Voters’ Partisan Responses to Politicians’ Immoral Behavior

Politicians’ moral behaviors affect how voters evaluate them. But existing empirical research on the effects of politicians’ violations of moral standards pays little attention to the heterogeneous moral foundations of voters in assessing responses to violations. It also pays little attention to the ways partisan preferences shape responses. We examine voters’ heterogeneous evaluative and emotional responses to presumably immoral behaviors by politicians. We make use of moral foundation theory’s argument that people vary in the extent to which they endorse, value, and use the five universally available moral intuitions: care, fairness, loyalty, authority and sanctity. We report on a 5 × 3 between‐subjects experiment asking a random sample of 2,026 U.S. respondents to respond to politicians’ violations of different moral foundations. We randomly vary which of the five foundations is violated and the partisanship of the actor (Republic/Democrat/Nonpartisan). Results suggest that partisanship rather than moral foundations drives most of U.S. voters’ responses to moral foundations violations by politicians. These foundations seem malleable when partisan actors are involved. While Democrats in this sample show stronger negative emotional response to moral violations than Republicans, partisans of both parties express significantly greater negativity when a politician of the other party violates a moral foundation.     

Anger,Exposure to Violence,and Intragroup Conflict: A “Lab in the Field” Experiment in Southern Israel

I examine how anger stemming from violence in the Israel‐Palestine conflict influences intragroup retaliation. In July 2010 I conducted a series of experiments in two cities in the Southern District of Israel affected to varying degrees (high and low) by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. For each experiment, subjects were partnered anonymously with a member of their community. They were then exposed to one of two emotional manipulations: one that induced anger or one that did not. Finally, each subject was given an opportunity to keep an endowment or allocate it towards destroying a portion, or all, of their partner's income (“pay to punish”) in retaliation for their partner having taken money from them previously. This decision to “pay to punish” was designed to closely mimic the costly nature of conflict. The findings suggest that anger has a conditional effect on decisions to pay to punish: in Sderot (most affected by rocket fire), anger decreases punishment, while in Ofakim (less affected), it increases punishment. Additionally, higher exposure to violence made subjects more likely to engage in negative reciprocity.     

Shame expressions reduce the recipient’s insult from outgroup reparations

Despite a growing literature on the consequences of group-based guilt and shame, little work has examined how expressions of self-conscious emotions are received by targets of collective wrongdoing. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that when an outgroup member offers apologies accompanied by reparations, the recipients are likely to take insult unless the outgroup member expresses the self-abasing emotion of shame rather than guilt. Experiment 1 showed that when reparations were offered, participants were less insulted by shame than guilt expressed by an outgroup member, rather than an ingroup member. Experiment 2 improved Experiment 1 by manipulating the culprit’s action (reparation vs. withdrawal), and this experiment replicated Experiment 1’s interaction on a measure of insult, but only when reparations were offered. These interactions on insult were not explained by the emotion’s perceived intensity or surprisingness. Our results indicate a possible functional aspect of expressions of shame in an intergroup context. Self-abasement, as opposed to a mere admission of culpability and regret, can reduce the insult taken from an outgroup’s reparations.     

Moderating effects of rumination and gender on context‐specific aggression

Angry rumination has been linked previously to increased aggression. The effects of trait rumination on men and women's emotional and aggressive responses under different cueing contexts were examined. Aggressive behavior, not resulting from direct insult or provocation, was indexed by a laboratory paradigm that measured the intensity and the duration of shocks delivered to a putative “employee”. Frustration about, and cognitive focus on, the employee's poor performance was manipulated through the cover story and procedures; however, half the participants were exposed to a fearful/distracting stressor (stress focused) whereas the other half were not (confederate focused). Emotional responses and evaluations of the confederate were also assessed. Results indicated that rumination enhanced the effects of context, so that it related to greater fear and sadness in the stress‐focused context and to increased aggression and motives to aggress in the confederate‐focused context. These effects, however, were more robust for women than men. Ruminative men tended to show more hostile behaviors and motives across both conditions. Mechanisms for the effects of rumination on aggression, and gender differences in these processes, are discussed. Aggr. Behav. 00:1–17, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Breath Versus Emotions: The Impact of Different Foci of Attention During Mindfulness Meditation on the Experience of Negative and Positive Emotions

Mindfulness meditation yields beneficial effects on the processing of emotions. However, it is still unclear whether the focus of attention during meditation influences these effects. In the present study we aimed at comparing the effects of breathing meditation and emotion-focused meditation on the immediate and delayed processing of negative and positive emotions. The study included 65 adult novice meditators who were exposed to positively and negatively valenced film clips. Participants were randomly assigned to three conditions. While watching the films at t1, they were asked to mindfully focus on their breath (condition 1), on emotions (condition 2), or on nothing in particular (condition 3). Ten minutes later at t2, comparable film clips were shown but all participants watched them without taking up a mindful attitude. Dependent measures were emotional states at t1 and t2. Participants of both meditation conditions particularly showed a more preferable delayed emotional reaction to negative stimuli than participants of the control condition. Breathing meditation and emotion-focused meditation may constitute effective emotion regulation strategies to deal with negatively valenced emotional states.     

Toward a consensual taxonomy of emotions

ABSTRACT

In this article, I chart certain origins of the science of emotion back to the cognitive revolution. I then highlight new developments in the field – the influences of emotion upon cognition, the focus on over 20 emotions, the expanding emphasis on positive emotion, and an abiding interest in the functions emotions serve. I close by arguing for the need for the field to move toward a conceptual taxonomy of emotions, to move beyond decades of terminological debates about what emotions are to a convergent effort to understand what emotions do for people.     

Methodological Challenges in the Study of Emotions in Politics and How to Deal With Them

This introductory article to the special issue zooms in on the literature on political emotions with a specific focus on methodological questions of “how to study” political emotions. To the extent that methodological matters are addressed in the extant literature, the associated challenges are often portrayed as a clash between social science and natural science disciplines, a clash frequently illustrated by the meeting between political science and neuroscience. Rather than being a clash between academic disciplines, this article argues that many of the methodological challenges facing emotional research have their origin in scholars' diverse views on the relationship between themselves as researchers and political emotions as a research object. In the light of this acknowledgment, the article encircles and discusses the methodological challenges associated with three key conceptual distinctions between: (1) individual and collective emotions, (2) emotions and reason, and between (3) involuntary political emotions and the strategic usage of political emotions. Using the contributions to this special issue as illustrations, the article argues in favor of moving beyond mutually exclusive dichotomies regarding these conceptual distinctions and offers pathways for dealing with current methodological challenges to emotional research. It points to methodological pluralism, transparency, and context‐sensitive research strategies.     

自我意识情绪：人类高级情绪

自我意识情绪是个体在具有一定自我评价的基础上,通过自我反思而产生的情绪。自我意识情绪与基本情绪既有区别又有联系。自我表征、自我觉察、自我评价过程的卷入是自我意识情绪产生的重要条件。对个体行为进行自我调节、服务于人际交流、人际互惠和个体心理内部需要是自我意识情绪具有的主要功能。自我意识情绪是随着认知的发展而逐渐形成和发展的,并会受到文化的影响。自我报告、非言语行为编码技术、言语报告和行为编码、神经成像技术是自我意识情绪的主要研究方法。自我意识情绪的普遍性和特殊性需要进一步跨文化研究的验证     

The “Hero‐Protector Narrative”: Manufacturing Emotional Consent for the Use of Force

How do political leaders manufacture collective emotions to justify the use of force? This article introduces the “hero‐protector narrative” as a conceptual model to analyze how political leaders try to manufacture specific collective emotions to encourage their audience to perceive violence as the only morally acceptable course of action. In our model, we formalize a set of distinctive narrative structures (roles and sequences), which are combined to activate compassion and moral anger as well as identification with “heroic” behavior. Furthermore, we argue that the resonance of this narrative draws on values of hyper‐masculinity in patriarchal societies. As such this narrative is to be found across different types of actors (state/nonstate) and culturally diverse settings. To test our model, we use a computer‐assisted QDA approach. We compare systematically discourses produced by political actors legitimizing the use of force versus actors opposing the use of force. We find that discourses supporting the use of force, such as those produced by George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden in the context of the Iraq war, share the structural characteristics of the hero‐protector narrative. In this regard, they differ remarkably from violence‐opposing discourses, regardless of their cultural background.     

Emotional display rules and emotion self‐regulation: Associations with bullying and victimization in community‐based after school programs

We explored linkages among different components of emotional competence and bullying and victimization in children enrolled in community after school programs. Seventy‐seven children were recruited from after school programs and their display rule knowledge for sadness and anger was evaluated. Their emotion self‐regulation skills and bullying experiences were also assessed. Knowledge of display rules for sadness was a negative predictor of physical victimization whereas emotional lability/negativity was positively related to bullying. Boys bullied more than girls and family income was negatively related to bullying and emotional lability/negativity and positively associated with emotion self‐regulation. Emotion self‐regulation mediated the relation between family income and bullying. Analyses also suggested that bullies and bully‐victims had poorer emotion self‐regulation skills than non‐bullies/victims or victims. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The De‐biasing Effect of Incidental Anger on Other‐provided Anchors

The current research investigates the effect of incidental anger on anchoring bias. We hypothesized that feeling angry will make people less influenced by other‐provided anchors because of the moving against action tendency associated with anger. That is, individuals in an angry state will be likely to perceive a given anchor as a viable target for their desire to attack and actively seek out anchor‐inconsistent information, thereby committing less anchoring bias. To examine our hypothesis, in Study 1, we manipulated emotions using film clips and administered a general knowledge task with other‐provided anchors. As predicted, participants in the anger condition showed less anchoring bias to the other‐provided anchors than those in the sad or neutral condition. Study 2 replicated the finding with a different emotion manipulation technique and different anchoring questions. More important, consistent with the moving against action tendency explanation, we also found that people in an angry state committed more anchoring bias for self‐generated anchors, compared with people in a sad or neutral state. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Situational differences in dialectical emotions: Boundary conditions in a cultural comparison of North Americans and East Asians

Past research generally suggests that East Asians tolerate opposing feelings or dialectical emotions more than North Americans. We tested the idea that North Americans would have fewer opposing emotions than East Asians in positive, but not in negative or mixed situations. Forty-seven European American, 40 Chinese, and 121 Japanese students reported the emotions that a protagonist of standardised positive, negative, and mixed situations would feel. Emotions were coded into three valence categories: pleasant, unpleasant, and neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant. As predicted, cultural differences in opposing emotion associations were found in positive situations only. Moreover, East Asians reported more neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant feelings, especially in mixed situations, possibly reflecting a deferral of valence appraisal due to expected change.     

情绪对跨期决策的影响

近年来, 情绪对跨期决策的影响逐渐成为一个新的研究趋势。根据情绪发生于跨期决策过程中的时间, 可以将其分为决策前情绪、决策中情绪和决策后情绪。目前关于情绪与跨期决策的研究, 尤其是决策前情绪影响跨期决策的研究, 大多还只是停留在揭示现象的阶段, 较少有研究直接验证其中的影响机制。综合运用行为实验和神经影像学的手段从认知过程和决策过程揭示情绪影响跨期决策的行为机制和神经机制, 将有助于加深对跨期决策心理机制的理解, 并帮助人们更好地利用和控制情绪以做出更满意的决策。未来研究还需加强研究的深度和生态效度, 如考察动态情绪、日常情绪和复杂情绪对跨期决策的影响, 并在情绪干预方面进行更多的尝试和探索。     

Emotional Intelligence of Foreign and Local University Students in Singapore: Implications for Managers

Does intelligence alone explain our achievement at work or in life? Contrary to our belief that academic achievement matters very much in the success we have in working life, Chen et al. (1998) has shown that close to 90% of success in leadership positions is attributable to Emotional Intelligence (EI). Considering that EI can be a potential determinant of our achievement in working life, this study aims to determine if there is any significant difference in the EI of local and foreign undergraduates studying in universities in Singapore. The “Emotional IQ Test” was administered to 100 undergraduates from various fields of studies from the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, of which 31 had foreign education background. This study showed that foreign undergraduates have a higher EI score than those with local education background. In addition, by examining the relationships between variables such as age, gender, year of study and EI, it was found that males have higher EI scores than that of females. The implication for managers is that staff should be evaluated on their own merits such as their EI rather than on academic results.     

Social learning modulates the lateralization of emotional valence

Although neuropsychological studies of lateralization of emotion have emphasized valence (positive vs. negative) or type (basic vs. complex) dimensions, the interaction between the two dimensions has yet to be elucidated. The purpose of the current study was to test the hypothesis that recognition of basic emotions is processed preferentially by the right prefrontal cortex (PFC), whereas recognition of complex social emotions is processed preferentially by the left PFC. Experiment 1 assessed the ability of healthy controls and patients with right and left PFC lesions to recognize basic and complex emotions. Experiment 2 modeled the patient’s data of Experiment 1 on healthy participants under lateralized displays of the emotional stimuli. Both experiments support the Type as well as the Valence Hypotheses. However, our findings indicate that the Valence Hypothesis holds for basic but less so for complex emotions. It is suggested that, since social learning overrules the basic preference of valence in the hemispheres, the processing of complex emotions in the hemispheres is less affected by valence.     

儿童混合情绪的发展研究述评

混合情绪是指同一情境中同时存在两种不同或者矛盾的情绪状态,主要包括混合情绪理解和混合情绪体验两个方面,其发展模式表现为从单一情绪理解到多种情绪理解、从继时性混合到同时性混合的特点,但在具体的发展年龄特征上研究结果存在分歧。混合情绪的发展研究主要采用临床访谈法,其基本研究范式一致,但在材料的制作、刺激的呈现、被试的反应方式以及结果的处理等方面存在差异。未来,在研究范式上需要有所突破,内隐测量、认知神经科学方法等对揭示混合情绪发展规律都有其独特的优势。同时,应扩大研究对象的年龄范围,从发展水平和模式两个方面系统考察儿童混合情绪的发展特点及其影响与作用。     

“Patriotism à la Carte”: Perceived Legitimacy of Collective Guilt and Collective Pride as Motivators for Political Behavior

Intergroup emotions motivate behavior, yet little is known about how people perceive these emotional experiences in others. In three experiments (Ns = 109, 179, 246), we show that U.S. citizens believe collective guilt is an illegitimate emotional motivator for ingroup political behavior, while collective pride is legitimate. This differential legitimacy is due to the perception that collective guilt violates the norm of group interest, while collective pride adheres to it; those who believe ingroup interests are more important than outgroups’ exhibited this illegitimacy gap. The perception that the intergroup emotion promoted ingroup entitativity mediated the relationship between emotion (pride vs. guilt) and legitimacy; this relationship was especially strong for those high in the belief in the norm of group interest. Collective guilt can have prosocial consequences, yet the perception that it is illegitimate may hinder such consequences from being realized.     

“Putin,You Suck”: Affective Sticking Points in the Czech Narrative on “Russian Hybrid Warfare”

Using the case of the Czech narrative on “Russian hybrid warfare” (RHW), this article contributes to the broader question of why narratives succeed. Building on Lacanian psychoanalysis, narrative scholarship, and affect/emotions research in International Relations, we suggest that narrative success is facilitated also by two interrelated factors: embedding in broader cultural contexts and the ability to incorporate and reproduce collectively circulating affects. We develop a methodological framework for encircling unobservable affects within discourse via “sticking points”—linguistic phenomena infused with affective investment. We outline three categories of sticking points—valued signifiers, fantasies, and biographical narratives. Utilizing the approach in our case study, we focus on a narrative based around the notion that Russia waged a “hybrid war” against “the West” and that this should be faced with quasi‐military measures, which was successful in changing the language of Czech national security. We show that this narrative incorporated a range of sticking points, which contributed to its relative success. It utilized valued signifiers, such as “the West,” “the Kremlin,” “agents,” and “occupation,” weaved them together into a fantasy of a threat to the nation's “Western” identity, and intertwined this with the biographical narratives of history as a lens for world politics and East/West geopolitics.     

Emotions induced by operatic music: psychophysiological effects of music, plot, and acting: a scientist's tribute to Maria Callas

Operatic music involves both singing and acting (as well as rich audiovisual background arising from the orchestra and elaborate scenery and costumes) that multiply the mechanisms by which emotions are induced in listeners. The present study investigated the effects of music, plot, and acting performance on emotions induced by opera. There were three experimental conditions: (1) participants listened to a musically complex and dramatically coherent excerpt from Tosca; (2) they read a summary of the plot and listened to the same musical excerpt again; and (3) they re-listened to music while they watched the subtitled film of this acting performance. In addition, a control condition was included, in which an independent sample of participants succesively listened three times to the same musical excerpt. We measured subjective changes using both dimensional, and specific music-induced emotion questionnaires. Cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiratory responses were also recorded, and the participants kept track of their musical chills. Music listening alone elicited positive emotion and autonomic arousal, seen in faster heart rate, but slower respiration rate and reduced skin conductance. Knowing the (sad) plot while listening to the music a second time reduced positive emotions (peacefulness, joyful activation), and increased negative ones (sadness), while high autonomic arousal was maintained. Watching the acting performance increased emotional arousal and changed its valence again (from less positive/sad to transcendent), in the context of continued high autonomic arousal. The repeated exposure to music did not by itself induce this pattern of modifications. These results indicate that the multiple musical and dramatic means involved in operatic performance specifically contribute to the genesis of music-induced emotions and their physiological correlates.