Affect intensity and processing fluency of deterrents

The theory of emotional intensity (Brehm, 1999) suggests that the intensity of affective states depends on the magnitude of their current deterrents. Our study investigated the role that fluency—the subjective experience of ease of information processing—plays in the emotional intensity modulations as reactions to deterrents. Following an induction phase of good mood, we manipulated both the magnitude of deterrents (using sets of photographs with pre-tested potential to instigate an emotion incompatible with the pre-existent affective state—pity) and their processing fluency (normal vs. enhanced through subliminal priming). Current affective state and perception of deterrents were then measured. In the normal processing conditions, the results revealed the cubic effect predicted by the emotional intensity theory, with the initial affective state being replaced by the one appropriate to the deterrent only in participants exposed to the high magnitude deterrence. In the enhanced fluency conditions the emotional intensity pattern was drastically altered; also, the replacement of the initial affective state occurred at a lower level of deterrence magnitude (moderate instead of high), suggesting the strengthening of deterrence emotional impact by enhanced fluency.     

Primal emotional-affective expressive foundations of human facial expression

Emotional facial expressions provide important insights into various valenced feelings of humans. Recent cross-species neuroscientific advances offer insights into molecular foundations of mammalian affects and hence, by inference, the related emotional/affective facial expressions in humans. This is premised on deep homologies based on affective neuroscience studies of valenced primary emotional systems across species. Thus, emerging theoretical perspectives suggest that ancient cross-species emotional systems are intimately linked not only to emotional action patterns evident in all mammals, but also, by inference, distinct emotional facial expressions studied intensively in humans. Thus, the goal of the present theoretical work was to relate categories of human emotional facial expressions—e.g. especially of anger fear, joy and sadness—to respective underlying primary cross-mammalian emotional circuits. This can potentially provide coherent theoretical frameworks for the eventual molecular study of emotional facial expressions in humans.     

Nietzsche on the sociality of emotional experience

In this paper, I explore the sociality of emotional experience in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. Specifically, I describe four key mechanisms through which an individual's sociocultural context shapes her emotional experience on Nietzsche's view—emotional contagion as habitual affective mimicry, the production of emotions' felt character through the assimilation of dominant social beliefs and norms, affective interpretation à la Christopher Fowles, and the imposition of dominant notions of emotional appropriateness—fleshing out a dimension of Nietzsche's thought which is largely taken for granted but remains undertreated. After detailing these mechanisms, I argue that attending to the sociality of emotional experience in Nietzsche's thought is crucial not only for understanding key elements of his moral psychology (including certain of his reflections on freedom and self-transformation), but also for understanding his interpretation of nihilism as a psychological-affective phenomenon produced by the society to which one belongs. On Nietzsche's view, attending to the sociality of emotion helps individuals recognize the way in which the sociocultural contexts they inhabit might undermine their flourishing—and also helps them envision the conditions (especially sociocultural conditions) requisite for healthier, more empowering emotional lives.     

Contradictions of emotion in schizophrenia

This paper considers contradictory features of emotional or affective experience and expression in schizophrenia in light of the “Kretschmerian paradox”—the fact that schizophrenia-spectrum patients can simultaneously experience both exaggerated and diminished levels of affective response. An attempt is made to explain the paradox and explore its implications. Recent research on emotion in schizophrenia is reviewed, including subjective reports, psychophysiological measures of arousal or activation, and behavioural measures, focusing on flat-affect and negative-symptom patients. After discussing relevant concepts and vocabulary of emotion (“affect”, “emotion”, “mood”, “feelings”, the “passions”), the need for a phenomenological approach focusing on subjective experience is proposed. Four modes of nonparanoid experience in schizophrenia are discussed: Bodily Alienation, Disengagement, Unworlding, and Subjectivisation. Each mode involves withdrawal from functional contexts—temporal, practical, and interpersonal—normally associated with emotional reactivity and expression; each may be accompanied by forms of non-emotional affectivity no less intense than the emotions they replace. Possible relationships between psychophysiological measures, expressive behaviour, and subjective emotional or affective response are considered.     

Emotional flexibility and recovery from pain

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between two aspects of emotional flexibility (EF, i.e. flexible emotional responsiveness and affective flexibility) and tolerance for, and recovery from, experimentally-induced pain. Fifty-two adults completed a flexible emotional responsiveness task in which emotional responses on multiple dimensions were registered while watching positive and negative pictures. Affective flexibility was measured using a switching task with positive and negative pictures. Pain tolerance was assessed as the time participants endured an ischemic pain task and total time until recovery in terms of pain intensity and pain unpleasantness was registered. Flexible emotional responsiveness—reflected in divergent corrugator responses to positive and negative stimuli—was associated with faster recovery from pain unpleasantness. Affective flexibility was associated with recovery in terms of pain intensity, with faster switches from neutral towards affective aspects of positive stimuli being predictive of faster recovery. Results did not provide evidence for an association between EF and pain tolerance. The findings suggest that EF may protect against pain persistence.

     

It's My Campaign I'll Cry if I Want to: How and When Campaigns Use Emotional Appeals

Recent research in the area of campaign advertising suggests that emotional appeals can influence political attitudes, electoral choices and decision‐making processes. Yet is there any evidence that candidates use emotional appeals strategically during campaigns? Is there a pattern to their use? For instance, are fear appeals used primarily late in the campaign by trailing candidates in order to get voters to rethink their choices? And are enthusiasm appeals used more commonly early on in order to shore up a candidate's base? We use affective intelligence theory—and supplement it with the idea of a voter backlash—to generate expectations about when candidates use certain emotional appeals (namely, anger, fear, enthusiasm, and pride) and which types of candidates are most likely to do so. We then test these ideas using campaign advertising data from several U.S. Senate races from 2004. Our research thus provides a link between research on campaign decision making—here the decision to “go emotional”—and research focusing on the effects of emotional appeals on voters.     

Fast and unintentional evaluation of emotional sounds: evidence from brief segment ratings and the affective Simon task

In the present study, we raised the question of whether valence information of natural emotional sounds can be extracted rapidly and unintentionally. In a first experiment, we collected explicit valence ratings of brief natural sound segments. Results showed that sound segments of 400 and 600?ms duration—and with some limitation even sound segments as short as 200?ms—are evaluated reliably. In a second experiment, we introduced an auditory version of the affective Simon task to assess automatic (i.e. unintentional and fast) evaluations of sound valence. The pattern of results indicates that affective information of natural emotional sounds can be extracted rapidly (i.e. after a few hundred ms long exposure) and in an unintentional fashion.     

The Virtue Blind Spot: Do Affective Forecasting Errors Undermine Virtuous Behavior?

Why is it difficult to be virtuous? Although cultural wisdom teaches that cultivating virtue brings happiness—and empirical studies have demonstrated the long‐term benefits of acting virtuously—many people seem to behave as though exercising virtues is difficult, or even painful. When it comes to virtue, any benefits for the self may seem distant: short‐term pain for long‐term gain. We propose, however, that behaving virtuously often provides affective benefits even in the short term, but these benefits are obscured by systematic affective forecasting errors. Using five virtues (humanity, wisdom, courage, temperance, and transcendence), we demonstrate that people tend to feel happier after acting virtuously. We also show that people do not realize that these short‐term emotional benefits will occur; when asked to predict how they will feel, people make inaccurate affective forecasts. We argue that these affective forecasting errors drive people away from the exercise of virtue.     

The effects of valence‐based and discrete emotional states on aesthetic response

There is increasing recognition that consumer aesthetics—the responses of consumers to the aesthetic or appearance aspects of products—has become an important area of marketing in recent years. Consumer aesthetic responses to a product are a source of pleasure for the consumer. Previous research into the aesthetic responses to products has often emphasized exterior factors and visual design, but studies have seldom considered the psychological aesthetic experience of consumers, and in particular their emotional state. This study attempts to bridge this gap by examining the link between consumers’ emotions and their aesthetic response to a product. Thus, the major goal of this study was to determine how valence‐based and discrete emotional states influence choice. In Studies 1 and 2, positive and negative emotions were manipulated to implement two different induction techniques and explore the effect of emotions on participants’ choices in two separate experiments. The results of both experiments confirmed the predictions, indicating that aesthetic responses and purchase intention are functions of emotional valence, such that both are stronger for people in a positive emotional state than for those in a negative emotional state. Study 2 also used a neutral affective state to establish the robustness of this observed effect of incidental affect. The results of Study 3 demonstrate that aesthetic response and purchase intention are not only a function of affect valence, but also are affected by the certainty appraisal associated with specific affective states. This research, therefore, contributes to the literature by offering empirical evidence that incidental affect is a determinant of aesthetic response.     

The effects of dispositional empathy on emotional reactions and helping: A multidimensional approach

Recent research indicates that an affective state termed empathic emotion, and characterized by feelings of sympathy and compassion for another, is associated with altruistic responding. That is, persons experiencing high levels of empathic emotion offer help to another even when escape from the situation is easy. Persons experiencing high levels of another emotional state—personal distress—help much less when escape from the situation is easy. A study was conducted to test two related hypotheses. The first was that individual differences in empathy can influence empathic emotion and personal distress, above and beyond the influence of situational factors. The second hypothesis was that this effect of individual differences is due to variation in emotional and not cognitive empathy. The results provide support for both hypotheses. Regarding hypothesis 1, a significantly greater proportion of the variance in emotional reactions was accounted for when individual difference factors were included as predictors. Hypothesis 2 was also supported: It was found that a dispositional measure of emotional empathy was clearly related, and a dispositional measure of cognitive empathy was clearly unrelated, to these emotional reactions. The results provide support for a multidimensional view of empathy.     

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。     

Rethinking Affective Experience and Popular Emotion: World War I and the Construction of Group Emotion in International Relations

Research in International Relations (IR) frequently confronts claims about the emotions shared by members of a group. While much attention has been devoted to the potential for affective and emotional experience beyond the individual level, IR scholars have said less about the politics of invoking popular emotion. This article addresses that gap. Specifically, we argue that between individual—and even shared—affective experience on the one hand and group‐based “popular emotion” on the other exists not mechanisms of aggregation but rather processes of framing, projection, and propagation that are deeply political. We distinguish between two tropes that commonly structure references to popular emotion: communal emotion, the idealized attribution of an authentic, unifying emotional response of “the people,” and mass emotion, a volatile and potentially dangerous mob‐like reaction, but one also susceptible to manipulation. Using the outbreak of World War I as a showcase, we demonstrate the political significance of popular emotion, including its enduring relevance for understanding contemporary populism.     

Posttraumatic stress and worry as mediators and moderators between political stressors and emotional and behavioral disorders in Palestinian children

This study was designed to assess whether the symptoms of posttraumatic stress mediate or moderate the relationship between political stressors and emotional and behavioral disorders in Palestinian children. It was hypothesized that (a) posttraumatic stress and worry mediate the effect of political stressors on behavioral and emotional disorders and (b) the relationship between political stressors and behavioral and emotional disorders should be attenuated for children with low levels of worry and posttraumatic stress and strengthened for children with high levels of worry and posttraumatic stress. The total sample was 1267 school age children of both sexes with a mean age of 11.97 years. Interviews were conducted with children at school. As hypothesized, the results indicated that posttraumatic stress and worry mediated and moderated the relationship between political stressors and emotional and behavioral disorders in children. Cognitive-behavioral therapy may be used to reduce the incidence of posttraumatic stress and decrease self-reported worry, somatic symptoms, general anxiety, and depression among children exposed to political trauma. Cognitive-behavioral treatment that exclusively targets excessive worry can lead to clinical change in the other interacting subsystems at the cognitive, physiological, affective and behavioral levels.     

Concern-induced negative affect is associated with the occurrence and content of mind-wandering

Previous research has shown that the content and frequency of mind-wandering episodes—the occurrence of thoughts that are both stimulus-independent and task-unrelated—are closely related to an individual’s future-related concerns. Whether this relationship is shaped by the affective changes that are usually associated with future-related concerns still remains unclear, however. In this study, we induced the anticipation of a negatively valenced event and examined whether the ensuing affective changes were related to the occurrence and content of mind-wandering during an unrelated attentional task. We found that the increase in negative affect following concern induction predicted the general frequency of mind-wandering episodes. Furthermore, mind-wandering episodes specifically directed at the induced concern were related to a lower decrease in negative affect during the attentional task. These results suggest that the negative emotional impact of future-related concerns is an important factor to be taken into consideration for the subsequent occurrence of mind-wandering episodes, which might in turn be involved in the maintenance of negative affect over time.     

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.     

Standing up for an affective account of emotion

This paper constitutes a defence of an affective account of emotion. I begin by outlining the case for thinking that emotions are just feelings. I also suggest that emotional feelings are not reducible to other kinds of feelings, but rather form a distinct class of feeling state. I then consider a number of common objections that have been raised against affective accounts of emotion, including: (1) the objection that emotion cannot always consist only of feeling because some emotions—for example, indignation and regret—necessarily have a cognitive component (say, the perception of a lost opportunity in the case of regret); (2) the objection that emotion cannot consist only of feeling because in order to explain how emotions have intentional objects we will have to recognise that emotion consists of cognition; and (3) the objection that emotion cannot consist only of feeling because emotion, but not feeling, can be variously assessed or evaluated. However, I demonstrate how an affective account of emotion might be successfully defended against all of the objections that are cited.     

Error monitoring is related to processing internal affective states

Detecting behavioral errors is critical for optimizing performance. Here, we tested whether error monitoring is enhanced in emotional task contexts, and whether this enhancement depends on processing internal affective states. Event-related potentials were recorded in individuals with low and high levels of alexithymia—that is, individuals with difficulties identifying and describing their feelings. We administered a face word Stroop paradigm (Egner, Etkin, Gale, & Hirsch, 2008) in which the task was to classify emotional faces either with respect to their expression (happy or fearful; emotional task set) or with respect to their gender (female or male; neutral task set). The error-related negativity, a marker of rapid error monitoring, was enhanced in individuals with low alexithymia when they adopted the emotional task set. By contrast, individuals with high alexithymia did not show such an enhancement. Moreover, in the high-alexithymia group, the difference in the error-related negativities between the emotional and neutral task sets correlated negatively with difficulties identifying their own feelings, as measured by the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. These results show that error-monitoring activity is stronger in emotional task contexts and that this enhancement depends on processing internal affective states.     

浅谈情绪智力与人工智能中的感情计算

基于情绪智力是加工、处理情绪及情绪信息的能力,而人工智能中的感情计算是要赋予计算机与人互动过程中情感信息的加工能力,人脑处理情绪信息的能力与电脑处理情绪信息的能力可以进行类比。近几年来,人工智能专家已经认识到情绪智力在感情计算中的重要作用和意义,把人类识别和表达情感的能力赋予计算机,开发了具有部分感情能力的计算机。新一代感情计算机的研发和应用依赖于人工智能专家与心理学家之间的密切合作,两者的研究成果可以相互借鉴和互补     

Emotional Knowing: the Role of Embodied Feelings in Affective Cognition

The emotions play a crucial role in our apprehension of meaning, value, or significance — and their felt quality is intimately related to the sort of awareness they provide. This is exemplified most clearly by cases in which dispassionate cognition is cognitively insufficient, because we need to be emotionally agitated in order to grasp that something is true. In this type of affective experience, it is through a feeling of being moved that we recognize or apprehend that something is the case. And that is why our emotions are epistemically indispensable: namely, because they give us access to significant truths. In this essay, I explain how the phenomenally felt character of an emotion is intimately linked with its intentionality. Intellectual activity divorced from affective feeling is profoundly lacking — not only in its qualitative feel, but also in its epistemic import, or its ability to inform us about matters of significance. A better appreciation of how the living body is involved in affective experience should help us to understand the distinctive kind of embodied cognition that emotional responses involve. It also ought to resolve confusions about phobic responses and other “recalcitrant” emotions, which are not divorced from cognition as many have claimed.