A Closer Look at Reactions to Realistic Recruitment Messages

Recently there has been a great deal of interest among consumer and behavioral judgment researchers on how immediate affective reactions influence overall evaluations. The current study seeks to determine whether immediate affective reactions to organizational attributes warrant the attention of recruitment researchers as well. Using a customized web‐based computer program that elicits immediate affective reactions to organizational previews, the study finds that overall evaluations of the organization are influenced more by the average intensity of immediate affective reactions experienced during the message than by the relative balance of positive and negative information contained in the message. Results suggest that practitioners using realistic information need to be more concerned about the average intensity of recipients' reactions than about the relative balance of positive or negative information.     

Expertise and the explanation effect

The effect of professional experience on the “explanation effect”, i.e., generation of an explanation for an event occurrence increasing the judged likelihood of the event, is investigated in a risk assessment (financial auditing) context. An explanation effect was predicted for inexperienced auditors (auditing students); however, audit judgment experience was predicted to mediate, or eliminate, any explanation effect. Two competing hypotheses for the origin of the effect, the causal construction and recall-availability hypotheses, are tested given the presence of antecedent conditions for, and against, the explanation events. Audit risk judgments were provided by 58 novice and 42 experienced auditors. Written explanation for occurrence of the target event resulted in the explanation effect for novice subjects, both for specifie event and aggregate risk assessments. The pattern of results supported the recallavailability over the causal construction hypothesis. The judgments of the experienced auditors, however, did not indicate any explanation effect.     

Negative affective reactions reduce perceived likelihood of risk

This investigation examined the influence of negative affective reactions on the perceived likelihood of experiencing a health risk. Concepts related to formaldehyde exposure were paired with negative stimuli to create affective reactions. In Study 1, perceived risk was reduced when the thought of formaldehyde exposure elicited negative affective reactions compared to a control condition and participants were less interested in information on the risk and recommended spending less money to alleviate the hazard. The potential boundary condition of emotional states was examined in Study 2. Sad or neutral emotion was elicited before learning about the hazard, which was again paired with negative stimuli or no affective stimuli. Sadness increased perceived risk; negative affective reactions reduced perceived risk only when participants were in a neutral incidental state. These findings suggest that negative affective reactions reduce the perceived likelihood of risk, but only in the absence of alternative emotional information.     

Retracted:It's all in the timing: measuring emotional reactions to stereotype threat before and after taking a test

Stereotype threat is often described as resulting from increased anxiety over confirming a negative stereotype about one's group (Steele, 1997 ). However, variations in the type of emotional reactions targets experience as a function of stereotype threat has never been examined systematically before and after taking a test, thus it is unclear whether targets experience different emotions at different points in the testing session. The present study investigated this issue of emotional specificity. Results demonstrate that targets of a negative stereotype, but not non‐targets, experienced heightened anxiety prior to taking a test under stereotype threat conditions and heightened frustration once the test was concluded. No effects were found in the non‐stereotype threat conditions. These findings, therefore, highlight the specific affective states that targets and non‐targets experience in threat and non‐threat conditions, as well as how these affective states can be assessed using self‐report measures. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Affective forecasting and the Big Five

Recent studies on affective forecasting clarify that the emotional reactions people anticipate often differ markedly from those they actually experience in response to affective stimuli and events. However, core personality differences in affective forecasting have received limited attention, despite their potential relevance to choice behavior. In the present study, 226 college undergraduates rated their anticipated and experienced reactions to the emotionally-evocative event of Valentine's Day and completed a measure of the Big Five personality traits - neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness - and their facet scales. Neuroticism and extraversion were associated with baseline mood, experienced emotional reactions, and anticipated emotional reactions. The present findings hold implications for the study of individual differences in affective forecasting, personality theory, and interventions research.     

Impact of Client Suicide on Psychologists in Australia

Objective

This research aimed to assess the frequency and impact of client suicides on psychologists in Australia.

Method

Participants were 178 psychologists who completed an online self‐report questionnaire concerning the frequency of occurrence and impact of client suicide.

Result

Fifty six (31.5%) participants reported one or more client suicides. Psychologists with more years of experience reported more client suicides. Participants who had experienced a client suicide reported a range of emotional, cognitive and behavioural reactions as well as professional impacts. Ratings of responsibility, preventability and predictability of a client suicide were associated with emotional and/or professional impacts. Beneficial coping responses included talking to supervisors and colleagues, recognising the psychologist is not responsible and having increased acceptance of a client suicide.

Conclusions

The findings have important implications for training, workplace practices and research.     

No pain,no change: Reductions in prior negative affect following physical pain

In general, organisms are motivated to avoid stimuli that induce pain. However, some individuals intentionally inflict pain on themselves (e.g., nonsuicidal self-injury) and report doing so for the perceived emotional benefits following the experience of pain. Two controlled laboratory studies sought to expand upon the relatively limited literature on the effects of pain on emotion. In Study 1, participants provided momentary affect ratings immediately before and after experiencing physical pain. Results demonstrated that both positive affect and negative affect (NA) decreased following the experience of pain. In the Study 2, we examined the effect that individual differences in emotional reactivity had on affective reactions to pain. Individuals high in emotional reactivity experienced larger decreases in NA following the experience of pain than individuals who were low in emotional reactivity. Our findings may potentially explain why some individuals intentionally seek out the experience of pain.     

Threshold adjustment in response to asymmetric loss functions: The case of auditors’ “substantial doubt” thresholds

Thresholds play a critical role in linking judgments and choices. One way they do so is by dividing a continuous judgment variable, such as probability, into two regions that imply different choices and actions, such as operate/do not operate, admit/do not admit, or invest/do not invest. We examine this link by focusing on the tendency of professional decision makers to adjust their thresholds when the risks associated with negative decision outcomes are elevated. We report two studies involving experienced auditors that investigate thresholds in a “going-concern” setting. In this setting, the auditor assesses the probability that a business firm will be unable to continue in existence for the coming year; if that probability exceeds a “substantial doubt” threshold (also assessed by the auditor), the auditor is required to disclose the relevant information in the firm’s annual report to the public. Our studies use two experimental cases based on actual business firms that differ in their objective likelihoods of not continuing as going concerns. We derive the auditors’ substantial doubt thresholds from the relationship between their probability assessments and their disclosure choices, unlike all prior research which has simply asked auditors to state the probability they believe represents substantial doubt. We find that auditors’ derived thresholds are adjusted downward for the more problematic firm, a result that we attribute to the asymmetric loss functions inherent in going-concern settings. The second study has some of the auditors directly provide their substantial doubt thresholds (SDTs). The downward adjustment is again found for derived thresholds but not for elicited thresholds, suggesting that the method of capturing thresholds may be an important issue in understanding judgment and choice.     

Termination of information evaluation in auditing

A screening decision is about whether a candidate fails to meet a decision maker's criteria and must be rejected, or whether it meets the criteria and can be accepted. Image theory contends that screening decisions are based on a simple, noncompensatory process that focuses solely upon the candidate's negative attributes. This contention has received empirical support in a job screening context in which students role-played a hypothetical person seeking a job. But how robust is image theory's prediction? The present work was done in the context of professional auditors screening prospective clients. The client screening context is a particularly interesting setting to test the implications of image theory. If auditors reject clients with negative attributes, as predicted by image theory, this will indicate that some clients are being denied access to a socially useful service. Further, auditors can accept prospective clients with negative attributes and simply adjust the audit plan and fees to compensate for the client's riskiness. Thus, it is not clear that the preliminary findings obtained in a job screening context will generalize to the audit context. On the other hand, results consistent with the image theory prediction would suggest a robust theory. Even in the client screening context, where auditors used their own criteria to screen prospective clients, we found overwhelming support for image theory's view of screening. The results indicate the potential payoffs of image theory as a robust framework to address audit and other substantive problems. Implications of a noncompensatory, negative oriented, client screening strategy are discussed.     

青少年负性情绪事件性质判断偏向的情绪弹性和性别效应

研究以青少年学生为被试,采用测验和实验的方法考察了情绪弹性和性别变量对青少年在四类负性情绪事件性质的判断偏向上可能产生的影响。结果表明：（1）情绪弹性对青少年加工负性情绪事件信息时的判断偏向产生一定影响,低情绪弹性个体在面对与一般生活情境相关的负性情绪事件时,更倾向于从消极方面对事件的性质加以判断。（2）性别对青少年加工负性情绪事件信息时的判断偏向不产生实质性影响。     

Parental perception and interpretation of infant emotions: psychological and physiological processes

To study parental experience and perception of infant emotional expressions parents' responses to infant pictures depicting positive, neutral and negative emotions were assessed on the level of affective judgments (perceived and experienced valence and arousal), of mimic responses (facial muscle activity) and of the eyelid reflex (using the startle paradigm). In general, while parents were able to appropriately perceive infant emotions and were clearly affected by them, they exhibited a bias for positive interpretation. This was obvious from their subjective evaluations which, e.g. were more positive for experienced than for perceived valence, as well as from their mimic responses indicating positive responses in general. In addition, infant pictures including the negative ones lead to an inhibition of the startle reflex, indicating a positive evaluation of infant emotions on the sub‐cortical level. These effects were most prominent when parents were faced with pictures of their own infants as compared to unfamiliar ones. The way parents process information about infant emotions may facilitate appropriate responsiveness to infants' needs. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Empathic forecasting: How do we predict other people's feelings?

When making affective forecasts, people commit the impact bias. They overestimate the impact an emotional event has on their affective experience. In three studies we show that people also commit the impact bias when making empathic forecasts, affective forecasts for someone else. They overestimate the impact an emotional event has on someone else's affective experience (Study 1), they do so for friends and strangers (Study 2), and they do so when other sources of information are available (Study 3). Empathic forecasting accuracy, the correlation between one person's empathic forecast and another person's actual affective experience, was lower than between-person forecasting correspondence, the correlation between one person's empathic forecast and another person's affective forecast. Empathic forecasts do not capture other people's actual experience very well but are similar to what other people forecast for themselves. This may enhance understanding between people.     

Affective States and Traits in the Workplace: Diary and Survey Data from Young Workers

This study investigated proposed paths of the affective events theory (AET; H. M. Weiss & R. Cropanzano, 1996), with part-time employees completing surveys at 2 points in time and completing an event-contingent diary over 2 weeks. In support of AET, negative affectivity (Time 1) related to negative emotional reactions at work. Negative emotional reactions were associated with intention to leave the job (Time 2). This relationship was especially strong for the sadness emotions (disappointed, depressed, unhappy). Positive affectivity (Time 1) directly related to job satisfaction (Time 2), but only weakly predicted positive emotional reactions at work (aggregated over 2 weeks). Qualitative data provided information about work affective events and affect-driven behaviors. Interpersonal mistreatment from customers were the most frequent cause of anger and resulted in faking expressions about 50% of the time. Recognition from supervisors for work performance was the main cause of pride.     

What I like is How I Am: Impact of Alexithymia on Aesthetic Preference

Aim of this work was to explore the impact of alexithymia on art works appreciation, to examine the influence of emotion regulation on art judgment. While observing a painting, the viewer's cognitive structure contains several types of information (semantic, episodic, and strategic) and is the repository of personal traits, motivations, and emotional dispositions that are involved in this interaction. The study of how personal traits influence work of art appreciation, and especially the study of the way emotion regulation impacts on art judgment, was aimed at improving the comprehension of the aesthetic experience costruct. One hundred adults, divided into 2 groups (high and low scores in alexithymia), observed 20 works of art and were then asked to give an evalutative judgment on three dimentions: cognitive, emotional, aesthetic. As hypothesized, the two groups had significant differences in their aesthetic preferences. Although subjects without affective regulation disorders preferred excitation related pictures, subjects with alexithymia appreciated works evoching emotions of pleasure inhibition. These results confirm the impact of personality traits on aesthetic preference and support the need to include emotional regulation in a comprehensive model of aesthetic experience.     

On avoiding framing effects in experienced decision makers

The present study aimed to (a) demonstrate the effect of positive–negative framing on experienced criminal justice decision makers, (b) examine the debiasing effect of visually structured risk messages, and (c) investigate whether risk perceptions mediate the debiasing effect of visual aids on decision making. In two phases, 60 senior police officers estimated the accuracy of a counterterrorism technique in identifying whether a known terror suspect poses an imminent danger and decided whether they would recommend the technique to policy makers. Officers also rated their confidence in this recommendation. When information about the effectiveness of the counterterrorism technique was presented in a numerical format, officers' perceptions of accuracy and recommendation decisions were susceptible to the framing effect: The technique was perceived to be more accurate and was more likely to be recommended when its effectiveness was presented in a positive than in a negative frame. However, when the information was represented visually using icon arrays, there were no such framing effects. Finally, perceptions of accuracy mediated the debiasing effect of visual aids on recommendation decisions. We offer potential explanations for the debiasing effect of visual aids and implications for communicating risk to experienced, professional decision makers.     

Automatic Optimism: Why People Assume Their Futures will be Bright

Why are people optimistic about their futures, continuously assuming that their futures will be full of the positive outcomes they desire and devoid of negative outcomes? This paper concerns the proposal that desire, represented as affective reactions to potential future events, causes optimism for the future. We propose that positive or negative affective reactions to future events innervate motivations to approach or avoid the events. These motivations can be satiated by judging that events that elicit positive affective reactions are likely to occur and events that elicit negative affective reactions are unlikely to occur. The tendency to be optimistic thus results from emotional processes that occur largely outside of conscious awareness. We discuss recent evidence that supports these propositions, the import of understanding optimism as the result of emotional processes for judgment and decision research as well as attempts to improve decision‐making, and remaining unresolved issues.     

Sensitivity to Affective Information and Investors' Evaluation of Past Performance: An Eye‐tracking Study

In the present work, we used the eye‐tracking methodology to investigate how affective reactions influence investment decision making. In addition, we looked at individual differences in terms of people's sensitivity to affective information and how efficiently they regulate it, that is, trait emotional intelligence. We demonstrated that people who are more sensitive to affective information have larger pupil dilation when looking at the past performance of a stock fund. In addition, we also found that participants' larger pupil dilation had an impact on their investment decisions (whether people were more likely to sell their shares, hold on to the investment, or buy more shares). A larger pupil dilation led people to be more consistent and willing to invest more money on a fund regardless from its past performance (positive or negative). We also tested the hypothesis that individuals with a larger pupil dilation should be more influenced by a fund's past performance (e.g., selling their shares more often when the past performance of the fund was negative and buying additional shares more often when the past performance was positive). However, results did not support this explanation. Finally, our data revealed that the effect of individual differences in trait emotional intelligence on investment decisions was significantly mediated by pupil dilation. In the discussion, we explored the relationship between our results and previous evidence on the role of pupil dilation in processing information under uncertainty and the role of affect in decision making. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Why Do You Make Us Feel Good? Correlates and Interpersonal Consequences of Affective Presence in Speed‐dating

Recent research indicates that people consistently make others feel a certain way (e.g. happy or stressed). This individual difference has been termed affective presence, but little is known about its correlates or consequences. The present study investigated the following: (i) whether affective presence influences others' romantic interest in a person and (ii) what types of people have positive and negative affective presence. Forty volunteers took part in a speed‐dating event, during which they dated six or seven opposite‐sex partners. A Social Relations Model analysis confirmed that individuals prompted consistent positive emotional reactions in others. Participants were more likely to want to see dates with greater positive affective presence again in the future, and positive affective presence explained the effects of perceived responsiveness on romantic interest. Associations between positive affective presence and trait predictors, including emotion regulation, emotional expressiveness, attachment style, agreeableness and extraversion, were also observed. The findings indicate that what emotionally distinguishes one individual from another lies in part in the emotional consequences of their behaviours on others. © 2013 The Authors. European Journal of Personality published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Association of Personality Psychology.