Music and the Representation of Emotion

The claim that many musical works are representational is highly controversial. The formalist view that music is pure form and without any, or any significant, representational content is widely held. Two facts about music are, however, well-established by empirical science: Music is heard as resembling human expressive behaviour and music arouses ordinary emotions. This paper argues that it follows from these facts that music also represents human expressive behaviour and ordinary emotions.     

The Music Experience Questionnaire: development and correlates

The authors introduce the Music Experience Questionnaire (MEQ), a self-report measure of individual differences in reactions to music. In analyses of responses in a derivation sample of 211 undergraduates and a replication sample of 105 undergraduates, scores on the 6 scales of this measure showed acceptable alpha coefficients and test-retest correlations. The authors found 2 principal factors: subjective/physical reactions to music and active involvement. MEQ scores were, at most, weakly correlated with 2 measures of favorability of self-presentation, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (D. P. Crowne & D. Marlowe, 1960) and the Responding Desirability on Attitudes and Opinions Scale (K. Schuessler, D. H. Hittle, & J. Cardascia, 1978). Examination of correlations between MEQ scores and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (L. S. Radloff, 1977), as well as factor scores on the Adjective Check List (H. G. Gough & A. B. Heilbrun, 1983), suggested areas of similarity and difference in the correlates of music experience for women and men. The authors discuss directions for future research as well as potential uses of the MEQ.     

Entertainment is Emotion: The Functional Architecture of the Entertainment Experience

Current standard accounts of entertainment have regarded emotions as essential for the entertainment experience, but it has not been understood why emotions are so important for it. Recent views of entertainment as an adaptively significant activity propose that the distal cause of entertainment activity is an unconscious need for training useful capabilities, whereas the proximal cause is enjoyment of the activity for its own sake. This theoretical paper argues emotions provide the link between distal and proximal causes of engaging in entertainment. An architecture of the entertainment experience based on Steen and Owens' (2001) Steen, F. F. and Owens, S. A. 2001. Evolution's silent pedagogy: An adaptationist model of pretense and entertainment. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 1: 289–321.  [Google Scholar] account of pretense play is proposed. The entertainment experience is an episode of emotions in response to an ongoing guided imagination. Two key factors are posited to shape the entertainment experience. First, interest is asserted as the “go-mechanism” of the entertainment experience. Second, the emotional reactions to the content of imagination are argued to lend coloring to the experience as well as to help train people's adaptive capacities. This architecture contributes to a solution of two problems for a theory of entertainment: the paradox of negative experiences and the perceived reality of entertainment content. In closing, a plea is made for studying the entertainee's appraisal of the entertainer's agency and qualities.     

儿童对中——西方音乐情绪感知的发展研究

音乐情绪感知是指听众对音乐表达情绪的认知和理解。本研究选取3岁、4岁、5岁和大学生四个年龄阶段的中国被试,探讨了他们分别在中国音乐和西方音乐条件下,对愤怒、悲伤、抒情和高兴四类情绪的感知能力及发展特点。结果显示:(1)儿童音乐情绪感知能力随年龄的上升而提高,其中,4岁是儿童获得基本感知能力的重要时期,5岁时已达到成人水平;(2)儿童对高兴情绪的感知能力优于其他情绪类型;(3)儿童对中国音乐情绪和西方音乐情绪的感知能力并无显著文化差异。     

积极情绪体验对创造力影响

通过行为数据、生理数据和主观报告"三位一体"的方法,随机抽取60名大学生为被试,采用单因素3水平(情绪体验类型:感动、愉快、中性)被试间设计,以科学发明创造实验问题为创造力测试材料,探讨了不同类型的积极情绪体验对创造力的影响。结果发现:积极情绪体验能有效促进创造力的发挥,但是不同的积极情绪体验类型效果不同。与中性情绪体验相比,感动体验和愉快体验对创造力都具有显著促进作用,且感动体验效果更好。不同积极情绪体验下男女被试在创造力上并无差异,这表明创造力水平并不存在男女性别差异。     

The Emotion Regulation Strategies of Adolescents and their Parents: An Experience Sampling Study

Parents are the main socialization agents in the development of emotion regulation (ER). In this study, we evaluated adolescents’ and their respective parents’ perspectives about their use of two ER strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) in daily life. In addition, we evaluated the within-family associations between adolescents’ and their parents’ use of strategies. We controlled for adolescents’ gender and age and the perceived quality of their relationships with their parents (mothers and fathers). The sample consisted of 33 12- to 18-year-old adolescent–father–mother triads, totaling 99 participants. Parents and adolescents reported their use of ER strategies in response to eight random prompts throughout the day, by means of the experience sampling method for 1 week. Participants provided 4082 reports on their momentary experiences. The data were analyzed using multilevel modeling to account for the hierarchical structure of the repeated daily assessments. The significant association between parents’ and adolescents’ use of ER strategies was specific to mother–adolescent dyads. The significant association between adolescents’ and their mothers’ ER strategies varied as a function of the adolescents’ age and the quality of their relationship with their mothers according to adolescents’ reports, but not as a function of adolescent gender. These findings suggest that mothers have a role in their adolescents’ emotion regulation in a developmental period characterized by autonomy from parental guidance.     

认知评价对主观情绪感受和生理活动的作用

围绕认知评价对情绪的作用, 针对传统认知评价实验方法的缺陷, 本研究改进认知评价的操作方法, 以情绪片段为实验材料, 以事先的评价背景替代与观看同步的评价策略, 以生理指标与情绪自评反映情绪变化, 考察41名大学生的认知评价对负性情绪的影响。结果发现, 持有利于情绪调节评价的个体, 负性情绪感受降低, 皮肤电反应减弱, 但心率无变化。研究表明, 认知评价影响个体的主观情绪体验, 并在一定程度上抑制负性情绪所致的生理唤起的增高。     

Rethinking Affective Experience and Popular Emotion: World War I and the Construction of Group Emotion in International Relations

Research in International Relations (IR) frequently confronts claims about the emotions shared by members of a group. While much attention has been devoted to the potential for affective and emotional experience beyond the individual level, IR scholars have said less about the politics of invoking popular emotion. This article addresses that gap. Specifically, we argue that between individual—and even shared—affective experience on the one hand and group‐based “popular emotion” on the other exists not mechanisms of aggregation but rather processes of framing, projection, and propagation that are deeply political. We distinguish between two tropes that commonly structure references to popular emotion: communal emotion, the idealized attribution of an authentic, unifying emotional response of “the people,” and mass emotion, a volatile and potentially dangerous mob‐like reaction, but one also susceptible to manipulation. Using the outbreak of World War I as a showcase, we demonstrate the political significance of popular emotion, including its enduring relevance for understanding contemporary populism.     

The Structure of Emotion

ABSTRACT— One common point of debate in the study of emotion is whether the basic, irreducible elements of emotional life are discrete emotion categories, such as anger , fear , sadness , and so on, or dimensions such as approach and avoidance . Resolving this debate will identify the basic building blocks of emotional life that are the most appropriate targets of scientific inquiry. In this paper, we briefly review meta-analytic work on the neuroimaging of emotion and examine its potential for identifying "natural kinds" of emotion in the brain. We outline criteria for identifying such natural kinds, summarize the evidence to date on category and dimensional approaches, and suggest ways in which neuroimaging studies could more directly address fundamental questions about the nature of emotion.     

电子化谈判中的情绪效应

本研究从谈判者本身的情绪以及谈判对手的情绪两个方面着手,以224名被试和两个实验室实验考察电子化谈判中情绪的内部效应和外部效应.结果发现在电子化谈判中:(1)谈判者自身的情绪状态对谈判结果的影响显著;(2)谈判者的情绪是否与谈判对手有关,对谈判结果的影响不显著;(3)谈判对手的情绪状态,对谈判者的谈判结果影响显著;(4)谈判对手的情绪是否真实,对谈判者谈判结果的影响不显著;(5)谈判对手情绪和情绪的真实性这二者在谈判者的谈判结果上存在显著的交互效应.     

The Moderating Effect of Depression Symptoms on the Concordance between the Experience and Verbal Disclosure of Emotion

Within-person studies of emotional disclosure have found evidence of a disclosure-discordance effect of depression, whereby the positive association between the intensity of one’s emotional experience and verbal disclosure of that experience weakens with increasing depression symptoms. Because these previous studies have exclusively been naturalistic ones, we examined the disclosure-discordance effect of depression in the lab. Participants (N?=?115) completed a measure of depression symptoms and viewed a series of emotionally evocative photographs. Emotion-expressive behavior while viewing each photograph was rated by judges, subjective emotional experience was assessed via self-report, and emotional disclosure just after the photograph was viewed was rated by different judges. Multilevel analyses indicated that depression symptoms moderated the association between the behavioral (i.e., facial) expression of emotion intensity and disclosure of emotion. Moderation was not supported in analyses with self-reported emotional intensity as a predictor. These findings partly supported the disclosure-discordance effect, and they inform methods of empirically examining the effect of depression symptoms on the verbal disclosure of emotion.

     

Cultural Differences in the Subjective Experience of Emotion: When and Why They Occur

Cross‐cultural comparisons of subjective emotional experience are common, and virtually any comparison of nations or different ethnic groups is bound to yield some differences and some similarities. While nobody doubts the considerable intercultural variability in subjective or self‐reports of emotion, more attention needs to be given to when and why and these differences occur. In this article, we explore factors that accentuate or attenuate cultural differences in the subjective experience of emotion. We propose that cultural norms shape emotional experiences to different degrees depending on the time frame of the emotional experience, the valence of the emotion, and even the specific emotion being compared. We review the research that supports this view and we highlight new avenues of research that are likely to shed light on cultural differences in the subjective experience of emotions.