Up-regulating positive emotions in everyday life: Strategies, individual differences, and associations with positive emotion and well-being

This research aimed to identify strategies people use to up-regulate positive emotions, and examine associations with personality, emotion regulation, and trait and state positive experience. In Study 1, participants reported use of 75 regulation strategies and trait emotional experience. Principal component analysis revealed three strategy domains: engagement (socializing, savoring), betterment (goal pursuit, personal growth), and indulgence (substance use, fantasy). In Study 2, participants reported state-level regulation and emotional experience. Engagement correlated with greater state and trait positive emotion, and overall greater well-being. Betterment correlated with less state, but greater trait, positive emotion. Indulgence correlated with greater state, but less trait positive emotion and overall lower well-being. This research suggests trade-offs between short-term and long-term emotional consequences of different strategies.     

Investigating associations between empathy, morality and psychopathic personality traits in the general population

Although atypical moral and empathy processing are considered core features of psychopathic personality, little is known about how these constructs are associated with psychopathic traits in the general population. One-hundred and twenty-four adult males from the community were administered the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale 4 Short Form, as well as a wide battery of affect, empathy and morality tasks and questionnaires. Our findings indicate that both core affective-interpersonal, as well as lifestyle-antisocial features of psychopathy are associated with weaker empathic responses to fearful faces. However, only the unique variance of the affective-interpersonal features is associated with weaker empathic response to happy stories, lower propensity to feel empathic concern and less difficulty in making decisions on moral dilemmas. In contrast, the unique variance of the lifestyle-antisocial features is associated with greater propensity to feel empathic concern. These preliminary findings extend previous research and suggest that, while the joint variance between affective-interpersonal and lifestyle-antisocial features might drive some ‘deficits’ associated with psychopathy, there also appears also to be unique ‘deficits’ associated with the core affective-interpersonal features, particularly in relation to affective aspects of moral processing.     

Empathy, values, morality and Asperger's syndrome

The aims of this study were, first, to re-address the issue of empathy among people with autism conditions; second, to explore the relationships between empathy and values among autistic populations and controls; and third, to explore the capacity for moral agency among those affected by autism. We compared responses of an Asperger group (N = 41) and a control group (N = 139) to measures of self-reported empathy (Davis's IRI) and value priorities (Schwartz's PVQ). Control group results were largely in line with previous studies, such that empathy subscales of perspective taking and empathic concern showed their strongest positive and negative relations to the Schwartz self-transcendence/self-enhancement dimensions. Results for the Asperger group showed that although on the one hand there were self-reported difficulties in perspective taking and the cognitive recognition of affect, and that on the other hand there were less connections between the empathy and value measures, there was nevertheless a comparable prioritization of moral values. Conclusions suggest that different people may acquire moral values through different mechanisms.     

Compassion for one reduces punishment for another

The ability of compassion felt toward one person to reduce punishment directed at another was examined. The use of a staged interaction in which one individual cheats to earn higher compensation than others resulted in heightened third-party punishment being directed at the cheater. However, among participants who were induced to feel compassion toward a separate individual, punishment of the cheater disappeared even though the cheater clearly intended to cheat and showed no remorse for doing so. Moreover, additional analyses revealed that the reduction in punishment was directly mediated by the amount of compassion participants experienced toward the separate individual.     

Implicit theories moderate the relation of positive future fantasies to academic outcomes

We hypothesized and observed that the degree to which students endorsed entity theories - the view that intelligence is fixed rather than malleable - attenuated the affective benefits and exacerbated the achievement drawbacks of positive fantasies in the academic domain. Positive fantasies only predicted low anger and anxiety for schoolchildren who did not strongly endorse entity theories (Study 1), and positive fantasies only predicted poor final school grades for vocational students who did strongly endorse entity theories (Study 2). An experiment indicated that for university students with stronger entity theories, positive fantasies demanded relatively little attention (Study 3), suggesting that positive fantasies obscure the opportunity for the preemptive self-regulation which promotes successful performance.     

Does Anxiety Improve Voters' Decision Making?

Affective Intelligence (AI) theory proposes to answer a fundamental question about democracy: how it succeeds even though most citizens pay little attention to politics. AI contends that, when circumstances generate sufficient anxiety, citizens make informed and thoughtful political decisions. In Ladd and Lenz (2008 ), we showed that two simpler depictions of anxiety's role can explain the vote interactions that apparently support AI. Here, we again replicate Marcus, Neuman and MacKuen's (2000 )'s voting model, which they contend supports AI, and again show that it is vulnerable to these alternative explanations, regardless of how candidate choice is measured. We also briefly review the broader literature and discuss Brader's (2005, 2006 ) important experimental results. Although the literature undoubtedly supports other aspects of AI, few studies directly test AI's voting claims, which were the focus of our reassessment. In our view, the only study that does so while ruling out the two alternatives is our analysis of the 1980 ANES Major Panel ( Ladd & Lenz, 2008 ), which finds no support for AI, but ample support for the alternatives. None of the responses to Ladd and Lenz (2008 ) addresses these findings. Overall, evidence that anxiety helps solve the problem of voter competence remains sparse and vulnerable to alternative explanations.     

时间感知在跨期决策中的作用——时间决策模型的新探索

“时间”是跨期决策的“必需品”, 人们感知到的延迟时间决定跨期决策的结果。近年来, 研究者发现“时间长度感知”、“时间资源感知”和“时间框架感知”是时间感知作用于跨期决策的主要方式。时间感知的神经作用机制包含微观层面和宏观层面两种。“对数/指数时间折扣模型”、“感知时间基础模型”及“多模态漂移扩散模型”解释了时间感知的作用方式。然而, 现有理论模型还存在诸多局限, 主要包括“长短时距预测偏差”和“实际决策与预期决策偏差”两个方面。因此, 深入探讨时间感知影响跨期决策的基本方式, 分析现有理论模型的局限性并提出整合的机制框架具有十分重要的意义。未来研究亟需进一步整合时间感知的理论模型, 开展脑机制与应用方面的研究, 从深层揭露时间感知的作用本质, 帮助个人与社会更理性地决策。     

老年人群的韵律感知

老龄化导致听觉系统、认知功能有所衰退。老年人群的言语理解能力减弱, 韵律信息解析存在困难。老年人对重音、语调、语速等语言韵律感知能力退化, 对情感韵律的加工也出现问题, 特别是消极情绪韵律加工减退较快。老年疾病进一步加深韵律加工难度, 韵律感知呈现出与特定疾病的相关性。未来研究需考察不同语言背景老年人群的韵律感知表现与机制、复杂交流环境的影响、韵律感知障碍对老年疾病的预测、韵律感知的早期干预与复健等问题。     

Sometimes it does hurt to ask: The constructive role of articulating impressions

Decisions can sometimes have a constructive role, so that the act of, for example, choosing one option over another creates a preference for that option (e.g., , ,  and ). In this work we explore the constructive role of just articulating an impression, for a presented visual stimulus, as opposed to making a choice (specifically, the judgments we employ are affective evaluations). Using quantum probability theory, we outline a cognitive model formalizing such a constructive process. We predict a simple interaction, in relation to how a second image is evaluated, following the presentation of a first image, depending on whether there is a rating for the first image or not. The interaction predicted by the quantum model was confirmed across three experiments and a variety of control manipulations. The advantages of using quantum probability theory to model the present results, compared with existing models of sequence order effects in judgment (e.g., Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992) or other theories of constructive processes when a choice is made (e.g.,  and ) are discussed.     

A Probabilistic and Individualized Approach for Predicting Treatment Gains: An Extension and Application to Anxiety Disordered Youth

The objective of this study was to extend the probability of treatment benefit method by adding treatment condition as a stratifying variable, and illustrate this extension of the methodology using the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study data. The probability of treatment benefit method produces a simple and practical way to predict individualized treatment benefit based on pretreatment patient characteristics. Two pretreatment patient characteristics were selected in the production of the probability of treatment benefit charts: baseline anxiety severity, measured by the Pediatric Anxiety Rating Scale, and treatment condition (cognitive-behavioral therapy, sertraline, their combination, and placebo). We produced two charts as exemplars which provide individualized and probabilistic information for treatment response and outcome to treatments for child anxiety. We discuss the implications of the use of the probability of treatment benefit method, particularly with regard to patient-centered outcomes and individualized decision-making in psychology and psychiatry.