The study of emotional processes in communication: I. Measuring emotionalization in everyday face-to-face communicative interaction

The drawbacks of traditional research into emotional processes have led us to develop a set of methodologies for investigating them in everyday face-to-face communication. The conceptual basis of these procedures is a model of the eliciting conditions of emotional processes as well as a conceptualization of the emotional processes themselves. On the basis of the assumption of conversation as a rule-governed process, one can describe its default temporal, formal, and functional features, for which we use the MAS EDIT and SEQ programs, and the minimal model of communicative exchange, respectively. Violations of these default rules can be identified as unexpected/temporally unpredictable events eliciting emotionalization. The nature of emotionalization is determined by the psychological principle of “standard and deviation.” Its investigation under natural conditions requires the following: A noninvasive method of data acquisition (including procedures for rejecting faulty or missing values), measurement (high-resolution recording of physiological, psychomotor, and vocal variables), and the (nonstatistical) construction of an inventory or “relevant effects” (contrastive and template analysis). Finally, we depict three routes of investigating time courses of activation changes as dependent and independent variables and as a target of modification and reflection.     

The study of emotional processes in communication: II. Peripheral blood flow as an indicator of emotionalization

Traditional methods of analyzing human peripheral blood flow (PBF) do not account for its continuous nature or small-scale variation. Sequel transformation is presented as a new methodology for measuring these variations. This analysis generates a richer record of aspects of activation of the autonomous nervous system than traditional interbeat-interval (IBI) measurement. Presumably, in addition to heartbeat (i.e., IBI), other information can be extracted that is consistent with the influence of several physiological and psychological factors. This kind of variation is reflected in the PBF signal. After determining and extracting relevant events from vascular volume data generated by sequel transformation, we demonstrate the use of template analysis to analyze patterns of events as time courses of activation. All procedures are included in the computer program VASC Analyzer.     

Expectancy‐effects without expectancies: Illusory correlations based on cue‐overlap

Expectancy‐based illusory correlations have been observed in numerous experiments. Simulations using the connectionist computer model BIAS (Fiedler, 1996 ) show that such illusory correlations may not always reflect expectancy biases but influences of similarity via cue‐overlap. Cue‐overlap means that some of the probabilistic cues that indicate the presence of one variable are also indicative of another variable. In an experiment, participants learned two novel concepts pertaining to a fictitious painter and a fictitious artistic style in separate runs. Both concepts were defined by multiple probabilistic cues observable in paintings. For half the participants, the cue systems underlying the perception of the two concepts overlapped, whereas for the other half they did not. In addition, we manipulated whether or not participants expected a positive contingency between artist and artistic style. In the second part of the experiment, a series of paintings was presented that constituted an objective zero correlation between artist and artistic style. Participants' subsequent contingency judgments were assessed by direct and indirect measures. Data analyses revealed main effects for expectancy induction and cue‐overlap but no interaction on the direct measure and nearly identical results on the indirect measure. Thus, cue‐overlap and expectancy induction independently triggered the development of illusory correlations. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of the adult attachment interview in parent-infant psychotherapy: A case presentation

This case presentation describes the assessment of an infant at age 3 weeks who had a highly unusual birth experience, and the subsequent 18-month treatment of this infant and his family. The case documents the clinical benefit derived by obtaining an Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) as part of the assessment process. It also discusses the role such a procedure can have in planning and executing parent-infant psychotherapy in complex cases.     

Spiritual Dryness and Celibacy in Catholic Priests – Discernment of Ongoing Spiritual Journeys from Relational and Psychosexual Immaturities

Pastoral Psychology - The celibacy of Roman Catholic priests, in contrast to a single lifestyle, implies an existential choice for spiritual reasons as a conscious motivation. Nevertheless, several...     

The semantic structure of emotion words across languages is consistent with componential appraisal models of emotion

Appraisal theories of emotion, and particularly the Component Process Model, claim that the different components of the emotion process (action tendencies, physiological reactions, expressions, and feeling experiences) are essentially driven by the results of cognitive appraisals and that the feeling component constitutes a central integration and representation of these processes. Given the complexity of the proposed architecture, comprehensive experimental tests of these predictions are difficult to perform and to date are lacking. Encouraged by the “lexical sedimentation” hypothesis, here we propose an indirect examination of the compatibility of the theoretical assumptions with the semantic structure of a set of major emotion words as measured in a cross-language and cross-cultural study. Specifically, we performed a secondary analysis of the large-scale data set with ratings of affective features covering all components of the emotion process for 24 emotion words in 27 countries, constituting profiles of emotion-specific appraisals, action tendencies, physiological reactions, expressions, and feeling experiences. The results of a series of hierarchical regression analyses to examine the prediction of the theoretical model are highly consistent with the claim that appraisal patterns determine the structure of the response components, which in turn predict central dimensions of the feeling component.     

Psychological Well-Being as an Additional Outcome Parameter in the Treatment of Patients with Gambling Disorder: Results from a Clinical Multicenter Follow-Up Study

According to the World Health Organization well-being has been defined as one outcome parameter indicating successful recovery from diseases. One disease causing significant psychosocial problems and distress is Gambling Disorder that is being characterized as a poorly controlled excessive engagement in gambling activities. While there are several studies investigating treatment-effects in patients with Gambling Disorder, the role of well-being as a complementary treatment outcome has not been studied so far. In our research project it was aimed to fill this gap by gathering data on changes of eudaimonic dimensions of well-being from 76 patients with Gambling Disorder before and 1 year after receiving inpatient treatment. At both waves (pretreatment and follow-up) we collected data regarding well-being (Ryff Scales of Well-being), psychopathological symptoms (SCL-9), and diagnostic criteria for Gambling Disorder (Lie/Bet-Questionnaire). We found some dimensions of well-being changing 1 year after treatment and that patients recovered from Gambling Disorder displayed significant increments in Autonomy and Environmental Mastery. In contrast, patients still meeting criteria for Gambling Disorder displayed well-being increments only in Environmental Mastery and decreases in Personal Growth and Positive Relations with Others. Only changes in Environmental Mastery and Self-Acceptance were significantly associated with decreases in psychosocial distress indicating that well-being is an additional indicator for treatment outcome. It was also intended to identify factors predicting increments in well-being. However, no relationships were found regarding demographics, clinical variables, or treatment parameters. It is proposed to acknowledge well-being as an additional indicator for treatment effects and suggested to implement therapeutic strategies for an early enhancement of well-being.     

The Influence of Major Life Events and Personality Traits on the Stability of Affective Well-Being

The current study examines the influence of major life events compared to personality traits on the stability of affective well-being (AWB). It is shown how the decomposition of autocovariances can be used to estimate the degree of stability that is due to life events and personality traits. The approach is illustrated by an analysis of data from a nationally representative Australian sample with four consecutive waves of measurement. The autocovariances of positive and negative mood served as indicators of the stability of AWB. Big five personality traits as well as 21 major life events were used as predictor variables in a path analysis. In comparison to previous studies, this allowed to directly compare the effects of multiple events to the influence of personality traits in a longitudinal design. Results indicated medium stability coefficients for AWB. Ca. 10 % of the autocovariances could be accounted for by life events and about 20 % by personality traits. Both types of predictors together accounted for about 30 %. Among personality traits, emotional stability followed by extraversion had the highest effects. Among life events “financial worsening” and “serious personal injury/illness” had the highest effects. Additionally, life events were significantly correlated with personality traits as well as with other life events. In a next step, it might be interesting to compare the influence of Big Five personality traits and stable life circumstances on the stability of the cognitive well-being component, using a similar statistical procedure. Also, as the number of variables in large panel studies is limited, results should be complemented by more in-depth studies, favourably using multi-method approaches.     

Domain-specific interference between storage and processing in complex span is driven by cognitive and motor operations

The role of domain-specific interference in the complex-span paradigm is still controversial. Here we distinguish two operations within the processing task of this paradigm—a cognitive operation to solve the task and a motor operation to give the answer. Their domain-specific interference with maintenance was investigated within the complex-span paradigm. Presentation of the memoranda—six words or four spatially distributed dots—was interleaved with the presentation of letter pairs to be processed. Cognitive operation domain was manipulated by asking participants to make either a rhyme judgment or a symmetry judgment for each letter pair. Motor operation domain was varied by requiring a response by either speaking or pointing. Cognitive load was held constant. Cognitive and motor operation showed separate domain-specific effects on memory: Visuospatial memory was impaired more by visuospatial than verbal cognitive operations and more by manual–spatial than oral motor operations. In contrast, verbal memory performance was worse when verbal cognitive operations and oral motor operations were executed. The results are discussed in relation to the multicomponent model, the time-based resource-sharing (TBRS) model, and the Serial Order in a Box–Complex-Span (SOB-CS) model. They imply that models of working memory must incorporate mechanisms that allow for domain-specific interference in the verbal and the visuospatial domain.