Processing fluency,positive affect,and judgments of meaning in life

This study examined the effects of processing ease on judgments of meaning in life (MIL), employing a common manipulation of fluency, font styles. One hundred and three adults completed a questionnaire assessing MIL with items printed in one of four fonts that differed in readability. We predicted that those who rated MIL items printed in easy-to-read fonts would report higher MIL than those who rated items presented in difficult-to-read fonts. Participants also completed a measure of the proposed mechanism for these effects, positive affect (PA). Results showed that, as predicted, easy reading led to higher MIL than difficult reading and these effects were explained by PA. Results not only extend the influence of processing fluency to such profound judgments as life’s meaningfulness, but also lend further support to the very strong role of PA in judgments of MIL.     

生命意义与主观幸福感的关系:基于中国样本的元分析

运用元分析的方法来探讨生命意义与主观幸福感的关系。纳入了符合元分析标准的文献45篇,共51个独立样本,总样本量为27291。元分析结果表明:生命意义与主观幸福感(r=0.505,p0.001),生活满意度(r=0.395,p0.001)和积极情感(r=0.325,p0.001)呈显著正相关,而与消极情感(r=-0.195,p0.1)呈显著负相关。生命意义与主观幸福感的关系受到性别和被试群体的调节,如性别能显著正向调节二者的关系。结果表明,生命意义能有效预测主观幸福感。     

Does Regulating Others' Feelings Influence People's Own Affective Well-Being?

ABSTRACT

Individuals in a variety of social contexts try to regulate other people's feelings, but how does this process affect the regulators themselves? This research aimed to establish a relationship between people's use of interpersonal affect regulation and their own affective well-being. In a field study, self- and other-reported data were collected from prisoners and staff members in a therapeutic prison using two surveys separated in time. In a laboratory study, a student sample reported their affect before and after attempting to influence the feelings of talent show contestants in a role-play task. The results of both studies indicated congruent associations between the use of affect-improving and affect-worsening interpersonal affect regulation and strategy agents' affective well-being. Our findings highlight that, when performing interpersonal affect regulation, people may not be immune from the effects of their own actions.     

The Structure of Emotion

ABSTRACT— One common point of debate in the study of emotion is whether the basic, irreducible elements of emotional life are discrete emotion categories, such as anger , fear , sadness , and so on, or dimensions such as approach and avoidance . Resolving this debate will identify the basic building blocks of emotional life that are the most appropriate targets of scientific inquiry. In this paper, we briefly review meta-analytic work on the neuroimaging of emotion and examine its potential for identifying "natural kinds" of emotion in the brain. We outline criteria for identifying such natural kinds, summarize the evidence to date on category and dimensional approaches, and suggest ways in which neuroimaging studies could more directly address fundamental questions about the nature of emotion.     

New developments in emotion regulation with an emphasis on the positive spectrum of human functioning

There is converging evidence from several psychological fields on the ways in which individuals engage in specific strategies to modify, alter, or accept their emotional experiences to obtain more desirable outcomes. The current Special Issue is dedicated to a series of examinations on how these self-regulatory strategies can promote resilience, create and sustain positive moods and intrinsic motivation, and aid in the repair of different negative emotions. The content of these articles are briefly reviewed in the context of additional ideas for scientific advancements in understanding and developing positive health.     

Effects of normal aging on memory for multiple contextual features

Twenty-four younger (18-35 years) and 24 older adult participants (65 or older) were exposed to three experimental conditions involving the memorization words and their associated contextual features, with contextual feature complexity increasing from Conditions 1 to 3. In Condition 1, words presented varied only on one binary feature (color, size, or character), while in Conditions 2 and 3, words presented varied on two and three binary features, respectively. Each condition was carried out as follows: (1) learning of a word list; (2) encoding of words and their contextual features; (3) delay; and (4) memory for contextual features through a discrimination task. Results indicated that young adults discriminated more features than older adults on all conditions. In both age groups, contextual feature discrimination accuracy decreased as the number of features increased. Moreover, older adults demonstrated near floor performance when tested with two or more binary features. We conclude that increasing context complexity strains attentional resources.     

The “identified victim” effect: an identified group,or just a single individual?

People's greater willingness to help identified victims, relative to non‐identified ones, was examined by varying the singularity of the victim (single vs. a group of eight individuals), and the availability of individually identifying information (the main difference being the inclusion of a picture in the “identified” versions). Results support the proposal that the “identified victim” effect is largely restricted to situations with a single victim: the identified single victim elicited considerably more contributions than the non‐identified single victim, while the identification of the individual group members had essentially no effect on willingness to contribute. Participants also report experiencing distress when the victim is single and identified more than in any other condition. Hence, the emotional reaction to the victims appears to be a major source of the effect. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

近十年来情绪研究的回顾与展望

本文主要综述了近10年来,情绪心理学研究中所取得的进展和将来的研究趋向。首先介绍了情绪实验研究中实验材料的标准化和成像技术应用的发展概况;其次讨论了情绪智力的构成成分和情绪调节研究的进展;再次分析了情绪和认知之间的交互作用关系;最后探讨了感情系统的加工特征。     

On the malleability of the meaning of contexts: the influence of another person’s emotion expressions on situation perception

Research on the relationship between context and facial expressions generally assumes a unidirectional effect of context on expressions. However, according to the model of the meaning of emotion expressions in context (MEEC) the effect should be bidirectional. The present research tested the effect of emotion expression on the interpretation of scenes. A total of 380 participants either (a) rated facial expressions with regard to the likely appraisal of the eliciting situation by the emoter, (b) appraised the scenes alone or (c) appraised scenes shown together with the expressions they supposedly elicited. The findings strongly supported the MEEC. When a scene was combined with an expression signalling a situation that is undesirable, or high in locus of control or sudden, the participants appraised the scene correspondingly. Thus, the meaning of scenes is malleable and affected by the way that people are seen to react to them.     

Less is more? Effects of exhaustive vs. minimal emotion labelling on emotion regulation strategy planning

Previous research suggests that labelling emotions, or describing affective states using emotion words, facilitates emotion regulation. But how much labelling promotes emotion regulation? And which emotion regulation strategies does emotion labelling promote? Drawing on cognitive theories of emotion, we predicted that labelling emotions using fewer words would be less confusing and would facilitate forms of emotion regulation requiring more cognitively demanding processing of context. Participants (N?=?82) mentally immersed themselves in an emotional vignette, were randomly assigned to an exhaustive or minimal emotion labelling manipulation, and then completed an emotion regulation strategy planning task. Minimal (vs. exhaustive) emotion labelling promoted higher subjective emotional clarity. Furthermore, in terms of specific emotion regulation strategies, minimal emotion labelling prompted more plans for problem solving and marginally more plans for reappraisal, but did not affect plans for behavioural activation or social support seeking. We discuss implications for the cognitive mechanisms supporting the generation of emotion regulation strategies.