Understanding emotional display rules at work and outside of work: The effects of country and gender

This study examined the long-held, but empirically untested assumption that emotional display rules at work are different from more general display rules. We examined whether the effect of context (work vs. non-work) on display rules depended on rater gender, rater country (i.e., Singapore, United States), and discrete emotion (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness, and happiness). Results revealed that display rules at work involved less expressivity of emotion than did display rules outside of work for all six emotions. Further, display rules in Singapore involved less expressivity of anger, sadness, and fear than display rules in the US, with no country differences being observed for the emotions of happiness, contempt, and disgust. These results were qualified by significant country-by-gender interactions for anger, contempt, and disgust, a significant country-by-context interaction for fear, and a three-way interaction (i.e., country-by-gender-by-context) for sadness.     

A Methodological Examination of Emotion Inductions in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Comparison of Standardized Versus Idiographic Stimuli

Emotional reactivity is conceptualized as a core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and has been subject to substantial empirical research. The laboratory methods used to elicit emotional reactivity in BPD have varied and findings across studies have been mixed. At present, there is little research evaluating the relative efficacy of different methods in eliciting emotional reactivity in BPD. Thus, the current study examined differences in emotional reactivity among individuals with BPD in response to standardized and idiographic stimuli, and across three specific emotions (sadness, fear, and anger). Individuals with BPD, social anxiety disorder, and healthy controls viewed film clips (i.e., standardized stimuli) or engaged in a personally-relevant imagery task (i.e., idiographic stimuli) while self-reported and physiological indices (skin conductance response and respiratory sinus arrhythmia) of emotion were collected. Results indicated that BPD participants displayed greater reactivity of sadness and anger (but not fear) in response to the idiographic versus standardized stimuli, a pattern that was not exhibited by the other two groups. These findings might explain some of the mixed evidence to date and suggest that idiographic sadness and fear inductions may be more effective for individuals with BPD.     

Attitudes toward emotions

The present work outlines a theory of attitudes toward emotions, provides a measure of attitudes toward emotions, and then tests several predictions concerning relationships between attitudes toward specific emotions and emotional situation selection, emotional traits, emotional reactivity, and emotion regulation. The present conceptualization of individual differences in attitudes toward emotions focuses on specific emotions and presents data indicating that 5 emotions (anger, sadness, joy, fear, and disgust) load on 5 separate attitude factors (Study 1). Attitudes toward emotions predicted emotional situation selection (Study 2). Moreover, attitudes toward approach emotions (e.g., anger, joy) correlated directly with the associated trait emotions, whereas attitudes toward withdrawal emotions (fear, disgust) correlated inversely with associated trait emotions (Study 3). Similar results occurred when attitudes toward emotions were used to predict state emotional reactivity (Study 4). Finally, attitudes toward emotions predicted specific forms of emotion regulation (Study 5).     

Recognizing vocal emotions in Mandarin Chinese: A validated database of Chinese vocal emotional stimuli

To establish a valid database of vocal emotional stimuli in Mandarin Chinese, a set of Chinese pseudosentences (i.e., semantically meaningless sentences that resembled real Chinese) were produced by four native Mandarin speakers to express seven emotional meanings: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, pleasant surprise, and neutrality. These expressions were identified by a group of native Mandarin listeners in a seven-alternative forced choice task, and items reaching a recognition rate of at least three times chance performance in the seven-choice task were selected as a valid database and then subjected to acoustic analysis. The results demonstrated expected variations in both perceptual and acoustic patterns of the seven vocal emotions in Mandarin. For instance, fear, anger, sadness, and neutrality were associated with relatively high recognition, whereas happiness, disgust, and pleasant surprise were recognized less accurately. Acoustically, anger and pleasant surprise exhibited relatively high mean f0 values and large variation in f0 and amplitude; in contrast, sadness, disgust, fear, and neutrality exhibited relatively low mean f0 values and small amplitude variations, and happiness exhibited a moderate mean f0 value and f0 variation. Emotional expressions varied systematically in speech rate and harmonics-to-noise ratio values as well. This validated database is available to the research community and will contribute to future studies of emotional prosody for a number of purposes. To access the database, please contact pan.liu@mail.mcgill.ca.     

Recognition of facial expressions of different emotional intensities in patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Behavioural problems are a key feature of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Also, FTLD patients show impairments in emotion processing. Specifically, the perception of negative emotional facial expressions is affected. Generally, however, negative emotional expressions are regarded as more difficult to recognize than positive ones, which thus may have been a confounding factor in previous studies. Also, ceiling effects are often present on emotion recognition tasks using full-blown emotional facial expressions. In the present study with FTLD patients, we examined the perception of sadness, anger, fear, happiness, surprise and disgust at different emotional intensities on morphed facial expressions to take task difficulty into account. Results showed that our FTLD patients were specifically impaired at the recognition of the emotion anger. Also, the patients performed worse than the controls on recognition of surprise, but performed at control levels on disgust, happiness, sadness and fear. These findings corroborate and extend previous results showing deficits in emotion perception in FTLD.     

Intensity of positive and negative emotions: Explaining the association between personality and depressive symptoms

The aim was to examine to what extent emotional intensity accounted for associations between the Big Five personality dimensions and depressive symptoms. Study 1 tested the model cross-sectionally, using survey data of 266 Dutch social science students. Study 2 experimentally examined how personality dimensions were related to emotional reactivity after exposure to various emotional stimuli. Dutch psychology students (N = 130) reported on their personality and viewed an amusing or sad film clip, after which the change in intensity of experienced positive and negative emotions was assessed. Individuals scoring higher on neuroticism generally experienced more intense negative emotions, through which they experienced a higher level of depressive symptoms. Individuals who were more agreeable experienced a lower level of depressive symptoms indirectly through higher general intensity of positive emotions. More agreeable individuals showed stronger increase in negative emotions and stronger decrease in positive emotions, though after exposure to the sad stimulus only. Although replication is needed, our results offer empirical support for a more taylor-made approach in decreasing nonclinical depressive symptoms taking into account both personality characteristics and emotion regulation.     

Neuroticism and Close Relationships: How Negative Affect is Linked with Relationship Disaffection in Couples

Dispositional vulnerability afforded by personality can lead to adverse relationship outcomes. Neuroticism personality is bundled with a disadvantageous temperament that makes people high in neuroticism more sensitive to negativity. Consequently, neuroticism signifies negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, and sadness. Neuroticism is also inversely related to marital satisfaction. The present study examined the relationship between relationship disaffection (emotional indifference) and negative affect in the context of neuroticism. The present study included 819 participants (511 females, 308 males) between the ages of 18 years to 74 years (M = 27.16, SD = 10.58) who were in a committed or married heterosexual relationship. Our mediation model explored the relationship between neuroticism and relationship disaffection with negative affect acting as a mediator. We found a modest indirect relationship between neuroticism and relationship disaffection via negative affect. Acknowledging that individuals high in neuroticism are temperamentally sensitive to negative stimuli, therapists can assist partners in learning ways to curb negative mood to combat relationship disaffection. Future studies can build on these findings and design research addressing the limitation of the present study.     

Young Offenders’ Emotion Recognition Dysfunction Across Emotion Intensities: Explaining Variation Using Psychopathic Traits,Conduct Disorder and Offense Severity

Antisocial individuals have problems recognizing negative emotions (e.g. Marsh & Blair in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 32:454–465, 2009); however, due to issues with sampling and different methods used, previous findings have been varied. Sixty-three male young offenders and 37 age-, IQ- and socio-economic status-matched male controls completed a facial emotion recognition task, which measures recognition of happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise and neutral expressions across 4 emotional intensities. Conduct disorder (YSR), and psychopathic and callous/unemotional traits (YPI) were measured, and offenders’ offense data were taken from the Youth Offending Service’s case files. Relative to controls, offenders were significantly worse at identifying sadness, low intensity disgust and high intensity fear. A significant interaction for anger was also observed, with offenders showing reduced low- but increased high-intensity anger recognition in comparison with controls. Within the young offenders levels of conduct disorder and psychopathic traits explained variation in sadness and disgust recognition, whereas offense severity explained variation in anger recognition. These results suggest that antisocial youths show specific problems in recognizing negative emotions and support the use of targeted emotion recognition interventions for problematic behavior.     

Spanish validation of an emotion-eliciting set of films

One of the main difficulties in the study of emotion is the induction of a real emotional response by means of artificial techniques. The aim of the current study is to validate the Spanish version of a set of films with the capacity to induce emotions (PIE) under laboratory conditions and to analyze its capacity to provoke differentiated basic emotions. A sample of 127 subjects took part in the study; 57 excerpts of Spanish-dubbed films with capacity in previous studies to induce 7 emotions: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, amusement, tenderness, and neutral emotion were used. Subjective emotional response was measured using the Self-Assessment Manikins and the Discrete Emotions Questionnaire. Films included showed a good capacity to induce positive and negative affects, high levels of emotional activation and variations in the perception of emotional control. They induced basic emotions of amusement and fear in a differentiated way. However, sadness and disgust could not be significantly differentiated from anger; or anger and tenderness from sadness. The PIE could be a useful tool for the experimental research of emotions in Spanish populations.     

Intergroup disgust sensitivity as a predictor of islamophobia: The modulating effect of fear

The present research investigated whether intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS) predicts greater Islamophobia, and whether this positive association is modulated (strengthened or weakened) by the experience of concurrent incidental non-disgust emotions (fear, sadness, anger, happiness). In Study 1 (N = 225) participants completed measures of ITG-DS (an emotionally charged individual difference variable reflecting heightened tendency to experience disgust and revulsion reactions toward ethnic outgroup encounters) and dispositional measures of fear, sadness, anger, and happiness. Results revealed that among those experiencing greater (vs. lower) fear or sadness, the positive relation between ITG-DS and Islamophobia was significantly stronger. In Study 2 (N = 174), fear, sadness, and happiness were experimentally induced. Among those induced to experience fear, the positive relation between ITG-DS and prejudice toward Muslims was significantly strengthened relative to control. Overall, specific negative emotions, especially fear, interacted with individual differences in intergroup-relevant disgust sensitivity to inform outgroup evaluations.     

Big-five personality and BIS/BAS traits as predictors of career exploration: The mediation role of career adaptability

Based on career construction theory, the current research examined whether career adaptability mediates the relations of the personality traits (Five-Factor Model personality traits and behavioral inhibition and activation systems (BIS/BAS)) to career exploration behavior. Results from a survey in Chinese university students (N = 264) showed that career exploration correlated negatively with neuroticism, and positively with openness to experience, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and BAS. Results of regression analyses further showed that openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness and BAS served as the strongest predictors for career exploration. In addition, career adaptability was shown to be a key mediator for the relationships between personality traits and career exploration behavior. Career concern and career curiosity were the more important dimensions in the mediation model. These findings advance current understandings on how different personality traits predict career exploration behavior.     

Perceptual learning and recognition confusion reveal the underlying relationships among the six basic emotions

The six basic emotions (disgust, anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) have long been considered discrete categories that serve as the primary units of the emotion system. Yet recent evidence indicated underlying connections among them. Here we tested the underlying relationships among the six basic emotions using a perceptual learning procedure. This technique has the potential of causally changing participants’ emotion detection ability. We found that training on detecting a facial expression improved the performance not only on the trained expression but also on other expressions. Such a transfer effect was consistently demonstrated between disgust and anger detection as well as between fear and surprise detection in two experiments (Experiment 1A, n?=?70; Experiment 1B, n?=?42). Notably, training on any of the six emotions could improve happiness detection, while sadness detection could only be improved by training on sadness itself, suggesting the uniqueness of happiness and sadness. In an emotion recognition test using a large sample of Chinese participants (n?=?1748), the confusion between disgust and anger as well as between fear and surprise was further confirmed. Taken together, our study demonstrates that the “basic” emotions share some common psychological components, which might be the more basic units of the emotion system.     

Defensive emotions and evaluative judgements: Sensitivity to anger and fear predicts moral judgements,whereas sensitivity to disgust predicts aesthetic judgements

Aesthetic and moral evaluations engage appetitive and defensive emotions. While the role played by pleasure in positive aesthetic and moral judgements has been extensively researched, little is known about how defensive emotions influence negative aesthetic and moral judgements. Specifically, it is unknown which defensive emotions such judgements tap into, and whether both kinds of judgement share a common emotional root. Here, we investigated how participants' individual sensitivity to disgust, fear, anger and sadness predicted subjective judgements of aesthetic and moral stimuli. Bayesian modelling revealed that participants who were more sensitive to anger and fear found conventional and moral transgressions more wrong. In contrast, participants who were more sensitive to disgust disliked asymmetrical geometric patterns and untidy rooms more. These findings suggest that aesthetic and moral evaluations engage multiple defensive emotions, not just disgust, and that they may rely on different defensive emotions as part of their computational mechanism.     

Emotional reactions to crime across cultures

Information about the emotions experienced by observers when they witness crimes would have important theoretical and practical implications, but to date no study has broadly assessed such emotional reactions. This study addressed this gap in the literature. Observers in seven countries viewed seven videos portraying actual crimes and rated their emotional reactions to each using 14 emotion scales. Observers reported significantly high levels of negative emotions including anger, contempt, disgust, fear and sadness‐related emotions, and anger, contempt and disgust were the most salient emotions experienced by viewers across all countries. Witnesses also reported significantly high levels of positive emotions as well (compared to not feeling the emotion at all), which was unexpected. Country moderated the emotion ratings; post‐hoc analyses indicated that masculine‐oriented cultures reported less nervousness, surprise, excitement, fear and embarrassment than feminine cultures.     

Context effects on emotional and aesthetic evaluations of artworks and IAPS pictures

In the arts emotionally negative objects sometimes can be positively judged. Defining an object as art possibly yields specific changes in how perceivers emotionally experience and aesthetically judge a stimulus. To study how emotional experiences (joy, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, and shame ratings, plus facial EMG) and aesthetic judgements (liking ratings) are modulated by an art context (“This is an artwork”) as compared to non-art reality context (“This is a press photograph”) participants evaluated IAPS pictures and veridical artworks depicting emotionally positive and negative content. In line with the assumption that emotional distancing is an essential feature of the art experience we found that positive emotional reactions were attenuated (joy, M. zygomaticus activation) in an art compared to non-art context. However, context had little influence on negative emotional reactions (anger, disgust, fear, sadness, shame, and M. corrugator activation) suggesting that these are similar in art and non-art. Importantly, only artworks of emotionally negative content were judged more positively in an art context — thus liked more. This study, in accordance with the assumption of a distanced aesthetic mode, shows that an art context fosters appraisal processes that influence emotional experiences, allowing to judge negative stimuli aesthetically more positively — thus suppressing the immediacy of emotional stimulus content.     

Similar patterns of age-related differences in emotion recognition from speech and music

Young and old adults’ ability to recognize emotions from vocal expressions and music performances was compared. The stimuli consisted of (a) acted speech (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, and sadness; each posed with both weak and strong emotion intensity), (b) synthesized speech (anger, fear, happiness, and sadness), and (c) short melodies played on the electric guitar (anger, fear, happiness, and sadness; each played with both weak and strong emotion intensity). The listeners’ recognition of discrete emotions and emotion intensity was assessed and the recognition rates were controlled for various response biases. Results showed emotion-specific age-related differences in recognition accuracy. Old adults consistently received significantly lower recognition rates for negative, but not for positive, emotions for both speech and music stimuli. Some age-related differences were also evident in the listeners’ ratings of emotion intensity. The results show the importance of considering individual emotions in studies on age-related differences in emotion recognition.     

The distressed (Type D) and Five-Factor Models of personality in young,healthy adults and their association with emotional inhibition and distress

The distressed (Type D) personality (the combination of negative affectivity and social inhibition traits) has been associated with adverse health outcomes. This study investigated the validity of the Type D construct against the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality, and its association with emotional control and distress. In total 498 university students (mean age 28.9 ± 8.4 years) completed the Type D scale (DS14), and measurements for the FFM of personality, emotional control, anxiety, depression and stress. The construct validity of the Icelandic DS14 was confirmed. The Type D components negative affectivity and social inhibition were strongly associated with neuroticism and extraversion of the FFM (r = 0.82 and r = −0.67, respectively). Negative affectivity also correlated with rehearsal/rumination (r = 0.58) and social inhibition with emotional inhibition (r = 0.54), indicative of emotional control. Type D personality (40% of sample) was associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression and stress. The Type D personality components were associated with the FFM of personality, emotional control and emotional distress. Importantly, social and emotional inhibition were closely related, providing novel information about the presence of emotional inhibition within the social inhibition trait.     

The influence of emotion type,social value orientation and processing focus on approach-avoidance tendencies to negative dynamic facial expressions

Facial expressions of anger and fear have been seen to elicit avoidance behavior in the perceiver due to their negative valence. However, recent research uncovered discrepancies regarding these immediate motivational implications of fear and anger, suggesting that not all negative emotions trigger avoidance to a comparable extent. To clarify those discrepancies, we considered recent theoretical and methodological advances, and investigated the role of social preferences and processing focus on approach-avoidance tendencies (AAT) to negative facial expressions. We exposed participants to dynamic facial expressions of anger, disgust, fear, or sadness, while they processed either the emotional expression or the gender of the faces. AATs were assessed by reaction times of lever movements, and by posture changes via head-tracking. We found that—relative to angry faces-, fearful and sad faces triggered more approach, with a larger difference between fear and anger in prosocial compared to individualistic participants. Interestingly, these findings are in line with a recently developed concern hypothesis, suggesting that—relative to other negative expressions—expressions of distress may facilitate approach, especially in participants with prosocial preferences.