What else do you feel when you feel sad? Emotional overproduction, neuroticism and rumination

Numerous experimental and naturalistic studies have shown the relevant role of ruminative styles in the onset, duration and severity of depressive episodes. Recent research has increasingly focused on the precursors of these ruminative responses. Neuroticism has been found to be closely related to ruminative styles, but the nature of this relationship is unknown. Across three studies, we explored the role of emotional overproduction, conceptualized as the tendency to simultaneously experience an elevated number of negative emotions and feelings during sad episodes. Study 1 showed that emotional overproduction is independently and strongly associated with ruminative styles. Furthermore, emotional overproduction was found to mediate the relationship between neuroticism and ruminative styles. Study 2 replicated these findings in a large community sample even after controlling for mood, personality, and other emotion-related variables. In Study 3, we conducted a laboratory study to increase the internal and external validity of our findings. Implications for personality, for coping and stress literature, and for clinical research and treatment are suggested.     

How We Feel is a Matter of Time: Relationships Between Time Perspectives and Mood

Both personality and emotional experiences may be influenced by people’s time perspectives. The Zimbardo time perspective inventory measures five trait dimensions related to past, present and future perspectives. Two studies were conducted to investigate how these time perspective dimensions related to mood. The first study (n = 260) confirmed that ZTPI scales predicted moods including energetic arousal, tense arousal and Hedonic Tone, revealing that past negative and Present Hedonistic time perspectives are the most robust predictors of current emotional states. Moreover, future time perspective proved to predict energetic arousal, but the effect was suppressed by present hedonism. The second study (n = 65) measured mood twice in a 4-week period, and focused on relationships between the ZTPI and recalled and anticipated mood. Analyses conducted using DBTP, an index of temporal harmony based on the ZTPI scores, proved that balanced time perspective was related to more positive mood states in both studies. Findings confirmed that time perspective appears to influence both recall and anticipation of mood. For example, past negative time perspective is associated with anticipation of negative moods, and Past Positive perspective relates to both recall and anticipation of energy. Time perspective may structure the individual’s affective experience.     

Effect of emotions on the choice of goals and actions

The present paper concerns the influence negative emotions exert on motivational processes, i.e., on the selection of goals and corresponding actions. It is assumed that, in a negative emotional state, the goal to overcome this negative mood state takes precedence over the goal to succeed in a nonemotional task. Correspondingly, emotion-related activities should be preferred to task-related ones. In order to test this assumption, subjects in a negative and a neutral emotional state were given a series of activities, some suited for coping, some suited for task fulfilment. They were instructed to name (Experiment I) or to carry out (Experiment II) those activities they preferred at the very moment and to give a short reason for each choice. Results showed that subjects in a negative mood compared to those of the neutral control group were less occupied with the nonemotional task, but instead more frequently chose emotion-related activities with the explicit reason that these activities served to overcome their negative emotions.     

The influence of sad mood on cognition

Neuroimaging has identified an overlapping network of brain regions whose activity is modulated by mood and cognition. Studies of depressed individuals have shown changes in perception, attention, memory, and executive functions. This suggests that mood has a pervasive effect on cognition. Direct evidence of the effect of sad mood on cognition is surprisingly limited, however. Published studies have generally addressed a single cognitive ability per study because the fleeting nature of laboratory-induced mood precludes extended testing, and robust findings are limited to mood effects on memory for emotional stimuli. In this study, sad mood was induced and prolonged, enabling the effects of mood to be assessed for an array of abilities, including those that share neural substrates with sad mood and those affected by depression. Sad mood affected memory for emotional words and facial emotion recognition, but not the other processes measured, with a significant nonuniformity of effect over tasks. These results are consistent with circumscribed effects of sad mood on certain emotion-related cognitive processes, but not on cognition more generally.     

Gender differences in responses to depressed mood in a college sample

Two studies tested the hypothesis that women are more likely than men to focus on themselves and their mood when in a depressed mood, and that this leads them to experience longer periods of depressed mood. In both studies subjects were predominantly Caucasian college students. In our first study, a laboratory study, females chose to engage in an emotion-related task significantly more often than did males, even when this lead them to focus on an existing sad mood. In the second study, a prospective naturalistic study, females were more likely than males to evince an emotion-focused ruminative style of coping with their moods. A ruminative response style at Time 1 was a significant predictor of depression scores at Time 2, even after initial levels of depressed mood were taken into account. Furthermore, once rumination levels were controlled for, gender was no longer a potent predictor of depression outcome. The implications of these response styles for treatment are discussed.We thank Brandi Battistoni, Kim Bergquist, Rachel Carr, Lisa Lougee, and especially Ariel Lang for their invaluable help in data collection. We also thank Chuck Olson, Jannay Morrow, and Rose McDermott for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

情绪对提取诱发遗忘的影响

从学习材料的情绪性和提取过程的情绪状态两方面考察了情绪对提取诱发遗忘的影响。结果发现提取练习对情绪性与非情绪性材料引发了同等程度的遗忘;提取练习阶段,当被试处于正性或中性情绪状态下也会发生明显的提取诱发遗忘现象,而当被试处于负性情绪状态时,提取练习不会导致对未提取项目的遗忘。研究结果表明,学习材料的情绪性不影响提取诱发遗忘,而提取过程的情绪状态会对提取诱发遗忘产生影响,负性情绪状态可以消除提取诱发遗忘。     

The measurement of mood

Due to unfortunate choices of response scale and psychometric model earlier analyses of mood adjective check lists have given a confused and complex picture of the area. When an adequate response scale was applied and a simplex rather than a common factor analysis model was utilized it was found, in two empirical studies, that mood was possible to describe with a few bipolar factors. A theory is suggested where mood is seen as basically two-dimensional: one dimension being activity and the other pleasantness. More or less specific definitions of the content of experience with reference to the situation may then be used to define further dimensions, such as social orientation.     

顿悟体验的特性、结构和功能基础

顿悟体验是伴随顿悟问题解决过程的心理和现象学体验,主要包含伴随题解闪现的啊哈体验和因思维定势自动激活而催生的僵局阶段体验。现有研究显示,顿悟体验可能是多类认知与情绪要素构成,兼具认知和情绪加工特性的多维复合体。加工流畅性可部分解释顿悟体验的产生机制,杏仁核、眶额区和脑岛等情绪和奖赏加工的脑区则可能是其脑功能基础。未来须用多元方法从新旧交替视角深化两阶段顿悟体验的研究。     

The Gender Heuristic and the Database: Factors Affecting the Perception of Gender-Related Differences in the Experience and Display of Emotions

Two studies investigated the conditions under which people use gender stereotypes about emotion to make judgments about the emotions of self and others. Participants in Study 1 either played or watched a competitive word game (actual game conditions), or imagined themselves playing or watching the same game (hypothetical condition). Participants actually involved in the game made emotion judgments either immediately after the game (online condition) or after a time delay (delayed condition). Both in terms of self-reports of emotional experience and perceptions of the emotional displays of others, gender-related stereotypes had a significant influence on judgments of participants in the hypothetical condition but had no significant influence on online judgments. Furthermore, participants rating their own emotional experiences (after a 1-week delay) exhibited responses consistent with gender stereotypes, whereas participants rating the emotional displays of others (after a 1-day delay) did not show a gender-stereotypic response pattern. Study 2 found that participants rating hypothetical others were more likely to employ gender-related stereotypes of emotion than participants rating themselves were. The results of both studies suggest that people tend to use an emotion-related gender heuristic when they lack a database of concrete situational experiences on which to base their judgments.     

Emotional Experience and Its Relation to the Five-Factor Model in Estonian

ABSTRACT In this article we studied relations between self-rated emotional experience and the five-factor model of personality. Replicating previous findings we found that two dominant dimensions of emotional experience, Negative Affect and Positive Affect (that accounted for three to five times more total variance among Estonian emotion-related terms than any other factors) are selectively related to Neuroticism and Extraversion. Data supported the hierarchical taxonomy scheme proposed by Watson and Clark (1992) in which two broad higher order affective states were each composed of several correlated but still clearly distinguishable moods with their specific content. The content of specific emotions mapped systematically onto measures of personality: Affect scales explained 40% to 50% of the total variance of Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness, approximately 20% of the total variance of Agreeableness, and only 13% of Openness to Experience. Besides the replication of the hierarchical bipartite structure of emotion terms itself in a non-Indo-European language, our data demonstrated that the general pattern of associations between affect and personality domains is also generalizable across languages and cultures.     

The sleeping brain and the neural basis of emotions

In addition to active wake, emotions are generated and experienced in a variety of functionally different states such as those of sleep, during which external stimulation and cognitive control are lacking. The neural basis of emotions can be specified by regarding the multitude of emotion-related brain states, as well as the distinct neuro- and psychodynamic stages (generation and regulation) of emotional experience.     

Dream lucidity is associated with positive waking mood

Lucid dreaming is a unique phenomenon with potential applications for therapeutic interventions. Few studies have investigated the effects of lucidity on an individual’s waking mood, which could have valuable implications for improving psychological wellbeing. The current experiment aims to investigate whether the experience of lucidity enhances positive waking mood, and whether lucidity is associated with dream emotional content and subjective sleep quality. 20 participants were asked to complete lucid dream induction techniques along with an online dream diary for one week, which featured a 19-item lucidity questionnaire, and subjective ratings of sleep quality, dream emotional content, and waking mood. Results indicated that higher lucidity was associated with more positive dream content and elevated positive waking mood the next day, although there was no relationship with sleep quality. The results of the research and suggestions for future investigations, such as the need for longitudinal studies of lucidity and mood, are discussed.     

Emotional Intelligence as a Moderator of Affectivity/Emotional Labor and Emotional Labor/Psychological Distress Relationships

Emotional labor refers to effort, planning, and control required to display organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions and performed by individuals either through deep acting or surface acting. Deep acting refers to the modification of inner feeling in order to express the organizationally desired emotions, whereas surface acting refers to the change of emotional expression without facilitating the change of inner emotional state. The authors examined the moderating role of emotional intelligence dimensions (self-emotional appraisal; others’ emotional appraisal, use of emotion, and regulation of emotion) in the affectivity (a general positive or negative tendency to experience a particular mood)-emotional labor and emotional labor-psychological distress relationships among 210 university teachers. Specifically, we found that (a) regulation of emotion was a particularly important emotional intelligence dimension in influencing the use of deep acting, both directly and indirectly through the interaction with negative affectivity; (b) positive affectivity emerged as an important affectivity dimension in influencing the use of deep acting both directly and indirectly through the interaction with self-emotional appraisal; (c) negative affectivity was a particularly important affectivity dimension in influencing the use of surface acting, both directly and indirectly through its interaction with emotional intelligence dimensions of self-emotional appraisal and use of emotion; and finally (d) regulation of emotion interacted with deep acting to influence the psychological distress arising from EL requirements.     

不同民族文化对负性情绪调节的影响:来自ERPs的证据

采用认知重评和表达抑制策略考察不同民族文化对负性情绪调节主观体验和事件相关电位活动的影响。结果发现,汉族和少数民族文化个体在两种策略下均呈现负性情绪感受显著降低,并且汉族表达抑制的情绪体验得分低于少数民族。此外,负性情绪图片相比中性图片诱发了更大的P2成分,表达抑制相比认知重评在额-中区诱发了更大的P3成分。更重要的是,900~1200ms时间窗内,汉族个体认知重评和表达抑制后LPP波幅均降低,但少数民族文化个体仅在认知重评条件表现出LPP波幅的显著下降。以上结果表明不同民族文化背景下负性情绪调节的效果不同。     

Depersonalization disorder: a functional neuroanatomical perspective

Clinical reports of depersonalization suggest that attenuated emotional experience is a central feature of the condition. Patients typically complain of emotional numbness and some patients ascribe their feelings of unreality to a lack of affective "colouring" in things perceived. Recent neuroimaging and psychophysiological studies support these assumptions as they show both attenuated autonomic responses in depersonalization, and decreased activity within neural regions important for the generation of affective responses to emotive stimuli. Furthermore, findings from neuroimaging studies indicate increased prefrontal cortical activity in depersonalised patients, particularly within regions associated with contextualization and appraisal of emotionally-salient information rather than mood induction per se. Taken together, these finding suggest that symptoms of depersonalization, and in particular emotional numbing, may be related to a reversal of normal patterns of autonomic and neural response to emotive stimuli.     

Hedonic Tone,Perceived Arousal,and Item Desirability: Three Components of Self-reported Mood

Self-reports of mood are the most frequently used measure of subjective emotional experience in studies of human emotion. The present study evaluated the degree to which self-reports of mood reflect the social desirability of an affective state, rather than the hedonic tone and the level of arousal associated with such states. The study produced three main findings. First, the desirability of a mood and the hedonic quality of a mood are related, but not identical entities. Secondly, the desirability of a mood is also related to the level of arousal the mood denotes. Thirdly, desirability components are related to the self-report ratings of mood, but the ratings also reflect the hedonic tone and level of arousal describing the internal state of the respondents. Social desirability does affect the self-report ratings that are often used in emotion research, but such ratings also reflect something about the internal state of the respondents.     

What is the temperamental basis of humour like in China? A cross-national examination and validation of the standard version of the state–trait cheerfulness inventory

The State–Trait Cheerfulness Inventory–trait version (STCI-T60) consists of three dimensions of cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood integrated to measure the temperamental basis of the sense of humour. The present study replicated the three-dimensional factor structure of the STCI in China using 60 items consistent with other standard trait versions (e.g., English, Chilean-Spanish). Closer examination of associations between traits suggested bad mood showed curvilinear associations with both cheerfulness and seriousness, such that cheerfulness and bad mood were negatively associated for those low and average in trait bad mood but not for those with high trait bad mood. Seriousness was positively associated with bad mood at high levels of trait bad mood, but not at average or low levels of bad mood. Associations between the STCI traits and major personality dimensions, humour styles, and well-being were further examined. Cheerfulness and seriousness showed positive associations with satisfaction with life and emotional well-being (EWB) while bad mood showed a curvilinear association with EWB. Using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses, partial metric invariance was found between English and Chinese versions of the STCI-T60, but structural invariance was not observed. Implications based on the empirical literature in dialecticism and cross-cultural assessment were thoroughly discussed.     

Mood regulation and emotional intelligence: individual differences

In 3 studies (Ns = 250, 83, 236), an examination of differences in how individuals experience their emotions (meta-emotion traits of clarity, attention, and intensity) led to the identification of 4 distinct types (overwhelmed, hot, cerebral, and cool). When mood was manipulated, the types differed in how they initially reacted to the emotional situation, how they regulated their mood, and how they made judgments. In particular, one type of individual (the hot type) was more reactive to emotional situations than the others. Another type of individual (the overwhelmed type) regulated mood differently than the others, which led these individuals to make judgments that were also different. Overwhelmed individuals appeared unable or unwilling to avail themselves of critical affective information.     

The transition from expectancy to parenthood: Impact of the firstborn child on men and women

In this short-term longitudinal study, 31 middle-class primigravidae and their husbands were seen once during the last trimester of pregnancy and again when their infants were 6 months old. At both times, a common core of self-assessment instruments was administered: mood scales, social change ratings, anticipation/experience of parenthood, and a modified Bem satisfaction scale. Some additional items were given at parenthood. For both men and women, expectancy was marked by optimism and contentment, despite some emotional and physical strain. Similarly, as parents of an infant, subjects rated the experience as highly positive. However, the transition to parenthood involved major role upheaval with both more positive and more negative changes reported by women than men. Despite these changes, women displayed considerable stability in mood and self-satisfaction over time and situation. In contrast, measures of the anticipation and self-reported experience of parenthood revealed no consistency for women; the types of mothers they turned out to be were unrelated to their expectations. Men successfully predicted their parenting behavior on more than half of the dimensions measured. The results were discussed in terms of the stresses inherent in role changes encountered during transitions from one stage of life to the next.This research was supported by funds from the Boystown Center for the Study of Youth Development at Stanford University. Special thanks to Barbara Aschenbrenner for her assistance in all phases of the research.