Feeling at home in the occupied territories: Emotion work of the religious settler movement

Religious settlers exhibit a strong desire to settle the entire Land of Israel despite resistance among the local Palestinian population and among opposition within Israel. The return to the Promised Land and the establishment of settlements elicit strong emotions that are connected to the socio-spatial identities of the settlers. Introducing the concept of emotion work the article focuses on the collective construction of emotions inside the movement and on active practices directed at the Israeli audience at large. Emotions are elicited and regulated in the political process in order to make and defend territorial claims. After discussing the concepts of emotional geographies, emotion regulation, and emotion work, the article analyzes the multi-layered passions of the settlers and strategies of creating an emotional attachment to the conquered territories in the Israeli public. Finally, the Second Intifada revealed tensions between the desire for the land and a contracting geography of fear. The article discusses how the settlers dealt with violence, threats, and experiences of conjoint emotions.     

When family and research clash: The role of autobiographical emotion in the production of stories of the Italian civil war, 1943–1945

This paper engages the emotional side of Second World War storytelling practices and research. Specifically, it explores how a politics of trust and togetherness animates communities of remembrance concerning the anti-Fascist Resistance experience in northern Italy. I reflect on my encounter with memories of wartime violence through the lens of autobiographical emotion. In a region torn asunder by conflicting stories of loss and violence during the anti-Nazi resistance and civil war, I possess a dual identity of researcher and Partisan's grandchild. This carries a powerful emotional bond of ethical obligations that cannot be ignored in the research process. Drawing on affect theory, I contextualize my oral history fieldwork experience in relation to that emotional bond.     

“This is My Community”: Reproducing and Resisting Boundaries of Exclusion in Contested Public Spaces

The way that public space is structured has significant implications for identity, social interaction, and participation in society. For those experiencing homelessness, with no or limited private space, survival hinges on the accessibility and livability of public space. However, the increasing privatization of public space in the United States has contributed to the implementation of anti‐homeless ordinances in cities, restricting sitting, standing, panhandling, and sleeping in public. This study analyzes data from interviews with housed and unhoused community members, text from a local policy document, and ethnographic observations to explore how boundaries between “insiders” and “outsiders” are drawn in public space and mediated through individual discourse. Our findings suggest that boundaries of exclusion are constructed through dominant narratives that portray the unhoused as a threat to safety and economic vitality, thus justifying the need for regulation and punishment through the criminalization of homelessness. Yet, informants also demonstrate resistance to this narrative by discussing how criminalization of homelessness perpetuates dehumanization, violence, and economic inequality. Policy implications for the regulation of public space are discussed.     

Regulating emotion and identity by narrating harm

This study examined how narration of harm experiences can regulate self and emotions in ways relevant to well-being. Participants (n = 88, 65% female) were asked to provide 6 narratives about instances when they were victims of harm and 6 narratives about instances when they were perpetrators of harm. Narratives were coded for extent of exploration, growth, damage conclusions and resolution. Participants drew damage conclusions more frequently in victim narratives and growth conclusions more frequently in perpetrator narratives. Both the type of experience (victim or perpetrator) and the way the experience was narrated (references to damage conclusions and resolution) predicted emotion and identity implications, which were, in turn, related to well-being. Implications for narrative approaches to self-regulation are discussed.     

Cognitive,emotional, and motivational factors related to procrastination: A cluster analytic approach

Procrastination is a widespread phenomenon that has been associated with a host of cognitive, emotional, and motivational factors but about which a clear and integrated picture is still lacking. The aim of this study was to use primary established psychological procrastination-related factors in the literature to examine whether reliable subgroups of procrastinators can be identified through cluster analysis. To this end, 180 French-speaking students were asked to complete a measure of procrastination and four questionnaires assessing impulsivity, cognitive emotion regulation, self-esteem, and global motivation. Four clusters were identified: two with the lowest scores of procrastination (“High regulated” and “Regulated/low motivated”), one with higher scores of procrastination (“Emotional”), and another with even higher scores (“Unregulated”). The findings provide insights into the dynamic relationships between key procrastination-related factors and the mechanisms linked to the self-regulation difficulties that characterize trait procrastination.     

Adaptive working memory training reveals a negligible effect of emotional stimuli over cognitive processing

Here we analyze how performance differences in an adaptive cognitive training regime based on the n-back task interact with emotional stimuli (scenes and faces) varying in their valence (negative, positive, and neutral). One hundred and three participants completed four training sessions across 2 weeks showing remarkable improvements from time to time. Results revealed similar results for faces and scenes regarding accuracy levels across increased complexity levels. However, reaction times (RTs) were sensitive to emotional conditions to some extent. Observed faster RTs to negative faces (disgust) were consistent with the negativity bias phenomenon, but this effect vanished for the highest levels of processing complexity. It is suggested that emotional information contents fail to interact with cognition when there are no cognitive resources left after the primary task is addressed.     

Investigating the role of alexithymia on the empathic deficits found in schizotypy and autism spectrum traits

Alexithymia, the inability to identify and describe one’s emotional experience, is elevated in many clinical populations, and related to poor interpersonal functioning. Alexithymia is also associated with empathic deficits in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Accordingly, a better understanding of alexithymia could elucidate the nature of social-cognitive deficits transdiagnostically. We investigated alexithymia and components of empathy in relation to schizotypal and autism spectrum traits in healthy college students. Specifically, we examined higher-order components of empathic processing that involve perspective taking and other-oriented concern, which are reduced in alexithymia.Higher-order empathic processing was inversely correlated with both schizotypal and autism spectrum traits. Bootstrapping techniques revealed that alexithymia had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between higher-order empathy and these personality traits; thus, alexithymia contributes uniquely to their relationship. These findings suggest alexithymia represents one possible mechanism for the development of empathic deficits in these populations.These results are consistent with the perspective that awareness of one’s own emotional state may predicate a successful empathic response to another’s. This work highlights the importance of a consideration of alexithymia in elucidating the nature of empathic deficits in various clinical populations, and points to a potential point of social intervention.     

Suicidal and violent behavior: The role of anger,emotion dysregulation,and impulsivity

Suicidality and violence are serious public health problems. A rich literature supports the relationship between suicidality and violence, including common associations with trait anger. However, less is known about how trait anger may facilitate these behaviors. Two potential mechanisms in this relationship are emotion dysregulation and impulsivity, both of which are linked to increased anger, suicidality, and violence. We investigated anger as a common underlying factor for both suicidal and violent behavior, and emotion dysregulation and impulsivity (i.e., negative and positive urgency) as potential mediators in this relationship. Results demonstrate that trait anger was associated with both suicidal and violent behavior. Further, emotion dysregulation mediated the anger and suicidal behavior relationship whereas both negative and positive urgency mediated the anger and violent behavior relationship. Although trait anger may be a common underlying factor for both suicidal and violent behavior, the nature of these relationships seems to vary significantly.     

Feeling the burn: When it looks like it hurts,and belongs to me,it really does hurt more

We examined changes in pain sensitivity in the rubber hand illusion (RHI). Experiment 1 investigated changes in pain tolerance immediately after a “healthy” and “wounded” RHI when immersing the hand in a cold pressor ice bath. There was 19% increased pain tolerance and increased perception detection threshold after the healthy RHI, but 11% reduction after the wounded RHI. Experiment 2 examined pain experience during the wounded RHI with capsaicin-induced hyperalgesia. Pain intensity and unpleasantness was higher on the illusion arm during the synchronous RHI, compared with asynchronous trials. There was no change in pain experience on the control arm, and both arms had similar pain sensitivity after the experiment. Our results highlight the impact of embodying a substitute limb on pain, with increased tolerance and reduced tactile sensitivity when the fake limb is healthy and apparently pain-free, but increased pain sensitivity when the self-attributed limb appears to be wounded.