Putting mood in context: Using smartphones to examine how people feel in different locations

Does personality predict how people feel in different types of situations? The present research addressed this question using data from several thousand individuals who used a mood tracking smartphone application for several weeks. Results from our analyses indicated that people’s momentary affect was linked to their location, and provided preliminary evidence that the relationship between state affect and location might be moderated by personality. The results highlight the importance of looking at person-situation relationships at both the trait- and state-levels and also demonstrate how smartphones can be used to collect person and situation information as people go about their everyday lives.     

All's well that ends well? A test of the peak-end rule in couples’ conflict discussions

Despite its importance for well-being, surprisingly little is known about what determines how couples feel after a conflict. Using the peak-end rule, we examined whether partners’ post-conflict affect was mainly predicted by their most aversive or pleasant emotional experience (peaks) during the conflict, or by the emotional tone at the end of the interaction. One hundred and one couples engaged in a conflict interaction and afterwards evaluated their momentary affect during the interaction. Post-conflict affect (in terms of positive and negative feelings, and perceived partner responsiveness) was assessed immediately after the conflict, after a subsequent positive discussion, and upon returning to daily life (here, rumination about the relationship was assessed as well). Our results showed that the negative and positive peaks, but not the end emotion, predicted immediate and partly extended post-conflict affect in individuals. This finding has clinical implications for the mediation of couple conflict.     

A matter of taste: Nietzsche and the structure of affective response

ABSTRACT

Nietzsche’s work is filled with references to taste. He frequently expresses his own judgements of taste and criticizes or praises individuals and groups on account of their taste. Some recent attempts to account for Nietzsche’s understanding of taste argue that Nietzsche understands affective response, when guided by good taste, as being appropriate to, or merited by, the intrinsic features of the object. This is in direct contrast to anti-realist accounts of Nietzsche’s taste, according to which his evaluative judgements have no special epistemic status. In this article, I argue against objectivist or universalist readings of Nietzsche’s judgements of taste. However, in doing so I aim to show that affective responses do not thereby turn out to be arbitrary. Nietzsche suggests that by engaging with one’s affective responses, one can organizes them into a coherent and unified taste. This process of unification is central to Nietzsche’s understanding of value and self-creation.     

X good things in life: Processing fluency effects in the “Three good things in life” exercise

The present study examined whether difficulty of recollection may influence the effectiveness of the “Three good things in life” exercise that has previously been shown to increase happiness. Participants were randomly assigned to write 1–10 good things that happened to them during the day in the course of two weeks. We measured life satisfaction, positive and negative affect before the exercise and three times after the exercise. We found no effect of the number of good things participants wrote each day. Life satisfaction and positive affect of participants did not increase after the two weeks of the exercise, but we found a reduction in negative affect. We further investigated various aspects of the exercise in exploratory analyses.     

Working with Bangladeshi young women

The author describes once-weekly psychoanalytically informed work in a child mental health setting with young Bangladeshi women making the transition to adulthood. She argues that the prevalent notion of 'culture conflict' used to account for patterns of emotional disturbance and self-harm in these young women is reductionist and represents a denial of severe family dysfunction and individual psychic pain. She shows how, despite cultural differences, psychoanalytically informed thinking can provide a basis for understanding these young women's experience and facilitate their emotional growth. However, faced with complex unconscious processes, the worker has to remain alert to her countertransference in order not to be drawn into an unhelpful collusion or denial of reality. Organizational defences may also operate to protect staff and their institutions from awareness of such high levels of emotional distress, which therefore remain hidden. The author is grateful to the two young women who consented to publication in the hope that it might help others. Details have been changed to protect their anonymity.     

Blurring the Dichotomy of Good and Evil: The Idiosyncratic Helping Strategies Associated with Unmitigated‐Agentic and Unmitigated‐Communal Personalities

We theorized that unmitigated‐agentic personality constructs (UAPs)—prioritizing 'getting ahead’ over 'getting along’—and unmitigated‐communal personality constructs (UCPs)—prioritizing getting along over getting ahead—are associated with distinct affect‐regulatory helping strategies. In Study 1 (N = 179), UAPs, on average, related to greater negative‐affect versus positive‐affect induction helping tactics. In two experiments, UAPs, on average, related to a greater likelihood of selecting anger‐inducing versus love‐inducing or sadness‐inducing songs to help a target overcome a breakup (Study 2; N = 313) and greater selection of anger‐inducing and hubris‐inducing messages versus authentic‐pride‐inducing and love‐inducing messages to help a teammate struggling in a game (Study 3; N = 246). UCPs manifested the opposite patterns. Generally, these associations corresponded with helping‐strategy utility beliefs and were robust to moderators of helping target (self or other; Study 2) or altruistic versus selfish motives (Study 3). Study 4 (N = 205) provided some evidence of ecological validity in contexts of recalled everyday helping. Associations between personality constructs and relative helping strategies were about moderate in size (rs ~ .20) across these four studies. Findings suggest that UAPs are associated with helping strategies believed to promote ‘contemptuous’ self‐enhancement relative to ‘innocuous’ self‐enhancement and self‐transcendence, and vice versa for UCPs. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology