divergent dysfunction in cognitive and affective processes.
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Emotional bias of sleep-dependent processing shifts from negative to positive with aging.
Jones, Bethany J; Schultz, Kurt S; Adams, Sydney; Baran, Bengi; Spencer, Rebecca M C
2016-09-01
Age-related memory decline has been proposed to result partially from impairments in memory consolidation over sleep. However, such decline may reflect a shift toward selective processing of positive information with age rather than impaired sleep-related mechanisms. In the present study, young and older adults viewed negative and neutral pictures or positive and neutral pictures and underwent a recognition test after sleep or wake. Subjective emotional reactivity and affect were also measured. Compared with waking, sleep preserved valence ratings and memory for positive but not negative pictures in older adults and negative but not positive pictures in young adults. In older adults, memory for positive pictures was associated with slow wave sleep. Furthermore, slow wave sleep predicted positive affect in older adults but was inversely related to positive affect in young adults. These relationships were strongest for older adults with high memory for positive pictures and young adults with high memory for negative pictures. Collectively, these results indicate preserved but selective sleep-dependent memory processing with healthy aging that may be biased to enhance emotional well-being. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Sabini, John; Green, Melanie C
2004-11-01
In three studies (total N = 619), the authors tested an evolutionary hypothesis: Men are more bothered by sexual than emotional infidelity, whereas the reverse is true of women. More diverse samples (in age) and measures than is typical were used. In Study 1, the authors found across gender, sample, and method that sexual infidelity was associated with anger and blame, but emotional infidelity was associated with hurt feelings. The evolutionary effect was replicated with undergraduates but not with the nonstudent sample. In Study 2, narrative scenarios were used; it was found that nonstudent men and women were more hurt and upset by emotional infidelity but were made angrier by sexual infidelity. In Study 3, using Likert-type scales, scenarios, and a nonstudent sample, it was found that both genders were more upset, hurt, and angrier about sexual than emotional transgressions when rating one kind without hearing the opposite type. The implications for how emotional responses evolved are discussed.
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Identifying attentional bias and emotional response after appearance-related stimuli exposure.
Cho, Ara; Kwak, Soo-Min; Lee, Jang-Han
2013-01-01
The effect of media images has been regarded as a significant variable in the construction or in the activation of body images. Individuals who have a negative body image use avoidance coping strategies to minimize damage to their body image. We identified attentional biases and negative emotional responses following exposure to body stimuli. Female university students were divided into two groups based on their use of avoidance coping strategies (high-level group: high avoidance [HA]; low-group: low avoidance [LA]), and were assigned to two different conditions (exposure to thin body pictures, ET, and exposure to oversized body pictures, EO). Results showed that the HA group paid more attention to slim bodies and reported more negative emotions than the LA group, and that the EO had more negative effects than the ET. We suggest that HAs may attend more to slim bodies as a way of avoiding overweight bodies, influenced by social pressure, and in the search for a compensation of a positive emotional balance. However, attentional bias toward slim bodies can cause an upward comparison process, leading to increased body dissatisfaction, which is the main factor in the development of eating disorders (EDs). Therefore, altering avoidance coping strategies should be considered for people at risk of EDs.
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Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity
Deng, Yaling; Chang, Lei; Yang, Meng; Huo, Meng
2016-01-01
The present study investigated gender differences in both emotional experience and expressivity. Heart rate (HR) was recorded as an indicator of emotional experience while the participants watched 16 video clips that induced eight types of emotion (sadness, anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, amusement, surprise, and pleasure). We also asked the participants to report valence, arousal, and motivation as indicators of emotional expressivity. Overall, the results revealed gender differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity. When watching videos that induced anger, amusement, and pleasure, men showed larger decreases in HR, whereas women reported higher levels of arousal. There was no gender difference in HR when the participants watched videos that induced horror and disgust, but women reported lower valence, higher arousal, and stronger avoidance motivation than did men. Finally, no gender difference was observed in sadness or surprise, although there was one exception—women reported higher arousal when watching videos that induced sadness. The findings suggest that, when watching videos that induce an emotional response, men often have more intense emotional experiences, whereas women have higher emotional expressivity, particularly for negative emotions. In addition, gender differences depend on the specific emotion type but not the valence. PMID:27362361
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Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity.
Deng, Yaling; Chang, Lei; Yang, Meng; Huo, Meng; Zhou, Renlai
2016-01-01
The present study investigated gender differences in both emotional experience and expressivity. Heart rate (HR) was recorded as an indicator of emotional experience while the participants watched 16 video clips that induced eight types of emotion (sadness, anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, amusement, surprise, and pleasure). We also asked the participants to report valence, arousal, and motivation as indicators of emotional expressivity. Overall, the results revealed gender differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity. When watching videos that induced anger, amusement, and pleasure, men showed larger decreases in HR, whereas women reported higher levels of arousal. There was no gender difference in HR when the participants watched videos that induced horror and disgust, but women reported lower valence, higher arousal, and stronger avoidance motivation than did men. Finally, no gender difference was observed in sadness or surprise, although there was one exception-women reported higher arousal when watching videos that induced sadness. The findings suggest that, when watching videos that induce an emotional response, men often have more intense emotional experiences, whereas women have higher emotional expressivity, particularly for negative emotions. In addition, gender differences depend on the specific emotion type but not the valence.
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Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Yaling Deng
Full Text Available The present study investigated gender differences in both emotional experience and expressivity. Heart rate (HR was recorded as an indicator of emotional experience while the participants watched 16 video clips that induced eight types of emotion (sadness, anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, amusement, surprise, and pleasure. We also asked the participants to report valence, arousal, and motivation as indicators of emotional expressivity. Overall, the results revealed gender differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity. When watching videos that induced anger, amusement, and pleasure, men showed larger decreases in HR, whereas women reported higher levels of arousal. There was no gender difference in HR when the participants watched videos that induced horror and disgust, but women reported lower valence, higher arousal, and stronger avoidance motivation than did men. Finally, no gender difference was observed in sadness or surprise, although there was one exception-women reported higher arousal when watching videos that induced sadness. The findings suggest that, when watching videos that induce an emotional response, men often have more intense emotional experiences, whereas women have higher emotional expressivity, particularly for negative emotions. In addition, gender differences depend on the specific emotion type but not the valence.
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Clark, Malissa A; Michel, Jesse S; Stevens, Gregory W; Howell, Julia W; Scruggs, Ross S
2014-10-01
This study examines the mechanisms through which workaholism and work engagement impact work-home conflict and enrichment, respectively. Specifically, we examine the mediating role of positive and negative emotions (e.g. joviality and guilt) in the relationship between workaholism, work engagement and work-home outcomes. Results, based on a sample of 340 working adults participating in a two-wave study, indicate that negative emotions-particularly anxiety, anger and disappointment-mediate the relationship between workaholism and work-home conflict and positive emotions-particularly joviality and self-assurance-mediate the relationship between work engagement and work-home enrichment. These results provide further evidence that workaholism and work engagement are related to distinct sets of emotional variables and disparate work and home outcomes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Wardy, Wisdom; Sae-Eaw, Amporn; Sriwattana, Sujinda; No, Hong Kyoon; Prinyawiwatkul, Witoon
2015-07-01
Effects of attribute presence and absence on the emotional profile and consumer acceptability of products with varying qualities were assessed using eggs as an example. An online survey (n = 320) was used to evaluate emotional responses and acceptability to 5 types of egg quality attributes: intrinsic, aesthetic, extrinsic, expediency, and wholesome/safety, for both present and absent conditions. Attribute absence rather than presence evoked greater consumer discriminating emotions associated with eggs. Mean emotion intensity elicited by the presence of all quality attributes ranged from 1.67 (intrinsic; guilty) to 4.05 (wholesome; good) versus 2.01 (wholesome; satisfied) to 3.29 (wholesome; disgusted) when absent. Key positive emotions elicited by presence of attributes were active, calm, good, interested, happy, safe, and satisfied; while dominant negative emotions elicited by absence of attributes included disgusted and worried. Wholesome quality (constituted by egg freshness, "packing/best-before-date" and absence of visible cracks) exhibited the highest liking (7.65) and emotion intensities, while the emotional responses to both the presence and absence of intrinsic quality (constituted by nutrient-fortified egg, organic egg, and USDA-certified farm egg) were similar, reflecting their dynamic effects on emotions. Emotions and acceptability were more correlated for attribute absence than presence; and good, happy, and satisfied emotions were strongly related to egg acceptability (r ≥ 0.6). Egg product/packaging design can be oriented toward emphasizing wholesome and expedient attributes, since they enhance good, safe, and satisfied emotions, while minimizing disgust, worry, and boredom. The use of emotional responses and hedonic testing regarding attribute presence and absence would allow for improved selection of attributes critical to consumer acceptance of products. Assessing effects of attribute presence compared with absence on food-evoked emotions may
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Lundqvist, Daniel; Svärd, Joakim; Michelgård Palmquist, Åsa; Fischer, Håkan; Svenningsson, Per
2017-09-01
The literature on emotional processing in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients shows mixed results. This may be because of various methodological and/or patient-related differences, such as failing to adjust for cognitive functioning, depression, and/or mood. In the current study, we tested PD patients and healthy controls (HCs) using emotional stimuli across a variety of tasks, including visual search, short-term memory (STM), categorical perception, and emotional stimulus rating. The PD and HC groups were matched on cognitive ability, depression, and mood. We also explored possible relationships between task results and antiparkinsonian treatment effects, as measured by levodopa equivalent dosages (LED), in the PD group. The results show that PD patients use a larger emotional range compared with HCs when reporting their impression of emotional faces on rated emotional valence, arousal, and potency. The results also show that dopaminergic therapy was correlated with stimulus rating results such that PD patients with higher LED scores rated negative faces as less arousing, less negative, and less powerful. Finally, results also show that PD patients display a general slowing effect in the visual search tasks compared with HCs, indicating overall slowed responses. There were no group differences observed in the STM or categorical perception tasks. Our results indicate a relationship between emotional responses, PD, and dopaminergic therapy, in which PD per se is associated with stronger emotional responses, whereas LED levels are negatively correlated with the strength of emotional responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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Dealing with feelings: positive and negative discrete emotions as mediators of news framing effects
Lecheler, S.; Schuck, A.R.T.; de Vreese, C.H.
2013-01-01
The underlying psychological processes that enable framing effects are often described as cognitive. Yet, recent studies suggest that framing effects may also be mediated by emotional response. The role of specific emotions in mediating the framing effect process, however, has yet to be fully
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Tritt, Shona M; Peterson, Jordan B; Page-Gould, Elizabeth; Inzlicht, Michael
2016-12-01
Conservatives are often thought to have a negativity bias-responding more intensely to negative than positive information. Yet, recent research has found that greater endorsement of conservative beliefs follows from both positive and negative emotion inductions. This suggests that the role of affect in political thought may not be restricted to negative valence, and more attention should be given to how conservatives and liberals respond to a wider range of stimulation. In this vein, we examined neural responses to a full range of affective stimuli, allowing us to examine how self-reported ideology moderated these responses. Specifically, we explored the relationship between political orientation and 2 event-related potentials (1 late and 1 early) previously shown to covary with the subjective motivational salience of stimuli-in response to photographs with standardized ratings of arousal and valence. At late time points, conservatives exhibited sustained heightened reactivity, compared with liberals, specifically in response to relatively unarousing and neutral stimuli. At early time points, conservatives exhibited somewhat enhanced neural activity in response to all stimulus types compared with liberals. These results may suggest that conservatives experience a wide variety of stimuli in their environment with increased motivational salience, including positive, neutral, and low-arousal stimuli. No effects of valence were found in this investigation. Such findings have implications for the development and refinement of psychological conceptions of political orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).
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Harvey, Philip D; Khan, Anzalee; Keefe, Richard S E
2017-12-01
Background: Reduced emotional experience and expression are two domains of negative symptoms. The authors assessed these two domains of negative symptoms using previously developed Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) factors. Using an existing dataset, the authors predicted three different elements of everyday functioning (social, vocational, and everyday activities) with these two factors, as well as with performance on measures of functional capacity. Methods: A large (n=630) sample of people with schizophrenia was used as the data source of this study. Using regression analyses, the authors predicted the three different aspects of everyday functioning, first with just the two Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale factors and then with a global negative symptom factor. Finally, we added neurocognitive performance and functional capacity as predictors. Results: The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale reduced emotional experience factor accounted for 21 percent of the variance in everyday social functioning, while reduced emotional expression accounted for no variance. The total Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative symptom factor accounted for less variance (19%) than the reduced experience factor alone. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale expression factor accounted for, at most, one percent of the variance in any of the functional outcomes, with or without the addition of other predictors. Implications: Reduced emotional experience measured with the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, often referred to as "avolition and anhedonia," specifically predicted impairments in social outcomes. Further, reduced experience predicted social impairments better than emotional expression or the total Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale negative symptom factor. In this cross-sectional study, reduced emotional experience was specifically related with social outcomes, accounting for essentially no variance in work or everyday activities, and being the
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Marusak, Hilary A; Thomason, Moriah E; Sala-Hamrick, Kelsey; Crespo, Laura; Rabinak, Christine A
2017-09-15
Healthy parenting may be protective against the development of emotional psychopathology, particularly for children reared in stressful environments. Little is known, however, about the brain and behavioral mechanisms underlying this association, particularly during childhood and adolescence, when emotional disorders frequently emerge. Here, we demonstrate that psychological control, a parenting strategy known to limit socioemotional development in children, is associated with altered brain and behavioral responses to emotional conflict in 27 at-risk (urban, lower income) youth, ages 9-16. In particular, youth reporting higher parental psychological control demonstrated lower activity in the left anterior insula, a brain area involved in emotion conflict processing, and submitted faster but less accurate behavioral responses-possibly reflecting an avoidant pattern. Effects were not replicated for parental care, and did not generalize to an analogous nonemotional conflict task. We also find evidence that behavioral responses to emotional conflict bridge the previously reported link between parental overcontrol and anxiety in children. Effects of psychological control may reflect a parenting style that limits opportunities to practice self-regulation when faced with emotionally charged situations. Results support the notion that parenting strategies that facilitate appropriate amounts of socioemotional competence and autonomy in children may be protective against social and emotional difficulties. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Cross-cultural patterns in dynamic ratings of positive and negative natural emotional behaviour.
Sneddon, Ian; McKeown, Gary; McRorie, Margaret; Vukicevic, Tijana
2011-02-18
Studies of cross-cultural variations in the perception of emotion have typically compared rates of recognition of static posed stimulus photographs. That research has provided evidence for universality in the recognition of a range of emotions but also for some systematic cross-cultural variation in the interpretation of emotional expression. However, questions remain about how widely such findings can be generalised to real life emotional situations. The present study provides the first evidence that the previously reported interplay between universal and cultural influences extends to ratings of natural, dynamic emotional stimuli. Participants from Northern Ireland, Serbia, Guatemala and Peru used a computer based tool to continuously rate the strength of positive and negative emotion being displayed in twelve short video sequences by people from the United Kingdom engaged in emotional conversations. Generalized additive mixed models were developed to assess the differences in perception of emotion between countries and sexes. Our results indicate that the temporal pattern of ratings is similar across cultures for a range of emotions and social contexts. However, there are systematic differences in intensity ratings between the countries, with participants from Northern Ireland making the most extreme ratings in the majority of the clips. The results indicate that there is strong agreement across cultures in the valence and patterns of ratings of natural emotional situations but that participants from different cultures show systematic variation in the intensity with which they rate emotion. Results are discussed in terms of both 'in-group advantage' and 'display rules' approaches. This study indicates that examples of natural spontaneous emotional behaviour can be used to study cross-cultural variations in the perception of emotion.
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Cross-cultural patterns in dynamic ratings of positive and negative natural emotional behaviour.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ian Sneddon
2011-02-01
Full Text Available Studies of cross-cultural variations in the perception of emotion have typically compared rates of recognition of static posed stimulus photographs. That research has provided evidence for universality in the recognition of a range of emotions but also for some systematic cross-cultural variation in the interpretation of emotional expression. However, questions remain about how widely such findings can be generalised to real life emotional situations. The present study provides the first evidence that the previously reported interplay between universal and cultural influences extends to ratings of natural, dynamic emotional stimuli.Participants from Northern Ireland, Serbia, Guatemala and Peru used a computer based tool to continuously rate the strength of positive and negative emotion being displayed in twelve short video sequences by people from the United Kingdom engaged in emotional conversations. Generalized additive mixed models were developed to assess the differences in perception of emotion between countries and sexes. Our results indicate that the temporal pattern of ratings is similar across cultures for a range of emotions and social contexts. However, there are systematic differences in intensity ratings between the countries, with participants from Northern Ireland making the most extreme ratings in the majority of the clips.The results indicate that there is strong agreement across cultures in the valence and patterns of ratings of natural emotional situations but that participants from different cultures show systematic variation in the intensity with which they rate emotion. Results are discussed in terms of both 'in-group advantage' and 'display rules' approaches. This study indicates that examples of natural spontaneous emotional behaviour can be used to study cross-cultural variations in the perception of emotion.
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Measuring Emotional Contagion in Social Media.
Ferrara, Emilio; Yang, Zeyao
2015-01-01
Social media are used as main discussion channels by millions of individuals every day. The content individuals produce in daily social-media-based micro-communications, and the emotions therein expressed, may impact the emotional states of others. A recent experiment performed on Facebook hypothesized that emotions spread online, even in absence of non-verbal cues typical of in-person interactions, and that individuals are more likely to adopt positive or negative emotions if these are over-expressed in their social network. Experiments of this type, however, raise ethical concerns, as they require massive-scale content manipulation with unknown consequences for the individuals therein involved. Here, we study the dynamics of emotional contagion using a random sample of Twitter users, whose activity (and the stimuli they were exposed to) was observed during a week of September 2014. Rather than manipulating content, we devise a null model that discounts some confounding factors (including the effect of emotional contagion). We measure the emotional valence of content the users are exposed to before posting their own tweets. We determine that on average a negative post follows an over-exposure to 4.34% more negative content than baseline, while positive posts occur after an average over-exposure to 4.50% more positive contents. We highlight the presence of a linear relationship between the average emotional valence of the stimuli users are exposed to, and that of the responses they produce. We also identify two different classes of individuals: highly and scarcely susceptible to emotional contagion. Highly susceptible users are significantly less inclined to adopt negative emotions than the scarcely susceptible ones, but equally likely to adopt positive emotions. In general, the likelihood of adopting positive emotions is much greater than that of negative emotions.
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Measuring Emotional Contagion in Social Media.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Emilio Ferrara
Full Text Available Social media are used as main discussion channels by millions of individuals every day. The content individuals produce in daily social-media-based micro-communications, and the emotions therein expressed, may impact the emotional states of others. A recent experiment performed on Facebook hypothesized that emotions spread online, even in absence of non-verbal cues typical of in-person interactions, and that individuals are more likely to adopt positive or negative emotions if these are over-expressed in their social network. Experiments of this type, however, raise ethical concerns, as they require massive-scale content manipulation with unknown consequences for the individuals therein involved. Here, we study the dynamics of emotional contagion using a random sample of Twitter users, whose activity (and the stimuli they were exposed to was observed during a week of September 2014. Rather than manipulating content, we devise a null model that discounts some confounding factors (including the effect of emotional contagion. We measure the emotional valence of content the users are exposed to before posting their own tweets. We determine that on average a negative post follows an over-exposure to 4.34% more negative content than baseline, while positive posts occur after an average over-exposure to 4.50% more positive contents. We highlight the presence of a linear relationship between the average emotional valence of the stimuli users are exposed to, and that of the responses they produce. We also identify two different classes of individuals: highly and scarcely susceptible to emotional contagion. Highly susceptible users are significantly less inclined to adopt negative emotions than the scarcely susceptible ones, but equally likely to adopt positive emotions. In general, the likelihood of adopting positive emotions is much greater than that of negative emotions.
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Bodily Reactions to Emotional Words Referring to Own versus Other People's Emotions.
Weis, Patrick P; Herbert, Cornelia
2017-01-01
According to embodiment theories, language and emotion affect each other. In line with this, several previous studies investigated changes in bodily responses including facial expressions, heart rate or skin conductance during affective evaluation of emotional words and sentences. This study investigates the embodiment of emotional word processing from a social perspective by experimentally manipulating the emotional valence of a word and its personal reference. Stimuli consisted of pronoun-noun pairs, i.e., positive, negative, and neutral nouns paired with possessive pronouns of the first or the third person ("my," "his") or the non-referential negation term ("no") as controls. Participants had to quickly evaluate the word pairs by key presses as either positive, negative, or neutral, depending on the subjective feelings they elicit. Hereafter, they elaborated the intensity of the feeling on a non-verbal scale from 1 (very unpleasant) to 9 (very pleasant). Facial expressions ( M. Zygomaticus , M. Corrugator ), heart rate, and, for exploratory purposes, skin conductance were recorded continuously during the spontaneous and elaborate evaluation tasks. Positive pronoun-noun phrases were responded to the quickest and judged more often as positive when they were self-related, i.e., related to the reader's self (e.g., "my happiness," "my joy") than when related to the self of a virtual other (e.g., "his happiness," "his joy"), suggesting a self-positivity bias in the emotional evaluation of word stimuli. Physiologically, evaluation of emotional, unlike neutral pronoun-noun pairs initially elicited an increase in mean heart rate irrespective of stimulus reference. Changes in facial muscle activity, M. Zygomaticus in particular, were most pronounced during spontaneous evaluation of positive other-related pronoun-noun phrases in line with theoretical assumptions that facial expressions are socially embedded even in situation where no real communication partner is present
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Infant differential behavioral responding to discrete emotions.
Walle, Eric A; Reschke, Peter J; Camras, Linda A; Campos, Joseph J
2017-10-01
Emotional communication regulates the behaviors of social partners. Research on individuals' responding to others' emotions typically compares responses to a single negative emotion compared with responses to a neutral or positive emotion. Furthermore, coding of such responses routinely measure surface level features of the behavior (e.g., approach vs. avoidance) rather than its underlying function (e.g., the goal of the approach or avoidant behavior). This investigation examined infants' responding to others' emotional displays across 5 discrete emotions: joy, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. Specifically, 16-, 19-, and 24-month-old infants observed an adult communicate a discrete emotion toward a stimulus during a naturalistic interaction. Infants' responses were coded to capture the function of their behaviors (e.g., exploration, prosocial behavior, and security seeking). The results revealed a number of instances indicating that infants use different functional behaviors in response to discrete emotions. Differences in behaviors across emotions were clearest in the 24-month-old infants, though younger infants also demonstrated some differential use of behaviors in response to discrete emotions. This is the first comprehensive study to identify differences in how infants respond with goal-directed behaviors to discrete emotions. Additionally, the inclusion of a function-based coding scheme and interpersonal paradigms may be informative for future emotion research with children and adults. Possible developmental accounts for the observed behaviors and the benefits of coding techniques emphasizing the function of social behavior over their form are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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The professional responsibility of lawyers: emotional competence, multiculturalism and ethics.
Silver, Marjorie A
2006-05-01
Traditional legal education and the Socratic method it utilises are by and large successful at training lawyers to think, reason and analyse. The cultivation of lawyers' intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, however, has been, at best, neglected by the profession. All lawyers, like all human beings, are emotional. Emotions affect who they are and how they practise law, whether or not they are conscious of them. As emotions cannot be removed from the practice of law, it is essential that lawyers learn to understand and manage their emotions, as well as learn to be attuned to their clients' emotional lives. Ignorance of concepts such as countertransference, denial and unconscious bias adversely impact the lawyer-client relationship. Lawyers who understand basic psychological principles and behaviours, who are aware of their own psychological makeup, understand their cultural perspective and recognise and credit their clients' differences, will enhance their effectiveness as counsellors. The client whose lawyer has these competencies will enjoy a therapeutically superior counselling or representational experience. The neglect of either the lawyer's or the client's emotional life threatens to sabotage the lawyer's ability, and thus professional responsibility, to render competent and impartial legal advice. Through drawing parallels to the training and practice in other counselling disciplines and relationships, this article argues that psychological-mindedness and multicultural competence are essential elements of ethically responsible legal representation.
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Human Novelty Response to Emotional Animal Vocalizations: Effects of Phylogeny and Familiarity
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marina Scheumann
2017-10-01
Full Text Available Darwin (1872 postulated that emotional expressions contain universals that are retained across species. We recently showed that human rating responses were strongly affected by a listener's familiarity with vocalization types, whereas evidence for universal cross-taxa emotion recognition was limited. To disentangle the impact of evolutionarily retained mechanisms (phylogeny and experience-driven cognitive processes (familiarity, we compared the temporal unfolding of event-related potentials (ERPs in response to agonistic and affiliative vocalizations expressed by humans and three animal species. Using an auditory oddball novelty paradigm, ERPs were recorded in response to task-irrelevant novel sounds, comprising vocalizations varying in their degree of phylogenetic relationship and familiarity to humans. Vocalizations were recorded in affiliative and agonistic contexts. Offline, participants rated the vocalizations for valence, arousal, and familiarity. Correlation analyses revealed a significant correlation between a posteriorly distributed early negativity and arousal ratings. More specifically, a contextual category effect of this negativity was observed for human infant and chimpanzee vocalizations but absent for other species vocalizations. Further, a significant correlation between the later and more posteriorly P3a and P3b responses and familiarity ratings indicates a link between familiarity and attentional processing. A contextual category effect of the P3b was observed for the less familiar chimpanzee and tree shrew vocalizations. Taken together, these findings suggest that early negative ERP responses to agonistic and affiliative vocalizations may be influenced by evolutionary retained mechanisms, whereas the later orienting of attention (positive ERPs may mainly be modulated by the prior experience.
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Suslow, Thomas; Kugel, Harald; Lindner, Christian; Dannlowski, Udo; Egloff, Boris
2017-01-06
Extraversion-introversion is a personality dimension referring to individual differences in social behavior. In the past, neurobiological research on extraversion was almost entirely based upon questionnaires which inform about the explicit self-concept. Today, indirect measures are available that tap into the implicit self-concept of extraversion which is assumed to result from automatic processing functions. In our study, brain activation while viewing facial expression of affiliation relevant (i.e., happiness, and disgust) and irrelevant (i.e., fear) emotions was examined as a function of the implicit and explicit self-concept of extraversion and processing mode (automatic vs. controlled). 40 healthy volunteers watched blocks of masked and unmasked emotional faces while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The Implicit Association Test and the NEO Five-Factor Inventory were applied as implicit and explicit measures of extraversion which were uncorrelated in our sample. Implicit extraversion was found to be positively associated with neural response to masked happy faces in the thalamus and temporo-parietal regions and to masked disgust faces in cerebellar areas. Moreover, it was positively correlated with brain response to unmasked disgust faces in the amygdala and cortical areas. Explicit extraversion was not related to brain response to facial emotions when controlling trait anxiety. The implicit compared to the explicit self-concept of extraversion seems to be more strongly associated with brain activation not only during automatic but also during controlled processing of affiliation relevant facial emotions. Enhanced neural response to facial disgust could reflect high sensitivity to signals of interpersonal rejection in extraverts (i.e., individuals with affiliative tendencies). Copyright © 2016 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Emotional responses to interactive fictions
Hagger, Andrzej
2012-01-01
We commonly feel a variety of emotional responses to works of fiction. In this thesis I propose to examine what we understand by the terms fictional and narrative, and to describe what sorts of narrator might be required within a narrative work. Of particular interest are interactive works of art, both narrative and non-narrative, and I provide a definition of what features a work should possess if it should properly be considered interactive. I discuss the notions of interactive narrative...
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Abraham, Michelle M.; Kerns, Kathryn A.
2013-01-01
This study examined whether emotions and coping explain (mediate) the association between mother-child attachment and peer relationships. Attachment, positive and negative emotion experience, coping, and peer relationships were examined in 106 fourth-grade through sixth-grade girls attending a 6-day residential camp. Attachment, experience of…
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Yagil, Dana; Medler-Liraz, Hana
2017-10-01
Individual differences in emotional labor and subsequent vulnerability to burnout have been explored through the prism of Congruence Theory, which examines the congruence between personality traits and job requirements (Bono & Vey, 2007; Moskowitz & Coté, 1995). Drawing on theory and research dealing with the association between the need to belong and self-regulation (Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco & Twenge, 2005), this study examined the relationship between need to belong and service employees' surface acting and associated outcomes. In Study 1, participants (N = 54) were asked to write a response to an aggressive email from a hypothetical customer. The need to belong was positively related to display of positive emotions and negatively to display of negative emotions in the responses, but not related to felt anger, suggesting that it is associated with the inclination to engage in surface acting. In Study 2, a field study conducted with 170 service employee-customer dyads, surface acting mediated the positive relationship between fear of isolation and emotional exhaustion, and emotional exhaustion mediated the relationship between surface acting and customer satisfaction. These results suggested that service employees with a strong need to belong might have a heightened risk of burnout because of their inclination to engage in emotional labor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).
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Motivating students through positive learning experiences
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Lykke, Marianne; Coto Chotto, Mayela; Jantzen, Christian
2015-01-01
Based on the assumption that wellbeing, positive emotions and engagement influence motivation for learning, the aim of this paper is to provide insight into students’ emotional responses to and engagement in different learning designs. By comparing students’ reports on the experiential qualities...... of three different learning designs, their respective influence on students’ motivation for learning is discussed with the purpose of exploring the relationship between positive emotions, engagement and intrinsic motivation for learning. Our study thus aims at evaluating the motivational elements...
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Niziurski, Julie Ann; Johannessen, Kim Berg; Berntsen, Dorthe
2017-01-01
positive deployment memories from a company of 337 soldiers who were deployed together to Afghanistan. We examined how the level of emotional distress of the soldiers and the valence of the memory were related to the emotional intensity, experience of reliving, rehearsal and coherence of the memories......, and how the perceived impact of these memories changed over time. We found that soldiers with higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were more affected by both their negative and positive memories, compared with soldiers with lower levels of PTSD symptoms. Emotional intensity...... of the most negative memory increased over time in the group with highest levels of PTSD symptoms, but dropped in the other groups. The present study adds to the literature on emotion and autobiographical memory and how this relationship interacts with an individual’s present level of emotional distress...
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Relating emotional intelligence to academic achievement among university students in Barbados
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Grace A. Fayombo
2012-11-01
Full Text Available This study investigated the relationships between emotional intelligence and academic achievement among 151 undergraduate psychology students at The University of the West Indies (UWI, Barbados, making use of Barchard (2001's Emotional Intelligence Scale and an Academic Achievement Scale. Findings revealed significant positive correlations between academic achievement and six of the emotional intelligence components, and a negative correlation with negative expressivity. The emotional intelligence components also jointly contributed 48% of the variance in academic achievement. Attending to emotions was the best predictor of academic achievement while positive expressivity, negative expressivity and empathic concern were other significant predictors. Emotion-based decision-making, responsive joy and responsive distress did not make any significant relative contribution to academic achievement, indicating that academic achievement is only partially predicted by emotional intelligence. These results were discussed in the context of the influence of emotional intelligence on university students' academic achievement.
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Kimata, Hajime
2006-07-01
Allergic responses are enhanced by stress, whereas they are reduced by laughter in atopic eczema patients. Emotion with tears decreases plasma IL-6 levels in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Thus, the effect of emotion with tears on allergic responses in patients with atopic eczema was studied. Sixty patients with atopic eczema having latex allergy viewed both the weather information video and the heart-warming movie, Kramer vs. Kramer. Just before and immediately after viewing each video, allergic responses to latex were measured. Viewing the weather information video did not cause emotion with tears in any patients, and it failed to modulate allergic responses. In contrast, viewing Kramer vs. Kramer caused emotion with tears in 44 of 60 patients, and it reduced allergic skin wheal responses to latex and latex-specific IgE production in them. Emotion with tears reduced allergic responses, and it may be useful in the treatment of allergic diseases.
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Increased amygdala responses to emotional faces after psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression.
Roseman, Leor; Demetriou, Lysia; Wall, Matthew B; Nutt, David J; Carhart-Harris, Robin L
2017-12-27
Recent evidence indicates that psilocybin with psychological support may be effective for treating depression. Some studies have found that patients with depression show heightened amygdala responses to fearful faces and there is reliable evidence that treatment with SSRIs attenuates amygdala responses (Ma, 2015). We hypothesised that amygdala responses to emotional faces would be altered post-treatment with psilocybin. In this open-label study, 20 individuals diagnosed with moderate to severe, treatment-resistant depression, underwent two separate dosing sessions with psilocybin. Psychological support was provided before, during and after these sessions and 19 completed fMRI scans one week prior to the first session and one day after the second and last. Neutral, fearful and happy faces were presented in the scanner and analyses focused on the amygdala. Group results revealed rapid and enduring improvements in depressive symptoms post psilocybin. Increased responses to fearful and happy faces were observed in the right amygdala post-treatment, and right amygdala increases to fearful versus neutral faces were predictive of clinical improvements at 1-week. Psilocybin with psychological support was associated with increased amygdala responses to emotional stimuli, an opposite effect to previous findings with SSRIs. This suggests fundamental differences in these treatments' therapeutic actions, with SSRIs mitigating negative emotions and psilocybin allowing patients to confront and work through them. Based on the present results, we propose that psilocybin with psychological support is a treatment approach that potentially revives emotional responsiveness in depression, enabling patients to reconnect with their emotions. ISRCTN, number ISRCTN14426797. Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.
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2009-10-01
behavioral therapy for bulimia nervosa: time course and mechanisms of change. Journal of Clinical consulting Psychology 2002, 20, 267-274. [44...RTO-MP-HFM-181 14 - 1 Impact of Positive Emotions Enhancement on Physiological Processes and Psychological Functioning in Military Pilots...practical tool using different techniques in order to improve regulation of emotions before, during and after actions [3]. This psychological training is
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Mapping Aesthetic Musical Emotions in the Brain
Ethofer, Thomas; Zentner, Marcel; Vuilleumier, Patrik
2012-01-01
Music evokes complex emotions beyond pleasant/unpleasant or happy/sad dichotomies usually investigated in neuroscience. Here, we used functional neuroimaging with parametric analyses based on the intensity of felt emotions to explore a wider spectrum of affective responses reported during music listening. Positive emotions correlated with activation of left striatum and insula when high-arousing (Wonder, Joy) but right striatum and orbitofrontal cortex when low-arousing (Nostalgia, Tenderness). Irrespective of their positive/negative valence, high-arousal emotions (Tension, Power, and Joy) also correlated with activations in sensory and motor areas, whereas low-arousal categories (Peacefulness, Nostalgia, and Sadness) selectively engaged ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. The right parahippocampal cortex activated in all but positive high-arousal conditions. Results also suggested some blends between activation patterns associated with different classes of emotions, particularly for feelings of Wonder or Transcendence. These data reveal a differentiated recruitment across emotions of networks involved in reward, memory, self-reflective, and sensorimotor processes, which may account for the unique richness of musical emotions. PMID:22178712
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Emotional Resilience Mediates the Relationship Between Mindfulness and Emotion.
Wang, Yuzheng; Xu, Wei; Luo, Fei
2016-06-01
Previous studies have shown that mindfulness promotes positive mood states and reduces negative ones; however, the underlying mechanisms are still controversial. This study assessed the role of emotional resilience as a mediator between mindfulness and emotional regulation. A total of 421 college students (M age = 20.0 year, SD = 2.0; males/females/missing are 152/248/4) completed the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, Profile of Mood States, and Adolescents' Emotional Resilience Questionnaire (AERQ). The ability to generate positive emotion (GP) and the ability to recover from negative emotion (RN) are two subscales of the AERQ. A Structural Equation Modeling analysis indicated that emotional resilience mediated the connection between mindfulness and emotion. Specifically, GP mediated the relationship between mindfulness and both positive and negative emotions while RN mainly mediated the relationship between mindfulness and negative emotions. These findings suggest that mindfulness may play a role in regulating positive and negative emotions through the two different aspects of emotional resilience. © The Author(s) 2016.
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Vesker, Michael; Bahn, Daniela; Kauschke, Christina; Tschense, Monika; Degé, Franziska; Schwarzer, Gudrun
2018-01-01
In order to assess how the perception of audible speech and facial expressions influence one another for the perception of emotions, and how this influence might change over the course of development, we conducted two cross-modal priming experiments with three age groups of children (6-, 9-, and 12-years old), as well as college-aged adults. In Experiment 1, 74 children and 24 adult participants were tasked with categorizing photographs of emotional faces as positive or negative as quickly as possible after being primed with emotion words presented via audio in valence-congruent and valence-incongruent trials. In Experiment 2, 67 children and 24 adult participants carried out a similar categorization task, but with faces acting as visual primes, and emotion words acting as auditory targets. The results of Experiment 1 showed that participants made more errors when categorizing positive faces primed by negative words versus positive words, and that 6-year-old children are particularly sensitive to positive word primes, giving faster correct responses regardless of target valence. Meanwhile, the results of Experiment 2 did not show any congruency effects for priming by facial expressions. Thus, audible emotion words seem to exert an influence on the emotional categorization of faces, while faces do not seem to influence the categorization of emotion words in a significant way.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Vasilyev, Igor A.
2013-12-01
Full Text Available In the laboratory of O.K. Tikhomirov, the phenomenon of the acute emotional regulation of productive thinking was justified. This regulation is realized by means of the elaboration of the axiological profile of cognition. The following definition of intellectual emotions can be given: intellectual emotions are the appraisals of specific cognitive objects — contradictions, assumptions, probabilities, and the intermediate and final results of operations. The main aspect of the method used in the research consisted of the synchronous registration of an external (tactile elaboration of problems, skin galvanic response and verbal utterances regarding tasks to be completed in a game of chess. The principle position in Tikhomirov`s group is the following: intellectual emotions represent not only the energetic resource or catalysts for the thinking process, but also the determinants of its structure.
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Puškarević, Irma; Nedeljković, Uroš; Novaković, Dragoljub
2013-01-01
Understanding the nature of advertising principles or any other means of marketing communication that affects consume behavior has long been the subject of marketing research. The research of emotional response in relation to ad efficiency in this paper is an extension of the research previously conducted (Nedeljkovic et al., 2011). The aim of this research is to show how the ad content i.e. visual message in printed advertisements affects emotional response. Two hypotheses were postulated. F...
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Parke, Michael R; Seo, Myeong-Gu; Sherf, Elad N
2015-05-01
Although past research has identified the effects of emotional intelligence on numerous employee outcomes, the relationship between emotional intelligence and creativity has not been well established. We draw upon affective information processing theory to explain how two facets of emotional intelligence-emotion regulation and emotion facilitation-shape employee creativity. Specifically, we propose that emotion regulation ability enables employees to maintain higher positive affect (PA) when faced with unique knowledge processing requirements, while emotion facilitation ability enables employees to use their PA to enhance their creativity. We find support for our hypotheses using a multimethod (ability test, experience sampling, survey) and multisource (archival, self-reported, supervisor-reported) research design of early career managers across a wide range of jobs. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.
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Kerig, Patricia K; Bennett, Diana C; Chaplo, Shannon D; Modrowski, Crosby A; McGee, Andrew B
2016-04-01
Increasing attention has been drawn to the symptom of emotional numbing in the phenomenology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), particularly regarding its implications for maladaptive outcomes in adolescence such as delinquent behavior. One change in the definition of emotional numbing according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013) was the limitation to the numbing of positive emotions. Previous research with youth, however, has implicated general numbing or numbing of negative emotions in PTSD, whereas numbing of positive emotions may overlap with other disorders, particularly depression. Consequently, the goal of this study was to investigate whether numbing of positive emotions was associated with PTSD symptoms above and beyond numbing of negative emotions, general emotional numbing, or depressive symptoms among at-risk adolescents. In a sample of 221 detained youth (mean age = 15.98 years, SD = 1.25; 50.7% ethnic minority), results of hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that only general emotional numbing and numbing of anger accounted for significant variance in PTSD symptoms (total R(2) = .37). In contrast, numbing of sadness and positive emotions were statistical correlates of depressive symptoms (total R(2) = .24). Further tests using Hayes' Process macro showed that general numbing, 95% CI [.02, .45], and numbing of anger, 95% CI [.01, .42], demonstrated indirect effects on the association between trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms. Copyright © 2016 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
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Emotion processing deficits in alexithymia and response to a depth of processing intervention.
Constantinou, Elena; Panayiotou, Georgia; Theodorou, Marios
2014-12-01
Findings on alexithymic emotion difficulties have been inconsistent. We examined potential differences between alexithymic and control participants in general arousal, reactivity, facial and subjective expression, emotion labeling, and covariation between emotion response systems. A depth of processing intervention was introduced. Fifty-four participants (27 alexithymic), selected using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, completed an imagery experiment (imagining joy, fear and neutral scripts), under instructions for shallow or deep emotion processing. Heart rate, skin conductance, facial electromyography and startle reflex were recorded along with subjective ratings. Results indicated hypo-reactivity to emotion among high alexithymic individuals, smaller and slower startle responses, and low covariation between physiology and self-report. No deficits in facial expression, labeling and emotion ratings were identified. Deep processing was associated with increased physiological reactivity and lower perceived dominance and arousal in high alexithymia. Findings suggest a tendency for avoidance of intense, unpleasant emotions and less defensive action preparation in alexithymia. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Taylor, Charles T; Pearlstein, Sarah L; Stein, Murray B
2017-06-01
Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) have difficulty forming social relationships. The prevailing clinical perspective is that negative emotions such as anxiety inhibit one's capacity to develop satisfying social connections. However, empirical findings from social psychology and affective neuroscience suggest that positive emotional experiences are fundamental to establishing new social bonds. To reconcile these perspectives, we collected repeated measurements of anxiety, positive emotions (pleasantness), and connectedness over the course of a controlled relationship formation encounter in 56 participants diagnosed with SAD (64% female; M age =23.3, SD=4.7). Participants experienced both increases in positive emotions and decreases in anxiety throughout the interaction. Change in positive emotions was the most robust predictor of subsequent increases in connectedness, as well as a greater desire to engage one's partner in future social activities, above and beyond reductions in anxiety (medium to large sized effects). Those findings suggest that anxiety-based models alone may not fully explain difficulties in relationship formation in SAD, and underscore the potential value of considering positive emotional experiences in conceptual and treatment models of SAD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Cornelius, Talea; Birk, Jeffrey L; Edmondson, Donald; Schwartz, Joseph E
2018-05-01
Social interaction quality is related to cardiovascular functioning. Trait emotional reactivity may amplify cardiovascular responses to social interactions, but is often examined as a tendency to react to negative events. We took a broader approach by examining the joint effects of positive and negative emotional reactivity and social interaction quality on ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) and heart rate (HR) responses to daily social interactions. Participants were part of a larger study on BP and cardiovascular health (N = 805; M Age = 45.3; 40.1% male). Participants completed a measure of emotional reactivity (BIS/BAS) and 24-hour ABP monitoring accompanied by ecological momentary assessments (EMA) about just-experienced social interactions and their pleasantness. Multilevel models tested the associations of emotional reactivity, average pleasantness, and momentary pleasantness with BP and HR. Participants who reported more pleasant interactions on average had lower BP (systolic BP: B = -0.51 mmHg; diastolic BP: B = -0.46 mmHg). These effects did not depend on emotional reactivity. The effect of momentary pleasantness depended on BIS/BAS; in less reactive participants, greater pleasantness was associated with lower HR, B = -0.13 bpm; in more reactive participants, greater pleasantness was associated with increased HR, B = 0.16). Participants who had more pleasant social interactions throughout the day had lower mean ABP. The acute effect of a given social interaction on HR depended on emotional reactivity: HR increased for participants high in emotional reactivity during pleasant interactions. Thus, emotional reactivity may influence cardiovascular responses to social stimuli. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
KHAIRUN NISA’ MINHAD
2017-11-01
Full Text Available Identification of human emotional state while driving a vehicle can help in understanding the human behaviour. Based on this identification, a response system can be developed in order to mitigate the impact that may be resulted from the behavioural changes. However, the adaptation of emotions to the environment at most scenarios is subjective to an individual’s perspective. Many factors, mainly cultural and geography, gender, age, life style and history, level of education and professional status, can affect the detection of human emotional affective states. This work investigated sympathetic responses toward human emotions defined by using electrocardiography (ECG and skin conductance response (SCR signals recorded simultaneously. This work aimed to recognize ECG and SCR patterns of the investigated emotions measured using selected sensor. A pilot study was conducted to evaluate the proposed framework. Initial results demonstrated the importance of suitability of the stimuli used to evoke the emotions and high opportunity for the ECG and SCR signals to be used in the automotive real-time emotion recognition systems.
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MDMA enhances "mind reading" of positive emotions and impairs "mind reading" of negative emotions.
Hysek, Cédric M; Domes, Gregor; Liechti, Matthias E
2012-07-01
3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) increases sociability. The prosocial effects of MDMA may result from the release of the "social hormone" oxytocin and associated alterations in the processing of socioemotional stimuli. We investigated the effects of MDMA (125 mg) on the ability to infer the mental states of others from social cues of the eye region in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. The study included 48 healthy volunteers (24 men, 24 women) and used a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design. A choice reaction time test was used to exclude impairments in psychomotor function. We also measured circulating oxytocin and cortisol levels and subjective drug effects. MDMA differentially affected mind reading depending on the emotional valence of the stimuli. MDMA enhanced the accuracy of mental state decoding for positive stimuli (e.g., friendly), impaired mind reading for negative stimuli (e.g., hostile), and had no effect on mind reading for neutral stimuli (e.g., reflective). MDMA did not affect psychomotor performance, increased circulating oxytocin and cortisol levels, and produced subjective prosocial effects, including feelings of being more open, talkative, and closer to others. The shift in the ability to correctly read socioemotional information toward stimuli associated with positive emotional valence, together with the prosocial feelings elicited by MDMA, may enhance social approach behavior and sociability when MDMA is used recreationally and facilitate therapeutic relationships in MDMA-assisted psychotherapeutic settings.
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Tellis-James, Charlie; Fox, Mark
2016-01-01
This research drew on positive psychology in order to offer an optimistic way of\\ud conceptualising the lives of young people who are often described as having ‘SEBD’\\ud (Social, emotional, behaviour difficulties), now SEMH (Social, emotional, mental\\ud health) in the new SEND Code of Practice (2014). Positive psychology places emphasis\\ud on: the future, strengths, resources and potential, and suggests that negative\\ud experiences can build positive qualities. A life path tool was used in or...
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Emotional responses to music: towards scientific perspectives on music therapy.
Suda, Miyuki; Morimoto, Kanehisa; Obata, Akiko; Koizumi, Hideaki; Maki, Atsushi
2008-01-08
Neurocognitive research has the potential to identify the relevant effects of music therapy. In this study, we examined the effect of music mode (major vs. minor) on stress reduction using optical topography and an endocrinological stress marker. In salivary cortisol levels, we observed that stressful conditions such as mental fatigue (thinking and creating a response) was reduced more by major mode music than by minor mode music. We suggest that music specifically induces an emotional response similar to a pleasant experience or happiness. Moreover, we demonstrated the typical asymmetrical pattern of stress responses in upper temporal cortex areas, and suggested that happiness/sadness emotional processing might be related to stress reduction by music.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Dich, Nadya; Doan, Stacey N; Kivimäki, Mika
2014-01-01
dysregulation. Allostatic load also increased with age, but the association between negative emotional response and allostatic load remained stable over time. These results provide evidence for a more nuanced understanding of the role of negative emotions in long-term physical health....... response to major life events and allostatic load, a multisystem indicator of physiological dysregulation. Study sample was 6764 British civil service workers from the Whitehall II cohort. Negative emotional response was assessed by self-report at baseline. Allostatic load was calculated using...... cardiovascular, metabolic and immune function biomarkers at three clinical follow-up examinations. A non-linear association between negative emotional response and allostatic load was observed: being at either extreme end of the distribution of negative emotional response increased the risk of physiological...
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Bodily Reactions to Emotional Words Referring to Own versus Other People’s Emotions
Weis, Patrick P.; Herbert, Cornelia
2017-01-01
According to embodiment theories, language and emotion affect each other. In line with this, several previous studies investigated changes in bodily responses including facial expressions, heart rate or skin conductance during affective evaluation of emotional words and sentences. This study investigates the embodiment of emotional word processing from a social perspective by experimentally manipulating the emotional valence of a word and its personal reference. Stimuli consisted of pronoun-noun pairs, i.e., positive, negative, and neutral nouns paired with possessive pronouns of the first or the third person (“my,” “his”) or the non-referential negation term (“no”) as controls. Participants had to quickly evaluate the word pairs by key presses as either positive, negative, or neutral, depending on the subjective feelings they elicit. Hereafter, they elaborated the intensity of the feeling on a non-verbal scale from 1 (very unpleasant) to 9 (very pleasant). Facial expressions (M. Zygomaticus, M. Corrugator), heart rate, and, for exploratory purposes, skin conductance were recorded continuously during the spontaneous and elaborate evaluation tasks. Positive pronoun-noun phrases were responded to the quickest and judged more often as positive when they were self-related, i.e., related to the reader’s self (e.g., “my happiness,” “my joy”) than when related to the self of a virtual other (e.g., “his happiness,” “his joy”), suggesting a self-positivity bias in the emotional evaluation of word stimuli. Physiologically, evaluation of emotional, unlike neutral pronoun-noun pairs initially elicited an increase in mean heart rate irrespective of stimulus reference. Changes in facial muscle activity, M. Zygomaticus in particular, were most pronounced during spontaneous evaluation of positive other-related pronoun-noun phrases in line with theoretical assumptions that facial expressions are socially embedded even in situation where no real
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Bodily Reactions to Emotional Words Referring to Own versus Other People’s Emotions
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Patrick P. Weis
2017-08-01
Full Text Available According to embodiment theories, language and emotion affect each other. In line with this, several previous studies investigated changes in bodily responses including facial expressions, heart rate or skin conductance during affective evaluation of emotional words and sentences. This study investigates the embodiment of emotional word processing from a social perspective by experimentally manipulating the emotional valence of a word and its personal reference. Stimuli consisted of pronoun-noun pairs, i.e., positive, negative, and neutral nouns paired with possessive pronouns of the first or the third person (“my,” “his” or the non-referential negation term (“no” as controls. Participants had to quickly evaluate the word pairs by key presses as either positive, negative, or neutral, depending on the subjective feelings they elicit. Hereafter, they elaborated the intensity of the feeling on a non-verbal scale from 1 (very unpleasant to 9 (very pleasant. Facial expressions (M. Zygomaticus, M. Corrugator, heart rate, and, for exploratory purposes, skin conductance were recorded continuously during the spontaneous and elaborate evaluation tasks. Positive pronoun-noun phrases were responded to the quickest and judged more often as positive when they were self-related, i.e., related to the reader’s self (e.g., “my happiness,” “my joy” than when related to the self of a virtual other (e.g., “his happiness,” “his joy”, suggesting a self-positivity bias in the emotional evaluation of word stimuli. Physiologically, evaluation of emotional, unlike neutral pronoun-noun pairs initially elicited an increase in mean heart rate irrespective of stimulus reference. Changes in facial muscle activity, M. Zygomaticus in particular, were most pronounced during spontaneous evaluation of positive other-related pronoun-noun phrases in line with theoretical assumptions that facial expressions are socially embedded even in situation where no
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Culture modulates the brain response to human expressions of emotion: electrophysiological evidence.
Liu, Pan; Rigoulot, Simon; Pell, Marc D
2015-01-01
To understand how culture modulates on-line neural responses to social information, this study compared how individuals from two distinct cultural groups, English-speaking North Americans and Chinese, process emotional meanings of multi-sensory stimuli as indexed by both behaviour (accuracy) and event-related potential (N400) measures. In an emotional Stroop-like task, participants were presented face-voice pairs expressing congruent or incongruent emotions in conditions where they judged the emotion of one modality while ignoring the other (face or voice focus task). Results indicated that while both groups were sensitive to emotional differences between channels (with lower accuracy and higher N400 amplitudes for incongruent face-voice pairs), there were marked group differences in how intruding facial or vocal cues affected accuracy and N400 amplitudes, with English participants showing greater interference from irrelevant faces than Chinese. Our data illuminate distinct biases in how adults from East Asian versus Western cultures process socio-emotional cues, supplying new evidence that cultural learning modulates not only behaviour, but the neurocognitive response to different features of multi-channel emotion expressions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Davidsen, Annette Sofie; Fosgerau, Christina Fogtmann
2014-04-01
To investigate general practitioners' (GPs') and psychiatrists' responses to emotional disclosures in consultations with patients with depression. Thirteen patient consultations with GPs and 17 with psychiatrists were video-recorded and then analyzed using conversation analysis (CA). Psychiatrists responded to patients' emotional disclosures by attempting to clarify symptoms, by rational argumentation, or by offering an interpretation of the emotions from their own perspectives. GPs responded by claiming to understand the emotions or by formulating the patients' statements, but without further exploring the emotions. GPs displayed a greater engagement with patients' emotions than psychiatrists. Their approach could be described as empathic, corresponding to a mentalizing stance. The different approaches taken by psychiatrists could represent conceptual differences and might affect fruitful interdisciplinary work. Psychiatric nurses' responses to patients' emotions must also be studied to complete our knowledge from psychiatry. Experiences from training in mentalization could be used to develop physicians' empathic or mentalizing approach. As most patients with depression are treated in primary care, developing GPs' mentalizing capacity instead of offering didactic training could have a substantial effect in the population. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Shira Barzilay; Zimri S. Yaseen; Zimri S. Yaseen; Mariah Hawes; Bernard Gorman; Rachel Altman; Adriana Foster; Alan Apter; Paul Rosenfield; Igor Galynker; Igor Galynker
2018-01-01
BackgroundMental health professionals have a pivotal role in suicide prevention. However, they also often have intense emotional responses, or countertransference, during encounters with suicidal patients. Previous studies of the Therapist Response Questionnaire-Suicide Form (TRQ-SF), a brief novel measure aimed at probing a distinct set of suicide-related emotional responses to patients found it to be predictive of near-term suicidal behavior among high suicide-risk inpatients. The purpose o...
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Kearney, David J; McManus, Carolyn; Malte, Carol A; Martinez, Michelle E; Felleman, Benjamin; Simpson, Tracy L
2014-12-01
Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) is a practice intended to enhance feelings of kindness and compassion for self and others. To assess whether participation in a 12-week course of LKM for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with improved positive emotions, decentering, and personal resources. In an open-pilot trial, veterans were assessed at baseline, after the course, and 3 months later. Effect sizes were calculated from baseline to each follow-up point for each construct of interest. Measures were chosen as an initial investigation of the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. A total of 42 veterans with active PTSD (40% female) participated. Emotions, decentering, psychological wellbeing including autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations, purpose in life, self-acceptance, and sense of social support were measured at each time point. Significant increases in unactivated pleasant (d=0.73), but not activated pleasant, emotions were found over time. Activated and unactivated unpleasant emotions decreased over time (d=-0.69 and -0.53, respectively). There were also increases in environmental mastery (d=0.61), personal growth (d=0.54), purpose in life (d=0.71), self-acceptance (d=0.68), and decentering (d=0.96) at 3-month follow-up. Overall, positive emotions increased, and enhancement of personal resources occurred over time. Further investigation of LKM for PTSD is warranted.
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Adams, Kristen; Cimino, Jenica E W; Arnold, Robert M; Anderson, Wendy G
2012-10-01
To describe hospital-based physicians' responses to patients' verbal expressions of negative emotion and identify patterns of further communication associated with different responses. Qualitative analysis of physician-patient admission encounters audio-recorded between August 2008 and March 2009 at two hospitals within a university system. A codebook was iteratively developed to identify patients' verbal expressions of negative emotion. We categorized physicians' responses by their immediate effect on further discussion of emotion - focused away (away), focused neither toward nor away (neutral), and focused toward (toward) - and examined further communication patterns following each response type. In 79 patients' encounters with 27 physicians, the median expression of negative emotion was 1, range 0-14. Physician responses were 25% away, 43% neutral, and 32% toward. Neutral and toward responses elicited patient perspectives, concerns, social and spiritual issues, and goals for care. Toward responses demonstrated physicians' support, contributing to physician-patient alignment and agreement about treatment. Responding to expressions of negative emotion neutrally or with statements that focus toward emotion elicits clinically relevant information and is associated with positive physician-patient relationship and care outcomes. Providers should respond to expressions of negative emotion with statements that allow for or explicitly encourage further discussion of emotion. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
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On Emotion and Rationality: A Response to Barrett.
Steutel, Jan; Dam, Ellis van
1996-01-01
Maintains that recent criticism of cognitive psychologists' conception of irrational emotions as marginal and ephemeral is misguided and inaccurate. Argues that this interpretation is a misstatement of the psychologists' position and analyzes the process resulting in this misinterpretation. Discusses the implications of these arguments for moral…
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The Emotional Stroop as an Emotion Regulation Task.
Kappes, Cathleen; Bermeitinger, Christina
2016-01-01
The present studies investigate age differences observed when performing the emotional Stroop task considered as an expression of emotion regulation. Previous studies employing this task showed mixed findings regarding age differences, with a lack of evidence for positivity effects. However, moderating factors such as arousal or dispositional (emotion) regulation strategies were mostly not taken into account. Moreover, relations between Stroop effects and emotional reactions were not examined. In two studies (Study 1/2: nyoung = 26/41; nold = 19/39), an emotional Stroop task was employed and valence (negative, neutral, positive [Study 2 only]) and arousal of the word stimuli were varied. Additionally, flexible goal adjustment (FGA), positive and negative affect in the last 12 months, and change in momentary affect (Study 2 only) were measured. Study 1 showed larger emotional Stroop effects (ESE) in older than younger adults with medium arousing negative words. We also found correlations between FGA (positive correlation) as well as negative affect (negative correlation) and the ESE with medium arousing negative words. Study 2 corroborates these findings by exhibiting positive change in momentary affect with larger ESEs for medium arousing negative words in the older age group. The findings emphasize the importance of including arousal level and dispositional regulation measures (such as FGA) as moderating factors in age differences and within-group differences in emotion regulation. Although we did not find evidence for a positivity effect, processing in the emotional Stroop task was related to positive change in momentary affect and less negative affect in the older age group. Taken together, our experiments demonstrate that the emotional Stroop task is suited as a measure for emotion induction and related emotion regulation mechanisms.
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Bedyńska, Sylwia; Żołnierczyk-Zreda, Dorota
2015-01-01
Stereotype threat as an example of serious interpersonal strain at workplace can lead either to impaired work engagement or it can motivate workers to strengthen their efforts to disconfirm a stereotype and can result in excessive work engagement. Thus, the basic aim of the study was to examine whether stereotype threat is related to burnout or to work engagement. The mediating role of the negative and positive emotions were also tested in the classical approach. Mediational analysis revealed a linear relation of stereotype threat and burnout, mediated by negative emotions and a quadratic relationship between stereotype threat and work engagement. In the latter analysis none of the mediators were significant. Therefore, the results showed that both burnout and work engagement are associated with stereotype threat at the workplace, probably depending on the stage of response to the stereotype threat. Further research should confirm these associations in a longitudinal study.
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Vernooij, Eveline; Orcalli, Angelo; Fabbro, Franco; Crescentini, Cristiano
2016-01-01
The endless scale illusion, obtained by cyclically repeating a chromatic scale made up of Shepard tones, has been used in a variety of musical works. Music psychology and neuroscience has been interested in this particular psychoacoustic phenomenon mainly for studying the cognitive processes of pitch perception involved. In the present study, we investigated the emotional states induced by the Shepard-Risset glissando, a variant of the Shepard scale. For this purpose we chose three musical stimuli: a Matlab-generated Shepard Risset glissando, Jean-Claude Risset's Computer Suite from Little Boy, which presents a Shepard-Risset glissando integrated in the aesthetic context of a composition, and an ordinary orchestral glissando taken from the opening of Iannis Xenakis's Metastasis. Seventy-three volunteers completed a listening experiment during which they rated their emotional response to these stimuli on a seven-point Likert scale and indicated whether they had experienced a disruption of equilibrium. Personality was also measured with the Five-Factor Model of personality traits. The results show that negative emotions were most strongly evoked during listening to each of the stimuli. We also found that the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, both within the aesthetic context of a musical composition and on its own, was capable of evoking disruption of equilibrium, frequently leading to the associated feeling of falling. Moreover, generally for the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, higher negative emotional ratings were given by individuals who had experienced a feeling of disturbance of equilibrium relative to those who had not had this experience. Finally, we found a complex pattern of relationships between personality and the subjective experience of the glissando. Openness to experience correlated positively with positive emotion ratings for the Computer Suite, while agreeableness correlated negatively with positive emotion ratings for the Matlab stimulus
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Eveline eVernooij
2016-03-01
Full Text Available The endless scale illusion, obtained by cyclically repeating a chromatic scale made up of Shepard tones, has been used in a variety of musical works. Music psychology and neuroscience has been interested in this particular psychoacoustic phenomenon mainly for studying the cognitive processes of pitch perception involved. In the present study, we investigated the emotional states induced by the Shepard-Risset glissando, a variant of the Shepard scale. For this purpose we chose three musical stimuli: a Matlab-generated Shepard Risset glissando, Jean-Claude Risset’s Computer Suite from Little Boy, which presents a Shepard-Risset glissando integrated in the aesthetic context of a composition, and an ordinary orchestral glissando taken from the opening of Iannis Xenakis’ Metastasis. Seventy-three volunteers completed a listening experiment during which they rated their emotional response to these stimuli on a 7-point Likert scale and indicated whether they had experienced a disruption of equilibrium. Personality was also measured with the Five-Factor Model of personality traits.The results show that negative emotions were most strongly evoked during listening to each of the stimuli. We also found that the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, both within the aesthetic context of a musical composition and on its own, was capable of evoking disruption of equilibrium, frequently leading to the associated feeling of falling. Moreover, generally for the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, higher negative emotional ratings were given by individuals who had experienced a feeling of disturbance of equilibrium relative to those who had not had this experience. Finally, we found a complex pattern of relationships between personality and the subjective experience of the glissando. Openness to experience correlated positively with positive emotion ratings for the Computer Suite, while agreeableness correlated negatively with positive emotion ratings for the
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Vernooij, Eveline; Orcalli, Angelo; Fabbro, Franco; Crescentini, Cristiano
2016-01-01
The endless scale illusion, obtained by cyclically repeating a chromatic scale made up of Shepard tones, has been used in a variety of musical works. Music psychology and neuroscience has been interested in this particular psychoacoustic phenomenon mainly for studying the cognitive processes of pitch perception involved. In the present study, we investigated the emotional states induced by the Shepard-Risset glissando, a variant of the Shepard scale. For this purpose we chose three musical stimuli: a Matlab-generated Shepard Risset glissando, Jean-Claude Risset's Computer Suite from Little Boy, which presents a Shepard-Risset glissando integrated in the aesthetic context of a composition, and an ordinary orchestral glissando taken from the opening of Iannis Xenakis's Metastasis. Seventy-three volunteers completed a listening experiment during which they rated their emotional response to these stimuli on a seven-point Likert scale and indicated whether they had experienced a disruption of equilibrium. Personality was also measured with the Five-Factor Model of personality traits. The results show that negative emotions were most strongly evoked during listening to each of the stimuli. We also found that the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, both within the aesthetic context of a musical composition and on its own, was capable of evoking disruption of equilibrium, frequently leading to the associated feeling of falling. Moreover, generally for the Shepard-Risset glissando illusion, higher negative emotional ratings were given by individuals who had experienced a feeling of disturbance of equilibrium relative to those who had not had this experience. Finally, we found a complex pattern of relationships between personality and the subjective experience of the glissando. Openness to experience correlated positively with positive emotion ratings for the Computer Suite, while agreeableness correlated negatively with positive emotion ratings for the Matlab stimulus
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Virtual Distance and Soundstage, and their Impacts on Experienced Emotional Valence
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Christensen, Justin
2015-01-01
stimuli should cause stronger valenced responses in the nearfield than at a distance. Thus, music experienced as being negatively valenced at a distance should be more negatively valenced in nearfield, and music that is experienced as having a positive valence at a distance should be more positively......Research from animal ethology and affective neuroscience suggest that a listener’s perceived distance from a signal source can alter their experienced emotional valence of the music. Furthermore, appraisal theories of emotion suggest that emotionally valenced responses will diverge according...... to the type of emotion presented. For these exploratory investigations, subjects listen to selected musical excerpts on speakers in combination with a tactile transducer attached to their chair. The listening sessions are recorded on EEG supported by subject feedback responses. My hypothesis is that musical...
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Mistridis, Panagiota; Taylor, Kirsten I; Kissler, Johanna M; Monsch, Andreas U; Kressig, Reto W; Kivisaari, Sasa L
2013-01-01
Emotional information is typically better remembered than neutral content, and previous studies suggest that this effect is subserved particularly by the amygdala together with its interactions with the hippocampus. However, it is not known whether amygdala damage affects emotional memory performance at immediate and delayed recall, and whether its involvement is modulated by stimulus valence. Moreover, it is unclear to what extent more distributed neocortical regions involved in e.g., autobiographical memory, also contribute to emotional processing. We investigated these questions in a group of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), which affects the amygdala, hippocampus and neocortical regions. Healthy controls (n = 14), patients with AD (n = 15) and its putative prodrome amnestic mild cognitive impairment (n = 11) completed a memory task consisting of immediate and delayed free recall of a list of positive, negative and neutral words. Memory performance was related to brain integrity in region of interest and whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analyses. In the brain-behavioral analyses, the left amygdala volume predicted the immediate recall of both positive and negative material, whereas at delay, left and right amygdala volumes were associated with performance with positive and negative words, respectively. Whole-brain analyses revealed additional associations between left angular gyrus integrity and the immediate recall of positive words as well as between the orbitofrontal cortex and the delayed recall of negative words. These results indicate that emotional memory impairments in AD may be underpinned by damage to regions implicated in emotional processing as well as frontoparietal regions, which may exert their influence via autobiographical memories and organizational strategies.
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Measuring the emotional response to beer and the relative impact of sensory and packaging cues
Chaya, C.; Pacoud, J.; Ng, May Ling; Fenton, A.; Hort, Joanne
2015-01-01
In today’s extremely competitive markets, recent studies have highlighted that using hedonic measurement alone is inadequate for evaluating consumer product experience. Measuring emotional response is suggested to provide a richer insight into consumer responses. The objectives of this study were to: (i) measure consumer emotional responses to beer; (ii) determine if a relationship exists between sensory and emotional attributes of products; and finally (iii) investigate the relative impact o...