The ability to regulate emotion is associated with greater well-being, income, and socioeconomic status

Are people who are best able to implement strategies to regulate their emotional expressive behavior happier and more successful than their counterparts? Although past research has examined individual variation in knowledge of the most effective emotion regulation strategies, little is known about how individual differences in the ability to actually implement these strategies, as assessed objectively in the laboratory, are associated with external criteria. In two studies, we examined how individual variation in the ability to modify emotional expressive behavior in response to evocative stimuli is related to well-being and financial success. Study 1 showed that individuals who can best suppress their emotional reaction to an acoustic startle are happiest with their lives. Study 2 showed that individuals who can best amplify their emotional reaction to a disgust-eliciting movie are happiest with their lives and have the highest disposable income and socioeconomic status. Thus, being able to implement emotion regulation strategies in the laboratory is closely linked to well-being and financial success.     

Behavioral inhibition and amplification during emotional arousal: a comparison of two age groups

This study investigated age differences in the ability to suppress and amplify expressive behavior during emotional arousal. Young and old participants viewed 3 film clips about medical procedures while their behavioral, autonomic, and subjective responses were recorded. Half of the participants viewed all 3 films without additional instructions; the other half was asked to suppress and amplify their behavioral expression during the 2nd and 3rd films. Except for heart rate, suppression and amplification produced similar patterns of autonomic activation. Neither suppression nor amplification had effects on self-reported emotion. There were no age differences in the ability to suppress or amplify emotional expression or in their physiological or subjective consequences. Considering that older people's unregulated reactivity was lower than that of young adults, suppression may have been easier and amplification more difficult for older adults. Voluntary emotion regulation might be one domain of human performance that is spared from age-related losses.     

Longitudinal studies of PTSD: overview of findings and methods

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has a discernible starting point and typical course, hence the particular appropriateness of longitudinal research in this disorder. This review outlines the salient findings of longitudinal studies published between 1988 and 2004. Studies have evaluated risk factors and risk indicators of PTSD, the disorder's trajectory, comorbid disorders and the predictive role of acute stress disorder. More recent studies used advanced data analytic methods to explore the sequence of causation that leads to chronic PTSD. Advantages and limitations of longitudinal methods are discussed.     

A two-factor model for predicting when a couple will divorce: exploratory analyses using 14-year longitudinal data

This article examines 14-year longitudinal data and attempts to create a post hoc model that uses Time-1 data to "predict" the length of time the marriage will last. The sample consists of the 21 couples (of 79 studied) who divorced over a 14-year period. A two-factor model is proposed. One factor is the amount of unregulated volatile positive and negative affect in the marriage, and this factor predicts a short marriage length for the divorcing couples. A second factor is called "neutral affective style," and this factor predicts a long marriage length for the divorcing couples. This model is compared to a Time-1 model of ailing marriage in which Time-1 marital satisfaction is used to predict the timing of divorce.     

Processing picture-word stimuli: the contingent nature of picture and of word superiority

Participants named (Experiments 1-2) or categorized (Experiments 3-4) the picture or the word of picture-word compounds that varied in the relative saliency of the 2 components and in the correlation between them over the experimental trials. Picture-word interference (PWI) was gauged through Stroop and Garner effects. PWI was found to be malleable; its magnitude and very presence depending lawfully on the contextual variations introduced. The contingent nature of PWI is a fact to be reckoned with by theorists of picture-word processing.     

Cross-modal enhancement of perceived brightness: sensory interaction versus response bias

Stein, London, Wilkinson, and Price (1996) reported the presence of cross-modal enhancement of perceived visual intensity: Participants tended to rate weak lights as brighter when accompanied by a concurrent pulse of white noise than when presented alone. In the present study, two methods were used to determine whether the enhancement reflects an early-stage sensory process or a later-stage decisional process, such as a response bias. First, enhancement was eliminated when the noise accompanied the light on only 25% versus 50% of the trials. Second, enhancement was absent when tested with a paired-comparison method. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the sound-induced enhancement in judgments of brightness reflects a response bias, rather than an early sensory process--that is, enhancement is the result of a relatively late decisional process.     

Autonomic, subjective, and expressive responses to emotional films in older and younger Chinese Americans and European Americans

Previously, the authors found that during idiosyncratic emotional events (relived emotions, discussions about marital conflict), older European American adults demonstrated smaller changes in cardiovascular responding than their younger counterparts (R. W. Levenson, L. L. Carstensen, W. V. Friesen, & P. Ekman, 1991; R. W. Levenson, L. L. Carstensen, & J. M. Gottman, 1994). This study examined whether such differences held when the emotional events were standardized, and whether they extend to another cultural group. Forty-eight old (70-85 years) and 48 young (20-34 years) European Americans and Chinese Americans viewed sad and amusing film clips in the laboratory while their cardiovascular, subjective (online and retrospective), and behavioral responses were measured. Consistent with previous findings, older participants evidenced smaller changes in cardiovascular responding than did younger participants during the film clips. Consistent with earlier reports, old and young participants did not differ in most subjective and behavioral responses to the films. No cultural differences were found.