Incongruency effects in affective processing: automatic motivational counter-regulation or mismatch-induced salience?

Attention is automatically allocated to stimuli that are opposite in valence to the current motivational focus (Rothermund, 2003; Rothermund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008). We tested whether this incongruency effect is due to affective-motivational counter-regulation or to an increased salience of stimuli that mismatch with cognitively activated information. Affective processing biases were assessed with a search task in which participants had to detect the spatial position at which a positive or negative stimulus was presented. In the motivational condition, positive or negative affective-motivational states were induced by performance feedback after each trial. In the cognitive activation condition, participants memorised the word "good" or "bad" during the search task. The affective incongruency effect was replicated in the motivational condition, whereas an affective congruency effect obtained in the cognitive activation condition. These findings support an explanation of affective incongruency effects in terms of automatic counter-regulation that is motivational in nature.     

Manipulating self-efficacy in the exercise environment in women: influences on affective responses.

Self-efficacy was experimentally manipulated in an exercise context, and its effect on affective responses was examined. College women (N = 46) were randomly assigned to a high- or low-efficacy condition, and efficacy expectations were manipulated by means of bogus feedback and graphs depicting contrived normative data. The manipulation successfully influenced affective responses, with participants in the high-efficacy group reporting more positive and less negative affect than did the low-efficacy group. Efficacy was significantly related to feeling-state responses during and after activity but only in the high-efficacy condition. The results suggest that self-efficacy can be manipulated and that these changes are related to the affective experience associated with exercise. Such findings may have important implications for the roles played by self-efficacy and affect in exercise adherence.     

对公共媒体信息的加工偏向：内外群体属性的调节作用

本研究采用两个实验在公共媒体信息背景下考察人们对不同效价新闻的加工偏向,以及新闻群体属性在加工偏向中的调节作用。实验1、2均以不同效价的内外群体的真实新闻为实验材料,实验1采用选择接触范式,从行为选择层面间接考察被试阅览不同新闻时的注意选择偏向;实验2采用点探测范式,增加两种SOA（200ms / 500ms）条件,进一步直接地揭示被试加工新闻信息时的注意偏向特点选择行为偏向背后的注意偏向特点。结果表明,实验1中被试倾向加工积极的内群体新闻以及消极的外群体新闻;同样,在实验2的注意后期,也发现人们对内群体新闻的积极注意偏向,与对外群体新闻的消极注意偏向,而在注意早期,人们对积极新闻存在注意偏向,且不受群体属性影响。结果符合社会认知加工的内群体偏好与外群体贬低偏向。     

Can I trust you? Negative affective priming influences social judgments in schizophrenia

Successful social interactions rely on the ability to make accurate judgments based on social cues as well as the ability to control the influence of internal or external affective information on those judgments. Prior research suggests that individuals with schizophrenia misinterpret social stimuli and this misinterpretation contributes to impaired social functioning. We tested the hypothesis that for people with schizophrenia, social judgments are abnormally influenced by affective information. Twenty-three patients with schizophrenia and 35 healthy control participants rated the trustworthiness of faces following the presentation of neutral, negative (threat-related), or positive affective primes. Results showed that all participants rated faces following negative affective primes as less trustworthy than faces following neutral or positive primes. Importantly, this effect was significantly more pronounced for participants with schizophrenia, suggesting that schizophrenia may be characterized by an exaggerated influence of negative affective information on social judgment. Furthermore, the extent that the negative affective prime influenced trustworthiness judgments was significantly associated with patients' severity of positive symptoms, particularly feelings of persecution. These findings suggest that for people with schizophrenia, negative affective information contributes to an interpretive bias, consistent with paranoid ideation, when judging the trustworthiness of others. This bias may contribute to social impairments in schizophrenia.     

Affect regulation and temporal discounting: interactions between primed, state, and trait affect

Previous research has largely focused on the influence of experienced affect on decision making; however, other sources of affective information may also shape decisions. In two studies, we examine the interacting influences of affective information, state affect, and personality on temporal discounting rates (i.e., the tendency to choose small rewards today rather than larger rewards in the future). In Study 1, participants were primed with either positive or negative affect adjectives before making reward choices. In Study 2, participants underwent either a positive or negative affect induction before making reward choices. Results in both studies indicate that neuroticism interacts with state unpleasant affect and condition (i.e., positive or negative primes or induction) to predict discounting rates. Moreover, the nature of the interactions depends on the regulatory cues of the affective information available. These results suggest that irrelevant (i.e., primes) and stable (i.e., personality traits) sources of affective information also shape judgments and decision making. Thus, current affect levels are not the only source of affective information that guides individuals when making decisions.     

Implicit interpretation biases affect emotional vulnerability: A training study

Cognitive theories of emotion propose that the interpretation of emotion-eliciting situations crucially shapes affective responses. Implicit or automatic biases in these interpretations may hinder emotion regulation and thereby increase risk for the onset and maintenance of psychological disorders. In this study, participants were randomly assigned to a positive or negative interpretation bias training using ambiguous social scenarios. After the completion of the training, a stress task was administered and changes in positive and negative affect and self-esteem were assessed. The results demonstrate that the interpretation bias training was successful in that participants exhibited a tendency to interpret novel scenarios in accordance with their training condition. Importantly, the positive training condition also had a protective effect on self-esteem. Participants in this condition did not exhibit a decrease in self-esteem after the stress task, whereas participants in the negative condition did. These results demonstrate that implicit cognitive biases can be trained and that this training affects self-esteem. Implications of these findings for research on psychopathology and emotion regulation are discussed.     

Implicit interpretation biases affect emotional vulnerability: a training study

Cognitive theories of emotion propose that the interpretation of emotion-eliciting situations crucially shapes affective responses. Implicit or automatic biases in these interpretations may hinder emotion regulation and thereby increase risk for the onset and maintenance of psychological disorders. In this study, participants were randomly assigned to a positive or negative interpretation bias training using ambiguous social scenarios. After the completion of the training, a stress task was administered and changes in positive and negative affect and self-esteem were assessed. The results demonstrate that the interpretation bias training was successful in that participants exhibited a tendency to interpret novel scenarios in accordance with their training condition. Importantly, the positive training condition also had a protective effect on self-esteem. Participants in this condition did not exhibit a decrease in self-esteem after the stress task, whereas participants in the negative condition did. These results demonstrate that implicit cognitive biases can be trained and that this training affects self-esteem. Implications of these findings for research on psychopathology and emotion regulation are discussed.     

Choice of task and goal under conditions of general and specific affective inducement

In this study we examine the role of general and task-specific affect on task and goal choice in a performance setting. We use video stimuli to induce a general positive or general negative affective state, and use rate-of-progress and absolute discrepancy feedback to manipulate task-specific affect. Analyses indicate that general affective states influenced task and goal choices, self-efficacy expectations, and performance. Rate-of-progress feedback influenced affective state, task choice, and self-efficacy expectations. Absolute discrepancy feedback influenced task choice modestly and self-efficacy significantly. Generally, positive affect promoted mood maintenance while negative affect promoted mood repair, and general and task-specific affect exerted similar effects. Results are discussed in terms of the motivational consequences of affective states (either general or task-specific) for task and goal choices.     

Being bad isn't always good: affective context moderates the attention bias toward negative information

Research has demonstrated that people automatically devote more attention to negative information than to positive information. The authors conducted 3 experiments to test whether this bias is attenuated by a person's affective context. Specifically, the authors primed participants with positive and negative information using traditional (e.g., subliminal semantic priming) and nontraditional (e.g., social interactions) means and measured the amount of attention they allocated to positive and negative information. With both event-related brain potentials (Experiment 1) and the Stroop task (Experiments 2 and 3), results suggest that the attention bias to negative information is attenuated or eliminated when positive constructs are made accessible. The implications of this result for other biases to negative information and for the self-reinforcing nature of emotional disorders are discussed.     

The augment effect of negative affective background on positive stimulus: Two randomized controlled trials

Based on the affective endowment-contrast theory, negative affect (NA) is hypothesized to augment positive affect (PA). Study 1 examined this contrast effect (augment effect) in a laboratory setting. Participants (n?=?94) were assigned into positive, negative or neutral affective background conditions through false feedback procedure, and then a same positive stimulus was given to all participants. Results indicated that participants in negative condition experienced more feelings of PA and less NA after receiving the positive stimulus compared to the other two conditions. Study 2 investigated this augment effect under naturalistic context. Participants (n?=?150) were classified into high positive, high negative, or mild positive affective background groups based on their naturally occurred affects. Then a positive manipulation was giving to all participants. Results indicated that participants in the high negative group experienced the most decrease in feelings of NA after receiving the positive manipulation. Results from the two studies provided evidence to the endowment-contrast theory, indicating that the valance of positive stimulus was augmented under negative affective background.     

Impact of esteem-related feedback on mood, self-efficacy, and attribution of success: Self-enhancement/self-protection

It is suggested that positive ego-enhancing and negative ego-diminishing feedback conditions concerning social perceptiveness can give rise to altered affective states concerning self-esteem that generalize to other areas of cognitive functioning in such a way that this feedback accompanies a systematic self-serving attributional bias of cognitive/intellectual performance. The results of 40 participants in an ego-enhancing and 45 in an ego-diminishing feedback condition indicate more attribution of problem-solving success by the first group to effort and to ease of the task; participants who received ego-diminishing feedback attributed their initial problem-solving success less to ease of the task. Other more direct evidence of self-protective strategies on the part of those in the ego-diminishing feedback condition includes lower success expecta y on retest and reduced volunteering for additional challenge. The results are interpreted as evidence of the impact of generalized esteem-related affect on future success expectancy, on risk-taking, and on the attribution of success when future replication is a boundary condition.     

Affective modulation of recognition bias

A correspondence of processing on the familiarity-novelty and positive-negative dimensions, particularly in the earliest processing stages, is proposed. Familiarity manipulations should, therefore, not only influence affective evaluations (e.g., the mere exposure effect), but affective manipulations should also bias familiarity judgments (e.g., in recognition). In Experiment 1, both previously presented and new recognition test words were primed by matching, nonmatching, positive, or negative context words. In Experiment 2, more diffuse affective states were induced during recognition test trials by contracting facial muscles that corresponded to positive and negative expressions. Particularly when participants were less aware of the familiarity and affective manipulations, corresponding effects were found. Positive affect led to a more liberal recognition bias, and negative affect led to more cautious tendencies.     

自动情绪调节对负性情绪面孔注意偏向的影响

本研究通过成语匹配任务启动情绪调节目标,在情绪flanker任务中考察了自动情绪调节启动对注意偏向的影响。结果表明,中性启动条件下,被试表现出对负性情绪面孔的注意偏向,而情绪调节启动条件下,被试对正性、负性情绪面孔的注意分配不存在显著差异。这一结果说明自动情绪调节可以有效地减弱被试的负性情绪面孔注意偏向。     

负性情境诱导下抑郁个体的情绪Stroop效应：ERPs研究

运用ERPs技术探讨了正常和抑郁个体在中性和负性情境诱导下的情绪Stroop效应。结果发现正常被试在负性情境下对中性词判断的错误率比在中性情境下更高,对负性词加工的P1波幅减小、N1增大,出现了Stroop效应;抑郁被试在两种情境下对负性词加工的P1和 N1波幅没有差异。研究结果提示,抑郁个体在负性情境下出现注意脱离困难和资源不足,难以解决情绪冲突任务,支持了注意脱离损伤假说,并进一步说明抑郁个体的情绪选择性注意加工会受到心境一致性状态的影响,因过多的注意资源卷入从而出现负性情绪调节不良。实验结果为探讨抑郁个体对负性情绪的注意加工和调节过程提供了来自电生理的证据。     

Dissociating affective evaluation and social cognitive processes in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex

In recent studies, various regions of the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) have been implicated in at least two potentially different mental functions: reasoning about the minds of other people (social cognition) and processing reward related information (affective evaluation). In this study, we test whether the activation in a specific area of the vmPFC, the para-anterior cingulate cortex (PACC), correlates with the reward value of stimuli in general or is specifically associated with social cognition. Participants performed a time estimation task with trial-to-trial feedback in which reward and social context were manipulated separately. Reward was manipulated by giving either positive or negative feedback in the form of small squirts of fluid delivered orally. Social context was manipulated by instructing participants that positive and negative feedback was determined by another person or a computer. The data demonstrate a main effect of feedback, but not social context, in the PACC, suggesting that this area of the vmPFC serves a general function in evaluating and/or representing reward value. In addition, activity in a more anterior subregion of the vmPFC demonstrated reward-related sensitivity only in the social context. Another area that showed a similar interaction was the subgenual cingulate, but this region was only sensitive to negative feedback in the social condition. These findings suggest that, within the vmPFC, the PACC subserves primarily an affective function, whereas in other regions social context can modulate affective responses.     

Counterintuitive effects of negative social feedback on attention

Which stimuli we pay attention to is strongly influenced by learning. Stimuli previously associated with reward outcomes, such as money and food, and stimuli previously associated with aversive outcomes, such as monetary loss and electric shock, automatically capture attention. Social reward (happy expressions) can bias attention towards associated stimuli, but the role of negative social feedback in biasing attentional selection remains unexplored. On the one hand, negative social feedback often serves to discourage particular behaviours. If attentional selection can be curbed much like any other behavioural preference, we might expect stimuli associated with negative social feedback to be more readily ignored. On the other hand, if negative social feedback influences attention in the same way that other aversive outcomes do, such feedback might ironically bias attention towards the stimuli it is intended to discourage selection of. In the present study, participants first completed a training phase in which colour targets were associated with negative social feedback. Then, in a subsequent test phase, these same colour stimuli served as task-irrelevant distractors during a visual search task. The results strongly support the latter interpretation in that stimuli previously associated with negative social feedback impaired search performance.     

The Effects of Affect Manipulation and Information Exposure on Divergent Thinking

This study examined how affective states and exposure to diverse information influence figural divergent thinking using a pretest-posttest design. A total of 148 participants were divided into 4 conditions: positive affect, negative affect, information, and control. In the positive and negative affect conditions, participants respectively listened to the elation and depression statements of the Velten procedure. In the information condition, participants listened to the neutral statements of the Velten procedure. In the control condition, participants listened to word-processing instructions. Divergent thinking was measured using the figural form of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), and affect was measured using a mood questionnaire and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Multivariate analyses of covariance were conducted using the TTCT, mood, and state-trait anxiety premeasures as covariates; the TTCT, mood, and state-trait anxiety postmeasures as the dependent variables; and treatment condition as the independent variable. Results showed a significant effect of condition on posttreatment TTCT scores, F(3, 140) = 3.37, p = .0203; mood, F(3, 140) = 7.44, p = .0001; and state anxiety, F(3, 140) = 6.27, p = .0005. Comparison tests showed that the information exposure treatment resulted in significantly higher TTCT scores than the control condition, indicating that exposure to diverse information can enhance divergent thinking. Results further indicated that, although the positive affect manipulation was effective in enhancing mood and reducing state anxiety, it did not enhance divergent thinking scores. The negative affect manipulation did not appear to be effective. Possible explanations for these results are discussed.     

Affective bias in visual working memory is associated with capacity

How does the affective nature of task stimuli modulate working memory (WM)? This study investigates whether WM maintains emotional information in a biased manner to meet the motivational principle of approaching positivity and avoiding negativity by retaining more approach-related positive content over avoidance-related negative content. This bias may exist regardless of individual differences in WM functionality, as indexed by WM capacity (overall bias hypothesis). Alternatively, this bias may be contingent on WM capacity (capacity-based hypothesis), in which a better WM system may be more likely to reveal an adaptive bias. In two experiments, participants performed change localisation tasks with emotional and non-emotional stimuli to estimate the number of items that they could retain for each of those stimuli. Although participants did not seem to remember one type of emotional content (e.g. happy faces) better than the other type of emotional content (e.g. sad faces), there was a significant correlation between WM capacity and affective bias. Specifically, participants with higher WM capacity for non-emotional stimuli (colours or line-drawing symbols) tended to maintain more happy faces over sad faces. These findings demonstrated the presence of a “built-in” affective bias in WM as a function of its systematic limitations, favouring the capacity-based hypothesis.     

情绪一致性对有意遗忘的影响

有意遗忘是强调遗忘的有意性和指向性。对负性情绪的有意遗忘有利于个体的身心健康。本研究采用单字范式,实验一以正性、负性和中性情绪词为材料,探讨了情绪材料对有意遗忘的影响。结果发现,三类词语均表现出了显著的有意遗忘效应;实验二在实验一的基础上加入了情绪状态,探讨了情绪状态和情绪材料对有意遗忘的影响,结果发现,在积极情绪状态下,被试更多地遗忘负性情绪词;在消极情绪状态下,被试更多地遗忘中性词。表明个体对情绪信息的有意遗忘既受信息的情绪性影响,又受个体情绪状态的影响。     

Mood as input and catastrophic worrying

The authors describe 3 experiments investigating a "mood-as-input" approach to understanding catastrophic worrying. Experiment 1 found that induced negative mood increased the number of steps emitted in both a catastrophizing interview procedure and a positive iteration task. Experiment 2 found that the number of items that worriers emitted in an iterative item generation task was dependent on the stop rules specified by the procedure. Experiment 3 found that manipulating the stop rules for catastrophizing had differential effects on worriers and nonworriers, depending on the nature of the stop rules specified. These results suggest that mood provides information about continuing or terminating the catastrophizing process that is interpreted in the context of the stop rules for the task. It is argued that the mood-as-input hypothesis accounts for the facts of exacerbated catastrophizing in worriers better than explanations couched in terms of either mood congruency effects or worriers possessing a generalized perseverative iterative style.