The Power of Positive Recollections: Reducing Test Anxiety and Enhancing College Student Efficacy and Performance

This research sought to develop an intervention (targeting positive emotions and thoughts) as a mechanism for reducing test anxiety and raising confidence and performance in a sample of college students. Participants were randomly assigned to a positive thought task or a control task. Those in the positive‐thought condition, who were assigned to write about successful personal experiences, derived several benefits, when compared with control participants who wrote about their morning routines. Specifically, they experienced more positive affect and less negative affect, exhibited a more optimistic outlook, and reported less test anxiety. They were more likely to appraise the quiz confidently, perceiving it as a challenge rather than a threat. Perhaps most importantly, they exhibited superior performance on the quiz.     

Cycles of Understanding and Hope: Toward an Integrative Model of Therapeutic Change in Child Psychotherapy*

ABSTRACT

This article presents an integrative theory of pathological development in childhood and an inclusive model of therapeutic change, based on a contemporary understanding of children's emotions. In this model, effective therapies for children and adolescents, whether through empathy and understanding or through active efforts to change patterns of thought and behavior, arrest malignant emotional processes, especially vicious cycles of painful emotions and pathogenic family interactions. Our most successful interventions then set in motion positive cycles of healthy emotional and interpersonal experiences - increased confidence and engagement in life and more affirming interactions between parents and children. Over time, successful therapy strengthens in children and adolescents a more encouraging, less critical inner voice and, perhaps most profoundly, more positive expectations for their future - a new sense of what is possible in their lives.     

Parental Contributions to Preschoolers' Emotional Competence: Direct and Indirect Effects

The present study examines the contributions of (1) parental socialization of emotion and preschoolers' emotional interaction with parents to their emotional competence, and (2) parental socialization and child emotional competence to their general social competence. Both observational and self-report techniques were used to measure emotion socialization, emotional competence, and social competence of preschoolers (average age = 49.8 months) from 60 middle-socioeconomic-status families. Data were collected in both classroom and home settings. In general, the results suggest that parental modeling of expressive styles and emotional responsiveness to child emotions are important predictors of preschoolers' emotional competence and their overall social competence. Children whose parents were more affectively positive tended to display more positive emotion with peers, whereas children whose parents were more negative appeared less socially competent in the preschool. Parents who were better coaches of their children's emotions had children who understood emotions better. Age and sex moderated several of the study's key findings. The results are consistent with earlier research indicating that parental socialization of emotion impacts the child's emotional and social functioning both at home and in the preschool.     

The affective organization of parenting: adaptive and maladaptive processes

This article presents a 3-component model of parenting that places emotion at the heart of parental competence. The model emphasizes (a) child, parent, and contextual factors that activate parents' emotions; (b) orienting, organizing, and motivating effects that emotions have on parenting once aroused; and (c) processes parents use to understand and control emotions. Emotions are vital to effective parenting. When invested in the interest of children, emotions organize sensitive, responsive parenting. Emotions undermine parenting, however, when they are too weak, too strong, or poorly matched to child rearing tasks. In harmonious relationships emotions are, on average, positive because parents manage interactions so that children's and parents' concerns are promoted. In distressed relationships chronic negative emotion is both a cause and a consequence of interactions that undermine parents' concerns and children's development.     

积极情绪对任务转换的影响

通过两个行为实验考察了积极情绪图片所诱发的情绪状态对任务转换的影响及其机制。研究任务是数字分类任务,分为保持和转换两个阶段。首先要求被试对靶刺激形成一定的习惯化反应,然后改变任务要求。实验1以53名大学生为被试,分别在积极情绪、消极情绪和中性条件下完成任务,发现在与中性条件相比时,积极情绪促进任务转换,消极情绪延缓任务转换。实验2以37名大学生为被试,增加了一种转换条件,考察积极情绪促进任务转换的心理原因,结果表明积极情绪因偏好新异刺激而促进任务转换     

情绪的动机维度对趋避行为的影响

基于Gable和Harmone-Jones提出的情绪的动机维度模型,本研究采用改进的模拟“小人”任务实验范式考察了情绪的动机维度如何影响趋避行为。研究结果表明：（1）改进的模拟“小人”任务范式能较好地考察情绪对趋避行为的影响;（2）对情绪图片的有意识和无意识加工均出现了“趋利避害的相容效应”,较好地解决了动机定向理论和事件编码理论的纷争;（3）和低动机强度积极情绪相比,高动机强度积极情绪对趋近行为的易化程度更高;和低动机强度消极情绪相比,高动机强度消极情绪对回避行为的易化程度更髙。     

母亲情绪调节与幼儿情绪理解能力:母亲应对方式的中介作用

对258名幼儿进行情绪理解能力任务测查,其母亲完成情绪调节方式问卷和应对幼儿消极情绪问卷,探讨母亲情绪调节方式、母亲对幼儿消极情绪的反应方式和幼儿情绪理解能力之间的关系。结果表明,幼儿情绪理解能力随年龄增长而提高,女孩情绪理解能力高于男孩。母亲对幼儿消极情绪更多采用情感关注和问题解决,惩罚反应最少,母亲对男孩的消极情绪表现出更多的惩罚反应,对女孩表现出更多的情感关注。母亲鼓励表达在其情绪调节方式和幼儿情绪理解能力之间有中介作用。     

Misery has more company than people think: underestimating the prevalence of others' negative emotions

Four studies document underestimations of the prevalence of others' negative emotions and suggest causes and correlates of these erroneous perceptions. In Study 1a, participants reported that their negative emotions were more private or hidden than were their positive emotions; in Study 1b, participants underestimated the peer prevalence of common negative, but not positive, experiences described in Study 1a. In Study 2, people underestimated negative emotions and overestimated positive emotions even for well-known peers, and this effect was partially mediated by the degree to which those peers reported suppression of negative (vs. positive) emotions. Study 3 showed that lower estimations of the prevalence of negative emotional experiences predicted greater loneliness and rumination and lower life satisfaction and that higher estimations for positive emotional experiences predicted lower life satisfaction. Taken together, these studies suggest that people may think they are more alone in their emotional difficulties than they really are.     

Expressions of positive emotion in women's college yearbook pictures and their relationship to personality and life outcomes across adulthood

To test hypotheses about positive emotion, the authors examined the relationship of positive emotional expression in women's college pictures to personality, observer ratings, and life outcomes. Consistent with the notion that positive emotions help build personal resources, positive emotional expression correlated with the self-reported personality traits of affiliation, competence, and low negative emotionality across adulthood and predicted changes in competence and negative emotionality. Observers rated women displaying more positive emotion more favorably on several personality dimensions and expected interactions with them to be more rewarding; thus, demonstrating the beneficial social consequences of positive emotions. Finally, positive emotional expression predicted favorable outcomes in marriage and personal well-being up to 30 years later. Controlling for physical attractiveness and social desirability had little impact on these findings.     

A Puzzle Concerning Gratitude and Accountability

P.F. Strawson’s account of moral responsibility in “Freedom and Resentment” has been widely influential. In both that paper and in the contemporary literature, much attention has been paid to Strawson’s account of blame in terms of reactive attitudes like resentment and indignation. The Strawsonian view of praise in terms of gratitude has received comparatively little attention. Some, however, have noticed something puzzling about gratitude and accountability. We typically understand accountability in terms of moral demands and expectations. Yet gratitude does not express or enforce moral demands or expectations. So, how is it a way to hold an agent accountable? In a more general manner, we might ask if there is even sense to be made of the idea that agents can be accountable—i.e., “on the hook”—in a positive way. In this paper, I clarify the relationship between gratitude and moral accountability. I suggest that accountability is a matter of engaging with others in a way that is basically concerned with their feelings and attitudes rather than solely a matter of moral demands. Expressions of gratitude are a paradigmatic form of this concerned engagement. I conclude by defending my view from the objection that it leads to an overly generous conception of holding accountable and suggest in reply that moral responsibility skeptics may not help themselves to as many moral emotions as they might have thought.

     

Antecedents and reactions to health-related social control

A model of the antecedents and reactions to health-related social control is proposed. This model suggests health behavior characteristics, including type, frequency, and severity of consequences, are social control antecedents. Social control is then thought to elicit better health behavior and emotions. Attributions to explain social control are proposed to effect emotional reactions and behavior. Undergraduates read hypothetical scenarios to test the proposed model. Study 1 found that health-compromising behaviors and behaviors with more severe consequences elicited more social control. Study 2 found that, compared to negative tactics, positive social control tactics elicited more behavior change, and compared to social/appearance concerns, attributions to health elicited positive emotions. Attributions did not moderate the impact of social control on emotions or behavior.     

Smartfounding: Four Grades of Resistance to Thought Experiments

Smartfounding is the opposite of “dumbfounding” introduced by Jonathan Haidt’s research on disgust. Dumbfounders have general competence at thought experiment (in contrast to people who lack formal education). However, they are flustered by thought experiments that support repugnant conclusions. Instead of following the supposition wherever it leads, they avoid unsettling implications by adding extraneous information or ignoring stipulated conditions. The dumbfounded commit performance errors, often seeming to regress to the answers of people who lack formal schooling. Smartfounders retain their composure. They practice subversive compliance, obeying the instructions in a way that spoils the aim of the thought experiment. Smartfounders offer a more sophisticated grade of resistance to thought experiment. Whereas the lower grades of resistance are merely fallacious, smartfounding often constitutes a penetrating internal critique of the thought experiment and sometimes of thought experiments in general.

     

The Effect of Positive Emotions with Different Arousal Levels on Thought–Action Repertoires1,2

This study examined whether the induction of different states of arousal via positive emotions broadens thought–action repertoires. Sixty-two Japanese undergraduate and graduate students were randomly assigned to (a) high-arousal positive emotion, (b) low-arousal positive emotion, and (c) neutral groups, after which they watched a 3-min film clip. Participants completed the Affect Grid to confirm their mood state before and after watching the film. Following this, they completed the Twenty Statements Test, which measures thought–action repertoires. A one-way analysis of variance was conducted on the Twenty Statements Test score. The results showed that high-arousal positive emotion broadened thought–action repertoires to a greater extent than did low-arousal positive emotion and the neutral state, while low-arousal positive emotion broadened such repertoires to a greater extent than did the neutral state. We discuss the different effects of high- and low-arousal positive emotions on thought–action repertoires.     

The Body's Response to Processing Emotional Trauma: Linking Verbal Text with Autonomic Activity

ABSTRACT When individuals talk or think about upsetting experiences, different coping and defensive processes are invoked from one minute to the next. Further, some coping strategies are thought to be more effortful and to be associated with greater biological activity than others. The present research sought to identify how the expression of emotions and the use of different psychological defenses were reflected in momentary changes in autonomic nervous system activity while subjects wrote about emotional topics. A new methodology is introduced that links the production of natural written language with autonomic activity on a word-by-word or phrase-by-phrase basis. Using this technique with a sample of 24 subjects who wrote about traumatic experiences, it was found that certain text dimensions are highly related to skin conductance level (SCL) but not heart rate. In general, subjects' SCLs increased when expressing negative emotions and when using denial and the passive voice. SCLs were more likely to drop when subjects used positive emotion words and self-references and at the conclusion of sentences or thought units. Implications for this methodology for understanding psychological defense and physical health are discussed.     

The emotions of professional writers

In this study, 24 professional writers completed a short pencil-and-paper questionnaire on which they indicated how they felt before, at a pause, and after specific writing episodes. The intensity with which they experienced 20 emotions was assessed, as was the frequency with which these emotions were experienced when writing in general. Results indicated that the professionals experienced positive emotions significantly more often when writing in general than they experienced either negative-active or negative-passive emotions. Negative-passive emotions such as boredom, shame, and shyness were particularly rare and weak. During the actual writing process, positive emotions tended to intensify, whereas negative-passive and negative-active emotions resisted change. Sponsorship of writing had little impact on the quality of emotions experienced during the process. The professional poets, however, experienced negative-active emotions significantly more often when writing in general than did the prose writers.     

Beyond positive and negative affect: Achievement goals and discrete emotions in the elementary physical education classroom

ObjectivesBased on the Achievement Goal perspective [Dweck, C. S., Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256–273; Nicholls, J. G. (1984). Achievement motivation: conceptions of ability, subjective experience, task choice, and performance. Psychological Review, 91, 328–346] and on Pekrun et al.'s [(2004). Beyond test anxiety: development and validation of the test emotions questionnaire (TEQ). Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 17, 287–316] model of discrete class-related emotions, this study investigated the relation of achievement goals to discrete emotions in the Physical Education (PE) class.DesignCross-sectional.MethodParticipants were 319 Greek upper elementary school students who responded to a set of questionnaires assessing their achievement goal orientation, perceived competence, and the class-related emotions they experienced in the PE classes.ResultsHierarchical regression analyses showed that, after controlling for perceived competence and gender differences, task goals were positively related to positive activating emotions and negatively related to negative emotions. Ego goals exhibited a mixed picture as they were positively associated with pride and all the negative emotions. Furthermore, the relations between ego goals and emotions were qualified by an ego by task goal and by an ego by perceived competence interaction suggesting that ego goals were especially linked to emotional maladjustment when task goals were low and when competence perceptions were high rather than low.ConclusionUnique associations between task and ego goals and specific emotions were found, rendering insightful the disentanglement of positive and negative emotions into its components. The pursuit of task goals might help to counteract the emotional burden associated with ego goal pursuit whereas feeling competent to outperform when one endorses ego goals might perhaps put extra pressure on the pupils and, hence, have negative implications for their emotional adjustment.     

Reassessing the dimensionality of the moral emotions

The dimensionality of the moral emotions was tested to examine whether theoretical distinctions between specific emotions were empirically supported. A total of 720 drink‐driving offenders indicated the degree to which they experienced feelings associated with the moral emotions, in an interview conducted after attending court or a restorative justice conference. Expected distinctions between shame and guilt were not found. Instead the principal components analysis identified three factors: shame‐guilt, embarrassment‐exposure, and unresolved shame. The results also show that shame‐guilt was related to higher feelings of empathy and lower feelings of anger/hostility. It is concluded that differences between shame and guilt may be overstated. Furthermore, it is suggested that the relationship between situational experiences of shame and the disposition to feel it may be more complicated than initially thought.     

Emotional consequences of collective action participation: differentiating self-directed and outgroup-directed emotions

The present research examines the emotional and behavioral consequences of collective action participation. It demonstrates that "positive" and "negative" emotions can be experienced simultaneously as a result of collective action participation, yet it is important to distinguish outgroup-directed from self-directed emotions. Results of two experiments (N = 71 and N = 101) that manipulated participation in collective action illustrate that whereas collective action participants experience more outgroup-directed anger and contempt, they feel more self-directed positive affect. Furthermore, collective action participation predicted willingness to engage in moderate and radical collective actions in the future. These relations were mediated by outgroup-directed, but not by self-directed, emotions, suggesting that outgroup-directed rather than self-directed emotions play a crucial role in the maintenance of protest behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Gender differences in perceptions of emotionality: The case of close heterosexual relationships

Previous research suggests some support for the stereotype that women are the more emotional gender, but very little research has examined whether women are more emotional than men in the context of close relationships. We examined gender differences in reports of emotions experienced and expressed in close heterosexual relationships. A sample of 197 couples (at different stages of relationship involvement), most of whom were white and from middle-class backgrounds, responded to a list of 25 positive and negative emotions three times. Participants indicated how often they experienced the emotions, how often they expressed the emotions, and how often they believed their partner experienced the emotions (all in the past month). Women reported experiencing several emotions to a greater frequency than men, regardless of degree of relationship involvement. Further, women reported being more emotionally expressive than men in dating and more advanced (e.g., engaged) relationships, but not in marital relationships. Finally, women believed that they were generally more emotional than men, whereas men believed that women were more emotional in the experience of negative but not positive emotions. The results were generally consistent with the stereotype that females are the more emotional gender.     

Quantifying the Value of Emotions Using a Willingness to Pay Approach

People generally seek out positive moods and avoid negative moods; however, it is unclear which motivation is more pronounced. Two studies addressed this issue by developing a value-based ranking of emotions based on the willingness to pay (WTP) approach. The approach utilizes money’s cardinal properties and assumes opportunity costs as with everyday purchases. In Study 1 British participants indicated they would be willing to pay more to experience positive than to avoid negative emotions. In Study 2 this positivity bias was replicated with another sample of British participants. However, Hong Kong Chinese participants did not show such a preference, and were willing to pay significantly less to experience positive emotions but more to avoid negative emotions when compared with British participants. Experiencing Love was given the highest WTP judgment in all samples. Thus, some emotions are universally valued, whereas preferences for others differ across cultural groups, perhaps shaped by norms. Implications concerning valuations of psychological states for policy purposes are discussed.