Emotional distress and positive and negative memories from military deployment: the influence of PTSD symptoms and time

During military deployment, soldiers are confronted with both negative and positive events. What is remembered and how it affects an individual is influenced by not only the perceived emotion of the event, but also the emotional state of the individual. Here we examined the most negative and most positive deployment memories from a company of 337 soldiers who were deployed together to Afghanistan. We examined how the level of emotional distress of the soldiers and the valence of the memory were related to the emotional intensity, experience of reliving, rehearsal and coherence of the memories, and how the perceived impact of these memories changed over time. We found that soldiers with higher levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms were more affected by both their negative and positive memories, compared with soldiers with lower levels of PTSD symptoms. Emotional intensity of the most negative memory increased over time in the group with highest levels of PTSD symptoms, but dropped in the other groups. The present study adds to the literature on emotion and autobiographical memory and how this relationship interacts with an individual’s present level of emotional distress and the passage of time.     

Excitatory and inhibitory priming by attended and ignored non-recycled words with monolinguals and bilinguals

Experiments examining identity priming from attended and ignored novel words (words that are used only once except when repetition is required due to experimental manipulation) in a lexical decision task are reported. Experiment 1 tested English monolinguals whereas Experiment 2 tested Twi (a native language of Ghana, Africa)-English bilinguals. Participants were presented with sequential pairs of stimuli composed of a prime followed by a probe, with each containing two items. The participants were required to name the target word in the prime display, and to make a lexical decision to the target item in the probe display. On attended repetition (AR) trials the probe target item was identical to the target word on the preceding attentional display. On ignored repetition (IR) trials the probe target item was the same as the distractor word in the preceding attentional display. The experiments produced facilitated (positive) priming in the AR trials and delayed (negative) priming in the IR trials. Significantly, the positive and negative priming effects also replicated across both monolingual and bilingual groups of participants, despite the fact that the bilinguals were responding to the task in their non-dominant language.     

Emotional processes in risky and multiattribute health decisions

Objective: Here, we develop an integrative account of the roles of emotion in decision-making. In Part I, we illustrate how emotional inputs into decisions may rely on physiological signals from emotions experienced while making the decision, and we review evidence suggesting that the failure to represent the emotional meaning of options can often reduce decision quality. We propose that health-related decrements in the ability to generate emotional reactions lead people to inaccurately represent emotional responses and compromise decisions, particularly about risk. Part II explores complex decisions in which choice options involve trade-offs between positive and negative attributes. We first review evidence showing that difficult trade-off decisions generate negative affect and physiological arousal. Next, we propose that medical decision-making will be linked to short- and long-term stress and health outcomes.

Conclusion: In sum, this article proposes and reviews initial evidence supporting the effective use and management of emotional inputs as important to both clinical and non-clinical populations. Our approach will contribute to the understanding of patient-centred emotional decision-making and will inform medical decision aids.     

Reducing behavioural risk factors for cancer: An affect regulation perspective

Nearly half of all cancer deaths are attributable to preventable causes, primarily unhealthy behaviours such as tobacco use, alcohol use and overeating. In this review, we argue that people engage in these behaviours, at least in part, as a means of regulating their affective states. To better understand why people engage in these behaviours and how researchers might design interventions to promote the selection of healthier methods for regulating affect, we propose a conceptual model of affect regulation. We synthesise research from both the stress and coping tradition as well as the emotion and emotion regulation tradition, two literatures that are not typically integrated. In so doing, we indicate where researchers have made headway in understanding these behaviours as affect regulation and note how our model could be used to structure future work in a way that would be particularly advantageous to cancer control efforts.     

Effects of exposure to alcohol‐related cues on racial discrimination

Prior research has shown that exposure to alcohol‐related images exacerbates expression of implicit racial biases, and that brief exposure to alcohol‐related words increases aggressive responses. However, the potential for alcohol cue exposure to elicit differential aggression against a Black (outgroup) relative to a White (ingroup) target—that is, racial discrimination—has never been investigated. Here, we found that White participants (N = 92) exposed to alcohol‐related words made harsher judgments of a Black experimenter who had frustrated them than participants who were exposed to nonalcohol words. These findings suggest that exposure to alcohol cues increases discriminatory behaviors toward Blacks.     

内隐人格观对他人知觉的影响

以大学生为被试,采用投射测验法分离出两类不同性质的内隐人格观,然后通过效价匹配实验和错觉关联实验,初步探讨了内隐人格观对他人知觉的信息加工模式的影响。研究结果表明:(1)跨性格、能力等不同人格属性有共通一致的内隐观;(2)固存观的反面就是渐变观,它们是同一维度的两极;(3)与渐变观者相比,固存观者更易以一种评价性方式知觉他人信息;同时,渐变观者不像固存观者那样对他人特质作出静态判断,而是集中注意力于理解他人行为发生的动态过程。     

MATRIX THINKING: AN ADAPTATION AT THE FOUNDATION OF HUMAN SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND ART

Intrigued by Robinson and Southgate's 2010 work on “entering a semiotic matrix,” we expand their model to include the juxtaposition of all signs, symbols, and mental categories, and to explore the underpinnings of creativity in science, religion, and art. We rely on an interdisciplinary review of human sentience in archaeology, evolutionary biology, the cognitive science of religion, and literature, and speculate on the development of sentience in response to strong selection pressure on the hominin evolutionary line, leaving us the “lone survivors” of complex, multiple lines of physical and cultural evolution. What we call Matrix Thinking—the creative driver of human sentience—has important cognitive and intellectual features, but also equally important characteristics traced to our intense sociability and use of emotionality in vetting rational models. Scientist, theologian, and artist create new cultural knowledge within a social context even if alone. They are rewarded by emotional validation from group members, and guided by the ever present question, “Does it feel right?”     

幼儿父母婚姻冲突与教养方式的关系:父母情绪调节策略的调节作用

以285名幼儿家长为被试,采用问卷法考察婚姻冲突对权威教养和专制教养的差别效应以及父母情绪调节策略在其中的调节作用。结果发现:(1)幼儿父母的婚姻冲突能显著负向预测其权威教养,显著正向预测其专制教养,婚姻冲突对两类教养的预测作用大小无显著差异;(2)父母情绪调节策略对婚姻冲突与权威教养关系的调节作用显著,且这种调节作用不存在家长性别的差异:较少使用认知重评或较多使用表达抑制的家长,其婚姻冲突能显著负向预测权威教养;经常使用认知重评或较少使用表达抑制的家长,其婚姻冲突对权威教养的影响不显著。父母情绪调节策略对婚姻冲突与专制教养关系的调节作用不显著。     

Unconscious manipulation of free choice by novel primes

The extent to which non-conscious perception can influence behaviour has been a topic of considerable controversy in psychology for decades. Although a challenging task, convincing empirical demonstrations have emerged suggesting that non-consciously perceived ‘prime’ stimuli can influence motor responses to subsequent targets. Interestingly, recent studies have shown that the influence of masked primes is not restricted to target-elicited responses, but can also bias free-choices between alternative behaviours. The present experiment extends these findings by showing that free-choices could also be biased by novel primes that never appeared as targets and therefore could not trigger acquired stimulus–response (S–R) mappings. This new evidence suggests that free-choice behaviour can be influenced by non-consciously triggered semantic representations. Furthermore, the results reported here support accounts of masked priming that posit an automatic semantic categorisation of non-consciously perceived visual stimuli.