Does interest broaden or narrow attentional scope?

Theory proposes that interest is a positive emotion that may either broaden attention to facilitate processing of new information, or narrow attention to preserve engagement with new information. To our knowledge, no research has directly examined the effect of interest on attentional scope. Across four experiments, we show that traits associated with the propensity to experience interest—specifically, trait curiosity and internal boredom proneness—are associated with a narrower scope of attention. We also find that, instead of broadening, interest actually narrows attentional scope in comparison to a neutral state and awe. Challenging the conventional notion that all positive emotions broaden cognition and attention, our findings suggest that specific emotions influence attention in ways that extend beyond a general emotional valence effect.     

Shame,guilt, and facial emotion processing: initial evidence for a positive relationship between guilt-proneness and facial emotion recognition ability

Shame and guilt are closely related self-conscious emotions of negative affect that give rise to divergent self-regulatory and motivational behaviours. While guilt-proneness has demonstrated positive relationships with self-report measures of empathy and adaptive interpersonal functioning, shame-proneness tends to be unrelated or inversely related to empathy and is associated with interpersonal difficulties. At present, no research has examined relationships between shame and guilt-proneness with facial emotion recognition ability. Participants (N?=?363) completed measures of shame and guilt-proneness along with a facial emotion recognition task which assessed the ability to identify displays of anger, sadness, happiness, fear, disgust, and shame. Guilt-proneness was consistently positively associated with facial emotion recognition ability. In contrast, shame-proneness was unrelated to capacity for facial emotion recognition. Findings provide support for theory arguing that guilt and empathy operate synergistically and may also help explain the inverse relationship between guilt-proneness and propensity for aggressive behaviour.     

The evolutionary emergence of what we call “emotions”

The term “emotion” is not precise. It refers to an assemblage of processes that contribute to how we relate to the social and physical world. We need to understand the functional bases of such processes, and one such basis is action readiness. Action readiness is the preparation for movement or action. Preparation for movement occurs in all animals. In more recently evolved species, such as birds and mammals, preparation for directed action is found as well. Action readiness is the basis for the states we now call emotions, but its importance goes far beyond emotions: action readiness is an elementary aspect of the way autonomous living beings regulate their interactions with the world.     

Motor,affective and cognitive empathy in adolescence: Interrelations between facial electromyography and self-reported trait and state measures

This study examined interrelations of trait and state empathy in an adolescent sample. Self-reported affective trait empathy and cognitive trait empathy were assessed during a home visit. During a test session at the university, motor empathy (facial electromyography), and self-reported affective and cognitive state empathy were assessed in response to empathy-inducing film clips portraying happiness and sadness. Adolescents who responded with stronger motor empathy consistently reported higher affective state empathy. Adolescents' motor empathy was also positively related to cognitive state empathy, either directly or indirectly via affective state empathy. Whereas trait empathy was consistently, but modestly, related to state empathy with sadness, for state empathy with happiness few trait–state associations were found. Together, the findings provide support for the notion that empathy is a multi-faceted phenomenon. Motor, affective and cognitive empathy seem to be related processes, each playing a different role in the ability to understand and share others' feelings.     

Reappraisal Buffers the Association Between Stress and Negative Mood Measured Over 14 Days: Implications for Understanding Psychological Resilience

Reappraisal is thought to be an adaptive emotion regulation strategy, and research suggests that individuals who habitually reappraise report more positive patterns of affect overall. However, some experimental studies indicate that a greater tendency to reappraise can exacerbate stress response, and it is unclear whether reappraisal confers resilience or exacerbates response to naturally occurring stressors. In order to address this, the present study investigated whether reappraisal prospectively moderated the association between daily stressors and daily negative mood measured over 14 days. Participants (n = 236) completed a measure of reappraisal at baseline, before completing daily online entries of stress and positive and negative mood. Data were analysed using multilevel modelling. Results suggested that reappraisal moderated the association between stress and negative mood, such that higher levels of reappraisal were associated with lower levels of negative mood in response to stress. Moreover, higher reappraisal was also independently associated with lower levels of daily negative mood and higher levels of positive mood. These results suggest that higher reappraisal may confer resilience to stress. Copyright © 2016 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Emotion regulation mediates the relationship between personality and sleep quality

Objective: Despite a long history of interest in personality as well as in the mechanisms that regulate sleep, the relationship between personality and sleep is not yet well understood. The purpose of this study was to explore how personality affects sleep.

Design: The present cross-sectional study, based on a sample of 1291 participants with a mean age of 31.16 years (SD = 12.77), investigates the impact of personality styles, assessed by the Personality Adjectives Checklist (PACL), on subjective sleep quality, as well as the possible mediation of this relationship by dispositional emotion regulation (ER) styles.

Results: The dispositional use of suppression was a quite consistent predictor of poor subjective sleep quality for individuals scoring high on Confident, Cooperative or Introversive personality traits, but low on Respectful personality traits. Although a positive relationship between reappraisal and subjective sleep quality was found, there was only little evidence for a relationship between the assessed personality styles and the use of cognitive reappraisal.

Conclusion: The present results indicate that in the evaluation of subjective sleep, the impact of personality and ER processes, such as emotion suppression, should be taken into account.     

Probabilistic Inferences Under Emotional Stress: How Arousal Affects Decision Processes

Many models of decision making neglect emotional states that could affect individuals' cognitive processes. The present work explores the effect of emotional stress on people's cognitive processes when making probabilistic inferences. Two contrasting hypotheses are tested against one another: the uncertainty‐reduction and attention‐narrowing hypotheses of how emotional stress affects decision making. In the experimental study, emotional stress was induced through the use of highly aversive pictures immediately before each decision. Emotional state was assessed by both subjective (state anxiety, arousal, and pleasantness ratings) and objective (skin conductance) measures. The results show that emotional stress impacts decision making; in particular, emotionally aroused participants seem to have focused on the most important information and selected simpler decision strategies relative to participants in a control condition. The results are in line with the attention‐narrowing hypothesis and suggest that emotional stress can impact decision making through limited predecisional information search and the selection of simpler decision strategies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotion recognition in children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

There is a limited amount of research that examines social-emotional functioning in children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), and the majority of it relies on parent and teacher reports of social impairments. Because these provide broad measures of social function, they fail to elucidate the underlying specific skills with which this group of children has difficulty. The current study examines emotion-recognition abilities in children with FASD, as it plays a central role in social interaction. Participants were 22 children with diagnosed FASD (ages 8–14), and age- and gender-matched typically developing controls. Tasks included measures of emotion recognition from three nonlinguistic modalities: facial expressions, emotional tone of voice, and body positioning and movement. Participant’s parents completed measures of adaptive and behavioral function that were related to children’s performance on aspects of emotion recognition. Overall, the results show that children with FASD have more difficulties with emotion recognition than typically developing age-matched peers, but these difficulties may not be clinically significant (e.g., smaller effect size) or may be specific to the age of the individual exhibiting the emotion (i.e., child vs. adult). These results are discussed in the context of previous studies.     

More than a feeling: Wittgenstein and William James on love and other emotions

One of the most significant features of Wittgenstein's Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (written after he had completed most of the Philosophical Investigations) is his reflections on emotions. Wittgenstein's treatment of this topic was developed in direct response to his reading of William James’s chapter on emotions in his 1890 masterpiece, The Principles of Psychology. This paper examines the competing views of emotions that emerge in these works, both of which attempt to overcome the Cartesian dualist conception in different ways. The main point of disagreement concerns the relation between emotions and their bodily expression (e.g. the relation between grief and weeping). My interpretation focuses on Wittgenstein's remarks on the emotion of love because, I argue, it is a particularly problematic case. To elucidate his largely unexplored view of love, I draw on his remarks on understanding and criteria in the Philosophical Investigations. I argue that by examining the examples of complex emotions like love, we can arrive at a more accurate characterization of Wittgenstein's general view of mental concepts and mental phenomena.