Suppress for success? Exploring the contexts in which expressing positive emotion can have social costs

Researchers and lay people alike have tended to focus on social benefits of expressing positive emotion and, as a result, tend to overlook potential social costs. In this paper, we consider limits to the idea that expressing positive emotion is universally beneficial and review literature demonstrating that, in some contexts, expressing positive emotion can have social costs. Building on our own and others’ work in this space, we outline three sociocontextual factors that influence the social success of positive emotion expression: To avoid potential costs, we suggest that positive emotion should generally be expressed in the right situation, by (and to) the right person, and in the right way. Where positive emotion expression may incur social costs, we propose people can effectively down-regulate positive emotion through use of expressive suppression, and review literature demonstrating that there can be social benefits to down-regulating positive emotion. This review advances theorising on the importance of considering context when seeking to understand socially successful emotion expression and regulation.     

Invisible own- and other-race faces presented under continuous flash suppression produce affective response biases

One triumph of the human mind is the ability to place the multitudinous array of people we encounter into in- and out-group members based on racial characteristics. One fundamental question that remains to be answered is whether invisible own- and other-race faces can nevertheless influence subsequent affective judgments. Here, we employed continuous flash suppression (CFS) to render own- and other-race faces unperceivable in an affective priming task. Both on-line and off-line awareness checks were employed to provide more stringent control of partial awareness. Results revealed that relative to own-race faces, imperceptible other-race faces significantly facilitated participants’ identification of negative words, suggesting an other-race derogation bias. When faces were presented consciously, we found that not only other-race faces facilitated detection of negative words, but also own-race faces facilitated detection of positive words. These findings together provide novel and strong evidence suggesting that invisible racial faces can bias affective responses.     

记忆抑制在正常人群与抑郁人群中的研究进展

抑郁症认知障碍的突出表现之一为患者的负性记忆偏向。已有研究常关注患者对负性信息自下而上的选择性注意,往往忽略了自上而下执行控制障碍对记忆的影响。近年研究提示,抑郁症患者和抑郁状态个体的记忆抑制缺陷在其负性记忆偏向的形成和维持中起到了重要作用,无法有效地主动抑制负性记忆可能是患者持续性负性反刍的主要原因。从抑郁症自上而下的执行控制缺陷入手,研究患者的记忆抑制障碍与其主要症状－负性反刍间的相关性,不仅能从理论上丰富Beck的抑郁症认知模型,还能指导临床建立更准确的预后评估指标,同时制定更有效的治疗方案。本文分别介绍了健康成人及抑郁症患者和抑郁状态个体的记忆抑制研究现状,并就当前在抑郁人群研究领域亟待解决的三个问题进行了探讨。     

Dissociation and memory suppression: A comparison of high and low dissociative individuals’ performance on the Think–No Think task

The present study examined whether high and low dissociative individuals differ in their ability to keep target stimuli out of their awareness (suppression) and how this relates to their memory of those targets during a later cued recall task. The prediction was that high dissociators display a general inability to focus attention and that their distractibility undermines successful suppression, thereby enhancing memory for suppressed items. College students with high (n = 35) and low (n = 33) scores on the Dissociative Experiences Scale participated in a Dutch version of Anderson and Green’s (2001) Think–No Think (TNT) task. Overall, a significant suppression effect emerged. However, no differences between high and low dissociators were observed. Thus, the present results do not confirm that dissociation is linked to heightened distractibility.     

工作记忆中注意焦点转换的代偿机制—— 来自聋生和发音抑制的证据

注意焦点转换是工作记忆中一项重要的执行功能。前人的研究提示视空间画板可能参与言语工作记忆中的注意转换。通过聋生和发音抑制方式探索语音回路子系统受损或受阻后, 视空间画板子系统完成注意转换任务的反应模式。采用“三计数”任务, 实验一比较了极重度耳聋学生和健听学生在工作记忆中的注意焦点转换效应。结果表明聋生与健听被试在不同记忆子项中转换的反应时间均长于不转换时间。但与健听被试相比, 聋生完成注意转换任务的正确率降低, 在转换和不转换之间的反应时差别减小, 且转换方向对反应时无影响, 转换方向和转换距离表现出显著的交互作用。下行转换时近转换快于远转换, 上行转换时近转换慢于远转换。实验二比较了发音抑制和无抑制条件下的注意转换效应, 发音抑制组在注意焦点转换中表现出与聋生组既类似又存在区别的反应模式。这些结果提示工作记忆的中枢执行系统具有高度的灵活性。当语音回路功能受阻后, 注意转换仍能借助视空间画板子系统得以完成。与暂时性抑制相比, 语音回路功能长期受损后表现出一定的功能代偿。     

焦虑调节：接受策略与表达抑制、认知重评策略之比较

情绪调节策略研究已经成为近年来心理学研究的热点课题。回顾近十年来关于焦虑的情绪调节策略研究,重点介绍了其中有着新理念、新视角的情绪调节策略——接受策略,并将其与表达抑制和认知重评两种情绪调节策略进行对比,发现接受策略对于焦虑而言是一种有效的调节策略,而且初步得出其作用效果优于表达抑制策略,但可能不及认知重评策略。最后从情绪调节策略的研究趋势、情绪调节策略对心理治疗和心理健康教育等的潜在价值三个方面进行了探讨。     

Dream rebound of suppressed emotional thoughts: the influence of cognitive load

Initial evidence suggests that suppressing a thought prior to sleep results in subsequent dreaming of that thought. The present research examined the influence of cognitive load on dreaming following suppression. In Experiment 1, 100 participants received either a suppression instruction or no instruction for an intrusive thought prior to sleep, and subsequently completed a dream diary. Participants instructed to suppress reported dreaming about the target thought more than controls; dream rebound was predicted by poorer performance on a working memory task. In Experiment 2, 126 participants received either a suppression instruction or no instruction for an intrusive thought prior to sleep, and half of participants also had cognitive load of learning a 9-digit number. Participants receiving the suppression instruction under cognitive load reported greater dream rebound than other participants. These findings indicate that thought suppression prior to sleep leads to dream rebound, and this effect is enhanced by cognitive load.     

对恐怖情绪的调节:认知重评和表达抑制的差异——一项ERP研究

本研究采用事件相关电位(ERP)技术,通过测量由视觉诱发的脑电成分晚正波(LPP)来比较情绪调节策略在生理电特征上的差异,探讨认知重评和表达抑制的优劣。实验结果表明:(1)从波幅的角度来比较:在400—600ms时间窗口内,认知重评条件下恐怖图片诱发的LPP波幅显著小于在自由观看条件下的波幅,而表达抑制和自由观看组所诱发的LPP波幅差异较小。(2)从时间进程的角度来比较:认知重评与自由观看组的差异发生在400ms并持续到600ms;而表达抑制和自由观看之间的差异发生在450ms但是只持续到550ms。这表明认知重评相较于表达抑制,对负性情绪起调节作用开始较早,并且持续时间较长。这为认知重评优于表达抑制策略提供了神经生理学上的证据。     

Thought dismissability in obsessive-compulsive disorder versus panic disorder

This study sought to better understand the persistence of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) by studying the dismissability of obsessional thoughts in individuals with OCD relative to the dismissability of panic-relevant thoughts in individuals with panic disorder with or without agoraphobia (PD/A). Individuals with a principal diagnosis of OCD (n = 25) or PD/A (n = 25) completed a thought replacement task in which they replaced a primary obsession (target thought for the OCD group) or a primary panic-relevant thought (target thought for the PD/A group), with a neutral thought, signaling when the target thought occurred and when the neutral thought was in mind. The OCD group had more target thoughts and appraised the recurrence of the target thought more negatively. Whereas mood state did not change in the PD/A group, it declined in the OCD group, and this change was predicted by negative appraisal of target thought recurrences, but not amount of time thinking the target thought. These findings suggest that in vivo appraisal of the recurrence of obsessions may be a unique, key mechanism in the persistence of OCD and that the identification and exploration of appraisal of thought recurrences may be an especially important target in its treatment.     

Eye contact facilitates awareness of faces during interocular suppression

Eye contact captures attention and receives prioritized visual processing. Here we asked whether eye contact might be processed outside conscious awareness. Faces with direct and averted gaze were rendered invisible using interocular suppression. In two experiments we found that faces with direct gaze overcame such suppression more rapidly than faces with averted gaze. Control experiments ruled out the influence of low-level stimulus differences and differential response criteria. These results indicate an enhanced unconscious representation of direct gaze, enabling the automatic and rapid detection of other individuals making eye contact with the observer.