Affect regulation and food intake in bulimia nervosa: emotional responding to food cues after deprivation and subsequent eating

Emotional responding to salient food cues and effects of food deprivation and consumption were investigated in 32 women with bulimia and 32 control women. One half of each group was food deprived before viewing unpleasant, neutral, pleasant, and food-related pictures. Then participants could eat from a buffet before viewing a parallel picture set. Women with bulimia showed a substantial potentiation of startle responses during viewing of food cues relative to control women. This startle potentiation was attenuated by food deprivation and augmented by increased food consumption. These data support the affective regulation model suggesting that food cues prompt negative affective states in women with bulimia, who are overwhelmed by fasting. The resulting deprivation increases the incentive value of food cues and may thus trigger binge eating.     

Perceived responses to capitalization attempts are influenced by self‐esteem and relationship threat

Discussing good news builds strength in relationships. In particular, perceiving a close other as enthusiastic about good fortune can help individuals maintain relational strength when relationship security is threatened. In an experiment and a daily diary study, how self‐esteem moderates perceptions of a partner's response to these capitalization attempts following relationship threats were examined. After having been primed with relationship threat (Study 1) or on days following relationship conflict (Study 2), low‐self‐esteem persons perceived less partner enthusiasm about their good news, but high‐self‐esteem persons perceived more partner enthusiasm. Self‐esteem had no effect after a neutral prime or no‐conflict days. These results indicate that capitalization as a strategy for repairing relationships may depend on the partners' self‐esteem.     

Effort responses to suboptimal reward cues are related to striatal dopaminergic functioning

Reward cues have been found to increase the investment of effort in tasks even when cues are presented suboptimally (i.e. very briefly), making them hard to consciously detect. Such effort responses to suboptimal reward cues are assumed to rely mainly on the mesolimbic dopamine system, including the ventral striatum. To provide further support for this assumption, we performed two studies investigating whether these effort responses vary with individual differences in markers of striatal dopaminergic functioning. Study 1 investigated the relation between physical effort responses and resting state eye-blink rate. Study 2 examined cognitive effort responses in relation to individually averaged error-related negativity. In both studies effort responses correlated with the markers only for suboptimal, but not for optimal reward cues. These findings provide further support for the idea that effort responses to suboptimal reward cues are mainly linked to the mesolimbic dopamine system, while responses to optimal reward cues also depend on higher-level cortical functions.     

Threats to autonomy: motivational responses to risk information

Two studies considered the role of autonomy in people's motivational response to health‐risk information. In Study 1, ‘non‐smoker’ participants (N = 59) completed a measure of autonomy and read either health‐risk information about smoking or neutral information. Those who read the health‐risk information reported less autonomous motivation for not smoking than did those who read the neutral information. However, level of autonomy moderated this effect: lower autonomy participants reported less autonomous motivation after reading the health‐risk information than after reading the neutral information but there was no such effect for higher autonomy participants. Study 2 (N = 100) supported the results of Study 1 using a sample of smokers, with a significant interaction between autonomy and health‐risk condition predicting autonomous motivation. Higher autonomy participants reported greater autonomous motivation to quit smoking after reading health‐risk information than after reading neutral information. There was no effect of condition for lower autonomy participants. Autonomous and controlled motivation was also considered in relation to the antecedents of intention outlined in the TPB. The findings are discussed in relation to the differential motivational impact of risk information on people with higher or lower autonomy. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wisdom-related knowledge: affective, motivational, and interpersonal correlates

This study investigated the connection between wisdom as a body of expert knowledge about the meaning and conduct of life and indicators of affective, motivational, and interpersonal functioning. Structural equation analyses showed that individuals higher on wisdom-related knowledge reported (a) higher affective involvement combined with lower negative and pleasant feelings, (b) a value orientation that focused conjointly on other-enhancing values and personal growth combined with a lesser tendency toward values revolving around a pleasurable life, and (c) a preference for cooperative conflict management strategies combined with a lower tendency to adopt submissive, avoidant, or dominant strategies. These findings corroborate the theoretical notion that wisdom involves affective modulation and complexity rather than the predominant seeking of pleasure and also a joint motivational commitment to developing the potential of oneself and that of others.     

We are what we eat: How food is represented in our mind/brain

Despite the essential role of food in our lives, we have little understanding of the way our knowledge about food is organized in the brain. At birth, human infants exhibit very few food preferences, and do not yet know much about what is edible and what is not. A multisensory learning development will eventually turn young infants into omnivore adults, for whom deciding what to eat becomes an effortful task. Recognizing food constitutes an essential step in this decisional process. In this paper we examine how concepts about food are represented in the human brain. More specifically, we first analyze how brain-damaged patients recognize natural and manufactured food, and then examine these patterns in the light of the sensory-functional hypothesis and the domain-specific hypothesis. Secondly, we discuss how concepts of food are represented depending on whether we embrace the embodied view or the disembodied view. We conclude that research on food recognition and on the organization of knowledge about food must also take into account some aspects specific to food category, the relevance of which has not been sufficiently recognized and investigated to date.     

Consistency between verbal and non-verbal affective cues: a clue to speaker credibility

Listeners are exposed to inconsistencies in communication; for example, when speakers’ words (i.e. verbal) are discrepant with their demonstrated emotions (i.e. non-verbal). Such inconsistencies introduce ambiguity, which may render a speaker to be a less credible source of information. Two experiments examined whether children make credibility discriminations based on the consistency of speakers’ affect cues. In Experiment 1, school-age children (7- to 8-year-olds) preferred to solicit information from consistent speakers (e.g. those who provided a negative statement with negative affect), over novel speakers, to a greater extent than they preferred to solicit information from inconsistent speakers (e.g. those who provided a negative statement with positive affect) over novel speakers. Preschoolers (4- to 5-year-olds) did not demonstrate this preference. Experiment 2 showed that school-age children's ratings of speakers were influenced by speakers’ affect consistency when the attribute being judged was related to information acquisition (speakers’ believability, “weird” speech), but not general characteristics (speakers’ friendliness, likeability). Together, findings suggest that school-age children are sensitive to, and use, the congruency of affect cues to determine whether individuals are credible sources of information.     

Tell me who you are and I tell you how you feel: expected emotional reactions to success and failure are influenced by knowledge about a person's personality

The present research investigated the influence of knowledge about a person's modesty or arrogance on people's expectations regarding that person's emotional reactions to success and failure. Arrogance and modesty reflect the extent to which someone is likely to publicize their ability. Accordingly, we predicted that observers' expectations regarding a person's tendency to publicize their ability should inform expectations about the person's emotional reactions to success and failure. In two vignette studies, observers predicted the emotional state of a protagonist, as well as the probability that s/he will actually express that emotion and share the experience with others. For success, participants predicted a protagonist's pride, happiness, schadenfreude, and embarrassment if praised for a positive outcome. For failure, participants predicted anger, shame, guilt, sadness, and fear reactions. Across studies, personality information explained more variance than did gender or status. Results showed that the expectations for an arrogant person matched modal expectations for success, whereas for failure the expectations for the modest individual were closest to the modal expectations. Specifically, both modest and arrogant individuals were expected to suppress emotions that do not fit their self-presentational styles rather than to exaggerate expressions that do. This paper adds to our understanding of the information that people use to predict others' emotional reactions.     

Automatic appraisal of motivational valence: Motivational affective priming and Simon effects

We investigated whether motivationally determined stimulus valence can be processed in an automatic way, as is assumed in many appraisal theories (e.g., Frijda, 1986, 1993; Lazarus, 1991; Scherer, 1993a). Whereas appraisal theorists typically use conscious self-report methods to investigate their assumptions, our experiments used indirect experimental methods that leave less room for deliberate, conscious reflections of the participants. Using variants of the affective priming and Simon paradigms, we demonstrated that intrinsically neutral, but wanted stimuli facilitated responses with a positive valence, whereas intrinsically neutral, but unwanted stimuli facilitated negative responses. In addition, the second experiment proved to be supportive of another assumption made by appraisal theorists according to which a relation exits between different (automatic) outcomes of motivational appraisal (positive-negative) and different action tendencies (approach-withdrawal).     

Rejection sensitivity and the defensive motivational system: insights from the startle response to rejection cues

Rejection sensitivity (RS) is the disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive, and intensely react to rejection. This study used the startle probe paradigm to test whether the affect-based defensive motivational system is automatically activated by rejection cues in people who are high in RS. Stimuli were representational paintings depicting rejection (by Hopper) and acceptance (by Renoir), as well as nonrepresentational paintings of either negative or positive valence (by Rothko and Miro, respectively). Eyeblink startle magnitude was potentiated in people high in RS when they viewed rejection themes, compared with when they viewed nonrepresentational negative themes. Startle magnitude was not attenuated during viewing of acceptance themes in comparison with nonrepresentational positive themes. Overall, the results provide evidence that for people high in RS, rejection cues automatically activate the defensive motivational system, but acceptance cues do not automatically activate the appetitive motivational system.     

Dissociating motivational direction and affective valence: specific emotions alter central motor processes

We aimed to clarify the relation between affective valence and motivational direction by specifying how central and peripheral components of extension movements are altered according to specific unpleasant affective states. As predicted, premotor reaction time was quicker for extension movements initiated during exposure to attack than for extension movements initiated during exposure to all other valence categories (mutilation, erotic couples, opposite-sex nudes, neutral humans, household objects, blank). Exposure to erotic couples and mutilations yielded greater peak force than exposure to images of attack, neutral humans, and household objects. Finally, motor reaction time and peak electromyographic amplitude were not altered by valence. These findings indicate that unpleasant states do not unilaterally prime withdrawal movements, and that the quick execution of extension movements during exposure to threatening images is due to rapid premotor, rather than motor, reaction time. Collectively, our findings support the call for dissociating motivational direction and affective valence.     

On emotional innumeracy: Predicted and actual affective responses to grand-scale tragedies

The present research demonstrates that people overestimate the intensity of their emotional responses to grand-scale tragedies. Participants predicted that they would feel significantly worse if thousands of people were killed in a disaster than if only a few people were killed, and yet they exhibited an “emotional flatline,” feeling equally sad regardless of the number of people killed. This unforeseeable emotional flatline was demonstrated in response to deaths stemming from human violence and natural disasters, both close to home and far away (including hurricanes in the United States, a forest fire in Spain, and the Iraq War). Participants’ actual emotional responses were calibrated with fatalities only when abstract death tolls were translated into concrete images. We argue that affective forecasts and emotional experiences may arise from separate systems, leading to reliable forecasting errors, as well as influencing subsequent judgments.     

Young adults' intention to eat healthy food: Extending the theory of planned behaviour

Abstract

The present study predicts adults' intention to eat healthily, using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and additive and moderating effects of role identity, group norms and group identification, derived from identity theory and self categorisation theory. A total of 735, 25 years old adults participated in a mailed questionnaire survey in 1997. The TPB explained 52% of the variance in young adults' decision to eat healthily, with perceived behavioural control and subjective norms being the strongest (β= .56, p < .001) and weakest (β = .05, p < .005) determinants, respectively. Although, role identity accounted for an additional amount of 4% of the variance in behavioral intention, past behaviour did not moderate the impact of role identity on intention, as hypothesised. Neither perceived group norm nor group identification added to the prediction of intention over and above the TPB. However, group identification was found to act as a moderator on the relation between group norm and behavioural intention in the predicted direction. The wider social context seems to play a stronger role for the formation of adults' healthy eating decisions than indicated by the TPB.     

Personality,threat and affective responses to cultural diversity

The present study tried to reconcile assumptions from Terror Management Theory that individual differences in openness to diversity are enhanced by existential threat with own recent findings suggesting that individual differences are diminished by threat. A model was supported assuming that it is the nature of the threat that determines which pattern will hold. We predicted that for stress‐related but not for social traits, threat enhances individual differences in reactions to diversity. Students were confronted with a videotaped meeting of a homogeneous versus diverse work group. Threat was induced using a Terror Management Intervention. Indeed, whereas for Emotional Stability individual differ ences in responses to diversity were restricted to conditions of threat, for Social Initiative, individual differences solely occurred under normal circumstances. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-efficacy and affective responses to short bouts of exercise

Abstract

One of the most commonly cited barriers to exercise participation is lack of available time. Furthermore, the minimum exercise duration required to produce physiological changes has seen considerable attention, whereas the minimum duration required to produce psychological benefits has been largely ignored. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to contrast the effects of 10, 15, and 20 minutes of treadmill running on self-efficacy and affective responses. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed that self-efficacy increased in all participants (p < .001). Furthermore, multivariate analyses of variance showed that each condition generated increases in positive well-being and decreases in psychological distress (p's< .05). Correlational analyses of post-exercise assessments indicated that self-efficacy levels were positively related to positive well-being and inversely related to fatigue. These findings suggest that 10 minutes of aerobic exercise is sufficient to enhance exercise-related self-efficacy and affect.     

Five-months-olds' attention and affective responses to still-faced emotional expressions

Mothers posed happy, sad, or neutral still-faces (SFs) between periods of normal interactions. Lowered infant attention and affect and increased grimacing occured during SF regardless of emotional expression posed during the SF period. Different static expressions elicited differential smiling; infants smiled slightly but significantly more to happy SFs. Greater differences occured with changes in contingent aspects of interactions.     

Managing motivational conflict: How self-esteem and executive resources influence self-regulatory responses to risk

This article explores how self-esteem and executive resources interact to determine responses to motivational conflict. One correlational and 3 experimental studies investigated the hypothesis that high and low self-esteem people undertake different self-regulatory strategies in "risky" situations that afford opportunity to pursue competing goals and that carrying out these strategies requires executive resources. When such resources are available, high self-esteem people respond to risk by prioritizing and pursuing approach goals, whereas low self-esteem people prioritize avoidance goals. However, self-esteem does not influence responses to risk when executive resources are impaired. In these studies, risk was operationalized by exposing participants to a relationship threat (Studies 1 and 2), by using participants' self-reported marital conflict (Study 3), and by threatening academic competence (Study 4). Executive resources were operationalized as cognitive load (Studies 1 and 2), working memory capacity (Study 3), and resource depletion (Study 4). When executive resources were ample, high self-esteem people responded to interpersonal risk by making more positive relationship evaluations (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and making more risky social comparisons following a personal failure (Study 4) than did low self-esteem people. Self-esteem did not predict participants' responses when executive resources were impaired or when risk was absent. The regulatory function of self-esteem may be more resource-dependent than has been previously theorized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).