From trust in caregivers’ support to exploration: The role of openness to negative affect and self‐regulation

Attachment theory assumes that trust in caregivers’ support and exploration are closely related. Little research tried to investigate this link, nor focuses on mechanisms that might explain this association. The present studies examined whether trust is related to exploration through a serial indirect effect of openness to negative affect and self‐regulation. In Study 1, 212 children, aged 8–13, completed questionnaires assessing trust, openness to negative affect, self‐regulation and exploration. The results showed that trust predicted exploration, but only to the extent to which openness to negative affect and self‐regulation were involved too. Study 2 refined these findings (n = 59, aged 9–12) using a behavioral measure of openness to negative affect and exploration, and with mother‐reported self‐regulation. Replicating this serial indirect effect of openness to negative affect and self‐regulation with multiple informants and methods, the present studies advance our understanding of how trust might foster exploration in preadolescence.     

Subjective well-being,social interpretation,and relationship thriving

Social interactions are open to a range of interpretations. We examine the associations among subjective well-being, social interpretations, and social thriving. In Study 1 (N = 276) positive affect (PA) was associated with positive interpretations of neutral faces. In Studies 2 and 3 (Ns = 295, 298) PA and life satisfaction were associated with positive interpretations of ambiguous and positive, but not negative, social interaction vignettes. In Study 4 (N = 501) there were indirect relationships of PA and life satisfaction on social thriving through interpretations. Subjective well-being’s association with social interpretations provides a critical base of support for conclusions from previous methodologically limited mood and social interpretation studies. This work also provides initial evidence for a role of social interpretation tendencies in social thriving.     

Emotion regulation and mood brightening in daily life vary with depressive symptom levels

Naturalistic studies of emotional reactivity in depression have repeatedly found larger decreases in negative affect (NA) among depressed individuals in response to daily positive events. This so-called mood-brightening (MB) effect represents a theoretical and empirical oddity. The current study is a secondary analysis investigating whether the MB effect is moderated by spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies, which have been implicated in the maintenance and modulation of NA in prior work. Participants (N?=?95) representing a large spectrum of depressive symptom severity reported their experiences of NA and the occurrence of positive events in daily life over the course of seven days using the experience sampling method. Our findings replicate and build upon those of prior studies relating to the MB effect in the following ways: (1) we observed the MB effect for specific negative emotions of sadness, anger, anxiety; and (2) we found evidence that the MB effect is moderated by spontaneous use of rumination, distraction, and expressive suppression, which have been shown to enhance or dampen NA. The role of emotion regulation strategies in daily emotional reactivity to pleasant events is discussed.     

Negative affect varying in motivational intensity influences scope of memory

Emotions influence cognitive processes involved in memory. While some research has suggested that cognitive scope is determined by affective valence, recent models of emotion–cognition interactions suggest that motivational intensity, rather than valence, influences these processes. The present research was designed to clarify how negative affects differing in motivational intensity impact memory for centrally or peripherally presented information. Experiments 1 & 2 found that, relative to a neutral condition, high intensity negative affect (anger) enhances memory for centrally presented information. Experiment 3 replicated this effect using another high intensity negative affect (threat). Experiment 4 extended this by finding that, relative to a neutral condition, low intensity negative affect (sadness) enhanced memory for peripherally presented information. Finally, in Experiment 5, the effects of sadness and threat on scope of memory were directly compared, finding that threat narrowed scope of memory, while sadness broadened scope of memory. Together, these results provide additional support for the motivational dimensional model of cognitive scope, in that high intensity emotions narrow cognitive scope, while low intensity emotions broaden cognitive scope.     

Studying Emotions in Security and Diplomacy: Where We Are Now and Challenges Ahead

The core objective of this special issue has been to shed light on emotions as (1) frames that shape interpersonal diplomatic relations, (2) as key tools that are used as part of the statecraft's toolbox, and (3) as formative/productive dynamics with real effects on human beings—that, in turn, often construct and maintain conflicts. It is therefore pertinent that we interrogate the political psychology of individual, collective, mass, and communal emotions and how these are often (mis)used in diplomacy and security narratives to legitimize politicians' decisions and practices. This concluding article provides a state of the art account of the study of emotions in International Relations (IR), sums up the main findings from all special issue contributions and constructively explores potential challenges ahead for the study of emotions in IR, especially in security and diplomacy studies. It concludes with an appeal for the development of a multiperspective approach—that is, one that combines social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities—for a nuanced study of the role of emotional work in state, diplomatic as well as security narratives and practices. This approach will in turn require methodological pluralism in how we go about, as reflexive researchers, our emotional research.     

Rousing the Partisan Combatant: Elite Incivility,Anger, and Antideliberative Attitudes

The claim that elite political incivility can rouse partisan, antideliberative attitudes has many adherents, but the empirical record demonstrating a relationship is surprisingly limited. Yet the extant research suggests that incivility can stimulate aversive feelings, of the sort that discrete and dimensional theories of emotion predict should induce a partisan, antideliberative mode of citizenship among those exposed. Leveraging two online experiments, I address the questions of whether elite incivility provokes anger, rather than enthusiasm and anxiety, and whether the affective reactions induced by incivility yield the changes in deliberative attitudes that theories of emotion predict. I find that elite incivility, when counterattitudinal, rouses anger, which in turn can provoke an active and combative form of partisan citizenship. Despite claims to the contrary, the link between proattitudinal incivility, anger, and antideliberative attitudes is less clear. The results provide insight into the dynamics of discourse in the digital age, when affective polarization is the norm and elites commonly employ uncivil rhetoric.     

Positive and negative affect and well-being in cardiac patients and their spouses: the mediating role of illness representations

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine whether illness representations of control and consequences mediate the relation of cardiac patients’ affect to well-being. A further aim was to examine this indirect relationship at a dyadic level (i.e. patient and spouse). Design and main outcome measures: One hundred and four patients with a cardiovascular disease and their spouses participated in the study. Positive and negative affect was assessed at baseline; illness representations were assessed 2 months later, and physical and psychological well-being 4 months later. Results: Illness representations generally mediated the impact of patients’ and spouses’ affect on well-being, while several actor and partner effects were found. However, it was only positive affect that was indirectly related to well-being, while the representations of personal and treatment control chiefly acted as mediators. The effects were stronger for patients than spouses, as well as for physical well-being. Conclusion: The results underline the strong connection between illness-related self-regulation and the overall person/environment interaction as depicted by affect. They also indicate the need to integrate theories on adaptation to illness, with models describing adaptation of couples to stressful conditions, and specific theories about the role of emotion in adaptation to illness.     

‘A necessary evil’: associations with taking medication and their relationship with medication adherence

Cognitive factors, like beliefs, have been studied extensively as determinants of medication adherence, while affect associated with taking medicines has been studied much less. In the present study (N = 525), we investigated affect by assessing patients’ first associations with taking their medicines. Results showed that these associations were related to self-reported medication adherence: Patients who associated taking medicines with negative affect were the least adherent, while those associating taking medicines with the need to take medicines were the most adherent. Our results support the idea that affect should be considered an important determinant of adherence.     

Assessing clergy work-related psychological health: reliability and validity of the Francis Burnout Inventory

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the classic model of balanced affect, the Francis Burnout Inventory (FBI) conceptualised good work-related psychological health among clergy in terms of negative affect being balanced by positive affect. In the FBI negative affect is assessed by the Scale of Emotional Exhaustion in Ministry (SEEM) and positive affect is assessed by the Satisfaction in Ministry Scale (SIMS). In support of the idea of balanced affect, previous work had shown a significant interaction between the effects of SEEM and SIMS scores, showing that the mitigating effects of positive affect on burnout increased with increasing levels of negative affect. In this paper a convenience sample of 155 priests serving with the Roman Catholic Church in Italy have been assessed on the Purpose in Life Scale (PILS) as an independent measure of well-being and concurrently on the two scales, SEEM and SIMS. Crucially for confirming the idea of balanced affect, there was a significant interaction between the effects of SEEM and SIMS scores on scores recorded on the PILS, confirming that the mitigating effects of satisfaction in ministry on purpose increased with increasing levels of emotional exhaustion.