Epistemic perceptualism and neo-sentimentalist objections

Epistemic Perceptualists claim that emotions are sources of immediate defeasible justification for evaluative propositions that can (and do) sometimes ground undefeated immediately justified evaluative beliefs. For example, fear can constitute the justificatory ground for a belief that some object or event is dangerous. Despite its attractiveness, the view is apparently vulnerable to several objections. In this paper, I provide a limited defence of Epistemic Perceptualism by responding to a family of objections which all take as a premise a popular and attractive view in value theory – Neo-Sentimentalism – according to which values are analysed in terms of fitting emotions.     

青少年学业情绪问卷的编制及应用

通过文献分析,结合访谈和半开放式问卷,将学业情绪确定为积极高唤醒、积极低唤醒、消极高唤醒、消极低唤醒四个维度。以1731名初一到高三学生为被试,通过三次取样测试,编制了青少年学业情绪问卷。通过对问卷的内部一致性信度、分半信度、结构效度和校标效度的检验,表明青少年学业情绪问卷具有较好的理论构想、良好的信效度指标。应用本问卷对3588名青少年的调查表明,青少年的学业情绪存在显著的年级和性别差异,初中生的积极学业情绪多于高中生,消极学业情绪少于高中生。男生的积极学业情绪多于女生,女生的消极学业情绪多于男生。研究表明青少年学业情绪问卷是研究青少年学业问题的一个有效工具     

The cognitive structure of surprise: looking for basic principles

We develop a conceptual and formal clarification of notion of surprise as a belief-based phenomenon by exploring a rich typology. Each kind of surprise is associated with a particular phase of cognitive processing and involves particular kinds of epistemic representations (representations and expectations under scrutiny, implicit beliefs, presuppositions). We define two main kinds of surprise: mismatch-based surprise and astonishment. In the central part of the paper we suggest how a formal model of surprise can be integrated with a formal model of belief change. We investigate the role of surprise in triggering the process of belief reconsideration. There are a number of models of surprise developed in the psychology of emotion. We provide several comparisons of our approach with those models.

Prediction of toddlers’ expressive language from maternal sensitivity and toddlers’ anger expressions: A developmental perspective

Despite evidence for the importance of individual differences in expressive language during toddlerhood in predicting later literacy skills, few researchers have examined individual and contextual factors related to language abilities across the toddler years. Furthermore, a gap remains in the literature about the extent to which the relations of negative emotions and parenting to language skills may differ for girls and boys. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the associations among maternal sensitivity, children's observed anger reactivity, and expressive language when children were 18 (T1; n = 247) and 30 (T2; n = 216) months. At each age, mothers reported on their toddlers’ expressive language, and mothers’ sensitive parenting behavior was observed during an unstructured free-play task. Toddlers’ anger expressions were observed during an emotion-eliciting task. Using path modeling, results showed few relations at T1. At T2, maternal sensitivity was negatively related to anger, and in turn, anger was associated with lower language skills. However, moderation analyses showed that these findings were significant for boys but not for girls. In addition, T1 maternal sensitivity and anger positively predicted expressive language longitudinally for both sexes. Findings suggest that the relations between maternal sensitivity, anger reactivity and expressive language may vary depending on the child's developmental stage and sex.     

Negotiating safer sex: A detailed analysis of attitude functions,anticipated emotions,relationship status and gender

Objective : Because interpersonal discussion about condom use can encourage subsequent condom use, this project aims to examine the psychological antecedents of intentions to discuss or request the use of condoms with a sexual partner.

Method : The data were collected from 849 heterosexual college students in the USA through an online survey. The survey contained several measures related to attitude functions (i.e. motivations), efficacy, norms and intentions to discuss condom use with a sexual partner.

Results : Participants’ attitude functions weakly predicted intentions to discuss condom use. Communication efficacy was a more important predictor of intentions for females (vs. males) and for those in other relationships or not in a relationship (vs. long-term monogamous relationships). Anticipated negative emotions were a stronger predictor of intentions for those in long-term monogamous relationships (vs. other relationships or not in a relationship).

Implications : Future research needs to consider more detailed attitude functions and anticipated emotions. Furthermore, background variables (e.g. gender and relationship status) can be moderators in addition to being distal predictors.     

Capturing the Structure of Distinct Types of Individual Differences in the Situation‐specific Experience of Emotions: The Case of Anger

The aim of this paper was to understand why some people experience certain emotions in a specific situation, whereas others do not. We postulate that these individual differences arise from individual differences in two underlying processes of emotion elicitation: (i) individual differences in the emotion components (appraisals and action tendencies) that situations activate in a person and (ii) individual differences in how these emotion components are related to subjective emotional experience. In this paper, we re‐analysed data from two studies on anger to capture the structure of these two types of individual differences by using clustering modelling techniques. Consistent results across the two studies demonstrated that individuals differ in anger because they (i) differ in how easy they experience anger‐relevant appraisals (Studies 1 and 2) and action tendencies (Study 2) in increasingly negative situations and (ii) differ in which of these components are necessary to experience anger. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Church service roles and anticipated support among older Mexican Americans

The purpose of this study is to see how feelings of anticipated support arise in church. Anticipated support refers to the belief that coreligionists will provide assistance in the future if the need arises. This model contains the following hypothesis: (1) people who affiliate with conservative Protestant congregations will be more deeply committed to their faith, (2) individuals who are more committed to their faith will attend church more frequently, (3) people who go to church more often will be more likely to occupy church service roles, (4) those who occupy church service roles will feel more highly valued by their coreligionists, (5) individuals who feel they are valued highly by fellow church members will receive more emotional support from them, and (6) people who receive more emotional support at church will have stronger anticipated support beliefs. Data from a nationwide survey of older Mexican Americans support these hypotheses.     

When your heart is in your mouth: the effect of second language use on negative emotions

Research on bilingualism and emotions has shown stronger emotional responses in the native language (L1) compared to a foreign language. We investigated the potential of purposeful second language (L2) use as a means of decreasing the experience of psychological distress. Native Swedish speakers read and answered questions about negative and neutral texts in their L1 (Swedish) and their L2 (English) and were asked to rate their level of distress before or after the questions. The texts and associated questions were either written in the same (within-language), or different languages (cross-language). We found that within-language trials when the text was written in participants’ native language (Swedish–Swedish) resulted in an increase of distress, whilst cross-language trials (Swedish–English) resulted in a decrease of distress. This implies that purposeful second language use can diminish levels of distress experienced following a negative event encoded in one's first language.     

Preserved re-experience of discrete emotions: Amnesia and executive function

Amnesic patients can re-experience emotions elicited by forgotten events, suggesting that brain systems for episodic and emotional memory are independent. However, the range of such emotional memories remains under-investigated (most studies employing just positive–negative emotion dyads), and executive function may also play a role in the re-experience of emotions. This is the first investigation of the intensity of the emotional re-experience of a range of discrete emotions (anger, fear, sadness, and happiness) for a group of amnesic patients. Twenty Korsakoff syndrome (KS) patients and 20 neurologically normal controls listened to four novel emotional vignettes selectively eliciting the four basic emotions. Emotional experience was measured using pen-and-paper Visual Analogue Mood Scales and episodic memory using verbal recollections. After 30 min, the recollection of stories was severely impaired for the patient group, but the emotional re-experience was no different from that of controls. Notably, there was no relationship between episodic recall and the intensity of the four emotions, such that even profoundly amnesic patients reported moderate levels of the target emotion. Exploratory analyses revealed negative correlations between the intensity of basic emotions and executive functions (e.g., cognitive flexibility and response inhibition) for controls but not patients. The results suggest that discrete emotions can be re-experienced independently of episodic memory, and that the re-experience of certain discrete emotions appears to be dampened by executive control. KS patients with absent or mild cognitive symptoms should benefit from emotion-regulation interventions aimed at reducing the recognized affective burden associated with their episodic memory deficit.     

成就目标、学业情绪及学业成绩的关系研究述评

成就目标(Achievement Goal)是个体对从事成就活动的目的或意义的知觉,学业情绪(Academic Emotion)是指与学业学习、班级指导和学业成就直接相关的各种情绪。成就目标与学业情绪相互作用,即成就目标会影响学生的学业情绪,学业情绪反过来也会影响成就目标。同时,成就目标和学业情绪对学生的学业成绩具有综合预测作用,学业情绪在成就目标和学业成绩间起中介作用。未来研究的方向主要在于深入探讨成就目标与更细分的学业情绪的关系,以及成就目标、学业情绪和成绩之间的相互作用。