In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Fragments ENJOYING NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN FICTIONS by John Morreall There is a puzzle going back to Aristotle and Augustine that has sometimes been called the "paradox of tragedy": how is it that nonmasochistic, nonsadistic people are able to enjoy watching or reading about fictional situations which are filled with suffering? The problem here actually extends beyond tragedy to our enjoyment of horror films and other fictional (...) depictions of situations which we would not enjoy in real life. What is it about fiction that turns intensely unpleasant situations into situations we can enjoy? Ofthe many solutions proposed to this puzzle, I shall mentionjust four. Aristotle held that in viewing tragedy we experience negative emotions — pity and fear — but get pleasure from the experience nonetheless because we are thereby purged of excess pity and fear. For Aristotle, too, there is a pleasure which tragedy shares with fiction in general, the delight we take in representations.1 Hume put more weight on this latter delight. Our pleasure in tragedy, he said, is based on our appreciation of the skill with which the literary or other artist has depicted the unpleasant scenes.2 Susan Feagin has recently located the pleasure we take in tragic art not in our direct responses to the work, which are "unpleasant experiences," she says, but in our meta-response of moral self-congratulation at these responses.3 The fourth solution to our puzzle is really a dissolution: it consists of denying that we actually feel fear, pity, and other negative emotions in our experience of fiction. The guiding principle here is that in order to have some emotion toward a situation, we must believe that it is a real situation. This principle is articulated in an influential article by Kendall Walton, though he does not apply it to our puzzle.4 95 96Philosophy and Literature I believe that this last solution is no solution at all because we do in fact feel emotions in our appreciation of fiction (a point I will develop later). The other three solutions above address the puzzle, and the pleasures they appeal to all have some explanatory power. But these solutions seem to me to overlook perhaps the most basic pleasure we take in tragedy, horror films, and the like — the direct pleasure of feeling (ear, pity, and similar emotions. The idea of enjoying negative emotions seems counterintuitive at first; indeed it may seem analytically false. But let us look more closely at those emotions to see what there might be to enjoy in them. Because the idea that we experience real emotions in response to fiction is controversial, we will begin not with fiction but with real life. After seeing how negative emotions can be enjoyed in real life, we can then consider their enjoyment in response to fiction. Fear is perhaps the most basic negative emotion, and at first glance one of the least likely to be enjoyed. To feel fear, many have claimed, we have tojudge that we are in danger, and danger is disturbing to us. And so it is natural that in fear there is the motivation to eliminate the danger, by fleeing, protecting ourselves, or attacking. Changes in the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system equip us forjust such actions. They produce an increase in alertness and muscle tension, a faster and stronger heartbeat, a redistribution of the blood from the skin and internal organs to the voluntary muscles and brain, and a release of stored sugar from the liver into the bloodstream. Now although we may not be able to identify all these changes when we are in a state of fear, we can feel many of them directly, and we certainly feel the overall excitement which they produce. It is this excitement, I think, that makes fear potentially enjoyable. Especially for someone who leads a relatively dull life, the stimulation provided by fear can be pleasurable by contrast with the ordinary lack of stimulation. Many people, indeed, go to considerable trouble to put themselves into dangerous situations, in part, at least, for the thrill of fear that the danger will provide. Consider mountain climbers and skydivers, for instance. Now there are many sources... (shrink)

In a typical reversal-learning experiment, one learns stimulus–outcome contingencies that then switch without warning. For instance, participants might have to repeatedly choose between two faces, one of which yields points whereas the other does not, with a reversal at some point in which face yields points. The current study examined age differences in the effects of outcome type on reversal learning. In the first experiment, the participants’ task was either to select the person who would be in a better mood (...) or to select the person who would yield more points. Reversals in which face was the correct option occurred several times. Older adults did worse in blocks in which the correct response was to select the person who would not be angry than in blocks in which the correct response was to select the person who would smile. Younger adults did not show a difference by emotional valence. In the second study, the negative condition was switched to have the same format as the positive condition (to select who will be angry). Again, older adults did worse with negative than positive outcomes, whereas younger adults did not show a difference by emotional valence. A third experiment replicated the lack of valence effects in younger adults with a harder probabilistic reversal-learning task. In the first two experiments, older adults performed about as well as younger adults in the positive conditions but performed worse in the negative conditions. These findings suggest that negative emotional outcomes selectively impair older adults’ reversal learning. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhen in emotional distress, people often turn to others for social support. A general distinction has been made between two types of support that are differentially effective: Whereas socio-affective support temporarily alleviates emotional distress, cognitive support may contribute to better long-term recovery. In the current studies, we examine what type of support individuals seek. We first confirmed in a pilot study that these two types of support can be reliably distinguished. Then, in Study 1, we experimentally tested participants’ (...) support evaluations in response to different emotional situations using a vignette methodology. Findings showed that individuals perceived any type of reaction that included socio-affective support as preferable. The evaluation of cognitive support, however, was dependent on the specific emotion: Unlike worry and regret, anger and sadness were characterised by a strong dislike for purely cognitive support. Using different materials, Study 2 replicated these findin... (shrink)

The present study examines 1- to 5-year-old children’s emotion socialization in an early childhood educational setting (a preschool) in Sweden. Specifically, it examines social situations where teachers respond to children’s negative emotional expressions and negatively emotionally charged social acts, characterized by anger, irritation and distress. Data consist of 14 hours of video observations of daily activities, recorded in a public Swedish preschool, located in a suburban middle-class area and include 35 children and five preschool teachers. By adopting a (...) sociocultural perspective on children’s development and socialization, the study examines the communicative practices through which the expressions of negative emotions are responded to and the norms and values that are communicated through these practices. The data are analysed by using multimodal analysis of interaction that provides a tool for detailed analysis of participants’ verbal and embodied actions and sense-making. The analyses show that teachers responded to children’s negatively charged emotional expressions as social acts (that were normatively evaluated) and the adults instructed children how to modify their social conduct (rather than deploying explicit discussions about emotions). The teachers used communicative genres that prioritized general moral principles and implemented the non-negotiability of norms over individual children’s emotional-volitional perspectives and individual preferences. The teachers’ instructive socializing activities were characterized by movement between multiple temporal horizons, i.e., general (emotional) discourse that transcended the here-and-now, and specific instructions targeting the children’s conduct in a current situation. The study discusses how emotion socialization can be related to the institutional characteristics and collective participatory social conditions of early childhood education. (shrink)

Negative emotion differentiation has been suggested to be important for adaptive emotion regulation. However, knowledge concerning how ED may impact specific ER strategy choice remains surprisingly sparse. We therefore investigated if person-level negative ED was associated with habitual use of individual ER strategies, how person-level negative ED was associated with daily use of individual ER strategies, and finally how within-person daily fluctuations in negative ED were associated with daily use of individual ER strategies. During a 10-day (...) experience sampling study, 90 healthy participants rated their momentary emotions and their ER efforts in response to those emotions. ER strategies included four putatively adaptive strategies and four putatively maladaptive strategies. Results revealed that negative ED at the person level was neither associated with habitual nor daily ER strategy endorsement when controlling for negative emotions. Likewise, associations between within-individual daily variation in negative ED and daily ER did not remain statistically significant after controlling for negative emotions. The results thus point to no or weak associations between negative ED and ER choice above and beyond negative emotions. Future experimental studies addressing ED at the momentary level and teasing out the ED–ER causal timeline are needed to further evaluate ED–ER associations. Findings from such research may represent an important step toward refining psychotherapeutic interventions aimed at improving emotional problems. (shrink)

Oncological treatments are responsible for many of the physical changes associated with cancer. Because of this, cancer patients are at high risk of developing mental health problems. The aim of this study is to propose an innovative Virtual Reality training that uses a somatic technique to create a bridge with the bodily dimension of cancer. After undergoing a psycho-educational procedure, a combination of exposure, out-of-body experience, and body swapping will gradually train the patient to cope with cancer-related difficulties, increasing stress (...) tolerance, and patient empowerment. The most engaging step of this advanced form of Stress Inoculation Training is the body swapping experience, which will guide the patient in embodying a resilient cancer patient who is facing similar difficulties. Through the VR ability to simulate the human brain functioning, and the potential of embodiment to hook to the somatic dimension of illness, we expect that once the concepts endured through the patient’s experience of resilience are triggered, the patient will be more prone to implement functional coping strategies in real life, reaching empowerment and adjusting to the post-treatment difficulties. When the scenarios are built and the training tested, our intervention could be used to support patients with different oncological diseases and who are treated in different cancer hospitals, as well as patients with other non-oncological problems. Future research should focus on using our paradigm for other clinical populations, and supporting cancer patients in coping with different distressing situations. (shrink)

To reduce negative emotional responses and to stimulate prosociality, constructive journalism promotes the inclusion of positive emotions and solutions in news. This study experimentally tested whether including those elements indeed increased prosocial intentions and behavior among children, and whether negative emotions and self-efficacy are mediators in this regard. To this end, children were exposed to an emotion-based, solution-based, or non-constructive news video. Results showed that emotion-based and solution-based news reduced children’s negative emotions compared to non-constructive news. (...) No direct effects for prosocial intentions were found, but solution-based news led to less prosocial behavior than emotion-based and non-constructive news. Moreover, negative emotions served as a mediator, self-efficacy did not. The more negative emotions were elicited by a news story, the higher the prosocial intentions and behavior. In conclusion, a constructive style of reporting helps to reduce children’s negative emotional responses but subsequently hinders prosociality. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhen in emotional distress, people often turn to others for support. Paradoxically, even when people perceive social support to be beneficial, it often does not result in emotional recovery...

Stress induction reduces people's ability to modify their instrumental choices following changes in the value of outcomes, but the mechanisms underpinning this effect have not been specified because previous studies have lacked crucial control conditions. To address this, the current study had participants learn two instrumental responses for food and water, respectively, before water was devalued by specific satiety. Choice between these two responses was then measured in extinction, reacquisition and Pavlovian to instrumental transfer tests. Concurrently during these tests, a (...) negative emotional appraisal group evaluated aversive images, whereas a control group evaluated neutral images, at the same time as choosing between the two instrumental responses. Negative emotional appraisal abolished the impact of water devaluation on instrumental choice in the extinction test, but did not affect instrumental choice in the reacquisition or PIT tests. These findings suggest that negative emotional appraisal selectively impaired participants’ ability to retrieve the expected value of outcomes required to make goal-directed instrumental choices in the extinction test, and that this effect was not due to task disengagement, nullification of the devaluation treatment or impaired knowledge of response-outcome relationships. (shrink)

Assessing psychophysiological responses of emotion regulation is a cost-efficient way to quantify emotion regulation and to complement subjective report that may be biased. Previous studies have revealed inconsistent results complicating a sound interpretation of these findings. In the present study, we summarized the existing literature through a systematic search of articles. Meta-analyses were used to evaluate effect sizes of instructed downregulation strategies on common autonomic (electrodermal, respiratory, cardiovascular, and pupillometric) and electromyographic (corrugator activity, emotion-modulated startle) measures. Moderator analyses were conducted, (...) with moderators including study design, emotion induction, control instruction and trial duration. We identified k = 78 studies each contributing multiple sub-samples and performed 23 meta-analyses for combinations of emotion regulation strategy and psychophysiological measure. Overall, results showed that effects of reappraisal and suppression on autonomic measures were highly inconsistent across studies with rather small mean effect sizes. Electromyography (startle and corrugator activity) showed medium effect sizes that were consistent across studies. Our findings highlight the diversity as well as the low level of standardization and comparability of research in this area. Significant moderation of effects by study design, trial duration, and control condition emphasizes the need for better standardization of methods. In addition, the small mean effect sizes resulting from our analyses on autonomic measures should be interpreted with caution. Findings corroborate the importance of multi-channel approaches. (shrink)

Consumers may sense hypocrisy in corporate social responsibility if they note inconsistency in enterprises’ words and deeds related to CSR. This inconsistency originates from the intentional selfish actions and unintentional actions of enterprises. Studies have revealed that consumers’ perception of hypocrisy has a negative influence on enterprise operation. However, studies have not examined how corporate responses to consumers’ hypocrisy perception affect consumers’ attitude and behavior. Therefore, the present study attempted to determine the measures that should be undertaken by enterprises (...) to reduce consumers’ negative response to them when consumers perceive them to be hypocritical. We conducted a situational simulation experiment to explore the effect of the match between corporate hypocrisy manifestation and the corporate response strategy on consumers’ negative behaviors toward an enterprise and to test the mechanism influencing this effect. The results indicated that the interaction between the type of corporate hypocrisy and the corporate response strategy has a significant effect on consumers’ negative behaviors toward an enterprise. Consumers’ negative emotions have a mediating influence on the aforementioned effect. This study explored the response strategies of enterprises during a corporate hypocrisy crisis, classified corporate hypocrisy crises into two types according to the different manifestations of corporate hypocrisy, and introduced situational crisis communication theory into research on corporate hypocrisy. The present results help expand knowledge on corporate hypocrisy. (shrink)

Dysfunctional customer behavior is common in service settings. For frontline employees, negative encounters can cause short-term despondency or have profound, long-term psychological effects that often result in both direct and indirect costs to service firms. Existing research has explored the influence of dysfunctional customer behavior on employee emotions, but it has not fully investigated the psychological mechanism through which customer misbehavior transforms into employee responses. To maintain service quality and employee well-being, it is important to understand the impact of (...) customer misconduct on employee emotions and its effect on subsequent service behavior. To assess the process through which dysfunctional customer behavior manifests as negative emotions in frontline service employees, and the influence of negative employee emotions on their prosocial service behavior, we surveyed 185 frontline banking service employees. We sought information on service employee experiences, attitudes, and feelings regarding dysfunctional customer behaviors, the perceived level of supervisor support, and employee prosocial service behavior intentions. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical linear modeling were used for statistical analysis and hypothesis verification. Results indicate that dysfunctional customer behavior has a positive relationship with bank service employee negative emotions and a negative influence on employee prosocial service behavior. The study found that negative emotions fully mediated the relationship between dysfunctional customer behavior and prosocial service behavior. The moderating role that perceived supervisor support plays on the relationships between dysfunctional customer behavior and negative emotion was also investigated. The results show that perceived supervisor support moderates the relationship between dysfunctional customer behavior and negative employee emotions. Finally, the study provides bank managers with effective strategies to assist frontline employees to manage and deter dysfunctional customer behavior, and presents employees with internal recovery strategies when encountering dysfunctional customer behavior. (shrink)

Negative emotions are often thought to lack value—they’re pernicious, inherently unpleasant, and inconsistent with human virtue. Taking anxiety as a case study, I argue that this assessment is mistaken. I begin with an account of what anxiety is: a response to uncertainty about a possible threat or challenge that brings thoughts about one’s predicament (‘I’m worried,’ ‘What should I do?’), negatively valenced feelings of concern, and a motivational tendency toward caution regarding the potential threat one faces. Given this (...) account of what anxiety is, I show it can be instrumentally valuable: in sensitizing us to uncertainty and prompting caution and risk assessment efforts, it’s an emotion that can help us better recognize and respond to uncertain threats and challenges. But anxiety can also be aretaically valuable—that is, it’s an emotion that can contribute positively to one’s character. For instance, your anxiety about how best to care for your aging mother not only prompts helpful brainstorming about what you should do, but also reflect well on you—your unease demonstrates both an admirable sensitivity and emotional attunement to what’s at stake. (shrink)

Background: Interpersonal sensitivity is a prominent mental health problem facing college students today. Trait mindfulness is a potential positive factor that may influence interpersonal relationships. However, the precise relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity remains elusive, which limits the optimization and further application of mindfulness-based intervention schemes targeting interpersonal sensitivity. This study aimed to explore whether negative emotions mediate the relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity and whether the relationship among trait mindfulness, negative emotions, and interpersonal (...) sensitivity is moderated by effectiveness/authenticity. We hypothesize that negative emotions mediate the relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity, and effectiveness/authenticity moderates the indirect association between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity through negative emotions.Methods: One thousand four hundred nineteen Chinese college students, aged from 17 to 23, participated in this study. Their trait mindfulness, negative emotions, the effectiveness/authenticity, and interpersonal sensitivity were measured using well-validated self-report questionnaires.Results: Correlational analyses indicated that both trait mindfulness and effectiveness/authenticity were significantly and negatively associated with interpersonal sensitivity. Mediation analyses uncovered a partial mediating role of negative emotions in the relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity. Moderated mediation analyses showed that in college students with high effectiveness/authenticity, the relationship between trait mindfulness and negative emotions was stronger, whereas the relationship between negative emotions and interpersonal sensitivity was weaker.Conclusion: Negative emotion is a mediator of the relationship between trait mindfulness and interpersonal sensitivity, which in turn is moderated by effectiveness/authenticity. These findings suggest a potential mechanism through which trait mindfulness influences interpersonal sensitivity. Mindfulness-based interventions have the potential to decrease interpersonal sensitivity and offer a basis for predicting individual differences in response to mindfulness-based interventions among individuals. (shrink)

Working memory capacity (WMC) refers to the ability to maintain information in short–term memory while attending to the immediate environment, and has been associated with emotional states. Yet, research on the link between WMC and emotion in naturalistic settings is growing and inconsistencies have been observed. In the current study (N = 109), we directly replicated the procedures of a prior experience sampling study (Garrison & Schmeichel, 2022), which found that higher WMC attenuates the relationship between stressful events in (...) daily life and negative affect. We measured WMC in the laboratory and then measured the occurrence of stressful events, momentary emotional states, and coping responses to stress several times a day for six days. Higher WMC was associated with reduced momentary negative emotion, but this relationship did not depend on the occurrence of a stressful event. Exploratory analyses found that higher WMC was associated with a greater likelihood of planning as a coping response to stress and greater number of coping strategies reported per stressful event. However, coping did not mediate the link between WMC and momentary negative emotion. Our results contribute to the robustness and ecological validity of the link between WMC and reduced negative emotion in daily life. (shrink)

Drawing on social comparison theory, we investigate employees’ ethical and performance comparisons relative to a similar coworker and subsequent emotional and behavioral responses. We test our theoretically driven hypotheses across two studies. Study 1, a cross-sectional field study, reveals that employees who perceive they are more ethical than their coworkers experience negative emotions toward the comparison coworkers and those feelings are even stronger when the employees perceive they are lower performers than their coworkers. Results also reveal that (...) class='Hi'>negative emotions mediate the indirect relationship between being more ethical than a coworker, but also being a lower performer than that coworker onto social undermining and ostracism. Study 2, a 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design, provides further support for our moderated mediation model. Results reveal that participants experience negative emotions when they receive information that they are more ethical than a comparison participant. Negative emotions are amplified if the participant is told they were a lower performer than the comparison participant. Those participants indicate their desire to mistreat and ignore the comparison participant if given the opportunity. Thus, we find support for our hypotheses using a multi-method design. (shrink)

ABSTRACTResearch on bilingualism and emotions has shown stronger emotional responses in the native language compared to a foreign language. We investigated the potential of purposeful second language use as a means of decreasing the experience of psychological distress. Native Swedish speakers read and answered questions about negative and neutral texts in their L1 and their L2 and were asked to rate their level of distress before or after the questions. The texts and associated questions were either written in (...) the same, or different languages. We found that within-language trials when the text was written in participants’ native language resulted in an increase of distress, whilst cross-language trials resulted in a decrease of distress. This implies that purposeful second language use can diminish levels of distress experienced following a negative event encoded in one's first language. (shrink)

This study investigated the role of dispositional mindful attention in immediate reactivity to, and subsequent recovery from, laboratory-induced negative emotion. One hundred and fourteen undergraduates viewed blocks of negative pictures followed by neutral pictures. Participants’ emotional responses to negative pictures and subsequent neutral pictures were assessed via self-reported ratings. Participants’ emotional response to negative pictures was used to index level of emotional reactivity to unpleasant stimuli; emotional response to neutral pictures (...) presented immediately after the negative pictures was used to index level of emotional recovery from pre-induced negative emotion. Results indicated that mindful attention was not associated with the emotional response to negative pictures, but it was associated with reduced negative emotion in response to the neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures, suggesting better recovery as opposed to reduced reactivity. This effect was especially pronounced in later experimental blocks when the accumulation of negative stimuli produced greater negative emotion from which participants had to recover. The current study extends previous findings on the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and reduced negative emotion by demonstrating that mindful attention may facilitate better recovery from negative emotion, possibly through more effective disengagement from previous stimuli. (shrink)

Several scholars have highlighted the importance of examining moral disengagement in understanding aggression and deviant conduct across different contexts. The present study investigates the role of MD as a specific social-cognitive construct that, in the organizational context, may intervene in the process leading from stressors to counterproductive work behavior. Assuming the theoretical framework of the stressor-emotion model of CWB, we hypothesized that MD mediates, at least partially, the relation between negative emotions in reaction to perceived stressors and CWB by (...) promoting or justifying aggressive responses to frustrating situations or events. In a sample of 1,147 Italian workers, we tested a structural equations model. The results support our hypothesis: the more workers experienced negative emotions in response to stressors, the more they morally disengaged and, in turn, enacted CWB. (shrink)

This conceptual article theorizes about the effect of emotions of individual organizational leaders during a period of sustainability-related upheaval within an industry. To illustrate the effect of emotions, it proposes to draw on the model of five stages of grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a conceptual framework describing terminally ill patients’ responses to their impending death. The authors adapt Kübler-Ross’s taxonomy and use anecdotal evidence from grieving top managers of energy companies in response to the nuclear phase-out in Germany. The (...) article conceptualizes the influence of emotions in the decision-making process of key agents in response to institutional pressures in their field. The article suggests that focusing on emotional influences will add an important dimension to the analysis of sustainability strategies, and discuss implications for further research at an individual and organizational level. (shrink)

Nowadays, the major depressive disorder is a common disease that negatively affects the life quality of many people around the world. As MDD symptoms are closely related with the changes in food and eating, the relation between patients’ emotional responses and food tastes could be used as criteria for diagnostic. Until now, studies on the emotional response to different food tastes for patients affected by MDD have been poorly described in literature. Therefore, the aim of this study (...) was to evaluate the emotional response of patients suffering from MDD to the imagined different food tastes and to compare the results with a control group. Emotional responses in tested participants were induced by using cards with words of basic food tastes such as “sweet,” “salty,” “bitter,” “sour,” and “neutral.” The assessment of emotional response was performed with FaceReader 6 software. The outcome of this study showed that participants with MDD expressed lower “happy” and “contempt” and higher “surprised” emotions, along with a higher negative valence mean, in comparison with controls for all tested basic tastes of food. When Likert scale was used, significant differences in response were only found for “sour” and “salty” imaginary tastes between healthy group and patients with MDD. The findings of this study provide the additional data on food–associated emotion analysis of MDD patients and could be useful for the further development of the contactless method for early diagnosis of MDD. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNon-suicidal self-injury is commonly used by young adults to regulate emotional responses. Yet, experimental examination of how people who self-injure appraise and respond to emotional stimuli is limited. We examined appraisals of, and responses to, emotive images in young adults who did and did not self-injure, and assessed whether these were impacted by exposure to a stressor. Study 1 examined whether participants differed in their appraisals of emotional images. Study 2 assessed whether appraisals of images changed after (...) exposure to the Trier Social Stress Test. Ratings of emotional valence and arousal were collected in both studies; skin conductance was measured as an indicator of physiological arousal in Study 2. In Study 1 participants reporting NSSI rated positively valenced images as less pleasant than participants not reporting NSSI. In Study 2, after acute stress, participants reporting NSSI displayed dampened physiological reactions to positive images whereas pa... (shrink)

Reflecting on stressors from a detached perspective – a strategy known as distancing – can facilitate emotional recovery. Researchers have theorised that distancing works by enabling reappraisals of negative events, yet few studies have investigated specifically how distancing impacts stressor appraisals. In this experiment, we investigated how participants’ (N = 355) emotional experience and appraisals of an interpersonal conflict differed depending on whether they wrote event-reflections from a linguistically immersed (first-person) or distanced (second/third-person) perspective. Partly replicating previous (...) findings, distanced reflection predicted increases in positive affect, but not reductions in negative affect, relative to immersed reflection. Linguistic distancing also predicted increases in motivational congruence appraisals (i.e. perceived advantageousness of the event), but did not influence other appraisal dimensions. We discuss how linguistic distancing may facilitate emotional recovery by illuminating the benefits of stressful experiences, enabling people to “see the good in the bad”. (shrink)

Research has begun to suggest that cognitive ability contributes to emotional processes and responses. The present study sought novel evidence for this hypothesis by examining the relationship between individual differences in the capacity for inhibitory control and responses to a common emotion-induction procedure involving autobiographical memories. Participants first completed a stop-signal task to measure inhibitory control and then underwent an anger, anxiety, or neutral emotion induction. Performance on the stop-signal task predicted emotional responses such that participants with poorer (...) inhibitory control reported larger increases in anger following the anger induction and larger increases in anxiety across emotion induction conditions, relative to better inhibitors. These results suggest that individual differences in cognitive ability may influence the intensity of emotional states induced by common laboratory methods of emotion induction. (shrink)

Emotional false memory findings using the DRM paradigm have been marked by higher false alarms to negatively arousing compared to neutral critical lure items. Explanations for these findings have mainly focused on false memory-based accounts. However, here we address the question of whether a response bias for emotional stimuli can, at least in part, explain this phenomenon. Participants viewed both neutral and negative arousing DRM lists and completed a recognition test in speeded or self-paced conditions. Speeded (...) test reduces the opportunity to adjust response bias. Analysis showed no significant difference in false recognition across critical lure types for the speeded condition, but false recognition was higher for negative compared to neutral critical lures in the self-paced condition. We argue that when retrieval does not allow for shifts in response criteria, false alarms to negative emotional critical lures appear more similar to neutral equivalents. The discussion explores memory-based and criterion-shift explanations for the enhanced emotional false memory finding. (shrink)

Background: Greater vulnerability to negative emotions appears associated with the development and maintenance of eating disorders. A systematic review of psychophysiological studies using emotion-eliciting film clips reveals that there are no studies examining the effect of standardized validated film clips on psychophysiological response across a range of EDs.Methods: Using standardized validated film clips without ED-specific content, the present study examined self-reported emotions and psychophysiological responses of women with Binge-Eating Disorder, Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Healthy Controls at Baseline, (...) during Neutral, Sad, Happy, and Fear-inducing film clips, and at Recovery.Results: Throughout the protocol, the ED groups reported significantly greater sadness and anxiety than HCs. Additionally, the AN group reported more fear, the BED group more frustration, and the BED and BN groups more tension than HCs. Compared to HCs, the BED group reported stronger urges to binge throughout the protocol, whereas BN group reported stronger urges to binge relative to the HC group only at Baseline and Recovery. The BN and BED groups experienced decreased urges to binge during all film clips compared to Baseline. Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia levels were significantly lower in the BED group compared to HCs and the BN group throughout the protocol.Discussion: Standardized validated film clips can be used to elicit expected self-reported emotion and skin conductance responses in ED groups, although individuals with EDs compared HCs report greater negative emotions. Interestingly, film clips appeared to reduce urges to binge in binge-eating groups. (shrink)

The results of three experiments suggest that pre-existing mood increases the intensity of affectively congruent emotions while dampening the intensity of incongruent emotions independent of attributional knowledge. This result was obtained using a new method for inducing mood states unobtrusively and with minimal or no cognitive concomitants. The results of Experiment 1 revealed that for participants who were exposed to positive feedback a pre-existing positive mood led to stronger feelings of pride in comparison to negative mood. The results of (...) Experiments 2 and 3 suggest that pre-existing mood directly influences the experience of subsequently elicited emotions independent of what one knows about the causes of this feeling. When participants were required to differentiate between the funniness of a cartoon and their subjective humour response, mood influenced only the latter judgement (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, reminding participants of the mood induction resulted in a contrast effect in judging the funniness of a cartoon. However, the pre-existing mood continued to exert an assimilation effect on the overt mirth response. In conclusion, these results suggest that the feeling and knowledge component are partly independent bases of emotional responses. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPrevious studies have identified two powerful ways to regulate emotional responses to a stressor: experiencing incidental positive emotions and using cognitive reappraisal to reframe the stressor. Several cognitive and motivational theories of positive emotion support the formulation that incidental positive emotions may facilitate cognitive reappraisal. To test the separate and interacting effects of positive emotions and cognitive reappraisal, we first adapted an established picture-based reappraisal paradigm by interspersing blocks of positive emotion inducing and neutral pictures. Across two pre-registered studies, (...) reappraisal effectively decreased self-reported negative emotions and increased self-reported positive emotions; however, experiencing incidental positive emotions did not facilitate reappraisal success. In another preregistered study, we employed a more powerful positive emotion induction via virtual reality, used a social stress anticipation task, and... (shrink)

This article develops the philosophical work of Joanna Macy. It argues that ecological grief is a fitting response to our ecological predicament and that much of the ‘mental ill health’ that we are now seeing is, in fact, a perfectly sane response to our ecological reality. This paper claims that all ecological emotions are grounded in love/compassion. Acceptance of these emotions reveals that everything is fine in the world as it is, providing that we accept our ecological emotions (...) as part of what is ‘in the world’. This is non-dualistic acceptance or ‘fierce’ acceptance. This paper focuses primarily on the revolutionary qualities of ecological grief: a paradoxical revolution, coming as it does from a profound process of acceptance. (shrink)

Studies of normal individuals reveal an asymmetry in the folk concept of intentional action: an action is more likely to be thought of as intentional when it is morally bad than when it is morally good. One interpretation of these results comes from the hypothesis that emotion plays a critical mediating role in the relationship between an action’s moral status and its intentional status. According to this hypothesis, the negative emotional response triggered by a morally bad action (...) drives the attribution of intent to the actor, or the judgment that the actor acted intentionally. We test this hypothesis by presenting cases of morally bad and morally good action to seven individuals with deficits in emotional processing resulting from damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC). If normal emotional processing is necessary for the observed asymmetry, then individuals with VMPC lesions should show no asymmetry. Our results provide no support for this hypothesis: like normal individuals, those with VMPC lesions showed the same asymmetry, tending to judge that an action was intentional when it was morally bad but not when it was morally good. Based on this finding, we suggest that normal emotional processing is not responsible for the observed asymmetry of intentional attributions and thus does not mediate the relationship between an action’s moral status and its intentional status. (shrink)

In this study we use dual process theory of self-regulation to develop a framework that outlines the mediating and moderating mechanisms explaining the relationship between leader emotional exhaustion and leadership style (transformational leadership and abusive supervision). Using Glomb et al.’s (2011) framework, we identify empathy and negative emotion as mediators that are of particular importance for leaders. In addition, we propose that leader mindfulness moderates these processes to improve leadership style. Using a time-lagged survey of leaders (N = (...) 505) we found that leader empathy and negative emotion mediated the relationships between emotional exhaustion and leadership style. Furthermore, we found that leader mindfulness significantly moderated the indirect effect of leader emotional exhaustion on leadership style through negative emotion. However, leader mindfulness did not moderate the relationship between emotional exhaustion and empathy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Recent studies suggest that instrumental hypnosis is a useful experimental tool to investigate emotional and language processing effects. However, the capacity of hypnotic suggestions to intervene during the response inhibition of emotional words remains elusive. This study investigated whether hypnotic suggestion can improve the inhibition of prepotent negative word responses in an emotional Hayling sentence completion task. High-suggestible participants performed a computerised emotional Hayling task. They were first asked to select the appropriate words ending (...) highly predictable sentences among two propositions (initiation part), and then to select the filler words that did not end the sentences correctly (inhibition part). Half of the expected final words had a negative emotional valence, while the other half was neutral. The task was performed in a control condition (without suggestion) and with a hypnotic suggestion to decrease emotional reactivity. The results revealed that hypnotic suggestion (compared to the control condition) hastened response times on negative final words in the inhibition part, showing that hypnotic suggestion can enhance cognitive control over prepotent negative word responses in a sentence completion task. We suggest that this modulation stems from a reduction in the emotional relevance of the final words caused by the hypnotic suggestion. (shrink)

Cognitive models of depression posit that persistent negative self-referent thinking (PNSRT) is an important vulnerability factor for depressive symptoms. The mechanisms involved are still understudied, especially in adolescence. PNSRT has been assessed by a behavioural decision-making task, namely the emotional reversal learning task (ERLT). Within the ERLT, PNSRT is operationalised as the learning rate for negative self-reference. The first aim of the current study is to examine the association between PNSRT and depressive symptoms at baseline and follow-up. (...) Second, the current study investigated associations of PNSRT with temperamental and emotion regulation variables. We found no significant effect between PNSRT and baseline depressive symptoms, although the small effect size pointed in the expected direction. No significant prospective effect was found. Additionally, adolescents with greater capacity for response inhibition and better attentional control exhibited less PNSRT. No other significant associations were found with other temperamental dimensions or emotion regulation variables. In conclusion, while the small effect size of the cross-sectional association between PNSRT and depressive symptoms points in the expected direction, no significant evidence was found that PNSRT acts as either a concomitant or precursor to depressive symptomatology. However, the current study did find a relation between low effortful control and PNSRT. (shrink)

The use of transcranial Electrical Stimulation in the modulation of cognitive brain functions to improve neuropsychiatric conditions has extensively increased over the decades. tES techniques have also raised new challenges associated with study design, stimulation protocol, functional specificity, and dose-response relationship. In this paper, we addressed challenges through the emerging methodology to investigate the dose-response relationship of High Definition-transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, identifying the role of negative valence in tinnitus perception. In light of the neurofunctional testable framework (...) and tES application, hypotheses were formulated to measure clinical and surrogate endpoints. We posited that conscious pairing adequately pleasant stimuli with tinnitus perception results in correction of the loudness misperception and would be reinforced by concurrent active HD-tDCS on the left Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex. The dose-response relationship between HD-tDCS specificity and the loudness perception is also modeled. We conducted a double-blind, randomized crossover pilot study with six recruited tinnitus patients. Accrued data was utilized to design a well-controlled adaptive seamless Bayesian dose-response study. The sample size and optimum interims were anticipated for adaptive decision-making about efficacy, safety, and single session dose parameters. Furthermore, preliminary pilot study results were sufficient to show a significant difference within the longitudinally detected self-report tinnitus loudness between before and under positive emotion induction. This study demonstrated a research methodology used to improve emotion regulation in tinnitus patients. In the projected method, positive emotion induction is essential for promoting functional targeting under HD-tDCS anatomical specificity to indicate the efficacy and facilitate the dose-finding process. The continuous updating of prior knowledge about efficacy and dose during the exploratory stage adapts the anticipated dose-response model. Consequently, the effective dose range to make superiority neuromodulation in correcting loudness misperception of tinnitus will be redefined. Highly effective dose adapts the study to a standard randomized trial and transforms it into the confirmatory stage in which active HD-tDCS protocol is compared with a sham trial. Establishing the HD-tDCS intervention protocols relying on this novel method provides reliable evidence for regulatory agencies to approve or reject the efficacy and safety. Furthermore, this paper supports a technical report for designing multimodality data-driven complementary investigations in emotion regulation, including EEG-driven neuro markers, Stroop-driven attention biases, and neuroimaging-driven brain network dynamics. (shrink)

Background: The transition to child care is a challenging time in a child’s life and leads to elevated levels of cortisol. These elevations may be influenced by the quality of the mother-child-relationship. However, remarkably little is known about cortisol production in response to the beginning of child care among children-at-risk such as children with an immigrant background. However, attending kindergarten or any other child day-care institution can for example have a compensating effect on potential language deficits thus improving the (...) educational opportunities of these children. Method: Data of a subsample of N = 24 “hard-to-reach” mother-child dyads was collected in the context of the psychoanalytic early prevention project “First Steps”. The project focuses on the earliest integration of children with an immigrant background by supporting parenting capacities in the critical phase of migration and early parenthood. Children’s hair cortisol concentration (HCC) was assessed one week before (mean age = 38.77 months) and three months after kindergarten entry (mean age = 42.26 months). Hair analysis was conducted for both times of measurement, reflecting the first 3 months after kindergarten entry and 3 months prior. Furthermore, the emotional quality of the mother-child-relationship was assessed with the help of the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) shortly before kindergarten entry when the children were about three years old (mean age = 37.2). Results and Conclusion: Children’s mean cumulated HCC was higher after kindergarten entry than before. The increase correlated negatively with several dimensions of the EAS. Repeated measures ANCOVA revealed that particularly responsive children and children who had experienced less intrusive mother-child-relationships demonstrated lower elevations in HCC after kindergarten entry. Furthermore, a decreased EA score was found in all EA dimensions, besides the dimension “mother’s non-hostility”, indicating problematic EA within the mother-child-relationships of the sample. The results suggest that children with an immigrant background who experience more emotional available mother-child-relationships seem to regulate stress induced by kindergarten entry more effectively, indicated by lower cortisol elevations after entry. This implicates that supporting early mother-child-relationships by intervention may have a positive effect on the children’s ability to regulate stress induced by kindergarten entry thus promoting child development. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNegative feedback has paradoxical features to it. This form of feedback can have informational value under some circumstances, but it can also threaten the ego, potentially upsetting behaviour as a result. To investigate possible consequences of the latter type, two experiments presented positive or negative feedback within a sequence-prediction task that could not be solved. Following feedback, participants had to control their behaviours as effectively as possible in a motor control task. Relative to positive feedback, negative feedback undermined (...) control in a manner suggesting emotional upset. These reactions lasted for at least three seconds and were especially pronounced among people reporting that they typically lose control in the context of their negative emotions. The findings document a novel form of behavioural dysregulation that occurs in response to negative feedback while also highlighting the utility of motor control perspectives on self... (shrink)

Film clips are proven to be one of the most efficient techniques in emotional induction. However, there is scant literature on the effect of this procedure in older adults and, specifically, the effect of using different positive stimuli. Thus, the aim of the present study was to examine emotional differences between young and older adults and to know how a set of film clips works as mood induction procedure in older adults, especially, when trying to elicit attachment-related emotions. (...) To this end, we use this procedure to analyze differences in subjective emotional response between young and older adults. A sample of 57 older adults and 83 young adults watched a film set previously validated in young population. Their responses were studied in an individual laboratory session to elicit 6 target emotions (disgust, fear, sadness, anger, amusement and tenderness) and neutral state. Self-reported emotional experience was measured using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM). Our results show that film clips are capable of evoking positive and negative emotions in older adults. Furthermore, older adults experienced more intensely negative emotions than young adults, especially in response to disgust and fear clips. They also reported higher arousal than young adults, especially in the case of sadness, anger and tenderness clips. Nevertheless, the older adults recovered more easily from the effects of the emotion induction. The young adults reported higher arousal ratings than older adults in response to amusement film clips. On the other hand, this study reflects the importance of controlling the baseline state to study the real strength of mood induction. Overall, current data suggests significant differences occur in emotional response in adult age and that film clips are an effective tool for studying positive and negative emotions in aging research. (shrink)

It is well-established that party identity biases the processing of political information and the evaluation of political actors. This is presumed to avoid cognitive dissonance and achieve positive affect. What happens, however, when individuals diverge from this pattern and do make identity-inconsistent evaluations of political actors – how does this translate into positive and negative emotions toward the candidates? The paper addresses this question using large-N data from the main televised debate of the 2017 German national election by combining (...) survey responses with viewer perceptions measured during the debate. The findings suggest that candidate ratings made during the debate have different valence depending on a person’s party identity. Strikingly, a stronger party identity does not mean a reduced impact of identity-inconsistent evaluations on emotional responses toward a candidate. Rather, only evaluations in accordance with one’s party identity, and hence with lower information value, show a reduced effect on emotional responses. (shrink)

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 empirically investigated. In an experimental survey design, this study tests two positive and two negative emotions as mediators of framing effects. Our results show that while anger and enthusiasm mediate a framing effect, contentment (...) and fear do not. These findings deepen our understanding of which discrete emotions are relevant when studying mediated framing effects. (shrink)

Processing the motivational relevance of a visual scene and reacting accordingly is crucial for survival. Previous work suggests the emotional content of naturalistic scenes affects response speed, such that unpleasant content slows responses whereas pleasant content accelerates responses. It is unclear whether these effects reflect motor-cognitive processes, such as attentional orienting, or vary with the function/outcome of the motor response itself. Four experiments manipulated participants’ ability to terminate the picture and, thereby, the response’s function and motivational (...) value. Attentive orienting was manipulated via picture repetition, which diminishes orienting. A total of N = 81 participants completed versions of a go/no-go task, discriminating between distorted versus intact pictures drawn from six content categories varying in positive, negative, or neutral valence. While all participants responded faster with repetition, only participants without offset control exhibited slower responses to unpleasant and accelerated responses to pleasant content. Emotional engagement, measured by the late positive potential, was not modulated by attentional orienting, suggesting that the interaction between repetition and offset control is not due to altered emotional engagement. Together, results suggest that response time changes as a function of emotional content and sensitivity to attention orienting depends on the motivational function of the motor response. (shrink)

Evidence is currently mixed regarding the way in which cognitive conflict modulates the effect of emotion on task performance. The present study aimed to address methodological differences across previous studies and investigate the conditions under which interference from emotional stimuli can either be elicited or eliminated under high cognitive conflict. Four behavioural experiments were conducted with a university sample using a gender-discrimination stimulus-response compatibility task. In line with our previous findings, Experiment 1 found that when emotion and cognitive (...) conflict conditions were blocked, emotional faces increased reaction time interference during response compatible trials (low conflict) but not response incompatible trials (high conflict). However, when conflict and emotion conditions were randomised in different configurations across Experiments 2 (all trials randomised), 3 (emotion blocked, compatibility randomised) and 4 (compatibility blocked, emotion randomised), emotion interfered with task performance across both high and low conflict trials. These results suggest that predictability of both compatibility and emotion is required in order to obtain reduced emotional interference under high cognitive conflict. Consistent with prior reports, a top–down anticipatory control mechanism seems to be engaged in the presence of negative emotion when there are incompatible stimulus-response mappings. (shrink)

This study investigated the mediating role of perceived partner responsiveness in the relationship between emotional reactivity and marital quality among Chinese couples. The survey participants included 550 couples from 28 provinces in the Eastern, Central and Western China. The ages of the husbands range from 39 to 64 years old whose average age is 46.45 years old, while the ages of the wives vary between 32 and 62 years old whose average age is 45.08 years old. The Emotion Reactivity (...) Scale, Perceived Partner Responsiveness Scale, and Quality of Marriage Index were selected for measurement. The results showed that the scores of husbands perceived partner responsiveness and marital quality were significantly higher than those of wives, and there was no significant difference in emotional reactivity between husbands and wives. Correlation analysis showed that emotional reactivity of couples was negatively correlated with perceived partner responsiveness and marital quality, while perceived partner responsiveness was positively correlated with marital quality. Based on the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, it was found that the emotional reactivity of both spouses was a significant negative predictor of their marital quality. It also significantly negatively predicted the marital quality of the spouse. The mediating effect analysis results showed that the husbands’ perceived partner responsiveness played a mediating role in the emotional reactivity of the couples on marital quality of the husbands, and the wives’ perceived partner responsiveness played a mediating role in the emotional reactivity of the couples on marital quality of the husbands. The wives’ perceived partner responsiveness played a mediating role in the effect of the couples’ emotional reactivity on the wives’ marital quality. The results of this study contribute to a better understanding of the mechanism of emotional reactivity of couples affecting marital quality and have a guiding significance for improving marital quality. (shrink)

Algorithms increasingly make managerial decisions that people used to make. Perceptions of algorithms, regardless of the algorithms' actual performance, can significantly influence their adoption, yet we do not fully understand how people perceive decisions made by algorithms as compared with decisions made by humans. To explore perceptions of algorithmic management, we conducted an online experiment using four managerial decisions that required either mechanical or human skills. We manipulated the decision-maker, and measured perceived fairness, trust, and emotional response. With (...) the mechanical tasks, algorithmic and human-made decisions were perceived as equally fair and trustworthy and evoked similar emotions; however, human managers' fairness and trustworthiness were attributed to the manager's authority, whereas algorithms' fairness and trustworthiness were attributed to their perceived efficiency and objectivity. Human decisions evoked some positive emotion due to the possibility of social recognition, whereas algorithmic decisions generated a more mixed response – algorithms were seen as helpful tools but also possible tracking mechanisms. With the human tasks, algorithmic decisions were perceived as less fair and trustworthy and evoked more negative emotion than human decisions. Algorithms' perceived lack of intuition and subjective judgment capabilities contributed to the lower fairness and trustworthiness judgments. Positive emotion from human decisions was attributed to social recognition, while negative emotion from algorithmic decisions was attributed to the dehumanizing experience of being evaluated by machines. This work reveals people's lay concepts of algorithmic versus human decisions in a management context and suggests that task characteristics matter in understanding people's experiences with algorithmic technologies. (shrink)