Expression of negative affect during face‐to‐face interaction: a double video study of young infants' sensitivity to social contingency

The purpose was to assess infants' sensitivity to social contingency, taking affective state into account, during face‐to‐face interaction with the mother in a double video set‐up. Infants' behaviour during three sequences of live face‐to‐face interaction were compared to two sequences where the interaction between the infant and the mother was set out of phase, by presenting either the infant or the mother with a replay of their partners' behaviour during earlier live interaction. We found a significant negative correlation between the infant's degree of negative affect and the average time of looking at the mother during the live sequences. A median split was calculated to separate the infants into a high‐negative‐affect group and a low‐negative‐affect group on the basis of their emotional responses during the experiment. The low‐negative‐affect infants looked significantly more at their mothers than other foci during the live but not the replay sequences, while the high‐negative‐affect infants did not show this difference. The results suggest that 2–4‐month old infants are able to distinguish between experimental distortion of contingent aspects in live and replay sequences, but that this effect of the replay condition may not be shown by moderate to highly distressed infants. Our findings underline the importance of taking infants' emotional state into account in experiments intended to assess their capacity for intersubjective communication. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Relationships between attachment behavior in the laboratory and the caretaking environment

How useful are observations of patterns of attachment behavior in a structured laboratory setting for making inferences about the quality of caretaking received by an infant in the home environment? To address this question a sample of 107 12-month-old infants who had participated in a longitudinal intervention project beginning before birth through 14 months of age were observed in a structured laboratory setting. Patterns of attachment behavior were compared to maternal caretaking variables observed in the home environment as well as to ratings of the quality of the infants' play. The results indicated that attachment behavior in the laboratory can be used to make inferences about the quality of caretaking in the home environment with confidence when a consistent and unambiguous pattern of either optimal or problematical attachment behavior is present, but not when the attachment behavior pattern is inconsistent or ambiguous.     

Color preference in pigeons: stimulus intensity and reinforcement contingency effects in the avoidance of blue stimuli.

In a procedure intended to determine color preference in pigeons (which partially replicated Catania, Owens, & von Lossberg, 1983), two keys were illuminated by different colors drawn from a set of amber, red, green, or blue stimuli; this was followed by the presentation of grain when either of the two colors was pecked. The grain was illuminated alternately across trials with the colors presented on the keys. In Experiment 1 the intensity of the color stimuli used was not equalized, whereas in Experiment 2 the intensity of the colors was equalized. The low preference for blue found in Experiment 1, as measured by differential key pecking, was not found in Experiment 2. The discriminability of the intensity-equalized colors was confirmed in Experiment 2a, in which equal-intensity color discrimination problems were presented. In Experiment 3, as in Catania et al. (1983), a response-independent reinforcement schedule was used, but with intensity-equalized colors. In contrast to Experiment 2, very low preference for blue was found here and in Experiment 4, which used a within-subject procedure. These findings suggest that pigeon color preference may be a function of intensity, but all controlling variables have not as yet been identified.     

Differential responding without differential reinforcement: Intensity difference, continuum position, and reinforcement density effects

The response rates of five groups of rats were observed during exposure to different intensities of a four kilohertz tone within a two-component multiple schedule of nondifferential reinforcement. Response rates were found to be higher during the multiple schedule component which contained the higher intensity tone. Larger differences in response rates between the two multiple schedule components occurred with greater intensity separations (30 versus 20 decibels). At the 30 decibel separation a low absolute magnitude produced larger response rate differences than a high absolute magnitude, while at the 20 decibel separation a high absolute magnitude produced larger response rate differences. Increases in reinforcement density were accompanied by decreases in response rate differences between high and low intensity components only when over-all response rates also increased.     

Effects of diazepam on schedule-controlled and schedule-induced behavior under signaled and unsignaled shock.

Schedule-controlled lever pressing and schedule-induced licking were studied in rats under a multiple fixed-interval fixed-interval schedule of food reinforcement upon which was superimposed a multiple variable-time variable-time schedule of electric-shock delivery. Shocks were signaled in one component of the multiple schedule and unsignaled in the other. The effects of diazepam upon the suppression of behavior during the signal (conditioned suppression) and during signaled and unsignaled shock (differential suppression) were studied under several shock intensities (Experiment 1) and at increased body weight (Experiment 2). In each study, diazepam led to dose-dependent increases in the rate of pressing and licking during signaled and unsignaled shock, but had little effect on conditioned suppression. the rate-enhancing effects of diazepam depended upon the intensity of shock, nature of the response, and whether or not shocks were signaled. The data was discussed in terms of (1) implications for understanding the effects of signaled and unsignaled shock on behavior, (2) the effects of diazepam on behavior suppressed by response-independent shock, and (3) comparison between operant and schedule-induced behavior.     

The relationship between personality and affect over the lifespan

This study compared the trait and emotion perspectives of personality development by examining relationships between extraversion, neuroticism, positive and negative affect across the lifespan. A total of 533 volunteers: 228 children and early adolescents (8 to 15 years), 163 late adolescents and young adults (16 to 29 years) and 142 adults (30 to 68 years) completed Eysenck's Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Extraversion correlated significantly with positive affect and neuroticism with negative affect in each age group. As predicted by the emotion perspective, correlations were significantly stronger for adults than children and early adolescents. In addition, extraversion-positive affect and neuroticism-negative affect factors explained less variance for children and early adolescents compared to those of adults.     

嫉妒心理及其内隐性研究

采用自行设计的关于嫉妒的故事集和嫉妒测验问卷两类材料,分别运用"快答"和"慢答"两种方法,在考察嫉妒心理的普遍性、强烈程度和个体差异的基础上,重点研究并确定了人类嫉妒心理的内隐性.研究表明人们普遍存有嫉妒之心且程度较强;理科的学生似乎更甚,但男女差异并不明显;一方面,大家已能承认自己存嫉妒之心,表明了现代人的理性,另一方面,嫉妒心理产生时却大都不为主体所察觉,具有明显的内隐性.另外,本研究所采用的研究方法及结果还启示我们各种测验量表若不严格控制施测时间,其效度将大打折扣.     

Five-months-olds' attention and affective responses to still-faced emotional expressions

Mothers posed happy, sad, or neutral still-faces (SFs) between periods of normal interactions. Lowered infant attention and affect and increased grimacing occured during SF regardless of emotional expression posed during the SF period. Different static expressions elicited differential smiling; infants smiled slightly but significantly more to happy SFs. Greater differences occured with changes in contingent aspects of interactions.     

Dueling Experiences and Dual Ambivalences: Emotional and Motivational Ambivalence of Women in High Status Positions

A laboratory study demonstrates that women in high status positions experience emotional ambivalence (simultaneous experience of positive and negative affect) and motivational ambivalence (simultaneous desires to build relationships and display power). These effects were found with 2 different measures of ambivalence, 1 derived from the attitudinal ambivalence literature and the other from the structure of affect literature. These findings have implications about the experience of women in the workplace, as well as the current debates concerning structure of affect.