Testing the Bivalent Fear of Evaluation Model of Social Anxiety: The Relationship between Fear of Positive Evaluation,Social Anxiety,and Perfectionism

The Bivalent Fear of Evaluation (BFOE) model of social anxiety proposes that fear of negative evaluation (FNE) and fear of positive evaluation (FPE) play distinct roles in social anxiety. Research is however lacking in terms of how FPE is related to perfectionism and how these constructs interact to predict social anxiety. Participants were 382 individuals from the general community and included an oversampling of individuals with social anxiety. Measures of FPE, FNE, perfectionism, and social anxiety were administered. Results were mostly consistent with the predictions made by the BFOE model and showed that accounting for confounding variables, FPE correlated negatively with high standards but positively with maladaptive perfectionism. FNE was also positively correlated with maladaptive perfectionism, but there was no significant relationship between FNE and high standards. Also consistent with BFOE model, both FNE and FPE significantly moderated the relationship between maladaptive perfectionism and social anxiety with the relationship strengthened at high levels of FPE and FNE. These findings provide additional support for the BFOE model and implications are discussed.     

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.     

负折扣现象:跨期决策中的自我-他人决策差异

负折扣现象作为一种违背时间折扣假定的现象越来越多地引起研究者关注。本文通过两种指标考察了为自己决策和为他人决策在负折扣现象上的差异。实验1运用二择一选择范式考察人们在为自己决策和为他人决策时对于何时发生负性事件的时间偏好。结果发现,相比较于为他人决策,为自己决策时被试更倾向于选择早些发生负性事件,即更容易产生负折扣现象。实验2运用测量时间折扣率的经典范式考察了人们在为自己决策和为他人决策时的时间折扣率。结果发现,为自己决策时比为他人决策时的时间折扣率更小,更容易出现负折扣率。总体结果表明,为自己决策比为他人决策更容易出现负折扣现象。从情绪卷入的角度看,我们推测,为自己决策时由于更多的预期负性情绪卷入,从而导致更容易产生负折扣现象。     

呈现方式、自我效能感和成就动机对FOK判断影响的研究

以英汉配对词为实验材料探讨了呈现方式、自我效能感和成就动机对ＦＯＫ判断（Ｆｅｅｌｉｎｇ ｏｆ Ｋｎｏｗｉｎｇ）的影响,被试是１４４名大学生。实验结果表明：（１）呈现方式、自我效能感和成就动机均显著影响ＦＯＫ判断等级的高低和判断的准确性;（２）自我效能感和成就动机在影响ＦＤＫ判断方面有显著的交互作用,成就动机对ＦＤＫ判断的作用受自我效能感影响;（３）被试的回忆成绩、再认成绩和ＦＤＫ判断准确性之间均有显著的正相关,表明客体记忆与无记忆之间有较密切的联系。     

From trust in caregivers’ support to exploration: The role of openness to negative affect and self‐regulation

Attachment theory assumes that trust in caregivers’ support and exploration are closely related. Little research tried to investigate this link, nor focuses on mechanisms that might explain this association. The present studies examined whether trust is related to exploration through a serial indirect effect of openness to negative affect and self‐regulation. In Study 1, 212 children, aged 8–13, completed questionnaires assessing trust, openness to negative affect, self‐regulation and exploration. The results showed that trust predicted exploration, but only to the extent to which openness to negative affect and self‐regulation were involved too. Study 2 refined these findings (n = 59, aged 9–12) using a behavioral measure of openness to negative affect and exploration, and with mother‐reported self‐regulation. Replicating this serial indirect effect of openness to negative affect and self‐regulation with multiple informants and methods, the present studies advance our understanding of how trust might foster exploration in preadolescence.     

Emotion regulation and mood brightening in daily life vary with depressive symptom levels

Naturalistic studies of emotional reactivity in depression have repeatedly found larger decreases in negative affect (NA) among depressed individuals in response to daily positive events. This so-called mood-brightening (MB) effect represents a theoretical and empirical oddity. The current study is a secondary analysis investigating whether the MB effect is moderated by spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies, which have been implicated in the maintenance and modulation of NA in prior work. Participants (N?=?95) representing a large spectrum of depressive symptom severity reported their experiences of NA and the occurrence of positive events in daily life over the course of seven days using the experience sampling method. Our findings replicate and build upon those of prior studies relating to the MB effect in the following ways: (1) we observed the MB effect for specific negative emotions of sadness, anger, anxiety; and (2) we found evidence that the MB effect is moderated by spontaneous use of rumination, distraction, and expressive suppression, which have been shown to enhance or dampen NA. The role of emotion regulation strategies in daily emotional reactivity to pleasant events is discussed.     

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.     

Negative affect varying in motivational intensity influences scope of memory

Emotions influence cognitive processes involved in memory. While some research has suggested that cognitive scope is determined by affective valence, recent models of emotion–cognition interactions suggest that motivational intensity, rather than valence, influences these processes. The present research was designed to clarify how negative affects differing in motivational intensity impact memory for centrally or peripherally presented information. Experiments 1 & 2 found that, relative to a neutral condition, high intensity negative affect (anger) enhances memory for centrally presented information. Experiment 3 replicated this effect using another high intensity negative affect (threat). Experiment 4 extended this by finding that, relative to a neutral condition, low intensity negative affect (sadness) enhanced memory for peripherally presented information. Finally, in Experiment 5, the effects of sadness and threat on scope of memory were directly compared, finding that threat narrowed scope of memory, while sadness broadened scope of memory. Together, these results provide additional support for the motivational dimensional model of cognitive scope, in that high intensity emotions narrow cognitive scope, while low intensity emotions broaden cognitive scope.     

Position,Preference and Personality: A Microlevel Explanation of Negativity in Day‐To‐Day Politics

While many scholars investigate the determinants of negativity in the political sphere, it remains largely unclear why some politicians are more negative than others. Studies thus far lack explanations at the individual level, and they almost exclusively focus on negativity during electoral races. Surveying national and regional representatives in Belgium (N = 228), this study seeks to explain individual politicians’ willingness to go negative during everyday politics. The results show that negativity is not so much related to institutionally driven differences between representatives but more to politicians’ personal characteristics and preference roles. Negative politics, hence, is not an inevitable result of institutional structures, rules, and norms, but rather depends on the characteristics and motivations of the individual representatives citizens elect.     

Positive and negative affect and well-being in cardiac patients and their spouses: the mediating role of illness representations

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine whether illness representations of control and consequences mediate the relation of cardiac patients’ affect to well-being. A further aim was to examine this indirect relationship at a dyadic level (i.e. patient and spouse). Design and main outcome measures: One hundred and four patients with a cardiovascular disease and their spouses participated in the study. Positive and negative affect was assessed at baseline; illness representations were assessed 2 months later, and physical and psychological well-being 4 months later. Results: Illness representations generally mediated the impact of patients’ and spouses’ affect on well-being, while several actor and partner effects were found. However, it was only positive affect that was indirectly related to well-being, while the representations of personal and treatment control chiefly acted as mediators. The effects were stronger for patients than spouses, as well as for physical well-being. Conclusion: The results underline the strong connection between illness-related self-regulation and the overall person/environment interaction as depicted by affect. They also indicate the need to integrate theories on adaptation to illness, with models describing adaptation of couples to stressful conditions, and specific theories about the role of emotion in adaptation to illness.