Intentional attunement: mirror neurons and the neural underpinnings of interpersonal relations

The neural circuits activated in a person carrying out actions, expressing emotions, and experiencing sensations are activated also, automatically via a mirror neuron system, in the observer of those actions, emotions, and sensations. It is proposed that this finding of shared activation suggests a functional mechanism of "embodied simulation" that consists of the automatic, unconscious, and noninferential simulation in the observer of actions, emotions, and sensations carried out and experienced by the observed. It is proposed also that the shared neural activation pattern and the accompanying embodied simulation constitute a fundamental biological basis for understanding another's mind. The implications of this perspective for psychoanalysis are discussed, particularly regarding unconscious communication, projective identification, attunement, empathy, autism, therapeutic action, and transference-countertransference interactions.     

Embodied simulation: From neurons to phenomenal experience

The same neural structures involved in the unconscious modeling of our acting body in space also contribute to our awareness of the lived body and of the objects that the world contains. Neuroscientific research also shows that there are neural mechanisms mediating between the multi-level personal experience we entertain of our lived body, and the implicit certainties we simultaneously hold about others. Such personal and body-related experiential knowledge enables us to understand the actions performed by others, and to directly decode the emotions and sensations they experience. A common functional mechanism is at the basis of both body awareness and basic forms of social understanding: embodied simulation. It will be shown that the present proposal is consistent with some of the perspectives offered by phenomenology.     

Shared Reality: Experiencing Commonality With Others' Inner States About the World

ABSTRACT— Humans have a fundamental need to experience a shared reality with others. We present a new conceptualization of shared reality based on four conditions. We posit (a) that shared reality involves a (subjectively perceived) commonality of individuals' inner states (not just observable behaviors); (b) that shared reality is about some target referent; (c) that for a shared reality to occur, the commonality of inner states must be appropriately motivated; and (d) that shared reality involves the experience of a successful connection to other people's inner states. In reviewing relevant evidence, we emphasize research on the saying-is-believing effect , which illustrates the creation of shared reality in interpersonal communication. We discuss why shared reality provides a better explanation of the findings from saying-is-believing studies than do other formulations. Finally, we examine relations between our conceptualization of shared reality and related constructs (including empathy, perspective taking, theory of mind, common ground, embodied synchrony, and socially distributed knowledge) and indicate how our approach may promote a comprehensive and differentiated understanding of social-sharing phenomena.     

Motion, emotion and empathy in esthetic experience

The implications of the discovery of mirroring mechanisms and embodied simulation for empathetic responses to images in general, and to works of visual art in particular, have not yet been assessed. Here, we address this issue and we challenge the primacy of cognition in responses to art. We propose that a crucial element of esthetic response consists of the activation of embodied mechanisms encompassing the simulation of actions, emotions and corporeal sensation, and that these mechanisms are universal. This basic level of reaction to images is essential to understanding the effectiveness both of everyday images and of works of art. Historical, cultural and other contextual factors do not preclude the importance of considering the neural processes that arise in the empathetic understanding of visual artworks.     

Empathizing With Others’ Pain Versus Empathizing With Others’ Joy: Examining the Separability of Positive and Negative Empathy and Their Relation to Different Types of Social Behaviors and Social Emotions

Existing work linking empathy with social behavior has focused overwhelmingly on empathy for the negative emotions of others. But recent research suggests that feeling along with others’ negative emotions is a capacity distinct from feeling along with others’ positive emotions. In Study 1, we demonstrate the separability of positive and negative empathy by showing that although both relate to some of the same foundational empathic processes, each has a number of distinct correlates. In Study 2 we take an experimental approach and show that encouraging participants to empathize with the positive versus negative emotions of a suffering yet hopeful social group results in distinct patterns of vicarious emotion. Finally, Study 3 shows that although both positive empathy and negative empathy are associated to a similar degree with helping behavior directed toward others in need, positive—but not negative—empathy is related to “everyday” prosocial behaviors aimed specifically at increasing others’ positive emotions (e.g., random acts of kindness). Together, these results provide what to our knowledge is the first demonstration of the causal potency of positive and negative empathy as well as the first evidence that positive and negative empathy relate to different types of social behaviors.     

I Feel Your Pain: Embodied Knowledges and Situated Neurons

The widely touted discovery of mirror neurons has generated intense scientific interest in the neurobiology of intersubjectivity. Social neuroscientists have claimed that mirror neurons, located in brain regions associated with motor action, facial recognition, and somatosensory processing, allow us to automatically grasp other people's intentions and emotions. Despite controversies, mirror neuron research is animating materialist, affective, and embodied accounts of intersubjectivity. My view is that mirror neurons raise issues that are directly relevant to feminism and cultural studies, but interventions are needed for the work to be compatible with nonreductionist critical thought. In this article I critique the dominant neuroscientific account of mirror neurons, called embodied simulation theory. I draw from feminist epistemologies as well as alternative interpretations of mirror neurons in cognitive science and philosophy of mind to consider mirroring as situated, embodied perception.     

Presidential address: Lessons from infancy: New beginnings in a changing world and a morality for health

Health care professionals working in infancy are optimistic about its development and its incentives for moral connectedness. Recent research shows that such an attitude is grounded in what I summarize under the headings of “fundamental modes of development” and a “basic morality,” features that characterize infancy when there is adequate support from an emotionally available caregiver. Early moral attainments include the infant's developing sense of rules, reciprocity, empathy, and internalized standards. Social referencing, negotiation, and the use of guidance are important processes in late infancy that occur in the context of interpersonal and intrapsychic conflict. Infancy experiences guided by these processes later become a basis for the preschooler's sharing, negotiation, and sense of fairness. These considerations provide lessons for thinking about health as a positive state. They also highlight the importance of positive emotions and shared meaning as we work to prevent and treat developmental problems. We have much to learn from infants and each other, especially as we continue our cross-cultural collaboration and research.     

Collective rumination: When “problem talk” impairs organizational resilience

When adversity strikes, organization members often turn to others in order to vent their negative emotions and receive social support. While social interaction is commonly seen as a major resource for organizational resilience, dysfunctional social interactions and their negative effects on coping with and overcoming adversity are less well understood. This conceptual article develops theory on collective rumination—defined as repetitive and prolonged discussions of adverse events that center on the negative and uncontrollable aspects of the situation—and its detrimental effects on organizational resilience. We elaborate that collective rumination emerges through a vicious circle of a shared negative situational assessment and mutual contagion with highly negative emotions. Based on our theorizing, we propose that collective rumination is negatively related to three core dimensions of organizational resilience: perceptions of control, commitment to joint action, and the acceptance of adversity as a challenge. With our conceptual article, we answer earlier calls to theorize about forms of social interactions that are not valuable but destructive for organizational resilience and elucidate previously neglected social dynamics that are dysfunctional for recovering from adversity.     

Destructive Criticism Revisited: Appraisals,Task Outcomes,and the Moderating Role of Competitiveness

Destructive criticism is negative feedback that is inconsiderate in style and content, which exists at the intersection of performance feedback and interpersonal mistreatment. The current research integrates these literatures with an investigation of the effects of destructive versus constructive criticism from a co‐worker on recipients' relational appraisals, emotions, and task outcomes. Drawing from theorising about cognitive appraisals after personal affronts, we first propose that those who experience destructive criticism are more likely than those who experience constructive criticism to (a) perceive that the feedback‐giver intended to harm them, (b) blame the feedback‐giver, (c) distrust the feedback‐giver, and (d) feel anger. Second, with regard to task‐related outcomes, we extend research on trait moderators of feedback responses to the study of destructive criticism. We draw from feedback intervention theory ( Kluger & DeNisi, 1996 ) regarding how feedback may alter the locus of attention to be either self‐ or task‐focused, and investigate a trait that may shift one's attention to the self after destructive criticism. Specifically, we proposed that trait competitiveness—i.e. a desire to win over others—interacts with type of criticism to predict task‐related outcomes. The results of two experiments—a scenario study and a behavioral experiment—provide support for our arguments.     

Studying Emotions in Security and Diplomacy: Where We Are Now and Challenges Ahead

The core objective of this special issue has been to shed light on emotions as (1) frames that shape interpersonal diplomatic relations, (2) as key tools that are used as part of the statecraft's toolbox, and (3) as formative/productive dynamics with real effects on human beings—that, in turn, often construct and maintain conflicts. It is therefore pertinent that we interrogate the political psychology of individual, collective, mass, and communal emotions and how these are often (mis)used in diplomacy and security narratives to legitimize politicians' decisions and practices. This concluding article provides a state of the art account of the study of emotions in International Relations (IR), sums up the main findings from all special issue contributions and constructively explores potential challenges ahead for the study of emotions in IR, especially in security and diplomacy studies. It concludes with an appeal for the development of a multiperspective approach—that is, one that combines social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities—for a nuanced study of the role of emotional work in state, diplomatic as well as security narratives and practices. This approach will in turn require methodological pluralism in how we go about, as reflexive researchers, our emotional research.     

“心灵鸡汤”对温度知觉、他人评价和自我评价的影响

本研究基于具身认知观点和概念隐喻理论,采用三个实验探讨了 “心灵鸡汤”对环境温度的感知觉影响、对陌生他人人品评价的影响以及对自我人格特质评定的影响。结果发现,“心灵鸡汤”的阅读能有效提高个体对环境温度的评定,且不存在性别差异;阅读“心灵鸡汤”后倾向于对陌生人的人品有更高的积极评定;“心灵鸡汤”对自我评定不存在显著影响。     

人际同步对合作行为的促进机制及解释模型

同步作为集体仪式的核心要素, 对群体生存和发展具有重要意义。人际同步是一种特殊的协调行为, 具有锁时锁相的特征。近年来研究发现同步能够促进合作等亲社会行为, 具体的促进机制包括神经生理的激活、社会联结感的增强、认知灵敏度的提高和积极情绪的唤起, 学者们也从不同角度提出了三种不同的解释模型：自我-他人重叠模型、合作加强模型和集体沸腾模型。未来的研究需要进一步剖析同步行为的亲社会功能, 厘清同步效应的调节机制、特异性和普适性。     

Knowing me,knowing you: emotion differentiation in oneself is associated with recognition of others’ emotions

ABSTRACT

Previous research has found that individuals vary greatly in emotion differentiation, that is, the extent to which they distinguish between different emotions when reporting on their own feelings. Building on previous work that has shown that emotion differentiation is associated with individual differences in intrapersonal functions, the current study asks whether emotion differentiation is also related to interpersonal skills. Specifically, we examined whether individuals who are high in emotion differentiation would be more accurate in recognising others’ emotional expressions. We report two studies in which we used an established paradigm tapping negative emotion differentiation and several emotion recognition tasks. In Study 1 (N?=?363), we found that individuals high in emotion differentiation were more accurate in recognising others’ emotional facial expressions. Study 2 (N?=?217), replicated this finding using emotion recognition tasks with varying amounts of emotional information. These findings suggest that the knowledge we use to understand our own emotional experience also helps us understand the emotions of others.     

Self–other contingencies: Enacting social perception

Can we see the expressiveness of other people's gestures, hear the intentions in their voice, see the emotions in their posture? Traditional theories of social cognition still say we cannot because intentions and emotions for them are hidden away inside and we do not have direct access to them. Enactive theories still have no idea because they have so far mainly focused on perception of our physical world. We surmise, however, that the latter hold promise since, in trying to understand cognition, enactive theory focuses on the embodied engagements of a cognizer with his world. In this paper, we attempt an answer for the question What is social perception in an enactive account? In enaction, perception is conceived as a skill, crucially involving action (perception is action and action is perception), an ability to work successfully within the set of regularities, or contingencies that characterize a given domain. If this is the case, then social perception should be a social skill. Having thus transformed the question of what social perception is into that of what social skill is, we examine the concept of social contingencies and the manner in which social skills structure—both constrain and empower—social interaction. Some of the implications of our account for how social and physical perception differ, the role of embodiment in social interaction and the distinction between our approach and other social contingency theories are also addressed.     

The moral emotions: a social-functionalist account of anger, disgust, and contempt

Recent research has highlighted the important role of emotion in moral judgment and decision making (Greene, Sommerville, Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Haidt, 2001). What is less clear is whether distinctions should be drawn among specific moral emotions. Although some have argued for differences among anger, disgust, and contempt (Rozin, Lowery, Imada, & Haidt, 1999), others have suggested that these terms may describe a single undifferentiated emotional response to morally offensive behavior (Nabi, 2002). In this article, we take a social-functionalist perspective, which makes the prediction that these emotions should be differentiable both in antecedent appraisals and in consequent actions and judgments. Studies 1-3 tested and found support for our predictions concerning distinctions among antecedent appraisals, including (a) a more general role for disgust than has been previously been described, (b) an effect of self-relevance on anger but not other emotions, and (c) a role for contempt in judging incompetent actions. Studies 4 and 5 tested and found support for our specific predictions concerning functional outcomes, providing evidence that these emotions are associated with different consequences. Taken together, these studies support a social-functionalist account of anger, disgust, and contempt and lay the foundation for future research on the negative interpersonal emotions.     

When lending an ear turns into mistreatment: An episodic examination of leader mistreatment in response to venting at work

Venting—an emotion‐focused form of coping involving the discharge of negative feelings to others—is common in organizational settings. Venting may benefit the self via the release of negative emotion, or by acting as a catalyst for changes to problematic work situations. Nonetheless, venting might have unintended consequences via its influence on those who are the recipients of venting from others. In light of this idea, we provide a theoretical explanation for how leaders in particular are affected by venting receipt at work. Drawing from the transactional model of stress, we theorize that venting tends to be appraised as a threat, which triggers negative emotion that, in turn, potentiates deviant action tendencies (i.e., interpersonal mistreatment). Yet, our theory suggests that not all leaders necessarily experience venting in the same way. Specifically, leaders with higher need for cognition are less influenced by surface‐level cues associated with others’ emotional expressions and find challenging interpersonal situations to be less aversive, thereby attenuating the deleterious effects of receipt of venting. In an experience sampling study of 112 managers across 10 consecutive workdays, we find support for our theoretical model. Altogether, our findings provide insight into the costs incurred when leaders lend an ear to those who vent, which can result in negative downstream consequences.     

Joint Action and the Expression of Shared Intentions: An Expanded Taylorian Account

After having identified several shortcomings of the so‐called ‘standard accounts’ of shared intentions, this paper will develop a novel framework for understanding such intentions. The framework to be advanced hinges on a notion of ‘expression’, as well as on the claim that shared intentions are expressed—that is, manifested, grasped, shaped and clarified—throughout the unfolding of the joint actions they animate, as well as in the various expressive activities and behaviours that accompany joint action. This claim will be defended with particular reference to the work of Charles Taylor on expression, as well as recent work on embodied cognition.     

Direct social perception of others’ subjective time

In this paper, I deploy Gallagher et al.’s theory of Direct Social Perception (DSP) to help explain how we perceive others’ subjective time. This process of second-person temporal perception plays an important role in interpersonal interaction, yet is often glossed over in discussions of intersubjectivity. Using A.D. Craig (2009) ‘awareness’ model of subjective time to unify converging evidence that subjective time is embodied, affective, and situated, I argue that subjective time cannot be considered as a hidden or invisible aspect of a private mind, but is partially externally visible through our gestures, expressions, and other behaviours as they unfold within a particular context. My central thesis is that, in face to face interactions, we are able to directly perceive these visible components of other people’s subjective time. This is made possible by our “enculturated” (Menary, 2015) and enactive perceptual faculties. The process of social perception is not a passive, unidirectional affair where static information about one person’s subjective time is transmitted to the other, but rather inextricably linked with action (both at the personal and subpersonal level) and interaction effects produced by a dynamic coupling between participants. Such an enactive perspective reveals how others’ subjective time can be perceived in everyday interactions.     

Culture,Emotion, and Well-being: Good Feelings in Japan and the United States

We tested the hypothesis that “good feelings”—the central element of subjective well-being—are associated with interdependence and interpersonal engagement of the self in Japan, but with independence and interpersonal disengagement of the self in the United States. Japanese and American college students (total N = 913) reported how frequently they experienced various emotional states in daily life. In support of the hypothesis, the reported frequency of general positive emotions (e.g. calm, elated) was most closely associated with the reported frequency of interpersonally engaged positive emotions (e.g. friendly feelings) in Japan, but with the reported frequency of interpersonally disengaged positive emotions (e.g. pride) in the United States. Further, for Americans the reported frequency of experience was considerably higher for positive emotions than for negative emotions, but for Japanese it was higher for engaged emotions than for disengaged emotions. Implications for cultural constructions of emotion in general and subjective well-being in particular are discussed.     

Reply to Downing,Jacobs, and Schneider

We thank our reviewers for their discussions and we appreciate the opportunity to dialogue about our work with Sandra. Some responses express our shared point of view, others our individual reflections. For clarity, we indicate the point of view at the beginning of each section.