Happy,sad, scary and peaceful musical excerpts for research on emotions

Three experiments were conducted in order to validate 56 musical excerpts that conveyed four intended emotions (happiness, sadness, threat and peacefulness). In Experiment 1, the musical clips were rated in terms of how clearly the intended emotion was portrayed, and for valence and arousal. In Experiment 2, a gating paradigm was used to evaluate the course for emotion recognition. In Experiment 3, a dissimilarity judgement task and multidimensional scaling analysis were used to probe emotional content with no emotional labels. The results showed that emotions are easily recognised and discriminated on the basis of valence and arousal and with relative immediacy. Happy and sad excerpts were identified after the presentation of fewer than three musical events. With no labelling, emotion discrimination remained highly accurate and could be mapped on energetic and tense dimensions. The present study provides suitable musical material for research on emotions.Keywords.     

Dimensions of “uniquely” and “non‐uniquely” human emotions

Emotion scientists often distinguish those emotions that are encountered universally, even among animals ( “primary emotions”), from those experienced by human beings ( “secondary emotions”). No attempt, however, has ever been made to capture the lay conception about this distinction and to find the criteria on which the distinction is based. The first study presented in this paper was conducted in three countries involving four languages, so as to allow for cross‐cultural comparisons. Results showed a remarkable convergence. People from all samples not only differentiated between “uniquely human” and “non‐uniquely human” emotions on a continuum, but they did so on the same basis as the one used by emotion scientists to distinguish between “primary” and “secondary” emotions. Study 2 focused on the implicit use of such a distinction. When confronted with a human (animal) context, participants reacted faster to secondary (vs primary) emotions. The implications of the human uniqueness of some emotions within the social and interpersonal contexts are discussed.     

Effects of approach and withdrawal motivation on interactive economic decisions

Although recent economic models of human decision making have recognised the role of emotion as an important biasing factor, the impact of incidental emotion on decisions has remained poorly explored. To address this question, we jointly explored the role of emotional valence (i.e., positive vs. negative) and motivational direction (i.e., approach vs. avoidance) on performance in a well-known economic task, the Ultimatum Game. Participants had to either accept or reject monetary offers from other players, offers that vary in their degree of unfairness. A main effect of motivational direction, but not valence, was observed, with withdrawal-based emotion (disgust and serenity) prompting more rejections relative to approach-based emotion (anger and amusement) and a neutral state. These results further confirm that subtle incidental moods can bias decision making, and suggest that motivational state may be a useful framework to study such decisions. Implications with regard to emotion, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical psychology are discussed.     

Beyond the emotional event: Six studies on the social sharing of emotion

Abstract

We argue that emotion cannot only be conceived of as a short-lived and intrapersonal phenomenon. Rather, based on five theoretical arguments, we propose that the social sharing of an emotional experience forms an integral part of the emotional processes. A series of six studies investigated different aspects of this hypothesis. Study 1 showed that an overwhelming majority of people reported sharing their emotional experiences and that the memories of these experiences tended to come back spontaneously to their consciousness. No difference was found among emotions. Using a different procedure, Studies 2 and 3 replicated these findings in two different populations. In addition, these studies provided indications that women share their experiences with a wider array of individuals than do men. The first three studies did not find any differences among emotions, but they did not include shame. It could be argued that people are less inclined to socially share shame experiences which are typically elicited by breaking social rules. Study 4 specifically investigated this hypothesis. No differences among shame and other emotions were found except for the delay of the first sharing of the experience. Study 5 constituted a first investigation of whether the social sharing of emotion is also a significant process in now Western cultures. A comparison between Dutch and Surinamese people failed to reveal any significant difference. Based on the findings of the first five studies, a correlational model was designed in Study 6. It tested the interrelationships among disruptiveness of the emotion, social sharing, mental rumination, and recovery from the emotion disruption. A coherent pattern of findings emerged, showing that social sharing can be conceived as a bi-dimensional concept defined by features of amount and delay of sharing. In addition, both social sharing and mental rumination varied according to the disruptiveness of the emotion. Surprisingly, however, recovery could not be related to social sharing, mental rumination, or to the time elapsed since the episode.     

Lack of habituation to shocking words: The attentional bias to their spatial origin is context free

Following a suggestion made by Aquino and Arnell (2007), we assumed that the processing of emotional words is influenced by their context of presentation. Supporting this idea, previous studies using the emotional Stroop task in its visual or auditory variant revealed different results depending on the mixed versus blocked presentation of the stimuli (Bertels, Kolinsky, Pietrons, & Morais, 2011; Richards, French, Johnson, Naparstek, & Williams, 1992). In the present study, we investigated the impact of these presentation designs on the occurrence of spatial attentional biases in a modified version of the beep-probe task (Bertels, Kolinsky, & Morais, 2010). Attentional vigilance to taboo words as well as non-spatial slowing effects of these words were observed whatever the mixed or blocked design, whereas attentional vigilance to positive words was only observed in the mixed design. Together with the results from our previous study (Bertels et al., 2010), the present data support the reliability of the effects of shocking stimuli, while vigilance to positive words would only be observed in a threatening context.     

Counselor Education and Supervision: The Development of the CACREP Doctoral Standards

The purpose of this article is to illuminate the unique features of the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs guidelines and accreditation standards that shaped doctoral preparation in counselor education. Current issues that affect advanced training in counselor education and implications for future doctoral standards revisions are also presented.     

The emotional development of a woman: A form of social perversion

Abstract

This paper presents a point of view about how Mexican women who have achieved economical and professional freedom see their process of liberation through several unconscious social, cultural, and family filters. Would it be a form of social perversion not to analyse the delay in their emotional maturity related to cultural patterns, unresolved psychic conflicts, and the social unconscious?

Gila Jiménez Rosas. Die emotionale Entwicklung von Frauen: Eine Form von sozialer Perversion.

Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit dem Selbstverständnis mexikanischer Frauen, die ökonomische und soziale Befreiung verwirklicht haben. Diese Frauen sehen aber ihren Befreiungsprozess nicht klar, sondern verschleiert durch verschiedene unbewusste soziale, kulturelle und familiäre Gegebenheiten. Es scheint eine Art sozialer Perversion in ihren verspäteten emotionalen Reifeprozessen vorzuliegen, dies auf Grund von kulturellen Mustern und ungelösten unbewussten Konflikten.

Gila Jiménez Rosas. El desarrollo emocional de la mujer: Una forma de perversión social.

Este trabajo presenta un punto de vista acerca de cómo la mujer mexicana, que consigue libertad económica y profesional, ve su proceso de liberación a través de varios filtros sociales,culturales y familiares. Sería una forma de perversión el no analizar el retraso en su madurez emocional relacionada a patrones culturales, conflictos psíquicos no resueltos y al inconsciente social?     

Understanding Hope. Persons in the Process of Dying

Changes both within the profession of psychoanalysis and in society as a whole have affected our psychoanalytic training programs and presented new ethical challenges. Whereas in earlier decades training programs needed to be concerned primarily about the inviolability of the training analysis and the choice of appropriate analytic candidates, today there is little support for psychoanalysis as a treatment modality. Institutes are experiencing greater competition in attracting quality candidates and in providing them with adequate training experiences. This strain encourages institutes to operate in unethical ways to attract candidates. On the other hand, within the profession itself we are experiencing much theoretical ferment and the increasing feminization of the profession. These changes are affecting our training institutes and our ethical values in both positive and negative ways.     

Editorial

Abstract

This paper will examine the current crisis in psychoanalysis in terms of the profession's decline, the apparent lack of patients, the ongoing debate over what constitutes psychoanalysis versus other therapies, and the lack of clinical focus in those debates. The concept of analytic contact will be introduced, and clinical material is used to showcase this concept as a bridge from the circular political debates to a more meaningful examination of what is psychoanalytic. In addition, case material will explore how patients tend to fight off the establishment of analytic contact in favor of safer, less threatening modes of relating. The author suggests that most patients fight off analytic contact and try to shift the treatment into something less analytic. It is up to the analyst to detect this, interpret it, and notice any countertransference collusion that may occur. Although the state of psychoanalysis as a profession is less than stellar in the eyes of the public, and the profession is apt to sabotage itself with endless debates about what constitutes true analytic work, the end is not necessary near. This paper proposes analytic contact to be the more useful focus of research and productive area of clinical exploration. If the decline of our field is to turn around, it will be on the clinical battlefront, not in terms of the theorizing among disagreeing groups of territorial analysts afraid of losing their political high-ground. The concept of analytic contact assumes that a deep exploration of intrapsychic phenomena, conflicts, and defenses, all within the realm of the transference, is the best clinical method of helping the mentally troubled individual. This genuine chance of change is best administered by a trained psychoanalyst. This simple idea is something the profession has contaminated with its often pointless arguments over frequency, analyzability, couch, and so forth. The clinical material will show that what happens in the room between analyst and patient is what best defines the true psychoanalytic treatment.     

Facilitating Accuracy in Showup Identification Procedures: The Effects of the Presence of Stolen Property

Law enforcement personnel regularly present suspects to eyewitnesses using showups. In this study, we examined the impact of the presence of stolen property on live showup identification performance. Two hundred seventy university students were exposed to a simulated theft. During the subsequent showup, we manipulated the presence of the target and stolen property. Binary logistic regression analyses indicated that both factors independently predicted the accuracy of identification decisions. Participants were more accurate when the target was in the showup and when the stolen property was present during the identification. Consistent with the item, context, and ensemble theory of recognition, the presence of stolen property led to an increase in sensitivity, suggesting ensemble formation. Future research on showups should continue to examine contextual variables that may lead to changes in sensitivity or criterion shift. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.