Effect on Mood of Thinking About Extreme Emotional Terms

The hypothesis that being asked to think about extreme emotional terms influences mood in the direction of the polarity of the terms was tested in three experiments. Subjects answered items about their mood before and after being asked to think about nine extreme, positive emotional terms (e.g., ecstatic) or nine extreme, negative emotional terms (e.g., wretched). It was found that when subjects were asked to think about extreme, positive emotional terms, mood changed in a positive direction, and when they were asked to think about extreme negative emotional terms, mood changed in a negative direction. The effect on mood of being asked to think about extreme emotional terms did not depend on whether the subjects were asked just to think about the terms(Experiment 1), to think about the terms in relation to the self (Experiment 2), or to think about the meaning of the terms (Experiment 3).     

A state space analysis of emotion and flexibility in parent-child interactions

Negative emotion has been shown to reduce flexibility in cognition and behavior. We examined interpersonal flexibility during negative emotional episodes within parent-child interactions. Fifty-five mothers and early-adolescent daughters were observed during a positive discussion, a negative (conflict) discussion, and another positive discussion. Codes of moment-to-moment changes in emotion expression were used to create state space grids from which measures of emotional valence and flexibility were derived. As expected, mean flexibility was lowest during the conflict discussion when negative emotion peaked, suggesting that interpersonal flexibility decreases with increasing negative emotion. Sub-groups identified as low or high in stress were also compared. Dyads with girls reporting more stressful events showed lower flexibility during the first positive discussion. However, dyads expressing more negative emotion during the conflict discussion were also more flexible, suggesting that flexible dyadic styles permit more negative emotion. These individual difference findings are discussed in terms of the suppression versus expression of negative emotions.     

应对与积极情绪研究:意义应对、积极情绪应对、情绪表露和情绪粒度

研究者们发现了应激状态下积极情绪与消极情绪共生的现象,这对于缓解压力提高应对效能有重要意义,积极情绪的研究成为应激和应对领域一个新的方向。为进一步明晰应对过程中积极情绪发生的特点、机制以及它们之间的关系,以应对过程中积极情绪发生的不同阶段为基点,探讨意义指向应对(应对失败之后),积极情绪指向应对(应对初始阶段),以及积极情绪的拓展建构(应对行为之前,并进一步探讨了情绪表露和情绪粒度两个与积极情绪密切相关的因素)。以后研究的重点主要有以下几点:应激源类型的划分,意义指向应对、积极情绪指向应对以及情绪表露和情绪粒度的进一步研究,并积极关注临床实践。     

Attitudes toward sex, arousal, and the retention of contraceptive information

Previous research has suggested that women with a negative emotional orientation toward sexuality (i.e., erotophobia) have difficulty learning and retaining sexually relevant material such as contraceptive information. It has been hypothesized that these women become aroused by this material and that this arousal interferes with their ability to learn it. The importance of this issue led us to conduct the current study. Erotophobic and erotophilic women viewed presentations about contraception while their physiological responses were being monitored. In addition, they were tested on the information contained in the presentation before, immediately after, and again 4-6 weeks after the presentation. The results indicated that the erotophobic women knew less contraceptive information before the presentation and were more aroused by the presentation. This arousal, however, did not interfere with retention of the material. These results are discussed in terms of individual differences in reactions to sexual material and the ability to learn, retain, and use contraceptive information.     

First Year Post-Katrina: Changes in Occupational Performance and Emotional Responses

The purpose of this retrospective study was to determine whether Hurricane Katrina affected the occupational performance and emotional states of New Orleans area residents affected by the hurricane over the first year post-Katrina. A purposeful sample of 143 adults who lived in the New Orleans area just prior to Katrina completed a questionnaire one year after Katrina. Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with their occupational performance and emotional states at four time periods: August 2005, before Katrina; September 2005, one month after Katrina; March 2006, six months post-Katrina; and September 2006, one year post-Katrina. The most notable findings were that both satisfaction with occupational performance and emotional states showed marked declines during the month immediately following Katrina, with some recovery six months post-Katrina, and further recovery a year after Katrina. At one year post-Katrina however, the recovery of satisfaction with occupational performance and emotional states approached, but did not quite reach pre-Katrina baseline responses. Further, women did not fare as well as men post-Katrina, on both variables. Limitations of the study, implications of findings for the theory and practice of occupational therapy in the area of disaster responses, and possible future research are discussed.     

Positive moods can eliminate intentional forgetting

People can intentionally forget previously studied information if, after study, a forget cue and new material to be encoded are provided. We examined how the affective state people experience during encoding of the new material modulates such directed forgetting. Positive, negative, and neutral moods were induced immediately before the new material was studied. The study materials themselves were neutral. The results showed sustained forgetting of the previously studied materials in negative moods but an elimination of the forgetting in positive moods. These findings agree with the effects of mood found for other cognitive tasks. They suggest that in positive moods, associative networks are activated, which leads to reactivation of List-1 items, and thus to elimination of the directed forgetting effects. These results contrast with recent reports on the role of emotional content in directed forgetting, which have described equivalent effects for neutral and emotional materials. Together, our findings suggest that directed forgetting is mainly affected by mood, and hardly at all by emotional content.     

Subliminal priming of autobiographical memories

The current research examined subliminal priming of autobiographical memories. In Experiment 1 the subliminal primes consisted of affect-associated words (positive vs negative) and were presented just before the participants retrieved specific experiences to cue-words. The subliminal primes produced an inhibitory effect on autobiographical memory retrieval, with significantly lower positive ratings given to the emotional content of experiences retrieved after positive primes than given to experiences retrieved after negative primes. The subliminal primes for the second experiment consisted of words that related to specific lifetime periods (early childhood vs late childhood/early adulthood). A negative priming effect resulted again, with earlier life experiences retrieved after the presentation of late childhood/early adulthood primes. We believe the negative priming effects obtained in both experiments are consistent with predictions based on the self-memory system model of autobiographical memory. The results of this research may also explain mood-incongruent recall.     

Reconsolidation from negative emotional pictures: Is successful retrieval required?

Finn and Roediger (Psychological Science 22:781-786, 2011) found that when a negative emotional picture was presented immediately after a successful retrieval, later test performance was enhanced as compared to when a neutral picture or a blank screen had been shown. This finding implicates the period immediately following retrieval as playing an important role in determining later retention via reconsolidation. In two new experiments, we investigated whether successful retrieval was required to show the enhancing effect of negative emotion on later recall. In both experiments, the participants studied Swahili-English vocabulary pairs, took an intervening cued-recall test, and were given a final cued-recall test on all items. In Experiment 1, we tested a distinctiveness explanation of the effect. The results showed that neither presentation of a negative picture just prior to successful retrieval nor presentation of a positive picture after successful retrieval produced the enhancing effect that was seen when negative pictures were presented after successful retrieval. In Experiment 2, we tested whether the enhancing effect would occur when a negative picture followed an unsuccessful retrieval attempt with feedback, and a larger enhancement effect occurred after errors of commission than after errors of omission. These results indicate that effort in retrieving is critical to the enhancing effect shown with negative pictures; whether the target is produced by the participant or given by an external source following a commission error does not matter. We interpret these results as support for semantic enrichment as a key element in producing the enhancing effect of negative pictures that are presented after a retrieval attempt.     

Excessive breathlessness through emotional imagery in asthma

Breathlessness and negative emotions during asthma attacks interact in complex patterns. This study tested the influence of emotional imagery on breathlessness during voluntary breath holding. Adolescents with and without asthma (n = 36 + 36) were assigned to positive imagery, negative imagery, or no imagery. There were four trials with close to thresholds for breath holding combined with imagery. Breathlessness and quality of imagery were measured by the end of breath holding. Additional measures were lung function and anxiety. The results showed that positive and negative imagery were only influencing breathlessness in participants with asthma. Although threshold duration for the groups were not significantly different, participants with asthma reported more breathlessness. The intensity of imagery enhanced breathlessness but diminished the accuracy of symptom perception. Positive imagery diminished breathlessness in participants with asthma, but also the difference in breathlessness between 75% and 95% of threshold duration. Breathlessness did not correlate with lung function, anxiety or other variables. It was concluded that emotional imagery during asthma attacks distracts from accurate introspection or enhances breathlessness, irrespective of anxiety.     

Sex differences in the time course of emotion

Conventional wisdom holds that women are more "emotional" than men. However, research evidence suggests that sex differences in emotion are considerably more complex. The authors tested hypotheses about sex differences in the engagement of the approach and avoidance motivational systems thought to underpin emotional responses. The authors measured reported emotional experience and startle response magnitude both during the presentation and after the offset of emotional stimuli that engage these motivational systems to assess whether men and women differ in their patterns of immediate response to emotional stimuli and in their patterns of recovery from these responses. Our findings indicated that women were more experientially reactive to negative, but not positive, emotional pictures compared to men, and that women scored higher than men on measure of aversive motivational system sensitivity. Although both men and women exhibited potentiation of the startle response during the presentation of negative pictures relative to neutral pictures, only women continued to show this relative potentiation during the recovery period, indicating that women were continuing to engage the aversive motivational system after the offset of negative emotional pictures.     

Emotional content of talk to the fetus and healthy coping behaviors during pregnancy

This study examined whether the emotional content of talk to the self and to the fetus were related to health behaviors and psychosocial factors during pregnancy. One hundred fifty-two third-trimester pregnant women attending childbirth preparation classes completed a survey containing the Intrapersonal Communication Questionnaire, which sampled spontaneous talk to the self (self-talk) and to the fetus (baby-talk), and which yielded ratings of emotional valence of talk quotations into positive, negative, neutral, and mixed categories; the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; and indices for life stress, social support, and consumption behaviors. Baby-talk was more positive whereas self-talk was more negative, or emotionally distressed. More mixed baby-talk occurred with more medicine consumption, and medicine consumption was also related to lower self-esteem and more life stress. More negative baby-talk occurred when cigarette and caffeine consumption was higher. Emotional content of maternal talk to the fetus might indicate development of maternal bonding, and specific emotional contents might be related to health-relevant coping behaviors, for example, consumption of cigarettes and caffeine. Clinical implications for maternal behaviors after birth are discussed.     

冥想使人变得平和——人们对正、负性情绪图片的情绪反应可因冥想训练而降低

虽然前人已有不少研究发现冥想具有减少个体焦虑、缓解抑郁水平等功能,并且也已经揭示了冥想促进情绪调节能力的认知神经科学机理,但对于冥想会怎样调制人们对于外部施加的正、负性情绪刺激(图片)的情绪反应尚不清楚,冥想究竟会使人们对外部施加的情绪刺激的敏感性增强还是减弱?如果冥想能够调节和缓解人们的情绪反应的话,那么,这种调节作用是“双向的”(即对正性或负性情绪刺激能产生具有不同效价方向的调节作用)还是“单向的”(即对正性或负性情绪刺激产生具有相同效价方向的调节作用)?为了检验和回答上述问题,本研究以无冥想(或相关)经验的大学生为被试,通过随机实验组、控制组前后测的实验设计,考察了冥想训练能否影响被试对于正、负性情绪图片的情绪唤起.62名大学生被试被随机分配到实验组和控制组(每组31人),实验组参与连续5天、每天20 min的冥想练习,控制组在此期间的控制任务为通常的闭眼休息.结果显示:冥想组在练习过程中的脑α波指数显著升高;与控制组相比,冥想组被试对消极图片的效价评定值显著改善,这表明冥想降低了被试对负性情绪图片的情绪反应,研究还发现了冥想降低被试对正性情绪图片的积极评价倾向,从而证明对外部施加的正、负性情绪刺激而言,冥想训练的调制作用是使人们的情绪反应趋于平和.     

Let it be: Accepting negative emotional experiences predicts decreased negative affect and depressive symptoms

The present studies examined whether a tendency to accept negative emotional experiences buffers individuals from experiencing elevated negative affect during negative emotional situations (Study 1) and from developing depressive symptoms in the face of life stress (Study 2). Both studies examined female samples. This research expands on existing acceptance research in four ways. First, it examined whether acceptance has beneficial correlates when it matters most: in emotionally taxing (versus more neutral) contexts. Second, in Study 2 a prospective design was used in which acceptance was measured before stress was encountered and before outcomes were measured. Third, depressive symptoms (rather than general functioning or trauma symptoms) were examined as a particularly relevant outcome in the context of stress. Fourth, to enhance generalizability, a community sample (versus undergraduates or a purely clinical sample) was recruited. Results indicated that acceptance was correlated with decreased negative affect during a negative emotion induction but not an affectively neutral condition (Study 1). In Study 2, acceptance interacted with life stress such that acceptance predicted lower levels of depressive symptoms after higher, but not lower, life stress. These results suggest that accepting negative experiences may protect individuals from experiencing negative affect and from developing depressive symptoms.     

Job change: A study of an acute job stressor

This paper studies the relationship between job entry and job stress. Skill uncertainty, defined as having inadequately developed job skills, was thought to be associated with the stress reaction. In a longitudinal study of 62 transferred employees, skill uncertainty was associated with both negative emotional arousal 1 month after job entry and with positive emotional arousal 3 months after job entry.     

Justifying Outcomes Versus Processes: Distributive and Procedural Justice Beliefs as Predictors of Positive and Negative Affectivity

System justifying beliefs can have adaptive consequences for individuals that include enhanced coping and decreased emotional distress. The present study examined whether individual differences in two kinds of system justifying beliefs uniquely predict dispositional affect. Participants from across the United States were recruited via internet to complete dispositional measures of procedural and distributive justice beliefs, and also brief measures of positive and negative affectivity. While belief in fair outcomes (distributive just world beliefs) was generally associated with greater positive affectivity, belief in fair processes (procedural just world beliefs) was modestly associated with decreased negative affectivity. In addition, positive and negative affectivity were predicted by interactions between procedural and distributive just world beliefs, with each accentuating the general emotional benefit provided by the other. Finally, an interactive effect of procedural just world beliefs and social class was obtained for positive affectivity, with greater positive affectivity occurring for disadvantaged (lower income) individuals who had strong procedural just world beliefs. In general, these results suggest the potential for unique and interactive relationships between particular system justifying beliefs and measures of emotion, especially among members of advantaged versus disadvantaged groups.     

Mindful attention predicts greater recovery from negative emotions,but not reduced reactivity

This study investigated the role of dispositional mindful attention in immediate reactivity to, and subsequent recovery from, laboratory-induced negative emotion. One hundred and fourteen undergraduates viewed blocks of negative pictures followed by neutral pictures. Participants’ emotional responses to negative pictures and subsequent neutral pictures were assessed via self-reported ratings. Participants’ emotional response to negative pictures was used to index level of emotional reactivity to unpleasant stimuli; emotional response to neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures was used to index level of emotional recovery from pre-induced negative emotion (residual negativity). Results indicated that mindful attention was not associated with the emotional response to negative pictures, but it was associated with reduced negative emotion in response to the neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures, suggesting better recovery as opposed to reduced reactivity. This effect was especially pronounced in later experimental blocks when the accumulation of negative stimuli produced greater negative emotion from which participants had to recover. The current study extends previous findings on the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and reduced negative emotion by demonstrating that mindful attention may facilitate better recovery from negative emotion, possibly through more effective disengagement from previous stimuli.     

Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy improves emotional reactivity to social stress: results from a randomized controlled trial

The high likelihood of recurrence in depression is linked to a progressive increase in emotional reactivity to stress (stress sensitization). Mindfulness-based therapies teach mindfulness skills designed to decrease emotional reactivity in the face of negative affect-producing stressors. The primary aim of the current study was to assess whether Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is efficacious in reducing emotional reactivity to social evaluative threat in a clinical sample with recurrent depression. A secondary aim was to assess whether improvement in emotional reactivity mediates improvements in depressive symptoms. Fifty-two individuals with partially remitted depression were randomized into an 8-week MBCT course or a waitlist control condition. All participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) before and after the 8-week trial period. Emotional reactivity to stress was assessed with the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory at several time points before, during, and after the stressor. MBCT was associated with decreased emotional reactivity to social stress, specifically during the recovery (post-stressor) phase of the TSST. Waitlist controls showed an increase in anticipatory (pre-stressor) anxiety that was absent in the MBCT group. Improvements in emotional reactivity partially mediated improvements in depressive symptoms. Limitations include small sample size, lack of objective or treatment adherence measures, and non-generalizability to more severely depressed populations. Given that emotional reactivity to stress is an important psychopathological process underlying the chronic and recurrent nature of depression, these findings suggest that mindfulness skills are important in adaptive emotion regulation when coping with stress.     

Reliving emotional personal memories: affective biases linked to personality and sex-related differences

Although available evidence suggests that the emotional valence and recollective properties of autobiographical memories (AMs) may be influenced by personality- and sex-related differences, overall these relationships remain poorly understood. The present study investigated these issues by comparing the effect of general personality traits (extraversion and neuroticism) and specific traits linked to emotion regulation (ER) strategies (reappraisal and suppression) on the retrieval of emotional AMs and on the associated postretrieval emotional states, in men and women. First, extraversion predicted recollection of positive AMs in both men and women, whereas neuroticism predicted the proportion of negative AMs in men and the frequency of rehearsing negative AMs in women. Second, reappraisal predicted positive AMs in men, and suppression predicted negative AMs in women. Third, while reliving of positive memories had an overall indirect effect on postretrieval positive mood through extraversion, reliving of negative AMs had a direct effect on postretrieval negative mood, which was linked to inefficient engagement of suppression in women. Our findings suggest that personality traits associated with positive affect predict recollection of positive AMs and maintenance of a positive mood, whereas personality traits associated with negative affect, along with differential engagement of habitual ER strategies in men and women, predict sex-related differences in the recollection and experiencing of negative AMs. These findings provide insight into the factors that influence affective biases in reliving AMs, and into their possible link to sex-related differences in the susceptibility to affective disorders.     

Who benefits from emotional expression? An examination of personality differences among gynaecological cancer patients participating in a randomized controlled emotional disclosure intervention trial

The present study examined the role of neuroticism and extraversion in the effects of written emotional disclosure in patients diagnosed with gynaecological cancer. It was hypothesized that high levels of neuroticism would be associated with an increase in distress after emotional disclosure as mediated by heightened negative affect and avoidance post-disclosure. Conversely, we expected high extraversion to be associated with decreased distress as mediated by heightened positive moods and a decrease in avoidance. Eighty-eight participants were randomly assigned to participate in an expressive writing task versus a control writing task. Distress and avoidance were assessed at baseline and 6 months post-writing. Negative and positive mood were assessed immediately following writing. Multiple regression confirmed that neuroticism but not extraversion moderates the effects of emotional disclosure on distress, however no significant mediating relationships were found.     

The fading affect bias: Effects of social disclosure to an interactive versus non-responsive listener

The intensity of negative emotions associated with event memories fades to a greater extent over time than positive emotions (fading affect bias or FAB). In this study, we examine how the presence and behaviour of a listener during social disclosure influences the FAB and the linguistic characteristics of event narratives. Participants recalled pleasant and unpleasant events and rated each event for its emotional intensity. Recalled events were then allocated to one of three experimental conditions: no disclosure, private verbal disclosure without a listener or social disclosure to another participant whose behaviour was experimentally manipulated. Participants again rated the emotional intensity of the events immediately after these manipulations and after a one-week delay. Verbal disclosure alone was not sufficient to enhance the FAB. However, social disclosure increased positive emotional intensity, regardless of the behaviour of the listener. Whilst talking to an interactive listener led unpleasant event memories to decrease in emotional intensity, talking to a non-responsive listener increased their negative emotional intensity. Further, listener behaviour influenced the extent of emotional expression in written event narratives. This study provides original evidence that listener behaviour during social disclosure is an important factor in the effects of social disclosure in the FAB.