Integration of Positive and Negative Affective Stimuli

The research reported in this article examines how multiple affective stimuli of differing valence (i.e., both positive and negative) are integrated into an overall affective response. Prior research on the integration of positive and negative information has not focused on affect, and previous affect integration research has not considered both positive and negative feelings. Two experiments investigate how positive and negative affective stimuli combine to influence overall affective responses to an advertisement, content‐specific beliefs, and overall ad evaluations. Both recency and contrast effects were observed on positive affective response and positive beliefs, but comparable effects on negative affective response and negative beliefs were not evident. The results support a motivational influence of affect on judgments.     

Adult Attachment and Cognitive and Affective Reactions to Positive and Negative Events

We review theory and research concerning the relation between attachment style, measured in terms of the two dimensions of insecurity (attachment anxiety and avoidance) and emotions that arise in response to threats and dangers, relationship separations and losses, interpersonal offenses and transgressions, and positive personal and interpersonal events. The review indicates that attachment theory systematically organizes research findings associated with emotional appraisals, feelings, and expressions.     

Positive and Negative Family Emotional Climate Differentially Predict Youth Anxiety and Depression via Distinct Affective Pathways

A socioaffective specificity model was tested in which positive and negative affect differentially mediated relations of family emotional climate to youth internalizing symptoms. Participants were 134 7^th-9^th grade adolescents (65 girls; 86 % Caucasian) and mothers who completed measures of emotion-related family processes, experienced affect, anxiety, and depression. Results suggested that a family environment characterized by maternal psychological control and family negative emotion expressiveness predicted greater anxiety and depression, and was mediated by experienced negative affect. Conversely, a family emotional environment characterized by low maternal warmth and low positive emotion expressiveness predicted only depression, and was mediated through lowered experienced positive affect. This study synthesizes a theoretical model of typical family emotion socialization with an extant affect-based model of shared and unique aspects of anxiety and depression symptom expression.     

Cultural Adaptation of New Affective Well-Being Measure in Hindi-Speaking Youth: Scale of Positive and Negative Experience

This study is an attempt to culturally adapt the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE, Diener et al. in Soc Indic Res 97(2):143–156, 2010) in the Indian context. The study was conducted on youth in the age range of 15–24 years (N = 966), and reliability and factorial validity of translated version (in Hindi) of SPANE were calculated. Convergent validity of translated scale was also examined with different measures of well-being (life satisfaction, psychological distress, and happiness) and positive expectations scales (optimism and self-efficacy). Results supported the original two-factor structure of SPANE, and the scale also demonstrated adequate internal consistency. Further analyses revealed structural invariance for scale items across gender, different age groups (adolescents and young adults), different residential areas (urban and rural), and different socioeconomic levels. Results also provided a support for the convergent validity of the Hindi version.     

Cognitive and Affective Representations of People and MCMI--II Personality Psychopathology

Hibbard, Hilsenroth, Hibbard, and Wash (1995) found that affective, but not cognitive, dimensions of object representations were related to the severity of psychopathology among outpatients. In this study, the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale (Westen, Barends, Leigh, Mendel, & Silbert, 1990) developed for interview data (Relationship Episodes; Luborsky,l990) was used to assess the object representations of 33 men and 38 women entering psychotherapy. The Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II was used to assess the personality traits of the 71 participants. The results support earlier findings that only affective dimensions of object representations are related to outpatient personality pathology.     

Re-examining the Epidemiology of Sensory Regulation Dysfunction and Comorbid Psychopathology

The aims of this study were threefold: (1) to compare prevalence of sensory regulation dysfunction based on previously established criteria to rates established with a more representative community sample of 796 4-year-olds; (2) to examine ethnic/racial and gender differences in prevalence according to the different criteria; and (3) to examine the co-occurrence of sensory regulation dysfunction and preschool psychiatric disorders. Prevalence rates ranged from 3.4% (current criteria) to 15.6% (previous criteria). In contrast to previous studies with less representative samples, there were no significant ethnic or racial differences using the current criteria. Boys were more likely to have sensory regulation dysfunction than girls according to all criteria. Depending upon impairment criteria used, 33–63% of children meeting criteria for sensory dysregulation also had a psychiatric disorder; 37–67% had only a sensory dysregulation disorder, indicating that sensory regulation dysfunction exists independent of psychiatric disorder, and is also a significant risk factor for disorder.     

Refinement and Psychometric Properties of the Eight-Item Brazilian Positive and Negative Affective Schedule for Children (PANAS-C8)

This study aimed to refine the Brazilian Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children (PANAS-C34). A total of 1,160 children, between seven and 16 years of age (M = 11.2; SD = 1.92), from public elementary schools in eight Brazilian southern cities participated in the study. Four studies were conducted for this project. Study I (n = 370) evaluated the factorial structure of the PANAS-C34 (the original 34-item version). Ten potential items were selected for the instrument’s refined version. Employing an independent sample (n = 340), Study II assessed the utility of this ten-item version. Exploratory factor analysis, parallel analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis supported a bi-factorial solution. However, significant modification indices emerged for two items (happy and sad) regarding their respective factors and thus they were excluded. In Study III, using another independent sample (n = 450), it was demonstrated that the eight-item version (PANAS-C8) had better fit indices than the ten-item version. In Study IV (N = 1,160) a multigroup confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the measurement invariance of the factorial solution across gender. Moreover, convergent validity was also evaluated using the Child Depression Inventory (CDI) and the General Life Satisfaction Scale for Children (GLSS-C). Measurement invariance was obtained for the PANAS-C8 across all the investigated model parameters. The correlations between the PANAS-C8 and both the CDI and the GLSS-C were of similar magnitude to those obtained using the PANAS-C34. The PANAS-C8 had adequate validity indices, demonstrating its usefulness in evaluating positive and negative affect in children.     

阈下负性情绪引起儿童和成人相反的判断偏向

为了求证阈下情绪引起的认知偏向是否随增龄而变化及表现如何,选取5,6,7岁儿童、青年人、老年人共183名被试完成阈下情绪启动实验,结果发现:儿童和成年人在阈下呈现哭表情图片条件下,表现出相反的启动效应.成年人表现出情绪一致性效应,而儿童表现出情绪反转效应.笑表情图片在各年龄段被试中均未引起显著的判断偏向.该结果说明儿童处理阈下情绪的隐性心理机制是维持快乐,成人则是预警危险.     

Positive and Negative Peer Influence in Residential Care

The potential for negative peer influence has been well established in research, and there is a growing interest in how positive peer influence also impacts youth. No research, however, has concurrently examined positive and negative peer influence in the context of residential care. Clinical records for 886 residential care youth were used in a Hierarchical Linear Model analysis to examine the impact of negative and positive peer influence on naturally occurring patterns of serious problem behavior over time. Negative peer influence, where the majority of youth in a home manifested above the average number of serious behavior problems, occurred 13.7% of the time. Positive peer influence, where the majority of youth manifested no serious problem behaviors for the month, occurred 47.7% of the time. Overall, youth problem behavior improved over time. There were significantly lower rates of serious problem behavior in target youth during positive peer influence months. Conversely, there were significantly higher rates of serious problem behaviors in target youth during negative peer influence months. Negative peer influence had a relatively greater impact on target peers’ serious behavior problems than did positive peer influence. Caregiver experience significantly reduced the impact of negative peer influence, but did not significantly augment positive peer influence. Months where negative peer influence was combined with inexperienced caregivers produced the highest rates of serious problem behavior. Our results support the view that residential programs for troubled youth need to create circumstances that promote positive and control for negative peer influence.     

Syntactic Features in Reanalysis: Positive and Negative Symptoms

Meng and Bader have presented evidence that a Case conflict is a more effective cue for garden-path reanalysis than a number conflict is, for German wh-sentences with subject–object ambiguities. The preferred first-pass analysis has the wh-trace in subject position, although object position is correct. In a speeded grammaticality judgment task, perceivers accepted Case-disambiguated examples more often and more rapidly than number-disambiguated examples, although comprehension questions indicated that both were eventually understood correctly. For ungrammatical sentences, a Case mismatch error resulted in more false positive grammaticality judgments than a number mismatch error. We offer an explanation for why Case and number features differ in these two ways in their effects on sentence processing. We propose, within the Diagnosis Model of garden-path processing, that reanalysis triggered by a Case mismatch guides the parser more effectively toward the correct structure. Case is a positive symptom, which carries information about the new structure that must be built. By contrast, a number mismatch is a negative symptom; it invalidates the incorrect structure without showing how to rebuild it. This difference in the transparency of garden-path repair can also account for the greater overacceptance of Case-disambiguated ungrammatical sentences. The speeded grammaticality judgment task is designed to encourage hasty responses. Usually, these are hasty rejections of garden path sentences that, on calmer reflection, the parser would find acceptable. Conversely, over-hasty acceptance could occur if some initial progress is made in resolving a grammatical problem. Thus, a higher rate of false positives on ungrammaticals is to be expected where reanalysis proceeds successfully for a while before blocking.     

Pathogenic Beliefs Mediate the Relationship Between Perceived Negative Parenting and Psychopathology Symptoms

Negative parenting style, such as abuse, neglect, and intrusiveness, is significantly related to subsequent development of psychopathology. Here we sought to examine pathogenic beliefs as a potential mechanism of change. We explored whether pathogenic beliefs help explain the relationship between perceived negative parenting style and common psychopathology symptoms. This study assessed the psychometric properties of the self-report Pathogenic Beliefs Scale and tested its mediating effect on the relationship between negative parenting and psychopathology. A community sample of 732 adults completed an online survey that included measures of perceived negative parenting style (MOPS), pathogenic beliefs (PBS), and a transdiagnostic measure of common indicators of psychopathology (anxiety, low self-esteem, emotional instability, pessimistic attitude, and depression). Results showed that pathogenic beliefs were significantly associated with negative parenting experiences in childhood and adult psychopathology symptoms. Moreover, pathogenic beliefs mediated the relationship between negative parenting style and psychopathology. Implications for clinical practice are discussed.     

Neuroticism and Affective Priming: Evidence for a Neuroticism-Linked Negative Schema

Neuroticism has been hypothesized to systematically relate to semantic memory networks favoring negative affect, but no studies using affective priming tasks have established this link. The present two studies, involving 145 undergraduate participants, sought to provide initial evidence along these lines. Study 1 used a task in which participants were asked to judge their emotions in the past, whereas Study 2 used a perceptual identification task in which participants merely had to identify the word in question. In both studies, neuroticism was positively correlated with negative affective priming, but not positive affective priming. The studies suggest that neuroticism systematically relates to the inter-connectivity of negative affect with semantic memory systems, whether involving the self-concept (Study 1) or not (Study 2). These results are novel and important in understanding individual differences in neuroticism and their affective processing correlates.     

Focusing on the Positive: A Review of the Role of Child Positive Affect in Developmental Psychopathology

This review proposes a transactional model of child positive affect (PA) to reflect the ways that PA, in various contexts, may confer both risk and protection for psychosocial adjustment. Though research has largely explored the ways that low PA relates to maladjustment in youth, much less research has focused on the ways that PA can facilitate adjustment, particularly under conditions of risk. Yet, theory suggests that a greater emphasis on PA as a protective factor is an important endeavor in developmental psychopathology research; such conceptual issues are explored in this review. This review also seeks to spur a more nuanced approach to the study of child PA through the use of increased multi-method, longitudinal assessments as well as the consideration of contextual factors. Building upon this research base is important for aiding in the development of intervention and prevention efforts that attempt to promote positive psychosocial development and mitigate the course of psychopathology in youth at risk for PA difficulties.     

Positive and Negative Hypothesis Testing by Cooperative Groups

In a rule induction problem positive hypothesis tests select evidence that the tester expects to be an example of the correct rule if the hypothesis is correct, whereas negative hypothesis tests select evidence that the tester expects to be a nonexample if the hypothesis is correct. Previous research indicates the general effectiveness of a positive test strategy for individuals, but there has been very little research with cooperative groups. We extend the analysis of Klayman and Ha (Psychological Review, 1987) of ambiguous verification or conclusive falsification of five possible types of hypotheses by positive and negative tests by emphasizing the importance of further examples following hypothesis tests. In two experiments four-person cooperative groups solved rule induction problems by proposing a hypothesis and selecting evidence to test the hypothesis on each of four arrays on each trial. In different conditions the groups were instructed to use different combinations of positive and negative tests on the four arrays. Positive tests were more likely to lead to further examples than negative tests, and the proportion of correct hypotheses corresponded to the proportion of positive tests, in both experiments. We suggest that positive tests are more effective than negative hypothesis tests in generating further evidence, and thus in inducing the correct rule, in experimental rule induction tasks with a criterion of certainty imposed by the researcher.     

How Positive and Negative Feedback Motivate Goal Pursuit

This article explores the feedback individuals give, seek, and respond to in the course of pursuing their goals. We propose that positive feedback motivates goal pursuit when it signals an increase in goal commitment, whereas negative feedback motivates goal pursuit when it signals insufficient goal progress. We review research suggesting that whether individuals are drawn to evaluate their level of commitment versus rate of progress determines the type of feedback (positive or negative) that best motivates them to pursue their goals. We then review research suggesting that these effects of feedback operate by inducing positive and negative general moods as well as specific emotions.     

Numerical Estimation in Children for Both Positive and Negative Numbers

Numerical estimation has been used to study how children mentally represent numbers for many years (e.g., Siegler & Opfer, 2003). However, these studies have always presented children with positive numbers and positive number lines. Children’s mental representation of negative numbers has never been addressed. The present study tested children in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th grades to assess their mental representations of both positive and negative numbers using a standard numerical estimation task. We replicated the shift from a logarithmic to linear representation for positive numbers (0–1,000 scale) in that 2nd graders represented positive numbers logarithmically, but 4th and 6th graders represented the numbers linearly. Furthermore, children’s representation of negative numbers paralleled their representations of positive numbers and showed the same shift from a logarithmic representation at Grade 2 to linear representations at Grades 4 and 6. This is the first study to provide data on children’s representation of negative numbers, and the implications of these findings are discussed.     

Positive and Negative: Infant Facial Expressions and Emotions

One path to understanding emotional processes and their development is the investigation of early facial expressions. Converging evidence suggests that although all infant smiles index positive emotion, some smiles are more positive than others. The evidence stems both from the situations in which infants produce different facial expressions and from naive observers' ratings of the emotional intensity of the expressions. The observers' ratings also suggest that similar facial actions—such as cheek raising—lead smiles to be perceived as more positive and lead negative expressions (cry-faces) to be perceived as more negative. One explanation for this parsimony is that certain facial actions are associated with the intensification of both positive and negative emotions.