Affective and cognitive predictors of affective response to exercise: Examining unique and overlapping variance

ObjectivesAffective response to exercise has been suggested as an important factor in determining regular exercise. However, it is unclear the extent to which anticipatory affect factors (affective attitudes, implicit associations, and affective associations), anticipated affect factors (anticipated regret, anticipated pride), and cognitive factors (self-efficacy, intentions) explain overlapping or unique variance in affective response to exercise.DesignWe systematically examined the extent to which these various affective and cognitive factors relevant to exercise predict affective response, and determined the extent to which these factors account for unique or overlapping variance in affective response.MethodHealthy young adults (N = 69) completed measures of affective attitudes, affective associations, implicit associations, anticipated affect, self-efficacy, and exercise intentions. Participants then exercised for 20-min at moderate intensity on a treadmill, during and after which they reported their affective response. Using variables that were independent predictors, we conducted multivariate analyses to determine which factors account for unique variance in affective response to exercise.ResultsIn three of four multivariate models, both anticipated and anticipatory affect variables explained unique variance in affective response during exercise. Only anticipatory affect variables accounted for unique variance in affective response immediately post-exercise. Finally, the association between exercise self-efficacy and affective response during-exercise was rendered non-significant after controlling for affective factors in all three multivariate models.ConclusionsThe unique associations between affective response to exercise and affective, but not cognitive, factors elucidate key predictors of affective response during- and post-exercise.     

Realistic affective forecasting: The role of personality

Affective forecasting often drives decision-making. Although affective forecasting research has often focused on identifying sources of error at the event level, the present investigation draws upon the “realistic paradigm” in seeking to identify factors that similarly influence predicted and actual emotions, explaining their concordance across individuals. We hypothesised that the personality traits neuroticism and extraversion would account for variation in both predicted and actual emotional reactions to a wide array of stimuli and events (football games, an election, Valentine's Day, birthdays, happy/sad film clips, and an intrusive interview). As hypothesised, individuals who were more introverted and neurotic anticipated, correctly, that they would experience relatively more unpleasant emotional reactions, and those who were more extraverted and less neurotic anticipated, correctly, that they would experience relatively more pleasant emotional reactions. Personality explained 30% of the concordance between predicted and actual emotional reactions. Findings suggest three purported personality processes implicated in affective forecasting, highlight the importance of individual-differences research in this domain, and call for more research on realistic affective forecasts.     

Relevance drives attention: Attentional bias for gain- and loss-related stimuli is driven by delayed disengagement

Attentional bias to gain- and loss-related stimuli was investigated in a dot-probe task. We used coloured stimuli that had acquired their valence during the experiment by signalling the chance to either win or lose points in a game task. Replicating previous findings with the additional singleton paradigm, we found attentional bias effects for both gain- and loss-related colours. The effects were due to delayed disengagement from valent stimuli, especially if they were positive, and could not be explained by nonattentional processes like behavioural freezing. Our findings suggest that stimuli signalling opportunities and dangers hold attention, supporting a general motivational relevance principle of the orienting of attention.     

Associations between empathy and altruistic sharing behavior in Chinese adults

Previous research has shown that affective empathy, rather than cognitive empathy, significantly predicts people’s altruistic sharing behavior in economic games. However, most of these studies were conducted in Western populations. There might be cultural differences in the relations between empathy and altruism due to different levels of empathy between Western and Asian individuals. In this study, we measured different aspects of empathy in Chinese adults as well as their allocation offers in the dictator and ultimatum games. We found that cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy, was a significant predictor of adults’ altruistic sharing behavior in the two economic games. Subjective family income was also revealed to be a significant predictor of individuals’ altruism in the ultimatum game, such that people with lower subjective family income tended to be more generous. Potential implications of our findings are discussed.     

Can emotional bonding be a liability? Status striving as an intervening mechanism in affective commitment and negative work behaviors relationship

IntroductionThe dark side of affective commitment has been ignored in the past literature on organizational commitment.ObjectivesUsing the tenants of moral self-licensing theory, we examined how affective commitment can cause negative outcomes. We hypothesized that affective commitment leads to unethical pro-organizational behaviors, careerism and counter-productive work behaviors through increased urge for status striving.Methods and resultsA multi-wave and two-source data was obtained (n = 306) from employees and their peers working in the service sector of Pakistan. Employing structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis our results indicate that high levels of affective commitment might unleash status striving which further creates unethical pro-organizational behaviors, careerism and CWBs.ConclusionThe current study opens up a new side in the affective commitment literature by examining status striving as an underlying mechanism through which affective commitment reveals its deleterious consequences for employees.     

A mechanism for biasing the appraisal process in affective agents

In this paper we present a mechanism to model the influence of agents’ internal and external factors on the emotional evaluation of stimuli in computational models of emotions. We propose the modification of configurable appraisal dimensions (such as desirability and pleasure) based on influencing factors. As part of the presented mechanism, we introduce influencing models to define the relationship between a given influencing factor and a given set of configurable appraisal dimensions utilized in the emotional evaluation phase. Influencing models translate factors’ influences (on the emotional evaluation) into fuzzy logic adjustments (e.g., a shift in the limits of fuzzy membership functions), which allow biasing the emotional evaluation of stimuli. We implemented a proof-of-concept computational model of emotions based on real-world data about individuals’ emotions. The obtained empirical evidence indicates that the proposed mechanism can properly affect the emotional evaluation of stimuli while preserving the overall behavior of the model of emotions.     

情绪调节自我效能感与心理健康的交叉滞后研究

摘 要：对531名青少年进行为期五个月的追踪,运用交叉滞后回归分析考察积极、沮丧、生气三种情绪调节自我效能感与心理健康（问题行为、抑郁和生活满意度）间的相互影响。结果：T1积极情绪调节自我效能感不能预测T2问题行为、抑郁和生活满意度;T1沮丧情绪调节自我效能感显著预测T2抑郁水平;T1生活满意度和抑郁显著预测T2生气情绪调节自我效能感。结论：高沮丧情绪调节自我效能感能保护青少年处于“低抑郁状态”,而生气情绪调节自我效能感更容易受到个体生活满意度和抑郁水平的影响,是青少年处于不良心理状态下的易感效能。     

Integrating a cognitive computational model of planning and decision-making considering affective information

Planning and decision-making are two of the cognitive functions involved in the solution of problems. These functions, among others, have been studied from the point of view of a new field known as cognitive informatics focused on the development of cognitive architectures, autonomous agents, and human robots that are capable of showing human-like behavior. We present an exhaustive study of current biological and computational models proposed in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive informatics. Also, we present a deep review of the brain areas involved in planning, decision-making, and affection. However, the majority of the proposed computational models are seeking to mimic human external behavior. This paper aims to contribute to the cognitive informatics field with an innovative cognitive computational model of planning and decision-making. The two main differences of our model with respect to the current models in the literature are: (i) our model considers affective and motivational information as a basic and essential trigger in planning and decision-making processes; (ii) our model attempts to mimic both the internal human brain as well as the external human behavior. We developed a computational model capable of offering a direct mapping from human brain areas to computational modules of our model. Thus, in this paper we present our model from a conceptual, formal, and computational approach in order to show how our proposal must be implemented. Finally, a set of tests were conducted in order to validate our proposal. These tests show an interesting comparison between the behavior of our prototype and the behavior exhibited by some people involved in a case study.     

Invisible own- and other-race faces presented under continuous flash suppression produce affective response biases

One triumph of the human mind is the ability to place the multitudinous array of people we encounter into in- and out-group members based on racial characteristics. One fundamental question that remains to be answered is whether invisible own- and other-race faces can nevertheless influence subsequent affective judgments. Here, we employed continuous flash suppression (CFS) to render own- and other-race faces unperceivable in an affective priming task. Both on-line and off-line awareness checks were employed to provide more stringent control of partial awareness. Results revealed that relative to own-race faces, imperceptible other-race faces significantly facilitated participants’ identification of negative words, suggesting an other-race derogation bias. When faces were presented consciously, we found that not only other-race faces facilitated detection of negative words, but also own-race faces facilitated detection of positive words. These findings together provide novel and strong evidence suggesting that invisible racial faces can bias affective responses.     

The illusion of courage in social predictions: Underestimating the impact of fear of embarrassment on other people

The results of two experiments support the thesis that emotional perspective taking entails two judgments: a prediction of one’s own preferences and decisions in a different emotional situation, and an adjustment of this prediction to accommodate perceived differences between self and others. Participants overestimated others’ willingness to engage in embarrassing public performances—miming (Experiment 1) and dancing (Experiment 2)—in exchange for money. Consistent with a dual judgment model, this overestimation was greater among participants facing a hypothetical rather than a real decision to perform. Further, participants’ predictions of others’ willingness to perform were more closely correlated with self-predictions than with participants’ estimates of others’ thoughts about the costs and benefits of performing.