Cognition and Emotion over twenty-five years

In the 25 years since its foundation, Cognition and Emotion has become a leading psychological journal of research on emotion. Here we review some of the ways in which this has occurred. Questions have included how parallel systems of cognition and emotion can operate in emotion regulation and psychological therapies (including the issue of free will), how the cognitive approach to emotion works, how emotion affects attention, memory, and decision making, and how emotion research is moving beyond the individual mind into the space of the interpersonal.     

Context is Everything (in Emotion Research)

As in many areas of psychological inquiry, context matters for how emotion is experienced, expressed, perceived, and regulated. While this may sound like a truism, emotion research does not always directly theorize, manipulate, or measure emotion with context in mind. To facilitate this process, we present a framework of contextual features that shape emotion‐related processes, and highlight several key factors that have been shown to matter in emotion research. We make four recommendations which we believe will help to better integrate context in emotion science. We argue that a deeper collective understanding, interrogation, and integration of context will propel the field forward theoretically and methodologically, and enhance researchers' ability to probe the mechanisms of human psychological experience. While our focus is on emotion research, we believe that the context framework and associated recommendations will also be useful to other fields of social psychological and personality science.     

Commentary: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges to the Study of Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology

In this commentary, I argue that although emotion regulation and its role in psychopathology has been the focus of considerable psychological research with both children and adults, fundamental questions remain about how these phenomena are linked. I pose four challenges to the study of emotion regulation and psychopathology that have yet to be fully met, either empirically or conceptually. I note that a multi-level developmental approach that places emotion regulation within the context of both the larger self-regulatory system and the social relationships within which regulation occurs may be useful in understanding the emergence and maintenance of early behavioral patterns that evolve into disorders of psychological functioning.     

Cognitive Emotion Regulation: Insights From Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

ABSTRACT— Recent developments in the study of cognitive emotion regulation illustrate how functional imaging is extending behavioral analyses. Imaging studies have contributed to the development of a multilevel model of emotion regulation that describes the interactions between neural systems implicated in emotion generation and those implicated in emotional control. In this article, we review imaging studies of one type of cognitive emotion regulation: reappraisal. We show how imaging studies have contributed to the construction of this model, illustrate the interplay of psychological theory and neuroscience data in its development, and describe how this model can be used as the basis for future basic and translational research.     

决策中情绪作用机制的理论研究述评

决策研究领域日益重视情绪的作用,情绪的认知评估理论、道德情绪理论及动机维度模型等新兴情绪观使研究者对决策机制的认识不断深化,出现了解释情绪在各类决策中作用机制的理论成果：情绪浸润模型、风险决策感知与评估双系统模型、情绪即社会信息模型、神经情感决策理论。未来尚需加强作用机制的验证研究,从情绪具身角度进行思考,基于知情交互的角度整合理论体系,重视神经生理机制理论及模型建构。并简要分析了理论成果的启示。     

Emotion and Pain: A Functional Cerebral Systems Integration

Emotion and pain are psychological constructs that have received extensive attention in neuropsychological research. However, neuropsychological models of emotional processing have made more progress in describing how brain regions interact to process emotion. Theories of emotional processing can describe inter-hemispheric and intra-hemispheric interactions during emotional processing. Due to similarities between emotion and pain, it is thought that emotional models can be applied to pain. The following review examines the neuropsychology of emotion and pain using a functional cerebral systems approach. Specific comparisons are made between pain and anger. Attention is given to differences in cerebral function and physiology that may contribute to the processing of emotion and pain. Suggestions for future research in emotion and pain are given.     

Culture,emotion suppression and disclosure,and health

Researchers have examined cultural differences in the psychological and physiological health consequences of emotion suppression. The goal of this review is to clarify the state of the science on this growing area of research by summarizing patterns of findings, identifying limitations, and providing recommendations for future research. First, we review the framework that provides the theoretical foundation for explaining cultural differences, and then we present findings on how culture influences the psychological and physiological health consequences of emotion suppression. Next, we review the expressive writing intervention as a culturally sensitive intervention that facilitates emotion disclosure for cultural groups that prioritize emotional restraint. Finally, we end by providing theoretical and methodological recommendations for future research.     

Psychological situations illuminate the meaning of human behavior: Recent advances and application to social influence processes

Psychologists have long sought to understand how people experience, think, and communicate about situations. Psychology's protracted journey toward understanding psychological situations recently took a momentous turn toward more rigorous conceptualization and measurement of situational characteristics along multiple dimensions. We provide a selective review of recent developments in research on psychological situations and highlight the value that these recent contributions deliver for researchers interested in human cognition, emotion, and behavior. We illustrate this value with an application of insights and instruments from the CAPTION and DIAMONDS models to social influence processes in groups. Specifically, we demonstrate how utilizing validated multidimensional scales of situational characteristics can illuminate the psychological meaning of brokering behaviors. We conclude by discussing current challenges and promising future directions for research on psychological situations.     

The Role of Music in Everyday Life: Current Directions in the Social Psychology of Music

Music is a crucial element of everyday life. People spend hours listening to it and billions of dollars buying it. Yet despite the pervasiveness of music, mainstream social‐personality psychology has hardly given any attention to this universal social phenomenon. Why is music important to people? What role does music play in everyday life? This article reviews research in fields outside mainstream psychology concerned with the social and psychological factors that influence how people experience and use music in their daily lives. The research in this area shows that music can have considerable effects on cognition, emotion, and behavior. It also indicates that people use music to serve various functions, from emotion regulation to self‐expression to social bonding. Research in this emerging field reveals how social‐personality psychology can inform our understanding of music, and in doing so it highlights the real‐world relevance of mainstream theory and research.     

员工建言行为的情绪机制：一个新的探索视角

已有研究考察了建言行为的诸多影响因素, 然而探讨情绪影响建言的研究则是新崛起的一个方向。文章一方面从情绪影响认知信息加工最终影响建言决策的微观角度来分析情绪与建言的关系, 另一方面从组织行为研究的宏观层面探讨情绪与建言关系, 并以情绪事件理论、情绪循环理论和情绪反馈理论为基础, 结合情绪研究的相关文献, 对员工情绪产生的几大来源, 员工情绪对建言决策的影响, 建言者的情绪对被建言者(建言对象)的情绪影响, 员工建言被采纳与否等几个涉及情绪的过程进行分析和阐述, 并构造了建言行为情绪机制模型; 系统地揭示了整个建言行为链上伴随的情绪机制, 并对恐惧、希望、心理安全、后悔等情绪对建言的影响作了示例分析。文章最后进行了总结与展望。     

Emotional Availability of Parents and Psychological Health: What Does Mediate This Relationship?

The relationship and interaction between a parent and child is of an ever-changing nature. In the first years of the child, parents are more supportive of the child’s development and guide the changes that take place. When adolescence ends and child becomes an adult, parent–child relationship takes on a different pattern in which the relation is more egalitarian. Despite this changing nature, research findings demonstrate that children who continue to receive emotional support from their parents, feel attached to them and care about their contributions and support. Thus, it becomes important to evaluate how certain parental properties affect psychological health within this changing relationship structure. From this point of view, this study examines the mediator role of emotion regulation skills, interpersonal relationship styles, and perceived social support on the relationship between parental emotional availability and general psychological health of individuals aged 16–25 who still live with their parents. It has been found that difficulty in emotion regulation, interpersonal relationship style, and social support has complete mediation effect on the relationship between both maternal and paternal emotional availability and psychological health.     

Emotions, personality, and health: introduction to the special issue

Our intent in this introduction to the special issue on Emotions, Personality, and Health is to alert readers to the logic underlying the editors' choices of topics for the issue and to provide a brief summary of its contents. We discuss how the 10 articles fit together to provide a mosaic of diverse approaches to the study of emotion. Collectively, these articles show ways that emotion research may be integrated with personality theory to inform us about the psychological dimensions of health and illness.     

The Role of Emotion Regulation in the Treatment of Child Anxiety Disorders

In this review, we examine the role of emotion regulation in the treatment of children with anxiety disorders. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to “work” for children with anxiety disorders and it has been categorized as an evidence-based treatment. However, most studies have shown that the treatment is effective for about 60–70% of children, leaving the remaining children symptomatic and oftentimes with persisting psychological disorders. Of importance, it has also been shown that many children with anxiety disorders demonstrate poor emotion regulation skills. Despite these findings, little attention has been directed toward incorporating emotion regulation strategies into these relatively effective cognitive-behavioral treatments. It is possible that CBT programs do not work as well for a portion of children because their emotion regulation deficits, if present, are not being targeted sufficiently. In this review, it is suggested that adding an emotion regulation component could increase treatment efficacy. In addition, strategies aimed at improving emotion regulation at the individual level and at the family level are introduced. Details of how improved emotion regulation skills could be beneficial in bringing about change are discussed. Finally, issues of measurement and the clinical implications for research and practice are considered.     

An implicit measure of anti-gay attitudes: Prospective associations with emotion regulation strategies and psychological distress

Members of stigmatized groups are at increased risk for mental health problems, and recent research has suggested that emotion dysregulation may be one mechanism explaining the stigma-distress association. However, little is known regarding characteristics that predict vulnerabilities to emotion dysregulation and subsequent distress. We examined whether anti-gay attitudes would predict poorer emotion regulation and greater psychological distress in 31 lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) respondents. Respondents completed implicit and explicit attitude measures at baseline, and participated in an experience sampling study examining stigma-related stressors, emotion regulation strategies, and mood over the course of ten days. Implicit and explicit attitude measures were not correlated. LGB respondents with greater implicit anti-gay attitudes engaged in significantly more rumination and suppression and reported more psychological distress. Rumination fully mediated the prospective association between implicit prejudicial attitudes and psychological distress, and suppression was a marginally significant mediator.     

The Relationship Between Perceived Parenting Style and Emotion Regulation Abilities in Adulthood

Emotion regulation abilities are very important for psychological and social wellbeing during the whole course of life. By contrast, emotion dysregulation is a significant risk factor for several psychological disorders. According to developmental research, an optimal parenting style, described as warmth and affectionate, promotes the development of an adequate emotion regulation in children and adolescents. However, little research has examined the relationship between parenting style and emotion regulation in adulthood. In the present study, we tested the relationship between perceived experiences with parents, in terms of parental care and parental overprotection, during childhood, and emotion regulation abilities in a sample of adults. One hundred participants completed the Parental Bonding Instruments, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that perceived parental care was more related to emotion regulation abilities than perceived parental overprotection. In particular, perceived paternal care was strictly linked to several difficulties in emotion regulation. By contrast, perceived maternal care was negatively associated with the use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, and a specific emotion dysregulation dimension, that is lack of emotional awareness. In summary, perceived parental care seemed to have a key role to protect individuals from emotion dysregulation. These results demonstrate that parenting styles still exert their influence on emotion regulation abilities also in adulthood. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

Beyond prototypes and classical definitions: Evidence for a theory-based representation of emotion concepts

The question of how people represent emotions is eminently important for a number of different domains of psychological research. The present study tested the assumption that emotion concepts are represented similar to theories in that they are comprised of a set of causally interrelated features. Using emotional scenarios and investigating the emotion concepts of anger, anxiety, and sadness it was found that people's representations of emotion concepts essentially involved the representation of the causal relation of emotion features and that the causal status of a feature determined the feature's centrality in the concept. Moreover, people's representations of emotion concepts corresponded to basic assumptions of cognitive emotion theories, namely that cognitive appraisals cause other surface features of emotion, like expression and behaviour. By providing evidence for a theory-based representation, the present results show that the classical and the prototype approach are insufficient to model the representation of emotion concepts.     

Japanese and American folk vocabularies for emotions

The authors investigated how emotions are labeled and conceptualized by individuals representing widely varying ages and educational backgrounds, who live in rural areas of Japan and the United States. The authors gathered data in 2 phases: 30 participants in each country first produced emotion terms, and another 2 groups of 28 (1 group from each country) sorted out those emotion terms by similarities. Results indicated that these laypersons' emotion vocabularies were larger than those typically studied in psychological research; both American and Japanese participants produced many terms referring to physical sensations or evaluative reactions. Also, the authors found both similarities and differences in how speakers of American English and Japanese conceptualized emotions, bringing into question the often simplistic notions of cultural differences reported in the previous literature (P. Ekman, 1994; P. Ekman & W. V. Friesen, 1971; P. Ekman et al., 1987).     

The brain basis of emotion: a meta-analytic review

Researchers have wondered how the brain creates emotions since the early days of psychological science. With a surge of studies in affective neuroscience in recent decades, scientists are poised to answer this question. In this target article, we present a meta-analytic summary of the neuroimaging literature on human emotion. We compare the locationist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories consistently and specifically correspond to distinct brain regions) with the psychological constructionist approach (i.e., the hypothesis that discrete emotion categories are constructed of more general brain networks not specific to those categories) to better understand the brain basis of emotion. We review both locationist and psychological constructionist hypotheses of brain-emotion correspondence and report meta-analytic findings bearing on these hypotheses. Overall, we found little evidence that discrete emotion categories can be consistently and specifically localized to distinct brain regions. Instead, we found evidence that is consistent with a psychological constructionist approach to the mind: A set of interacting brain regions commonly involved in basic psychological operations of both an emotional and non-emotional nature are active during emotion experience and perception across a range of discrete emotion categories.     

Maternal Expressed Emotion in Relation to Child Behavior Problems: Differential and Mediating Effects

Maternal expressed emotion (EE), including maternal criticism and emotional over-involvement, is considered an index of family emotional climate that is critical for children’s psychological well-being. Limited research investigates how each element of EE differentially contributes to child behavior problems, or explores the mechanisms, such as child emotion dysregulation, through which parental EE influences child psychosocial outcomes. This study examined maternal EE, child emotion dysregulation, and child behavior problems among 60 mother–child dyads from a community sample, utilizing multi-method and multi-reporter assessment. Findings indicated that maternal expressed criticism toward the child was positively associated with child externalizing symptoms through its relation to increased child emotion dysregulation, whereas maternal emotional over-involvement was negatively associated with child externalizing symptoms through its negative relation to child emotion dysregulation. These results provided increased support for a model in which maternal criticism remains negatively associated with child psychosocial outcomes, but the construct of emotional over-involvement is not necessarily associated with youth psychosocial problems. This study also illustrated one pathway through which maternal EE influence child psychosocial functioning, thus placing EE research in the broader context of research on family emotion socialization.     

Individual Differences in Cognitive Emotion Regulation: Implications for Subjective and Psychological Well-Being

Although research has extensively examined the link between cognitive emotion regulation and psychopathological symptoms, scant attention has been given to the relationship between dispositional use of cognitive emotion regulation strategies and individuals’ positive functioning. In a cross-sectional study on 470 adults, we examined whether individual differences in the use of nine cognitive strategies were associated with subjective and psychological well-being. Results show that positive reappraisal and refocus on planning are positively related to both subjective and psychological well-being. Rumination, catastrophizing and self-blame are linked to poorer well-being, while positive refocusing, putting into perspective, and acceptance show few significant associations. These results suggest that cognitive emotion regulation strategies may be differently effective in promoting individual’s well-being.