Psychological effects of deep-breathing: the impact of expectancy-priming

Outcome expectancy could mediate the psychological effects of exercise-related interventions, which implies that part of the psychological benefits of physical activity could be ascribed to placebo effects. In this framed field-experiment, 89 healthy participants were studied in three groups, (1) breathing-primed (deep-breathing with an exercise-related expectancy), (2) breathing-unprimed (deep-breathing with no exercise-related expectancy), and (3) control (no intervention). Deep-breathing lasted for three minutes. Before and after deep-breathing, or sitting quietly in the control group, participants completed two questionnaires assessing their positive- and negative affect (NA) and subjective well-being (WB). In contrast to the control group, both the breathing-primed and breathing-unprimed groups showed decreased NA and increased subjective WB. The breathing-primed group reported larger changes in WB than the breathing-unprimed group, in addition to also exhibiting significant increases in positive affect. These findings support the hypothesis of the work that expectations mediate the psychological effects of deep-breathing beyond the intervention’s specific effects. Therefore, future research should control for expectations related to an intervention when gauging psychological changes.     

不同情绪状态下自动表达抑制对情绪及表情知觉敏感性的影响

以103名大学生为对象,在正性、负性两种情绪状态下,用句子整理任务引发被试抑制情绪或表达情绪两种情绪调节方式,采用信号检测论测得正、负性表情的表情知觉敏感性。结果表明：（1）表情知觉敏感性存在情绪一致性效应,在负性情绪状态下,人们对负性表情更敏感,差异显著（p=0.002）;在正性情绪状态下,人们对正性表情更敏感,虽然只是边缘显著（p=0.700）。（2）自动抑制情绪会降低人们的情绪体验,并且会影响表情知觉敏感性的情绪一致性效应。在自动抑制启动的状态下,人们对正、负性表情都不太敏感。     

The Function of Moods and Emotions: Comment on “Can Sadness Be Good for You? On the Cognitive,Motivational and Interpersonal Benefits of Mild Negative Affect” (Forgas, 2017)

Evolutionary theories suggest that all affective states have a function. The fascinating review “Can Sadness Be Good for You? On the Cognitive, Motivational and Interpersonal Benefits of Mild Negative Affect” by Joseph Forgas is a welcome reminder that happiness is not the be all and end all—sadness can also be beneficial. In this commentary, I summarise the studies conducted by Forgas et al. that demonstrate the benefit of mild negative affect for memory, judgement, motivation, and interpersonal behaviour (and those that do not), link them to current theories and models, and discuss avenues for future research.     

Sleep quality in healthy and mood-disordered persons predicts daily life emotional reactivity

Disordered sleep has been linked to impaired emotional functioning in healthy and depressed individuals. Little is known, however, about how chronic sleep problems influence emotional reactivity in everyday life. Participants with major or minor unipolar depressive disorder (n?=?60) and healthy controls (n?=?35) reported on sleep and emotional responses to daily life events using a computerised Experience Sampling Method. We examined whether impaired sleep quality influenced emotional reactivity to daily events, and if this relationship was altered by unipolar mood disorders. Among healthy individuals, sleep difficulties were associated with enhanced negative affect (NA) to unpleasant events and a dulled response to neutral events. However, among mood-disordered persons, sleep difficulties were associated with higher NA across all types of everyday life events. Impaired sleep quality differentially affects daily life emotional reactions as a function of depression.     

Effects of dysphoria and induced negative mood on the processes underlying hindsight bias

Hindsight bias is the tendency to overestimate one’s prior knowledge of facts or events once the actual facts or events are known. Several theoretical frameworks suggest that affective states might influence hindsight bias. Nondysphoric participants (n?=?123, BDI?≤?13) in negative or neutral mood, and dysphoric participants (n?=?19, BDI?>?13) generated and recalled answers to difficult knowledge questions. All groups showed hindsight bias, that is, their recalled estimates were closer to the correct answer when this answer was shown at recall. Multinomial modelling revealed, however, that under dysphoria and induced negative mood different processes contributed to hindsight bias. Dysphoria, but not induced negative mood, was associated with a stronger reconstruction bias, compared with neutral mood. A recollection bias appeared in neutral, but neither in induced negative nor dysphoric mood. These findings highlight differences between the cognitive consequences of dysphoria and induced negative mood.     

父母述情困难与儿童行为问题:父母心境的中介作用

采用整群抽样法选取438名学前儿童及其家长为被试, 通过量表考察父母述情困难、心境与儿童问题行为之间的关系。结果发现:(1)父亲述情困难与儿童焦虑害羞行为显著正相关, 父亲情绪愉悦在其述情困难与儿童焦虑害羞行为之间具有完全中介作用;(2)母亲述情困难与儿童愤怒攻击、焦虑害羞行为显著正相关, 同时母亲的情绪波动在其述情困难与儿童愤怒攻击行为之间起着部分中介作用。研究结果说明述情困难风险较高的父亲, 其情绪愉悦水平也相对较低, 进而导致儿童表现出更多焦虑害羞行为;述情困难风险较高的母亲, 一方面会直接导致儿童表现出较多愤怒攻击与焦虑害羞行为, 另一方面又会通过其情绪波动增加儿童出现愤怒攻击行为的风险。     

Tell me who you are,and I will tell you how you feel?

Surprisingly little is known about the suggested mediator role of emotional intelligence and mood‐regulation regarding the relationship between personality and subjective well‐being. Three independent samples were administered to investigate whether EI and mood‐regulation served as mediators for subjective well‐being beyond personality. Using structural equation modelling, the authors demonstrated the superior role of extraversion and neuroticism in explaining satisfaction with life, happiness, positive and negative affect. Consistent mediation effects were found for the trait meta‐mood of repair. Contrary to expectations, the remaining variables (attention, clarity, self‐efficacy of affect regulation) did not mediate the relationship between personality and well‐being; neither did they show substantial incremental validity in explaining variance in SWB. Results are discussed with regard to methodological issues and practical implications. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotional, cognitive and physiological correlates of abuse-related stress in borderline and antisocial personality disorder

Childhood abuse is an important precursor of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The current study compared the emotional reactivity to abuse-related stress of these patients on a direct and an indirect level. Changes in self-reported affect and schema modes, psychophysiology and reaction time based cognitive associations were assessed following confrontation with an abuse-related film fragment in patients with BPD (n = 45), ASPD (n = 21), Cluster C personality disorder (n = 46) and non-patient controls (n = 36). Results indicated a hyperresponsivity of BPD-patients on self-reported negative affect and schema modes, on some psychophysiological indices and on implicit cognitive associations. The ASPD-group was comparable to the BPD group on implicit cognitions but did not show self-reported and physiological hyper-reactivity. These findings suggest that BPD and ASPD-patients are alike in their implicit cognitive abuse-related stress reactivity, but can be differentiated in their self-reported and physiological response patterns.     

Positive Affect and Flexibility: Overcoming the Precedence of Global over Local Processing of Visual Information

Previous findings on the relationship between positive mood and global processing are often based on visual matching tasks that involve a choice between global and local strategies. Preferences for global processing in positive mood, however, do not imply a reduced ability to process locally. The present experiment tested the assumption that positive affect increases flexibility in cognitive processing as indicated by the ability to overcome global precedence, and to respond rapidly to non-dominant (local) features when the task necessitates it. Consistent with expectations, participants responded significantly faster to local targets after positive compared to neutral and negative prime words. The typical precedence of global over local processing observed after neutral and negative prime words was reversed after positive prime words. Findings support the assumption that positive affect increases cognitive flexibility. Furthermore, findings suggest that mood-related preferences in global versus local processing cannot be generalized to processing ability.