Above and beyond emotional valence: The unique contribution of central and traumatic shame memories to psychopathology vulnerability

This paper explores whether shame memories have a distinct impact on emotional difficulties and psychopathology that goes beyond their negative emotional valence. Study 1 (N=292) investigates the contribution of centrality of shame memory, in comparison to the centrality of fear and sadness memories, to explain the memory's traumatic impact, shame, depression, anxiety, stress, paranoid, and dissociative symptoms. Study 2 (N=192) explores the impact of shame traumatic memory on shame and depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms, in comparison to fear and sadness traumatic memories. Both studies used undergraduate student samples. Results show that shame memories' centrality and traumatic features made an independent contribution to current external and internal shame and distinct psychopathological symptoms, after controlling for the effect of fear and sadness, centrality, and traumatic qualities. Moreover, shame memories' centrality and traumatic features were the best global predictors of external and internal shame and depressive symptoms. Centrality of shame memories was also the only significant predictor of paranoid ideation and dissociation. These results offer novel perspectives on the nature of shame and its relation to psychopathology, emphasising the distinct role of shame memories in human functioning and suffering, which goes above and beyond its negative emotional valence.     

结果预期对青少年攻击性行为的影响：中介效应与调节效应

采用攻击性问卷、关系攻击行为量表、结果预期量表、移情量表和自我控制能力问卷对720名中学生进行调查,考察了结果预期与青少年攻击性行为的关系,以及自我控制在其中的中介作用和移情在其中的调节作用。结果发现:(1)结果预期与青少年的攻击性行为(外部攻击和关系攻击)存在显著负相关;(2)自我控制在结果预期与青少年攻击性行为之间起着完全中介作用;(3)在结果预期对青少年外部攻击行为的预测中,移情发挥了调节作用。在高移情个体中,结果预期并不预测外部攻击行为,而在低移情个体中,结果预期显著地反向预测外部攻击行为;(4)自我控制在结果预期与青少年外部攻击行为之间的中介作用受到移情的调节,高水平的移情能力可以有效地缓解青少年因低自我控制而导致的高攻击性。     

The distressed (Type D) and Five-Factor Models of personality in young,healthy adults and their association with emotional inhibition and distress

The distressed (Type D) personality (the combination of negative affectivity and social inhibition traits) has been associated with adverse health outcomes. This study investigated the validity of the Type D construct against the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality, and its association with emotional control and distress. In total 498 university students (mean age 28.9 ± 8.4 years) completed the Type D scale (DS14), and measurements for the FFM of personality, emotional control, anxiety, depression and stress. The construct validity of the Icelandic DS14 was confirmed. The Type D components negative affectivity and social inhibition were strongly associated with neuroticism and extraversion of the FFM (r = 0.82 and r = −0.67, respectively). Negative affectivity also correlated with rehearsal/rumination (r = 0.58) and social inhibition with emotional inhibition (r = 0.54), indicative of emotional control. Type D personality (40% of sample) was associated with higher levels of anxiety, depression and stress. The Type D personality components were associated with the FFM of personality, emotional control and emotional distress. Importantly, social and emotional inhibition were closely related, providing novel information about the presence of emotional inhibition within the social inhibition trait.     

Development and preliminary validation of a scale to assess managing the emotions of others

A new scale, the managing the emotions of others scale (MEOS), was developed. Items were derived from real-life examples provided by an initial group of participants. The resulting scale was completed by 695 participants in a web survey. The factor structure of the scale was examined and a confirmatory factor analysis was also performed on a second sample (N = 276). Six factors were obtained: mood enhancing (Enhance), mood worsening (Worsen), concealing emotions from others (Conceal), use of inauthentic displays (Inauthentic), poor emotional skills (Poor skills), and use of diversion to enhance another’s mood (Divert). Correlations of the factor scores with short measures of the Big Five, the Dark Triad and trait emotional intelligence were examined. Enhance and Divert were strongly correlated with Agreeableness, whilst Worsen and Inauthentic were strongly correlated with all of the Dark Triad. These associations are interpretable in terms of the affiliative nature of Agreeableness and the interpersonally manipulative nature of the Dark Triad. The MEOS factors provide coverage of the different ways (prosocial and non-prosocial) in which people manage the emotions of others.     

Problem gambling,gaming and Internet use in adolescents: Relationships with emotional intelligence in clinical and special needs samples

The study examined the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and several addiction-related behaviours (gambling problems, Internet abuse, and computer gaming misuse) in two adolescent samples: 270 clinical outpatients (180 males and 90 females) and 256 special needs students (160 males and 96 females). Gambling problems, Internet abuse, and computer gaming misuse were positively inter-correlated in both samples; approximately half of the variability in these addiction-related behaviours could be accounted for by a common dysfunctional preoccupation latent variable. Latent variable path analysis found emotional intelligence to be a moderate predictor of dysfunctional preoccupation in both adolescent samples.     

Affect intensity and processing fluency of deterrents

The theory of emotional intensity (Brehm, 1999) suggests that the intensity of affective states depends on the magnitude of their current deterrents. Our study investigated the role that fluency—the subjective experience of ease of information processing—plays in the emotional intensity modulations as reactions to deterrents. Following an induction phase of good mood, we manipulated both the magnitude of deterrents (using sets of photographs with pre-tested potential to instigate an emotion incompatible with the pre-existent affective state—pity) and their processing fluency (normal vs. enhanced through subliminal priming). Current affective state and perception of deterrents were then measured. In the normal processing conditions, the results revealed the cubic effect predicted by the emotional intensity theory, with the initial affective state being replaced by the one appropriate to the deterrent only in participants exposed to the high magnitude deterrence. In the enhanced fluency conditions the emotional intensity pattern was drastically altered; also, the replacement of the initial affective state occurred at a lower level of deterrence magnitude (moderate instead of high), suggesting the strengthening of deterrence emotional impact by enhanced fluency.     

Emotional awareness,gender, and peculiar body-related beliefs

Research has broadly established that emotional disturbances are associated with body image disturbances. This is the first study to examine links between facets of emotional awareness and peculiar body-related beliefs (PBB), or beliefs about an imagined or slight defect in one's appearance or bodily functioning. In a sample of college students (n=216), we found that low emotional clarity (the extent to which the type and source of emotions are understood) was associated with higher PBB in both women and men, and the relation between emotional clarity and PBB was further moderated by attention to emotions (the extent to which emotions are attended to) and gender. Men with low attention to emotions and women with high attention to emotions both experienced higher levels of PBB if they also reported low levels of emotional clarity. This interactive effect was not attributable to shared variance with body mass index, neuroticism or affect intensity.     

Judgements of others’ emotional appropriateness are multidimensional

This study investigated the multidimensional structure of judgements of emotional appropriateness, the degree to which an observer judges a target's emotion to conform to observer-valued expectations for emotion in that context. Participants (N=169) were shown one of two brief video clips of an actor either showing anger or neutral expressions in an anger-evoking situation of either low, medium, or high severity. Participants rated the target's emotion on the Perception of Emotion Appropriateness Rating Scale (PEARS), which taps observers’ perceptions of a target's emotional appropriateness for a specific situation. We found that appropriateness ratings are comprised of three factors, assessment of Type Present (type of emotion in expression); Type Absent (missing key emotions); and Intensity (intensity with which the emotion is felt or expressed). Results are discussed in terms of the usefulness of a multidimensional conceptualisation of emotional appropriateness.     

Emotion,core affect,and psychological construction

As an alternative to using the concepts of emotion, fear, anger, and the like as scientific tools, this article advocates an approach based on the concepts of core affect and psychological construction, expanding the domain of inquiry beyond “emotion”. Core affect is a neurophysiological state that underlies simply feeling good or bad, drowsy or energised. Psychological construction is not one process but an umbrella term for the various processes that produce: (a) a particular emotional episode's “components” (such as facial movement, vocal tone, peripheral nervous system change, appraisal, attribution, behaviour, subjective experience, and emotion regulation); (b) associations among the components; and (c) the categorisation of the pattern of components as a specific emotion.     

Culture,Emotion, and Well-being: Good Feelings in Japan and the United States

We tested the hypothesis that “good feelings”—the central element of subjective well-being—are associated with interdependence and interpersonal engagement of the self in Japan, but with independence and interpersonal disengagement of the self in the United States. Japanese and American college students (total N = 913) reported how frequently they experienced various emotional states in daily life. In support of the hypothesis, the reported frequency of general positive emotions (e.g. calm, elated) was most closely associated with the reported frequency of interpersonally engaged positive emotions (e.g. friendly feelings) in Japan, but with the reported frequency of interpersonally disengaged positive emotions (e.g. pride) in the United States. Further, for Americans the reported frequency of experience was considerably higher for positive emotions than for negative emotions, but for Japanese it was higher for engaged emotions than for disengaged emotions. Implications for cultural constructions of emotion in general and subjective well-being in particular are discussed.