Anticipatory emotions in decision tasks: Covert markers of value or attentional processes?

Anticipatory emotions precede behavioral outcomes and provide a means to infer interactions between emotional and cognitive processes. A number of theories hold that anticipatory emotions serve as inputs to the decision process and code the value or risk associated with a stimulus. We argue that current data do not unequivocally support this theory. We present an alternative theory whereby anticipatory emotions reflect the outcome of a decision process and serve to ready the subject for new information when making an uncertain response. We test these two accounts, which we refer to as emotions-as-input and emotions-as-outcome, in a task that allows risky stimuli to be dissociated from uncertain responses. We find that emotions are associated with responses as opposed to stimuli. This finding is contrary to the emotions-as-input perspective as it shows that emotions arise from decision processes.     

The influence of anxiety on the initial selection of emotional faces presented in binocular rivalry

Neurocognitive theories of anxiety predict that threat-related information can be evaluated before attentional selection, and can influence behaviour differentially in high anxious compared to low anxious individuals. We investigate this further by presenting emotional and neutral faces in an adapted binocular rivalry paradigm. We show that the initial selection of emotional faces presented in binocular rivalry is highly influenced by self-reported state and trait anxiety-level. Heightened anxiety was correlated with increased perception of angry and fearful faces, and decreased perception of happy expressions. These results are consistent with recent evidence of involuntary selection of threat in anxiety.     

双性化对大学生主观幸福感的影响

采用性别角色量表和主观幸福感量表对四所不同类型院校大学生的性别角色取向及主观幸福感进行了测评,结果显示大部分的学生性别角色趋于双性化,但男女同学趋于双性化的程度有所不同,男女大学生不同的男性化和女性化程度对主观幸福感的影响也不同。     

The Effect of Induced Positive and Negative Emotion and Openness-to-Feeling in Student’s Consumer Decision Making

How do emotional states affect risk-taking and consumer decisions? Serial experiments were conducted to demonstrate and explain the relationships among emotions, risk-taking, and consumer decisions. Study 1 showed that participants whose emotional condition was negative were more likely to systematically engage in risk-taking behavior than those exhibiting positive emotions, and the emotional effects were moderated by openness to feeling (OF) as a function of individual personality. Studies 2–5 were mainly to examine the effects of emotional conditions on consumer decision. The results of studies 2–5 substantiated our prediction that participants in positive emotional states were less likely to respond to puffer advertising and sales promotion, thus increasing the share of an option that is “average” in all dimensions, and more likely to have a compromise effect than in those in a negative emotional condition. Studies 2–5 also found that the emotional effects were moderated by individuals’ openness to their own feelings. The effects are discussed in relation to the literature on emotions, risk-taking, and consumer decisions.     

Social anxiety and interpretation biases for facial displays of emotion: emotion detection and ratings of social cost

The current study assessed the processing of facial displays of emotion (Happy, Disgust, and Neutral) of varying emotional intensities in participants with high vs. low social anxiety. Use of facial expressions of varying intensities allowed for strong external validity and a fine-grained analysis of interpretation biases. Sensitivity to perceiving negative evaluation in faces (i.e., emotion detection) was assessed at both long (unlimited) and brief (60 ms) stimulus durations. In addition, ratings of perceived social cost were made indicating what participants judged it would be like to have a social interaction with a person exhibiting the stimulus emotion. Results suggest that high social anxiety participants did not demonstrate biases in their sensitivity to perceiving negative evaluation (i.e. disgust) in facial expressions. However, high social anxiety participants did estimate the perceived cost of interacting with someone showing disgust to be significantly greater than low social anxiety participants, regardless of the intensity of the disgust expression. These results are consistent with a specific type of interpretation bias in which participants with social anxiety have elevated ratings of the social cost of interacting with individuals displaying negative evaluation.     

情绪与决策的关系

该文对情绪与决策关系的研究进行了较为全面的阐述：早期的决策理论完全排斥情绪的影响作用,研究者们热衷于建立理性决策的数学模型;自Kahneman和Tversky提出前景理论后,产生了以预期情绪为主的后悔和失望理论,以及主观预期愉悦理论;20世纪90年代后,随着神经科学和社会心理学家们对情绪与认知关系研究的深入,一些学者意识到决策过程中不仅存在作为效用的预期情绪,还存在“即时”情绪,它们可以在没有认知评估参与的情况下产生,可以反过来影响认知评估,可以直接影响决策行为。     

亲社会情境中儿童的道德情绪判断及归因模式的实验研究

运用故事情境的临床访谈方法,本研究考察了4岁和6岁儿童在亲社会情境的道德情绪判断及其归因模式,研究结果表明:(1)在亲社会道德情境中,年幼儿童倾向于判断行为者产生消极的情绪体验,年长儿童则作出积极的情绪判断;(2)在归因定向中,4岁儿童以结果定向为主,6岁儿童出现了由结果定向到道德定向的过渡;(3)亲社会情境的类型不影响儿童的道德情绪判断及归因;(4)在观点采择任务中,甚至4岁儿童也能对自己的情绪体验作出合乎道德准则的判断和归因。     

Self-organizing individual differences in brain development

Brain development is self-organizing in that the unique structure of each brain evolves in unpredictable ways through recursive modifications of synaptic networks. In this article, I review mechanisms of neural change in real time and over development, and I argue that change at each of these time scales embodies principles of self-organizing systems. I demonstrate how corticolimbic configurations that emerge within occasions lay down synaptic structure across occasions, giving rise to individual trajectories that become entrenched with age. Emotions have a powerful influence on this process.This is because the neural processes mediating emotion consolidate patterns of activation across the brain, through their enhancement of inter-regional coordination in real time and their contribution to synaptic shaping over development. The loss of corticolimbic plasticity with age is an unfortunate fact of development, but it is compensated in part by transitional phases and individual learning experiences through which habits are modified or replaced. I emphasize variations in inter-systemic coupling as a key mediator of developing individual differences, and I discuss the acquisition of anxious/depressive appraisals as an example.     

Modification of the startle reflex in a community sample: do one or two dimensions of psychopathy underlie emotional processing?

Recent research on psychopathy has begun to explore two dimensions that possibly underlie psychopathy–one related more to emotional and interpersonal traits, and another related more to antisocial behaviors. A community sample of adults was assessed for psychopathy using Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Eyeblinks elicited by startle probes were recorded while participants viewed pictures of emotionally-laden stimuli. Consistent with previous research, participants scoring high on PCL-R Factor 2 (“antisocial”) showed no affective modification of startle if they also scored high on PCL-R Factor 1 (“emotional detachment”). When the factor scores were analyzed together as continuous variables in a regression analysis, however, affective modification of startle was negatively related to Factor 1 but positively related to Factor 2. The results thus provide further support for a two-factor model of psychopathy.     

Emotional intelligence: A meta-analytic investigation of predictive validity and nomological net

This study used meta-analytic techniques to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and performance outcomes. A total of 69 independent studies were located that reported correlations between EI and performance or other variables such as general mental ability (GMA) and the Big Five factors of personality. Results indicated that, across criteria, EI had an operational validity of .23 (k=59, N=9522). Various moderating influences such as the EI measure used, dimensions of EI, scoring method and criterion were evaluated. EI correlated .22 with general mental ability (k=19, N=4158) and .23 (Agreeableness and Openness to Experience; k=14, N=3306) to .34 (Extraversion; k=19, N=3718) with the Big Five factors of personality. Results of various subgroup analyses are presented and implications and future directions are provided.