Investigating the role of time in affective forecasting: temporal influences on forecasting accuracy

Using extensive diary data from people taking their driver's license exam, the authors investigated the role of time in affective forecasting accuracy. Replicating existing findings, participants grossly overestimated the intensity and duration of their negative affect after failure and only slightly overestimated the intensity and duration of their positive affect after success. Extending existing findings, participants accurately predicted a decrease of their affective reactions over time but underestimated the speed with which this decrease would occur. In addition, they showed greater forecasting accuracy for positive affect than negative affect when the exam was distant and greater forecasting accuracy for negative affect than positive affect when the exam was close. The motivational processes underlying these findings are being discussed.     

特质正念对初中生学业情绪预测偏差的影响

基于真实考试和实验室模拟情境, 考察特质正念对初中生学业情绪预测偏差的影响及其机制。结果表明：(1)学业领域存在情绪预测偏差; (2)特质正念影响情绪预测偏差, 特质正念水平高的初中生情绪预测偏差相对更小, 反之则更大; (3)注意聚焦在特质正念影响情绪预测偏差中存在中介作用。本研究初步提出正念的“扩大-联结”解释模型, 推进了学业领域情绪预测的研究, 具有良好的生态学效度和切实的教育实践价值。     

Mindfulness meditation is associated with decreases in partner negative affect in daily life

To date, very little research has examined the extrapersonal effects of mindfulness meditation practice. In this study, we investigated whether individual meditation practice exerted an influence on friends or romantic partners. Thirty-five dyads completed an 8-week single-subject protocol using an A-B-A-B design to compare non-meditation phases with meditation phases. One member of each pair was randomly assigned to meditate daily for 15 min during the B-phases of the study; the other dyad member did not meditate in either the A or B phases. Daily diaries for each participant assessed negative affect, positive affect, and facets of mindfulness. For participants in the intermittent meditation condition, meditation was associated with decreased negative affect, increased positive affect, and higher scores on the mindfulness facets of observing, describing, and nonreactivity to inner experience. Results further demonstrated that the negative affect of non-meditating partners decreased during the weeks that their partner meditated and was lower on days that their partner meditated. We did not find similar results for positive affect or mindfulness at the group level. Exploratory analyses suggested that the extrapersonal effects of meditation days on a partner's negative affect might be stronger in romantic couples. This study indicates that 15 min of daily meditation in novice meditators can decrease the negative affect of relationship partners.     

Does mindfulness attenuate thoughts emphasizing negativity,but not positivity?

The current research investigated whether mindfulness is differentially associated with thoughts that emphasize positive or negative valence. In Study 1, trait mindfulness was inversely associated with negative rumination but unassociated with positive rumination, controlling for state affect. In Study 2, participants completed either a mindful breathing meditation or a comparable control exercise, followed by a thought listing while viewing affective images. Compared to the control condition, the mindfulness condition listed proportionately fewer negative thoughts, particularly in response to negative images, and more non-valenced thoughts. The conditions did not differ in their proportions of positive thoughts. These results suggest that mindfulness may attenuate thoughts that emphasize negativity but not those that emphasize positivity.     

A Conservation of Resources Perspective on Negative Affect and Innovative Work Behaviour: the Role of Affect Activation and Mindfulness

The present study aimed to clarify the inconsistent relationship between negative affect and innovative work behaviour by taking into account the role of affect activation and mindfulness. Building on the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesized that low-activated negative affect can be associated with increased innovativeness, but only for employees with high levels of mindfulness. Conversely, high-activated negative affect is expected to have a positive, direct relationship with innovative work behaviour. Data were collected from two independent samples, namely 163 French Canadian and 101 Italian employees. Consistent with our predictions, multiple regression analysis results showed that low-activated negative affect was positively related to innovative behaviour only when mindfulness was high (vs. low), whereas high-activated negative affect was directly associated with higher innovativeness. Our findings challenge the assumption that low-activated negative affects are associated with undermined innovative behaviour, suggesting that these affective states can be related to increased innovativeness if employees are mindful. On the other hand, they support the view that high-activated negative affects provide the energizing potential for instigating innovative actions. This study is unique in examining mindfulness as a moderator that is capable of shaping the link between deactivating negative affect and employee innovativeness. As such, it answers recent calls for research on how mindfulness can contribute to workplace functioning. Moreover, this is the first study to take into account the role of activation level in the negative affect-innovative work behaviour relationship.     

Self-affirmation and affective forecasting: Affirmation reduces the anticipated impact of negative events

When forecasting how they will feel in the future, people overestimate the impact that imagined negative events will have on their affective states, partly because they underestimate their own psychological resiliency. Because self-affirmation enhances resiliency, two studies examined whether self-affirmation prior to forecasting reduces the extremity of affective forecasts. Participants in self-affirmation conditions completed a values scale or wrote an essay asserting their most important value, whereas participants in the no-affirmation condition asserted a relatively unimportant value. Participants then predicted their affective reactions to a negative or positive imagined event. In both studies, self-affirmation reduced the unpleasant affect expected to result from a negative event, but had no impact on affective forecasts for a positive event. This pattern was mediated by participants’ cognitive appraisals of the imagined event, but not by differential focus on that event. Results are consistent with self-affirmation activating or enhancing psychological resiliency to counteract immune neglect during affective forecasting of a negative event.     

心理理论与社会互动方式对初中生社会善念发展的影响

为了探讨初中生社会善念的发展特点及相关影响因素,实验1采用卡通插图范式和SoMi范式,以628名7~9年级初中生为被试,考察不同心理理论类型初中生的社会善念的发展;实验2使用社会互动情境和SoMi范式,以360名7~9年级初中生为被试,考察社会互动方式与反馈类型对不同年级初中生社会善念的影响。结果发现:(1)初中生的社会善念不存在年级和性别差异,但7年级中高情感心理理论初中生的社会善念显著多于高认知心理理论初中生;(2)7年级初中生在积极反馈条件下的社会善念较多,而8年级初中生在消极反馈条件下较多,9年级初中生在这两种条件下则不存在显著差异;(3)在合作情境中,初中生在积极反馈下的社会善念更多,而在竞争情境中,初中生在消极反馈下的社会善念更多。研究说明初中生的社会善念具有跨年龄和跨性别的稳定性,并且会受到心理理论、社会互动方式及反馈类型的影响。     

Mindfulness reduces habitual responding based on implicit knowledge: Evidence from artificial grammar learning

Participants were unknowingly exposed to complex regularities in a working memory task. The existence of implicit knowledge was subsequently inferred from a preference for stimuli with similar grammatical regularities. Several affective traits have been shown to influence AGL performance positively, many of which are related to a tendency for automatic responding. We therefore tested whether the mindfulness trait predicted a reduction of grammatically congruent preferences, and used emotional primes to explore the influence of affect. Mindfulness was shown to correlate negatively with grammatically congruent responses. Negative primes were shown to result in faster and more negative evaluations. We conclude that grammatically congruent preference ratings rely on habitual responses, and that our findings provide empirical evidence for the non-reactive disposition of the mindfulness trait.     

正念对亲社会行为的影响

正念在促进亲社会行为上的表现逐渐受到关注,越来越多的研究者针对正念对亲社会行为的影响展开探索。已有的理论研究认为正念可以通过提高注意力、身体意识、去具体化能力、积极情感体验、情绪调节能力和减少自我感来促进亲社会行为; 实证研究结果表明,特质正念能够正向预测亲社会行为,正念干预通过提高共情能力、同情体验、情绪调节能力以及去自动化认知来促进亲社会行为。未来研究需要在完善系统的正念—亲社会行为理论框架基础上,进一步挖掘正念对亲社会行为的不同影响及其机制,关注潜在的消极影响,同时发展生态效度更高的研究方法或指标来考量正念与亲社会行为之间的关系,提升正念干预对亲社会行为影响的长期有效性与普适性。     

Motivated prediction of future feelings: effects of negative mood and mood orientation on affective forecasts

This article examines the role of motivational factors in affective forecasting. The primary hypothesis was that people predict positive emotional reactions to future events when they are motivated to enhance their current feelings. Three experiments manipulated participants' moods (negative vs. neutral) and orientation toward their moods (reflective vs. ruminative) and then assessed the positivity of their affective predictions for future events. As hypothesized, when participants adopted a reflective orientation, and thus should have been motivated to engage in mood-regulation processes, they predicted more positive feelings in the negative than in the neutral mood condition. This pattern of mood-incongruent affective prediction was not exhibited when participants adopted a ruminative orientation. Additionally, within the negative mood condition, generating affective forecasts had a more positive emotional impact on reflectors than on ruminators. The findings suggest that affective predictions are sometimes driven by mood-regulatory motives.     

Mindfulness and the attenuation of post-event processing in social phobia: an experimental investigation

The present experimental study examined the ability of metacognitive strategies to reduce the distress associated with post-event processing (PEP). Individuals with DSM-IV generalized social phobia (N = 57) were randomly allocated to receive brief training in mindfulness, distraction, or no training (control group). Next, they underwent an experimental PEP induction. Following the induction, they were instructed to apply the metacognitive strategy (mindfulness or distraction) they were taught or to continue thinking about the social event the way they typically would following such an event (control). Participants rated their distress on a visual analogue scale prior to the PEP induction, and then every minute for 5 min while applying the metacognitive strategy. They also rated their affect immediately after applying the metacognitive strategy. Results suggest that mindfulness reduces distress significantly over the post-event period and results in significantly more positive affect than when receiving no training. In contrast, distraction does not reduce distress over the post-event period performs comparable to receiving no training. The results of this experimental investigation suggest that mindfulness has the potential to reduce distress associated with PEP and provide further support for the clinical utility of mindfulness in the treatment of generalized social phobia.     

Mindfulness and psychological well-being among black South African university students and their relatives

This study investigated the relationship between mindfulness and psychological well-being in a convenience sample of black South African students (n = 203) and their parents and other relatives (n = 204) (66.1% = female; age range 18–73). The students self-reported on their mindfulness on the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale and psychological well-being on the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, Adult Trait Hope Scale and the Meaning in Life Questionnaire. A multivariate regression model was specified and analysed via structural equation modelling in Mplus 7.3. Results revealed that mindfulness scores strongly predicted elevated levels of meaning and positive affect, and lowered levels of negative effect, and were moderately strong predictors of life satisfaction and hope. The findings imply that mindfulness likely plays an important role in relation to the psychological well-being of cross-generational African culture community members.     

Happy but overconfident: positive affect leads to inaccurate metacomprehension

When learning from text, it is important that learners not only comprehend the information provided but also accurately monitor and judge their comprehension, which is known as metacomprehension accuracy. To investigate the role of a learner’s affective state for text comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy, we conducted an experiment with N?=?103 university students in whom we induced positive, negative, or neutral affect. Positive affect resulted in poorer text comprehension than neutral affect. Positive affect also led to overconfident predictions, whereas negative and neutral affect were both associated with quite accurate predictions. Independent of affect, postdictions were rather underconfident. The results suggest that positive affect bears processing disadvantages for achieving deep comprehension and adequate prediction accuracy. Given that postdictions were more accurate, practice tests might represent an effective instructional method to help learners in a positive affective state to accurately judge their text comprehension.     

Mindfulness and its relationship to emotional regulation

Research on the effectiveness and mechanisms of mindfulness training applied in psychotherapy is still in its infancy (Erisman & Roemer, 2010). For instance, little is known about the extent and processes through which mindfulness practice improves emotion regulation. This experience sampling study assessed the relationship between mindfulness, emotion differentiation, emotion lability, and emotional difficulties. Young adult participants reported their current emotional experiences 6 times per day during 1 week on a PalmPilot device. Based on these reports of emotions, indices of emotional differentiation and emotion lability were composed for negative and positive emotions. Mindfulness was associated with greater emotion differentiation and less emotional difficulties (i.e., emotion lability and self-reported emotion dysregulation). Mediational models indicated that the relationship between mindfulness and emotion lability was mediated by emotion differentiation. Furthermore, emotion regulation mediated the relationship between mindfulness and both negative emotion lability and positive emotion differentiation. This experience sampling study indicates that self-reported levels of mindfulness are related to higher levels of differentiation of one's discrete emotional experiences in a manner reflective of effective emotion regulation.     

Mindfulness and the Attenuation of Post-Event Processing in Social Phobia: An Experimental Investigation

The present experimental study examined the ability of metacognitive strategies to reduce the distress associated with post-event processing (PEP). Individuals with DSM-IV generalized social phobia (N = 57) were randomly allocated to receive brief training in mindfulness, distraction, or no training (control group). Next, they underwent an experimental PEP induction. Following the induction, they were instructed to apply the metacognitive strategy (mindfulness or distraction) they were taught or to continue thinking about the social event the way they typically would following such an event (control). Participants rated their distress on a visual analogue scale prior to the PEP induction, and then every minute for 5 min while applying the metacognitive strategy. They also rated their affect immediately after applying the metacognitive strategy. Results suggest that mindfulness reduces distress significantly over the post-event period and results in significantly more positive affect than when receiving no training. In contrast, distraction does not reduce distress over the post-event period performs comparable to receiving no training. The results of this experimental investigation suggest that mindfulness has the potential to reduce distress associated with PEP and provide further support for the clinical utility of mindfulness in the treatment of generalized social phobia.     

Affective forecasting and self-rated symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hypomania: evidence for a dysphoric forecasting bias

Emerging research has examined individual differences in affective forecasting; however, we are aware of no published study to date linking psychopathology symptoms to affective forecasting problems. Pitting cognitive theory against depressive realism theory, we examined whether dysphoria was associated with negatively biased affective forecasts or greater accuracy. Participants (n=325) supplied predicted and actual emotional reactions for three days surrounding an emotionally evocative relational event, Valentine's Day. Predictions were made a month prior to the holiday. Consistent with cognitive theory, we found evidence for a dysphoric forecasting bias-the tendency of individuals in dysphoric states to overpredict negative emotional reactions to future events. The dysphoric forecasting bias was robust across ratings of positive and negative affect, forecasts for pleasant and unpleasant scenarios, continuous and categorical operationalisations of dysphoria, and three time points of observation. Similar biases were not observed in analyses examining the independent effects of anxiety and hypomania. Findings provide empirical evidence for the long-assumed influence of depressive symptoms on future expectations. The present investigation has implications for affective forecasting studies examining information-processing constructs, decision making, and broader domains of psychopathology.     

"How long will I suffer?" versus "How long will you suffer?" A self-other effect in affective forecasting

This research presents evidence that people predict longer durations of negative affect for others than for themselves. It is argued that this self-other effect is based on the asymmetric availability of knowledge about psychological strategies that reduce negative affective experiences. Specifically, because people have available knowledge about their own coping strategies, they use this information when making predictions about their affect. The lack of information about others' coping strategies leads to longer predictions of affect duration for others, creating the self-other effect. A series of studies demonstrated this self-other effect, its source, and its boundary conditions. Specifically, the self-other effect occurred for negative but not for positive events, it was stronger when participants predicted affect duration for unfamiliar others than when participants predicted affect duration for familiar others, and the impact of the self versus other focus on affective forecasts was mediated by the availability of knowledge about coping strategies. In addition, alternative explanations for the self-other effect were ruled out. The implications for biases in affective forecasting are discussed.     

Mindfulness training effects for parents and educators of children with special needs

Parents and teachers of children with special needs face unique social-emotional challenges in carrying out their caregiving roles. Stress associated with these roles impacts parents' and special educators' health and well-being, as well as the quality of their parenting and teaching. No rigorous studies have assessed whether mindfulness training (MT) might be an effective strategy to reduce stress and cultivate well-being and positive caregiving in these adults. This randomized controlled study assessed the efficacy of a 5-week MT program for parents and educators of children with special needs. Participants receiving MT showed significant reductions in stress and anxiety and increased mindfulness, self-compassion, and personal growth at program completion and at 2 months follow-up in contrast to waiting-list controls. Relational competence also showed significant positive changes, with medium-to-large effect sizes noted on measures of empathic concern and forgiveness. MT significantly influenced caregiving competence specific to teaching. Mindfulness changes at program completion mediated outcomes at follow-up, suggesting its importance in maintaining emotional balance and facilitating well-being in parents and teachers of children with developmental challenges. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

催产素对社会善念的提升作用

两个实验考察催产素对社会善念的作用以及面孔吸引力对二者关系的影响。实验1采用双盲实验，使用安慰剂作对照，发现催产素可以促进社会善念，不受面孔性别的影响。实验2依然采用双盲实验，进一步考察面孔吸引力与面孔性别对催产素与社会善念关系的作用，发现催产素对社会善念的作用不受面孔吸引力的影响；女性面孔（与男性面孔相比）吸引力对男性的社会善念影响更大。研究表明，催产素可以稳定地提高社会善念水平。