Comparing the predictive utility of trait affect and average daily affect for the prospective prediction of health outcomes

In preregistered secondary data analyses, we compared the predictive utility of trait affect and average daily affect for predicting three health outcomes across nine years (N = 1,376). Trait positive and negative affect were assessed using a 25-item dispositional questionnaire. Average daily affect was assessed as the mean of eight daily diary reports of the same items. Trait affect and average daily affect both had medium associations with self-reported general health and chronic health conditions. Moreover, both types of affect predicted mortality when adjusting for baseline health and demographics. Effect sizes were comparable for trait compared to daily affect. These findings demonstrate convergent predictive validity of trait and daily affect measures.     

The role of pupil size in communication. Is there room for learning?

The eyes are extremely important for communication. The muscles around the eyes express emotional states and the size of the pupil signals whether a person is aroused and alert or bored and fatigued. Pupil size is an overlooked social signal, yet is readily picked up by observers. Observers mirror their own pupil sizes in response, which can influence social impressions. In a landmark study by Hess [1975. The role of pupil size in communication. Scientific American, 233(5), 110–119] it was shown that individuals with large pupils are perceived more positively than individuals with small pupils. In that behavioral study, participants were asked to draw pupils in line drawings of faces with empty irises and they drew large pupils in the happy face, and small ones in the angry face. The current study tested 579 participants (aged 4–80 years old) and extended this work by showing that this association between large (small) pupils and a positive (negative) impression develops over age and is absent in children. Several explanations for how individuals through interactions with close others learn that large pupils mean care, interest and attention and small pupils the opposite, are discussed. To conclude, this study shows that pupil size and emotion perception are intertwined but that their relationship develops over age.     

It hurts both ways: How social comparisons harm affective and cognitive trust

Organizations often expect employees to collaborate with and trust the same coworkers with whom they compete for promotions and raises. This paper explores how social comparisons in self-relevant achievement domains influence affective and cognitive trust. We find that both upward and downward social comparisons harm trust. Upward comparisons harm affective trust and downward comparisons harm cognitive trust. We find no benefits of upward comparisons on cognitive trust, and we find no benefits of downward comparisons on affective trust.     

Implicit need for affiliation is associated with increased corrugator activity in a non-positive, but not in a positive social interaction

Affective changes in response to motive-relevant stimuli are a defining feature of implicit motives. We therefore expected to find an effect of individual differences in the implicit need for affiliation (nAff) on corrugator supercilii activity, an indicator of affect, when participants were confronted with nonverbal indicators of a conversational partner’s withdrawal. Participants’ nAff was assessed with a Picture Story Exercise (PSE). They were then involved in an interaction with a smiling or a neutral experimenter while their corrugator activity was measured with electromyography (EMG). As expected, we found higher corrugator activity for people high in nAff compared to people low in nAff when the experimenter kept a neutral facial expression throughout the interaction but not when he/she was smiling.     

Mood-congruent thoughts and personality disorder pathology

The primary aim of this research was to investigate associations that depression severity and trait anxiety have with reactions to specific, identifiable thoughts experienced by persons with varying levels of personality disorder (PD) pathology as they went about their day-to-day lives. Ninety-eight psychotropic medication-free persons participated in an experience sampling assessment procedure over four consecutive days, during which participants recorded specific thoughts experienced moments before a page signal was received and corresponding ratings of thought discomfort. Thought discomfort, regarded as an emotional reaction to thoughts or their evaluation, was moderately associated with several forms of PD pathology, particularly Cluster C pathology. Once depression severity and trait anxiety were controlled, however, associations between PD pathology and thought discomfort were eliminated. Findings from this research generally support the mood-congruence of negatively valenced thoughts in relation to PD pathology.     

Methodological implications of the affect revolution: a 35-year review of emotion regulation assessment in children

This investigation analyzed the methods used over the past 35 years to study emotion regulation (ER) in children. Articles published from 1975 through 2010 were identified in 42 child clinical, developmental, and emotion psychology journals. Overall, 61.1% of published ER articles relied on one method and 23.6% used two methods. Analyses revealed (a) 82.8% of published ER research occurring within the past decade; (b) higher rates of observational methods with infant and toddler/preschool samples, but more use of self-report methodology with middle childhood and adolescent samples; (c) a longer history of published ER research with samples of infants to 5-year-olds, including the use of more longitudinal design, compared with older samples; and (d) a positive association between journal impact ratings and the use of physiological and observational measurement. Review of the measurement tools used to capture ER revealed great diversity in how emotion processes are understood and evaluated.     

What You Feel Influences What You See: The Role of Affective Feelings in Resolving Binocular Rivalry

It seems obvious that what you see influences what you feel, but what if the opposite were also true? What if how you feel can shape your visual experience? In this experiment, we demonstrate that the affective state of a perceiver influences the contents of visual awareness. Participants received positive, negative, and neutral affect inductions and then completed a series of binocular rivalry trials in which a face (smiling, scowling, or neutral) was presented to one eye and a house to the other. The percepts “competed” for dominance in visual consciousness. We found, as predicted, that all faces (smiling, scowling, and neutral) were dominant for longer when perceivers experienced unpleasant affect compared to when they were in a neutral state (a social vigilance effect), although scowling faces increased their dominance when perceivers felt unpleasant (a relative negative congruence effect). Relatively speaking, smiling faces increased their dominance more when perceivers were experiencing pleasant affect (a positive congruence effect). These findings illustrate that the affective state of a perceiver serves as a context that influences the contents of consciousness.     

Better (or worse) for some than others: Individual differences in the positivity offset and negativity bias

People tend to respond with more positive than negative affect to mildly emotional stimuli (i.e., positivity offset) and respond more strongly to very negative than to matched positive stimuli (i.e., negativity bias). In the current study, the authors examine individual differences in the positivity offset and negativity bias and demonstrate that both are stable over time and generalize across different kinds of stimuli (e.g., pictures, sounds, words, games of chance). Furthermore, the positivity offset and negativity bias are not redundant with traditional personality measures and exhibit differential predictive validity, such that both types of measures predict behavior in meaningful ways. Implications for a comprehensive understanding of affect and emotion and their relationship to physical and mental health are discussed.     

Passion, craving, and affect in online gaming: Predicting how gamers feel when playing and when prevented from playing

According to the Dualistic Model of Passion, two forms of passion can motivate a behavior: harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Across various life activities, studies have found that the two forms of passion show different relationships with affect, linking harmonious passion to positive affect and obsessive passion to negative affect. To investigate if this pattern also holds for online gaming, the present study investigated 160 gamers involved in playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMOs) and examined positive and negative affect (a) when playing and (b) when prevented from playing. In addition, the effects of general affect and craving for playing MMOs were controlled for. Results were as expected from the Dualistic Model of Passion: harmonious passion for online gaming predicted positive affect when playing whereas obsessive passion predicted negative affect when playing and when prevented from playing. Moreover, these effects remained unchanged when general affect and craving were controlled for. With this, the present research shows that individual differences in passion for online gaming explain unique variance in gaming-related emotions. Moreover, the present findings suggests that craving is a variable that future research on positive and negative affect in online gaming should pay closer attention to.     

Relating action to abstract goals increases physical activity reported a week later

ObjectiveThe primary aim of the present study was to investigate whether construing action abstractly versus concretely increases physical activity over a one-week period.Design and methodAn experimental study was conducted in which participants were asked to commit to engaging in physical activity at least four times in the coming week. After making this commitment, participants were assigned randomly to think about the concrete procedures or the abstract purpose of their actions. Additionally, in an attempt to induce differences in level of goal conflict, participants were assigned randomly to receive a reminder of a different or consistent goal. The main outcome variable of interest was the number of minutes spent on physical activity over the following 7-day period.ResultsConsistent with the hypothesis, participants in the abstract condition reported engaging in significantly more minutes of physical activity than did those in the concrete condition. Level of goal conflict did not significantly impact physical activity. The effect of abstract versus concrete thinking on physical activity also was related to the processing of negative affect.ConclusionBy providing evidence that construing action abstractly impacts physical activity, the present investigation makes an important addition to research aiming to identify effective means of increasing physical activity.