Making sense of emotion in stories and social life

Abstract

This paper is concerned with some limitations of the vignette methodology used in contemporary appraisal research and their implications for appraisal theory. We focus on two recent studies in which emotional manipulations were achieved using textual materials, and criticise the investigators' apparent implicit assumption that participation in everyday social reality is somehow comparable to reading a story. We take issue with three related aspects of this cognitive analogy between life and its narrative representation, by arguing that emotional reactions in real life are not necessarily mediated by symbolic processes, that people are involved participants of real life rather than neutral observers, and that in real life people's evaluations and emotions are typically part of an ongoing dialogue rather than the expression of a soliloquy. Results from these studies of emotional vignettes therefore tend to overestimate the importance of constructive, abstract, and individualistic processes in the everyday causation of social emotions. In real life, people do not necessarily have to calculate, transform, or internally represent the meaning of the dynamic situation in order to make emotional sense of what is happening to them in the social world.     

Worry spreads: Interpersonal transfer of problem-related anxiety

This paper distinguishes processes potentially contributing to interpersonal anxiety transfer, including object-directed social appraisal, empathic worry, and anxiety contagion, and reviews evidence for their operation. We argue that these anxiety-transfer processes may be exploited strategically when attempting to regulate relationship partners’ emotion. More generally, anxiety may serve as either a warning signal to other people about threat (alerting function) or an appeal for emotional support or practical help (comfort-seeking function). Tensions between these two interpersonal functions may account for mutually incongruent interpersonal responses to expressed anxiety, including mistargeted interpersonal regulation attempts. Because worry waxes and wanes over time as a function of other people's ongoing reactions, interpersonal interventions may help to alleviate some of its maladaptive consequences.     

A comparison of visual tilt illusions measured by the techniques of verticle setting, parallel matching, and dot alignment.

The tilt illusion (TI) was investigated by using both short (19 min) and long (2 deg 6 min) test lines, at three angles of test line-inducing line separation (15 degrees, 45 degrees, and 75 degrees). Three groups of ten observers each provided data under one of three task conditions: vertical judgment, parallel matching, and dot alignment on a common visual display. The main result was that both the vertical judgment and the parallel matching task provided similar, classic TI angular functions with the means ordered 15 degrees greater than 45 degrees greater than 75 degrees and with small attraction effects at 75 degrees in three of the four relevant functions. The third task, dot alignment, yielded results different from the average of the other two: no attraction effects occurred and, with the short test line, the obtained mean illusion at 45 degrees exceeded those at the other intersect angles. These results are consistent with alignment data reported by others. One explanation is that the inducing line produces an apparent bowing of the test line which would be reflected in dot alignments but not in vertical setting or in parallel matching. However, direct evidence does not support this hypothesis. An alternate hypothesis, for which independent evidence exists, is that alignment errors reflect perceptual mistracking but that the origin of these errors is not the tip of the test line but within it. Although this does not explain dot alignment errors, it highlights their complexity and the need to interpret them with caution.     

Global stereopsis in rhesus monkeys

In three separate experiments an attempt was made to demonstrate global stereopsis in two rhesus monkeys by using random dot stereograms projected and viewed through polarizing filters. Although both animals learned a number of discriminations, control tests showed that both were perceiving non-depth cues such as monocular identification of minute pattern differences or brightness differences caused by reflections of polarized light. In a final experiment red/green anaglyph forms of the stereograms were viewed through red/green filters. Both monkeys, together with a third experimentally naive animal, showed incontrovertible evidence of prompt discrimination based on stereopsis. This paper makes a number of recommendations about the use of random dot stereograms to demonstrate global stereopsis in animals.     

Short-term retention of superimposed and of spatially distinct multiletter visual arrays

On each trial, Ss attempted to retain a series of five visually presented letters while concurrently “shadowing” (repeating aloud) a rapid series of aurally presented letters. If serial-position accuracy is ignored, they were able to store more than only the last letter of a typical series, even though all five letters appeared on the same screen, and that performance was superior to the retention of five auditorily presented letters. Together, these findings suggest that a form of visual storage might have been employed for the retention of visual stimuli and, specifically, one that was relatively immune to erasure as compared to “iconic” storage. In further support of that hypothesis, retention of such visual series as measured by free-recall accuracy was not inferior to that of five letters, each of which was presented on a separate screen.     

Stimulus and task factors as determinants of ear advantages

Two dichotic experiments are reported which dissociate stimulus and task factors in perceptual lateralization. With only trajectories of fundamental frequency as a distinguishing cue, perception of the voicing of stop consonants gives a right ear advantage. Identification of the emotional tone of a sentence of natural speech gives a left ear advantage. If such parameters as fundamental frequency variation or overall naturalness of the speech material determined the direction of an ear advantage, the reverse pattern of results would have been obtained. Hence the task appears more important than the nature of the stimulus.     

Effects of Acute Stress or Centrally Injected Interleukin-1beta on Neuropeptide Expression in the Immune System

Acute stress stimulates the expression and release of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) from the hypothalamus, and the pro-opiomelanocortin products beta-endorphin and ACTH from the anterior pituitary. These neuropeptides are also expressed in immune tissues, and it has been proposed that they may modulate immune responses to stress through paracrine mechanisms. We subjected rats to restraint stress or central injection of interleukin (IL)-1beta to determine whether these acute stimuli can alter the expression of neuropeptides in the spleen and thymus. Restraint stress significantly increased the contents of all these neuropeptides in thymic, but not splenic, extracts. A single icv injection of IL-1beta increased contents of CRH, AVP, ACTH and beta-endorphin in the spleens of both sham-operated and adrenalectomised (ADX) rats. IL-1beta increased thymic contents of CRH and ACTH in sham-operated rats but these increases were not observed in ADX rats. These results suggest that the effects of IL-1beta on neuropeptide expression in the spleen are independent of glucocorticoids, whereas IL-1beta stimulation of neuropeptide expression in the thymus is dependent on circulating glucocorticoids. There were significant correlations between increases in CRH, ACTH and beta-endorphin in the spleen, and between CRH and ACTH in the thymus, consistent with the suggestion that IL-1beta-induced increases in ACTH and beta-endorphin may be mediated through CRH. These results provide evidence that stressors can directly influence neuropeptide expression in immune tissues. Thus stress may influence immune functions through paracrine mechanisms involving locally synthesised neuropeptides as well as through activation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis.     

Don’t make me angry,you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry: Volitional choices to act or inhibit are modulated by subliminal perception of emotional faces

Volitional action and self-control—feelings of acting according to one’s own intentions and in being control of one’s own actions—are fundamental aspects of human conscious experience. However, it is unknown whether high-level cognitive control mechanisms are affected by socially salient but nonconscious emotional cues. In this study, we manipulated free choice decisions to act or withhold an action by subliminally presenting emotional faces: In a novel version of the Go/NoGo paradigm, participants made speeded button-press responses to Go targets, withheld responses to NoGo targets, and made spontaneous, free choices to execute or withhold the response for Choice targets. Before each target, we presented emotional faces, backwards masked to render them nonconscious. In Intentional trials, subliminal angry faces made participants more likely to voluntarily withhold the action, whereas fearful and happy faces had no effects. In a second experiment, the faces were made supraliminal, which eliminated the effects of angry faces on volitional choices. A third experiment measured neural correlates of the effects of subliminal angry faces on intentional choice using EEG. After replicating the behavioural results found in Experiment 1, we identified a frontal-midline theta component—associated with cognitive control processes—which is present for volitional decisions, and is modulated by subliminal angry faces. This suggests a mechanism whereby subliminally presented “threat” stimuli affect conscious control processes. In summary, nonconscious perception of angry faces increases choices to inhibit, and subliminal influences on volitional action are deep seated and ecologically embedded.     

大学二年级学生人际宽恕与报复心理及其与抑郁的关系研究

采用沉思量表、报复动机量表、宽恕倾向量表、宽恕态度量表和流调中心用抑郁量表对236名大二学生进行问卷调查,综合探讨大学生人际宽恕和报复心理及其与抑郁的关系。研究发现:(1)男大学生的报复倾向显著高于女大学生。(2)宽恕倾向与报复倾向及对侵犯的沉思程度显著负相关。沉思程度和抑郁显著正相关。(3)沉思程度和宽恕倾向对抑郁分别具有显著的正向和负向的预测作用。(4)大学生的宽恕倾向和宽恕态度的相互作用以及宽恕倾向和报复倾向之间的交互作用对抑郁均没有显著预测作用。     

Self‐efficacy or perceived behavioural control: Which influences consumers' physical activity and healthful eating behaviour maintenance?

This research investigated the role of a commercial program, Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation (MB12WBT), that uses a variety of tools including social support to influence weight management behaviours such as exercising and eating healthfully. The need for research into weight management remains current given obesity rates have continued to increase in recent decades. Weight management is a complex behaviour that for many consumers involves barriers that influence their commitment to continue exercising and eating healthily. The Theory of Planned Behaviour is frequently used to explain, and to a lesser extent predict, behaviours such as physical activity and healthy eating; however, there is much debate as to whether a perceived behavioural control variable or self‐efficacy is the best predictor of behaviour. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse data from a sample of 724 respondents who answered a baseline and three month follow‐up survey. The analysis revealed self‐efficacy and perceived behavioural control were two distinct constructs. Self‐efficacy was a better predictor of behaviour than perceived behavioural control variables as suggested in the original Theory of Planned Behaviour. Furthermore, self‐efficacy had a significant impact on exercising and eating healthfully behaviour. The findings and implications for both behaviour change theory and practice are discussed.