How emotion communication guides reciprocity: Establishing cooperation through disappointment and anger

Emotions fulfill many social functions, but data on their essential function of establishing cooperation are lacking. We investigated how communicating anger and disappointment guides reciprocal cooperative behavior. Although anger may force cooperation by announcing retaliation, we predicted that communicating disappointment was less likely to backfire. A laboratory study in which participants played against the reciprocal strategy of tit-for-tat showed that communicated disappointment established more cooperation than did anger. This effect also carried over to future cooperation decisions. Partners communicating disappointment evoked less anger, were evaluated more positively and as forgiving rather than retaliatory. Communication of disappointment thus appears conducive to establishing mutually beneficial relationships.     

Equanimity to Excess: Inhibiting the Expression of Negative Emotion is Associated with Depression Symptoms in Girls

Emotion dysregulation is often invoked as an important construct for understanding risk for psychopathology, but specificity of domains of emotion regulation in clinically relevant research is often lacking. In the present study Gross’ (2001) model of emotion regulation is used to generate hypotheses regarding the relative contribution of two specific types of deficits in emotion regulation, inhibited and disinhibited expression of negative emotion, to individual differences in depressive symptoms in preadolescent girls. A sample of 232 9-year-old girls was recruited from a community based study. Depression symptoms were assessed via diagnostic interview. The mother and interviewer rated the girl’s level of impairment. Questionnaires and observations were used to assess inhibited and disinhibited expression of negative emotion. Differences in inhibited expression of negative emotion typically explained more variance in depressive symptoms and impairment across informants than did disinhibited expression of negative emotion. Although disinhibited expression of negative emotion is associated with depression and impairment, inhibited expression appeared to be a necessary ingredient, suggesting that inhibited expression may be a particularly relevant deficit in emotion regulation in the development of depression in females.     

Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning

Aggressive and prosocial children's emotion attributions and moral reasoning were investigated. Participants were 235 kindergarten children (M=6.2 years) and 136 elementary-school children (M=7.6 years) who were selected as aggressive or prosocial based on (kindergarten) teacher ratings. The children were asked to evaluate hypothetical rule violations, attribute emotions they would feel in the role of the victimizer, and justify their responses. Compared with younger prosocial children, younger aggressive children attributed fewer negative emotions and were more likely to provide sanction-oriented justifications when evaluating rule violations negatively. Furthermore, age-, gender- and context-effects in moral development occurred. The context-effects included both effects of transgression type (i.e., prosocial morality vs. fairness) on emotion attributions and moral reasoning and the effects of the context of moral evaluation and emotion attribution on moral reasoning. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of emotion attributions and moral reasoning as antecedents of children's aggressive and prosocial behavior.     

Long-term ability to interpret facial expression after traumatic brain injury and its relation to social integration

There is considerable evidence that individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) experience problems interpreting the emotional state of others. However, the functional implications of these changes have not been fully investigated. A study of 13 individuals with severe TBI and an equal number of matched controls found that TBI participants had significantly more difficulty interpreting facial expression and matching emotions to social situations. A significant relationship was also established between social integration and ability to interpret facial expression for TBI participants. These results support the inclusion of therapy targeting this area within rehabilitation programs for individuals with TBI.     

Cradling side preference is associated with lateralized processing of baby facial expressions in females

Women’s cradling side preference has been related to contralateral hemispheric specialization of processing emotional signals; but not of processing baby’s facial expression. Therefore, 46 nulliparous female volunteers were characterized as left or non-left holders (HG) during a doll holding task. During a signal detection task they were then asked to detect the emotional baby faces in a series of baby portraits with neutral and emotional facial expressions, presented either to the left or the right visual field (VFP). ANOVA revealed a significant HG × VFP interaction on response bias data (p < .05). Response bias was lowest when emotional baby faces were presented in the visual field of cradling side preference, suggesting that women’s cradling side preference may have evolved to save cognitive resources during monitoring emotional baby face signals.     

Dynamic fearful gaze does not enhance attention orienting in individuals with Asperger’s disorder

Although impaired joint attention is one of the core clinical features of pervasive developmental disorder including autistic disorder and Asperger’s disorder, experimental studies failed to report its impairment. This discrepancy might be the result of differences between real-life and experimental situations. The present study examined joint attention in 11 individuals with Asperger’s disorder and 11 age-matched controls under naturalistic conditions using a target detection paradigm with dynamic emotional gaze cues. Although both groups showed gaze-triggered attention orienting as assessed by the differences in reaction time for invalid minus valid cues, enhancement of joint attention by fearful (vs. neutral) gaze was observed in the control, but not in the Asperger group. This suggests that the integration of emotion and gaze direction that elicits strong joint attention is impaired in individuals with Asperger’s disorder.     

Empathy and emotion recognition in semantic dementia: A case report

Recent studies have demonstrated that patients suffering from frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) show impairments in empathy and emotional processing. In this study, we examined two different aspects of these abilities in a patient with semantic dementia (SD), a variant of FTLD. The first aspect was the assessment of the cognitive and emotional components of empathy through the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. The second was the naming and comprehension of emotions using the Ekman 60 Faces Test. The patient’s emotion word knowledge was spared and the emotional aspects of empathy preserved. Conversely, the patient performed below average for all of the basic emotions when an emotion word had to be matched with a picture. When picture-to-picture matching was tested, however, the patient was able to recognize happiness. This case is a good example of a dissociation of covert and overt emotional functioning in SD. Results are discussed in terms of the impaired empathic behavior and emotional functioning in FTLD.     

Using the Hands to Identify Who Does What to Whom: Gesture and Speech Go Hand-in-Hand

In order to produce a coherent narrative, speakers must identify the characters in the tale so that listeners can figure out who is doing what to whom. This paper explores whether speakers use gesture, as well as speech, for this purpose. English speakers were shown vignettes of two stories and asked to retell the stories to an experimenter. Their speech and gestures were transcribed and coded for referent identification. A gesture was considered to identify a referent if it was produced in the same location as the previous gesture for that referent. We found that speakers frequently used gesture location to identify referents. Interestingly, however, they used gesture most often to identify referents that were also uniquely specified in speech. Lexical specificity in referential expressions in speech thus appears to go hand-in-hand with specification in referential expressions in gesture.     

中小学生情绪调节策略与生理反应的关系

采用实验法探讨了巾小学生情绪调节策略与生理反应的关系。研究表明,悲伤情绪状态下,认知重评策略的生理反应要比表达抑制策略的生理反应小;快乐情绪状态下,两种策略的生理反应无显著差异;表达抑制策略下,悲伤情绪组的生理反应大于快乐情绪组的生理反应;认知重评策略下,悲伤情绪组的生理反应小于快乐情绪组;低年级学生比高年级学生情绪的生理反应大;女生比男生情绪的生理反应大;低学业水平学生比高学业水平学生情绪的生理反应大。     

大学生情绪调节方式与生活满意度研究

本研究使用大学生情绪调节方式问卷测查大学生情绪调节方式与大学生生活满意度之间的相关研究。研究结果表明：正情绪调节方式中的情绪分享、自我激励、克制、情绪维持、情绪表露及负情绪调节方式中的转移注意力、认知重评因素与生活满意度之间存在正相关关系,而调节积极情绪的行动动机方式、调节负性情绪的发泄、压抑、体验痛苦、放松等方式则与生活满意度之间有着负相关关系。自我激励方式、发泄、压抑、体验痛苦调节方式对生活满意度具有显著的预测力。