Consistency between verbal and non-verbal affective cues: a clue to speaker credibility

Listeners are exposed to inconsistencies in communication; for example, when speakers’ words (i.e. verbal) are discrepant with their demonstrated emotions (i.e. non-verbal). Such inconsistencies introduce ambiguity, which may render a speaker to be a less credible source of information. Two experiments examined whether children make credibility discriminations based on the consistency of speakers’ affect cues. In Experiment 1, school-age children (7- to 8-year-olds) preferred to solicit information from consistent speakers (e.g. those who provided a negative statement with negative affect), over novel speakers, to a greater extent than they preferred to solicit information from inconsistent speakers (e.g. those who provided a negative statement with positive affect) over novel speakers. Preschoolers (4- to 5-year-olds) did not demonstrate this preference. Experiment 2 showed that school-age children's ratings of speakers were influenced by speakers’ affect consistency when the attribute being judged was related to information acquisition (speakers’ believability, “weird” speech), but not general characteristics (speakers’ friendliness, likeability). Together, findings suggest that school-age children are sensitive to, and use, the congruency of affect cues to determine whether individuals are credible sources of information.     

A diathesis-stress conceptualization of expressed emotion and clinical outcome

A sizeable body of research has demonstrated that expressed emotion (EE) predicts clinical relapse in a number of distinct psychiatric disorders. These findings have provided the impetus for the development of interventions that attempt to reduce patients' relapse rates by modifying aspects of the family environment believed to be associated with high levels of EE. Despite the efficacy of these treatments, however, we know little about how EE develops in relatives of psychiatric patients or about the mechanisms through which high EE leads to relapse. Moreover, there is not a coherent theory that attempts to integrate findings concerning the impact of high EE on relapse in different disorders. The purpose of this article is to elucidate a diathesis-stress conceptualization of EE to explain both the development and manifestation of high EE in relatives of disordered patients and the impact of high EE on the course of patients' disorders. In this context, we use a diathesis-stress perspective to examine why EE predicts symptom relapse and poor clinical outcome in schizophrenia, depressive disorders, and borderline personality disorder. We conclude by discussing treatment implications of the diathesis-stress perspective and by outlining what we believe are fruitful directions for future research.     

“Time's Up!”: Framing Collective Impatience for Radical Political Change

Grievance is a prominent feature of mobilization for radical political change. Existing scholarship, however, does not pay sufficient attention to the temporal texture of grievance narratives. Temporally “flat” narratives of grievance are ill equipped to provide either the cognitive or emotional stimulus for major political reorientation. In response to this issue, the article develops the concept of collective exhaustion master frames. These are frames that narrate the aggrieved community's arrival to a threshold of collective impatience. Such narratives have two functions—to legitimize radical departures from prevailing political habits (a cognitive task) and to stimulate collective impatience with the political status quo (an emotional management task). In addition to developing the concept of exhaustion frames, the article demonstrates its empirical relevance by outlining five distinctive framing episodes, starting with the U.S. Declaration of Independence. The conclusion outlines the future directions for the study of collective impatience and points to the range of implications for political psychology and adjacent disciplines.     

‘Pissed Off and Confused’/‘Grateful and (Re)Moved’: Affect,Privilege and National Commemoration in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article explores affect, colonial privilege, and the cultural politics of national commemoration in Aotearoa New Zealand. Based on focus-group interviews around two major national days, we examine means through which feelings and emotions are deployed in ways that enable the reproduction of social advantage. Situating affect within patterns of relationship, four interrelated affective-discursive practices are explored. In relation to Waitangi Day, agents tend to work under the rubric of anger and confusion. For Anzac Day, being grateful and moved shapes the interaction, although participants often indicate preferences towards “having a day off.” Given the colonial context in which these practices circulate, analysis observes the associated freedom and ease by which affective-discursive privilege is (re)produced. Often incongruent and rarely challenged, privilege allows associated actors to do what they want, when they want, however they want. This affective climate authorizes the ongoing reproduction of, and justification for, membership to a higher-status ethnic group of which unearned opportunities and entitlements remain its everyday, expected currency.