A Presentist-Friendly Definition of “Endure”

Philosophia - It is a commonplace that things persist, though thinkers disagree over what persistence consist in. Views about time are closely related to views about persistence, though some have...     

Individual Differences in Emotional Mimicry: Underlying Traits and Social Consequences

Mimicry, the imitation of the nonverbal behaviour of others, serves to establish affiliation and to smoothen social interactions. The present research aimed to disentangle rapid facial reactions (RFRs) to affiliative emotions from RFRs to nonaffiliative emotions from a trait perspective. In line with the Mimicry in Social Context Model by Hess and Fischer, we expected that only the former are mimicry responses indicative of underlying social relating competence and predictive of social satisfaction, whereas the latter superficially resemble mimicry responses and are driven by social relating incompetence and have opposite effects on social satisfaction. Further, we assumed that social relating competence would moderate the relationship between stable individuals' tendencies to show (mal)adaptive RFRs and social satisfaction. To test these hypotheses, 108 participants first completed scales measuring social relating competence, then participated in a mimicry laboratory task and finally evaluated their naturally occurring social interactions for 10 days. Affiliative RFRs to sadness were related to proximal indices of social relating competence and predicted positive social interactions, whereas nonaffiliative RFRs to disgust were related to social relating incompetence and predicted negative social interactions. By contrast, neither affiliative RFRs to happiness nor nonaffiliative RFRs to anger were linked to proximal indices of social relating competence, and both RFRs were only (dys)functional for interaction quality in less social relating‐competent individuals. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The bidirectional relation of emotion perception and social judgments: the effect of witness’ emotion expression on perceptions of moral behaviour and vice versa

The present research tested the notion that emotion expression and context perception are bidirectionally related. Specifically, in two studies focusing on moral violations (N?=?288) and positive moral deviations (N?=?245) respectively, we presented participants with short vignettes describing behaviours that were either (im)moral, (in)polite or unusual together with a picture of the emotional reaction of a person who supposedly had been a witness to the event. Participants rated both the emotional reactions observed and their own moral appraisal of the situation described. In both studies, we found that situational context influenced how emotional reactions to this context were rated and in turn, the emotional expression shown in reaction to a situation influenced the appraisal of the situation. That is, neither the moral events nor the emotion expressions were judged in an absolute fashion. Rather, the perception of one also depended on the other.     

Neural mechanisms underlying subsequent memory for personal beliefs:An fMRI study

Many fMRI studies have examined the neural mechanisms supporting emotional memory for stimuli that generate emotion rather automatically (e.g., a picture of a dangerous animal or of appetizing food). However, far fewer studies have examined how memory is influenced by emotion related to social and political issues (e.g., a proposal for large changes in taxation policy), which clearly vary across individuals. In order to investigate the neural substrates of affective and mnemonic processes associated with personal opinions, we employed an fMRI task wherein participants rated the intensity of agreement/disagreement to sociopolitical belief statements paired with neural face pictures. Following the rating phase, participants performed an associative recognition test in which they distinguished identical versus recombined face–statement pairs. The study yielded three main findings: behaviorally, the intensity of agreement ratings was linked to greater subjective emotional arousal as well as enhanced high-confidence subsequent memory. Neurally, statements that elicited strong (vs. weak) agreement or disagreement were associated with greater activation of the amygdala. Finally, a subsequent memory analysis showed that the behavioral memory advantage for statements generating stronger ratings was dependent on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Together, these results both underscore consistencies in neural systems supporting emotional arousal and suggest a modulation of arousal-related encoding mechanisms when emotion is contingent on referencing personal beliefs.     

Convergent and divergent responses to emotional displays of ingroup and outgroup

In the present research, we test the assumption that emotional mimicry and contagion are moderated by group membership. We report two studies using facial electromyography (EMG; Study 1), Facial Action Coding System (FACS; Study 2), and self-reported emotions (Study 2) as dependent measures. As predicted, both studies show that ingroup anger and fear displays were mimicked to a greater extent than outgroup displays of these emotions. The self-report data in Study 2 further showed specific divergent reactions to outgroup anger and fear displays. Outgroup anger evoked fear, and outgroup fear evoked aversion. Interestingly, mimicry increased liking for ingroup models but not for outgroup models. The findings are discussed in terms of the social functions of emotions in group contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).     

Cognitive consequences of expressive regulation in older adults

Previous research has suggested that older and young adults are equally able to regulate their outward expressions of emotion and that the regulation of emotional expression in younger adults results in decreased memory for the emotional stimulus. In the current study, we examined whether older adults show this same memory effect. Older and young adults viewed positive and negative emotional pictures under instructions to view the pictures naturally, enhance their facial expressions, or suppress their facial expressions. Older and young adults showed equivalent outward regulation of expression, but suppressing their emotional expressions led to reduced memory for emotional stimuli only in the young adults. The results suggest that older and young adults are achieving control of their expressions through different mechanisms or strategies.     

The Moderating Effect of Anxiety on Development in Atypically Developing Toddlers

In typically developing children, researchers have found that anxiety disorders are associated with poorer intellectual abilities (Davis et al. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment 30:43–51, 2008). The aim of the current study was to examine the impact anxiety symptoms had on the developmental quotients of toddlers. A total of 170 toddlers ranging in age from 17 to 37 months were selected for inclusion in this study, all of whom were at risk for or had a developmental delay. Two factors indicative of behavioral symptoms of anxiety from the Baby and Infant Screen for Children with aUtIsm Traits-Part2 were utilized as the independent variables and the total developmental quotient from the Battelle Developmental Inventory, 2nd Edition was utilized for the dependent variable. Examination of results revealed that atypically developing toddlers with symptoms of anxiety had significantly lower developmental quotients when compared to toddlers without any anxiety symptoms. A discussion of the implications and limitations of this study are included.