Emotional Rescue: How Affect Helps Partisans Overcome Collective Action Problems

Why does party identification motivate citizens to participate in politics? From a theoretical standpoint, it is in a partisan's self‐interest to free ride on the efforts of others. Yet, mere identification with a party is enough to motivate many people to overcome this structural hurdle. We theorize that, by virtue of aligning one's self with a party, individuals become more likely to react to their political environment with anger and enthusiasm rather than fear. Anger and enthusiasm are associated with approach and continuation of current behavior, while fear triggers behavior reconsideration. In short, party identification stimulates participation via anger and enthusiasm. On the other hand, fear produces thought but not much action. We find support for our model using data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) and an original laboratory experiment.     

Do Children Behave Better When Parents’ Emotion Coaching Practices are Stimulated? A Micro-Trial Study

The links between parents’ emotion regulation practices and children’s behavioral outcomes are well established. The aim of the current study designed as a randomized micro-trial was to test experimentally if and to what extent stimulating parents’ emotion coaching practices improves preschoolers’ behavioral outcomes, i.e. positive affect, irritability, non-compliance, persistence and enthusiasm. In line with this objective, the emotion coaching practices of parents of 4-to-5-year-old children were stimulated in a brief 15-min lab session. Immediately afterwards, parents and children were observed during a free-play session and frustration laboratory tasks designed to elicit negative emotions in children. The results indicated that, compared to the control group, parents whose emotion coaching practices had been stimulated displayed higher positive affect and were more emotionally sensitive during free play. Positive behaviors persisted in frustration tasks; parents were more behaviorally and emotionally responsive towards their children. In turn, children of these parents displayed higher persistence and enthusiasm but only when they had to deal with negative emotional arousal during frustration tasks. Mediation analyses also confirmed that the influence of the stimulation of parents’ emotion coaching practices on children’s outcomes, i.e. persistence and enthusiasm, was mediated by the parents’ behavior.     

Moment of Truth: Why Aha! Experiences are Correct

Having a sudden insight is often associated with inherent confidence, enough for Archimedes to run naked through the streets shouting “Eureka!”. Recent evidence demonstrates that public displays of enthusiasm, such as the ancient polymath's, are actually supported by a higher likelihood of being correct.     

Wild chimeras: Enthusiasm and intellectual virtue in Kant

Kant typically is not identified with the tradition of virtue epistemology. Although he may not be a virtue epistemologist in a strict sense, I suggest that intellectual virtues and vices play a key role in his epistemology. Specifically, Kant identifies a serious intellectual vice that threatens to undermine reason, namely enthusiasm (Schwärmerei). Enthusiasts become so enamored with their own thinking that they refuse to subject reason to self‐critique. The particular danger of enthusiasm is that reason colludes in its own destruction: Enthusiasm occurs when self‐conceit and reason's desire to transcend its boundaries mutually reinforce each other. I conclude by sketching an account of Kantian intellectual virtue that is consistent with Kantian moral virtue.     

Enthusiastic Improvement: Mary Astell and Damaris Masham on Sociability

Many commentators have contrasted the way that sociability is theorized in the writings of Mary Astell and Damaris Masham, emphasizing the extent to which Masham is more interested in embodied, worldly existence. I argue, by contrast, that Astell's own interest in imagining a constitutively relational individual emerges once we pay attention to her use of religious texts and tropes. To explore the relevance of Astell's Christianity, I emphasize both how Astell's Christianity shapes her view of the individual's relation to society and how Masham's contrasting views can be analyzed through the lens of her charge that Astell is an “enthusiast.” In late seventeenth‐century England, “enthusiasm” was a term of abuse that, commentators have recently argued, could function polemically to dismiss those deemed either excessively social or antisocial. By accusing Astell of enthusiasm, I claim, Masham seeks to marginalize the relational self that Astell imagines and to promote a more instrumental view of social ties. I suggest some aspects of Astell's thought that may have struck contemporaries as “enthusiastic” and contrast her vision of the self with Masham's more hedonistic subject. I conclude that, although each woman differently configures the relation between self and society, they share a desire to imagine autonomy within a relational framework.     

Perceived responses to capitalization attempts are influenced by self‐esteem and relationship threat

Discussing good news builds strength in relationships. In particular, perceiving a close other as enthusiastic about good fortune can help individuals maintain relational strength when relationship security is threatened. In an experiment and a daily diary study, how self‐esteem moderates perceptions of a partner's response to these capitalization attempts following relationship threats were examined. After having been primed with relationship threat (Study 1) or on days following relationship conflict (Study 2), low‐self‐esteem persons perceived less partner enthusiasm about their good news, but high‐self‐esteem persons perceived more partner enthusiasm. Self‐esteem had no effect after a neutral prime or no‐conflict days. These results indicate that capitalization as a strategy for repairing relationships may depend on the partners' self‐esteem.     

ABCs of the Interview: The Role of Affective,Behavioral, and Cognitive Responses by Applicants in the Employment Interview

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of a job applicant's verbal statements on interviewer ratings of an applicant's interpersonal characteristics. Applicant verbal statements were coded as containing affective, behavioral, and cognitive components. Verbal statements were analyzed using regression analysis and findings indicated that behavioral and cognitive speech components significantly impacted interviewer ratings of an applicant's self-confidence. In turn, interpersonal characteristics of enthusiasm, self-confidence and effectiveness had a significant influence on an interviewer's rating of an applicant's overall quality and the ultimate hiring decision.     

“Yes,I Can,I Feel Good,and I Just Do It!” On Gain Cycles and Spirals of Efficacy Beliefs,Affect, and Engagement

Taking Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory as our starting point, we tested how efficacy beliefs (self‐efficacy and perceived collective efficacy) reciprocally influence activity engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption) indirectly through their impact on positive affect (enthusiasm, satisfaction, and comfort) over time. We conducted two longitudinal studies using independent samples. Study 1 is a two‐wave longitudinal field study that examines gain cycles regarding the dynamic relationships among self‐efficacy, positive affect, and work engagement in 274 secondary school teachers. Study 2 is a three‐wave longitudinal laboratory study about gain spirals in the dynamic relationships among collective efficacy beliefs, positive affect, and task engagement in 100 university students working in groups. Our findings show that: (1) efficacy beliefs reciprocally influence activity engagement indirectly through their impact on positive affect over time; (2) enthusiasm is the positive affect with the strongest effect on activity engagement; and (3) a gain spiral exists whereby efficacy beliefs increase over time due to engagement and positive affect (most notably enthusiasm). Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications in terms of Social Cognitive Theory.     

建立“社区卒中单元”的必要性

"社区卒中单元"是以社区医疗机构为支撑,以患者家庭为中心,以此二者双向互动为轴线,以提高卒中患者的生活质量为目的。"社区卒中单元"与通常意义上的"医院卒中单元"不同。在这一模式中,患者及其家属的康复自助的积极性、主动性具有决定意义。     

Do Negative Role Models Increase Entrepreneurial Intentions? The Moderating Role of Self-Esteem

Social learning theory predicts that negative role models dampen one’s enthusiasm to pursue an entrepreneurial career. Empirical studies find that the presence of negative role models does not decrease one’s interest in starting a business. This article attempts to reconcile this contradiction. We hypothesized and found in Studies 1 and 2 that observing a business failure decreases one’s entrepreneurial intention when the level of self-esteem is low. However, one’s preference for an entrepreneurial career is increased when the level of self-esteem is high. Study 3 provides evidence that the self-esteem effect still holds when reference person is different.     

Vanishing Boundaries: When Teaching About Religion Becomes Spiritual Guidance in the Classroom

Abstract. This article revisits the pedagogical dilemma of maintaining neutrality in the religious studies/theology classroom. I argue that if the boundary between teaching about religion and actually teaching spirituality seems to be vanishing, it is because the boundary was inappropriately constructed in the first place. To the extent that the religious concepts, even when compressed into religious studies categories, inherently inspire personal transformation, how can a boundary exist between the ideas students encounter and the power of those ideas to transform? Spiritual guidance emerges naturally in the academic study of religion, and those of us who teach in the field might as well get used to it. In explaining my position, I draw on my experience as a teaching assistant in Professor Walter Capps's course, “Religion and the Impact of the Vietnam War.” I, then, develop a pragmatic teaching strategy, neutral enthusiasm, which preserves the important neutrality of classroom presentation in religious studies courses, yet recognizes the unavoidable evocative power present in the intellectual territory that is religion. Neutral enthusiasm allows the content to do the work.     

It's My Campaign I'll Cry if I Want to: How and When Campaigns Use Emotional Appeals

Recent research in the area of campaign advertising suggests that emotional appeals can influence political attitudes, electoral choices and decision‐making processes. Yet is there any evidence that candidates use emotional appeals strategically during campaigns? Is there a pattern to their use? For instance, are fear appeals used primarily late in the campaign by trailing candidates in order to get voters to rethink their choices? And are enthusiasm appeals used more commonly early on in order to shore up a candidate's base? We use affective intelligence theory—and supplement it with the idea of a voter backlash—to generate expectations about when candidates use certain emotional appeals (namely, anger, fear, enthusiasm, and pride) and which types of candidates are most likely to do so. We then test these ideas using campaign advertising data from several U.S. Senate races from 2004. Our research thus provides a link between research on campaign decision making—here the decision to “go emotional”—and research focusing on the effects of emotional appeals on voters.     

Paying Attention and Feeling Puzzled: The Analytic Mindset as an Agent of Therapeutic Change

The Relational turn has affirmed emotional interaction without losing sight of the complexities of the internal world, thus reforming psychoanalysis. This paper, however, is concerned that this well-justified enthusiasm for interaction may be distracting us from opportunities offered by analysts’ special aptitude for an open, quiet, focused mind in the midst of intense emotional and interpersonal activity. This special orientation is considered in relation to the analyst’s tolerance for ambiguity and even confusion. The effects of the analyst’s reflective concentration as a change factor in the analytic field are discussed, using nonlinear dynamic systems theories and a phenomenological perspective.     

“I Wanted to Feel the Way They Did”: Mimesis as a Situational Dynamic of Peer Mentoring by Ex-Offenders

Despite growing enthusiasm for peer mentoring as a criminal justice intervention, very little is known about what actually happens within these relationships. Drawing on an ethnographic study of peer mentoring in the North of England this article will foreground the concept of “inspiration” in these settings. It will argue that Rene Girard’s theory of mimesis offers a framework with which to analyze role modeling in mentoring relationships and that a Girardian reading also offers interesting insights into the unresolved problem of the origins of personal change.     

How Co-Viewing Affects Attitudes: The Mediating Roles of Transportation and Identification

Communication scholars have long acknowledged that watching television is often done in the company of others. While previous research focused mainly on the impact of co-viewing on children’s behavior and their enjoyment of watching, the current research extends this work to determine the effect of co-viewing on the actual viewing experience of adults, specifically, on transportation and identification. Furthermore, the study examines the role of these processes as mediators leading to changes in attitude. Study 1 demonstrates the impact of the co-viewer’s enthusiasm on transportation and identification. Study 2 demonstrates the impact of the co-viewer’s gender on transportation and identification. These processes, in turn, mediate the effect of co-viewing on attitude changes. The findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical contributions.     

Evaluation Bias in the Business Classroom: Evidence Relating to the Effects of Previous Experiences

We found that teaching evaluations were assigned as a function of the professors' gender and students' previous experience with a female professor. Based on the professor's style of organization, enthusiasm, credibility, and effectiveness, and students' willingness to take a course with the professor, students assigned higher evaluations to male professors than female professors. Previous experience with a female faculty member was found to be a relevant variable influencing perceived credibility, organization, and effectiveness evaluations. The findings imply that exposure to women in positions of responsibility may reduce stereotypical attitudes regarding women's ability to function in gender-atypical roles.     

Stereotyping,prejudice, and discrimination at the seam between the centuries: evolution,culture, mind,and brain

Social psychologists possess considerable enthusiasm and expertise in the study of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination, having commenced in the 1920s and 1930s. Research and theory in the next three to four decades focused on motivation, followed by a reactively exclusive focus on cognition in the 1970s and early 1980s, in turn followed by a 1990s joint focus on cognition and motivation. Throughout, intra‐individual conflict analyses have alternated with contextual analyses, though both clearly have merit. Based on a social evolutionary viewpoint, a few core social motives (belonging, understanding, controlling, enhancing, and trusting) account for much current research on interpersonal category‐based responses. Trends for the future should entail more emphasis on behavior, more sensitivity to cultural specificities and universals, as well as budding efforts on neural mechanisms of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rethinking ‘Enthusiasm’: Christoph Blumhardt on the Discernment of the Spirit

This article uses resources from the theology of Christoph Blumhardt to argue that Luther was mistaken in identifying a necessary theological connection between ‘enthusiastic’ views of the Spirit and naive anthropology. It demonstrates that Blumhardt successfully combined an abiding concern over the problem of spiritual self‐deception together with a pneumatology that affirmed the importance of affective experience of the Spirit not mediated exclusively by the proclaimed Word of Scripture, through a conviction that the most reliable sign of the Spirit's activity is ‘negative’, in suffering and visceral encounter with divine judgement, in the first instance. This critical ‘enthusiasm’ helps explain Blumhardt's singular critique of the nationalistic ‘Spirit of August’ from the start of World War I.