神经质程度和月经周期对女性主观情绪和生理反应的影响

分别选取两组神经质程度高、低女性16名和25名, 考察两组被试在月经周期不同阶段(经期、卵泡晚期、黄体中晚期)的激素(雌二醇、孕酮)波动以及观看情绪视频(中性、搞笑、悲伤、愤怒)的主观情绪感受和生理反应的差异。结果显示高神经质女性在月经周期中对负性情绪视频的主观情绪和生理反应变化明显, 黄体中晚期对愤怒视频主观情绪体验更低, 对悲伤视频生理反应更小, 而低神经质女性的情绪反应不受月经周期影响。研究表明高神经质女性的情绪反应更易受月经周期影响, 这可能与其对孕酮水平波动的敏感性高有关。     

Consistency in Physiological Stress Responses and Electromyographic Activity during Induced Stress Exposure in Women and Men

Physiological responses serve the role as objective indicators of stress as well as a link between psychosocial stress and various health outcomes. The aim of the present exposure session was to compare different physiological stress responses (systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, urinary epinephrine and norepinephrine, salivary cortisol) as well as trapezius muscle activity, measured by surface electromyography, during mental and physical stress in 11 women and ten men. The results show significantly increased activity in all measures but cortisol and significant associations between sympathetic arousal and EMG activity. The association between sympathetic arousal and muscle activity is of importance for understanding the high prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders in mentally stressful but physically light work tasks. Men had higher blood pressure and a more pronounced increase in epinephrine output than women, whereas women had higher heart rate. It was concluded that sympathetic activity is more sensitive to moderately intense stress exposure than pituitary adrenocortical (cortisol) activity and that men respond to performance stress with more epinephrine output than women. Although the correlations between the different indicators of sympathetic arousal were high, together they could still only explain 30-70% of the inter-individual variance. Thus, several parameters are needed in order to obtain a reliable measure of sympathetic activity.     

Thin,Sexy Women and Strong,Muscular Men: Grade-School Children's Responses to Objectified Images of Women and Men

There are data that show that women are objectified in the media, that girls and women experience a high rate of body dissatisfaction and eating problems, and that exposure to objectified media images of women is related to the experience of self-objectification and body shame among women. Media images of women promote a thin, sexy ideal. The objectification of men in the media has increased, perhaps promoting a “drive for muscularity” among boys. In the present study grade-school girls and boys ages 6 through 12 were shown four pictures of objectified images of women and men, respectively, and asked about their responses to the pictures. Although girls and boys responded equally positively to the objectified images of the people of their gender, girls showed a more consistent response to the pictures. Further, there were stronger relationships between girls' responses to the pictures, awareness and internalization of media images, and body esteem. Girls who consistently showed a rejection response to the pictures had higher body esteem than those girls who were uncertain about how to respond to the pictures. It was concluded that, perhaps due to cultural images and cultural pressures, girls more readily develop a consistent response to objectified images of women (than boys do to objectified images of men) that relates to their feelings about their own bodies.     

Interpersonal Transactions and Responses to Cold Pressor Pain among Australian Women and Men

This study was designed to assess how interpersonal transactions affect responses to painful stimulation among Australian women and men. Participants were 69 women and 49 men, randomly assigned to a No Transaction (NT) condition (coping alone) or one of three experimenter-initiated transactions (Distraction, Pain-Monitoring, Re-interpretation). Significant sex × transaction interactions for pain tolerance and reported pain revealed that pain responses of men did not differ as a function of transaction. However, women who coped alone had significantly less tolerance and more pain than men and women in other groups. In contrast, women engaged in re-interpretation transactions fared better on measures of pain perception than women engaged in distraction transactions, and they reported significantly less catastrophizing than did men in the re-interpretation condition. Together, findings replicate and extend recent evidence that suggests that women’s responses to noxious stimuli vary considerably as a result of interpersonal context.     

Self-Criticism Impacts Emotional Responses to Pain

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is associated with numerous negative outcomes (e.g., suicide attempts), making it a focus of great clinical concern. Yet, mechanisms reinforcing NSSI remain unclear. The benefits and barriers model proposes that NSSI engagement is determined by both benefits of and barriers to NSSI. Benefits include mood improvement, a function reported by most who engage in NSSI; barriers include a desire to avoid pain and bodily harm. Self-criticism is generally understood as a trait lowering desire to avoid pain and bodily harm, thus decreasing that specific barrier. However, recent research demonstrated that self-criticism may also increase NSSI benefits. Highly self-critical people may view NSSI and pain in the context of feeling deserving of pain and punishment—thus, pain may improve mood for self-critical individuals. We tested whether self-criticism impacted emotional responding to pain among adult females with (n = 44) and without (n = 65) NSSI histories. After a negative mood induction, participants rated their moods before, during, and after self-administered pain. In participants with and without NSSI histories, self-criticism was positively correlated with mood improvements during pain. Thus, regardless of NSSI history, self-criticism impacted emotional responses to pain. Together, results suggest that self-criticism may not only decrease an important NSSI barrier but also enhance NSSI benefits, specifically leading to more mood improvement during pain.     

Emotional Responses to Music: Interactive Effects of Mode,Texture, and Tempo

Although much research has explored emotional responses to music using single musical elements, none has explored the interactive effects of mode, texture, and tempo in a single experiment. To this end, a 2 (mode: major vs. minor) × 2 (texture: nonharmonized vs. harmonized) × 3 (tempo: 72, 108, 144 beats per min) within-participants experimental design was employed, in which 177 college students rated four, brief musical phrases on continuous happy-sad scales. Major keys, nonharmonized melodies, and faster tempos were associated with happier responses, whereas their respective opposites were associated with sadder responses. These effects were also interactive, such that the typically positive association between tempo and happiness was inverted among minor, nonharmonized phrases. Some of these effects were moderated by the gender and amount of musical experience of participants. A principal components analysis of responses to the stimuli revealed one negatively and one positively valenced factor of emotional musical stimuli.     

Social and Emotional Loneliness Among Divorced and Married Men and Women: Comparing the Deficit and Cognitive Perspectives

Data from the 1998 survey “Divorce in the Netherlands” (N = 2,223) are used to analyze differences in loneliness among divorced and married men and women. The results indicate that it makes sense to distinguish social from emotional loneliness. This is consistent with the deficit perspective, which posits that the absence of specific types of relationships is associated with specific forms of loneliness. Whereas social loneliness is largely attributable to support network deficits, emotional loneliness is associated with the absence of a partner. In line with the cognitive perspective, the results show that greater insight into loneliness is obtained when discrepancies in relationships are considered. Divorcees who attach great importance to having a partner and people whose marriages are conflict ridden tend to have the highest levels of emotional loneliness. Our study shows that to explain loneliness, one should take not only characteristics of people's relationships into consideration, but also their relationship preferences. The investment hypothesis, which also follows from the cognitive perspective, is not supported by the data. There is no indication that those who attach greater importance to having a partner invest less in relationships with friends, relatives, and colleagues and therefore show high levels of social loneliness. Consistent gender differences are observed: Men, regardless of partner status, tend to attach greater importance to having a partner than do women, and they tend to have smaller support networks and higher levels of social loneliness. Among the divorced, men are more apt to suffer from emotional loneliness than are women.     

Automaticity and the Amygdala: Nonconscious Responses to Emotional Faces

The human face is an evolved adaptation for social communication. This implies that humans are genetically prepared to produce facial gestures that are automatically decoded by observers. Psychophysiological data demonstrate that humans respond automatically with their facial muscles, with autonomic responses, and with specific regional brain activation of the amygdala when exposed to emotionally expressive faces. Attention is preferentially and automatically oriented toward facial threat. Neuropsychological data, as well as a rapidly expanding brain-imaging literature, implicate the amygdala as a central structure for responding to negative emotional faces, and particularly to fearful ones. However, the amygdala may not be specialized for processing emotional faces, but may instead respond to faces because they provide important information for the defense appraisal that is its primary responsibility.     

Gender and Emotions at Work: Organizational Rank Has Greater Emotional Benefits for Men than Women

Sex Roles - The way people feel is important for how they behave and perform in the workplace. Experiencing more positive?and less negative?emotions at work is often associated with...     

Forewarning of a Threat and Prior Knowledge of Outcome Effects on Children's Emotional Responses to a Film Sequence

An experiment examined the influence of prior information on children's emotional responses to a frightening program. Children at two age levels (5–7 and 9–11 years) viewed a program that included a threatening scene and a happy resolution. Before viewing, they heard one of four audiotaped introductions created by factorially varying information about the threat (forewarning, no forewarning) and the happy outcome (prior knowledge, no prior knowledge). Emotional responses were assessed through self-reports, facial expressions (coded using hard's Affex coding scheme), and skin temperature (as an index of physiological arousal). Self-reports of emotion revealed that forewarning of the threat increased anticipatory fear but did not affect emotional responses to the threatening scene. Prior knowledge of the happy outcome tended to reduce anticipatory fear but had a somewhat inconsistent effect on fear during the threatening scene. Changes in skin temperature over time were consistent with predictions, but no effects of the manipulations emerged for facial expressions of negative affect. Expected age differences were not observed for either type of prior information. Responses to the happy outcome were also examined. Children's reports of coping strategies and the results of manipulation checks were considered in interpreting the findings.     

Effects of Additional Men on Prestige and Desirability of Occupations Typically Performed by Women

To examine the effects of masculine participation in occupations typically performed by women, 200 subjects rated the prestige and desirability of five occupations following information that proportions of male practitioners would increase or remain constant Findings showed that increased participation by men increased the prestige and desirability of all occupations. Ratings on 12 bipolar adjective scales from the semantic differential showed that increases in prestige and desirability were accompanied by attributions of increased activity, security, usefulness, success, and wealth to occupations admitting additional men.     

Engaging in Distancing Tactics Among Sport Fans: Effects on Self-Esteem and Emotional Responses

Abstract

The authors examined the effects of distancing tactics on self-esteem and emotions, following a win or loss of one's favorite team. They measured state self-esteem and emotional responses of basketball fans as they exited the sport arena after their team had won or lost an official game. Half of the fans were given the opportunity to increase or decrease their association with the team before the measures of self-esteem and emotions; the remaining fans were given the opportunity after the measures. The fans tended to associate more with the team after team success than after team failure. In addition, self-esteem and positive emotions were higher, and negative emotions lower, when measured after, rather than before, the opportunity to increase or decrease association with the team. Those effects were more pronounced among high-team-identification fans than among low-team-identification fans. The results suggest a distinction between the short- and long-term effects of game outcome on the willingness to associate with one's team. In the short term, willingness to associate with the team may oscillate in accordance with team performance, even among high-team-identification fans; in the long term, only high-team-identification fans may maintain their allegiance to the team.     

Assessing the Relationship Between Cold Pressor Pain Responses and Dimensions of the Anxiety Sensitivity Profile in Healthy Men and Women

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been shown previously to be an important factor in the perception and experience of experimentally induced pain within healthy adults. The aim of the current study was to extend this research by: (i) using the Anxiety Sensitivity Profile (ASP) as an alternative measure of AS; (ii) examining whether different coping instructions affect pain reports; and (iii) investigating potential differences between men and women. Participants were 50 healthy adults (23 males, 27 females) who were required to complete 2 versions of the cold pressor pain task; one version required the use of control instructions, whereas the other made use of acceptance‐based instructions. Although the coping instructions were found to affect pain thresholds (acceptance resulted in lower thresholds), a similar pattern of correlations were found between the pain indexes and AS under both conditions. Of the ASP subscales, the gastrointestinal and cognitive concerns components were found to be the most strongly related to pain experiences. When the analysis was conducted separately for each sex, the ASP scales were related to the self‐report measures of pain in women, whereas they were related to the behavioural measures of pain in men. These results not only confirm that AS is associated with experimental pain, but that there may be sex differences in this relationship.     

Blood Pressure and Emotional Responses to Stress: Perspectives on Cardiovascular Reactivity

It has long been thought that increases in blood pressure in response to stress are associated with emotional responses to stress. The health implications of such an association are clear; excessive emotional reactivity leads to excessive cardiovascular reactivity (CVR), which is associated with cardiovascular disease. However, the data do not support a strong association between CVR and emotional responses to acute stress. This lack of support has lead to research that interprets CVR to stress in at least three different ways: (1) as a potential contributor to disease development, (2) as an index of active coping, or (3) as a multidimensional construct that is affected by cognitive appraisals of a situation. In this article, we review these separate perspectives on CVR and suggest that a multidimensional perspective of CVR and emotional responding to stress may help integrate the CVR – health, effort, and appraisal points of view.