Attachment Theory and Affect Regulation: The Dynamics,Development, and Cognitive Consequences of Attachment-Related Strategies

Attachment theory (J. Bowlby, 1982/1969, 1973) is one of the most useful and generative frameworks for understanding both normative and individual-differences aspects of the process of affect regulation. In this article we focus mainly on the different attachment-related strategies of affect regulation that result from different patterns of interactions with significant others. Specifically, we pursue 3 main goals: First, we elaborate the dynamics and functioning of these affect-regulation strategies using a recent integrative model of attachment-system activation and dynamics (P. R. Shaver & M. Mikulincer, 2002). Second, we review recent findings concerning the cognitive consequences of attachment-related strategies following the arousal of positive and negative affect. Third, we propose some integrative ideas concerning the formation and development of the different attachment-related strategies.     

On the link between different combinations of Negative Affectivity (NA) and Positive Affectivity (PA) and job performance

Despite the assumed orthogonality of Negative Affectivity (NA) and Positive Affectivity (PA), the effects of the different combinations of NA and PA on work-related outcomes such as job performance have been neglected. The present study among 42 employees of a local social services department in the Netherlands was conducted to fill this gap. The results show that a negative link between NA and job performance (as assessed by the immediate supervisor) exists only when PA is low. This finding elucidates the role of dispositional affect in organizational research and emphasizes that the interaction between both affectivity dimensions should be included when studying how affect relates to job performance and other work-related outcome variables.     

近十年来情绪研究的回顾与展望

本文主要综述了近10年来,情绪心理学研究中所取得的进展和将来的研究趋向。首先介绍了情绪实验研究中实验材料的标准化和成像技术应用的发展概况;其次讨论了情绪智力的构成成分和情绪调节研究的进展;再次分析了情绪和认知之间的交互作用关系;最后探讨了感情系统的加工特征。     

Explaining the procedural justice–perceived legitimacy relationship: Relying on relational concern or instrumental concern?

People can extract relational information (i.e., relational concern) as well as instrumental information (i.e., instrumental concern) from decision‐making procedures. Thus, both instrumental and relational concerns are assumed to influence the procedural justice–perceived legitimacy relationship. Drawing from social exchange theory, the different kinds of concerns may lead to form different exchange relationships (social exchange relationship vs. economic relationship), which can be indicated by two forms of trust (affect‐based trust vs. cognition‐based trust). We built a model of trust mediation in which procedural justice predicted affect‐based and cognition‐based trust. Further, we also tested the hypothesis that high (compared with low) group identification individuals are more likely to rely on relational concern to construct procedural justice and judge legitimacy of authority, because they use procedural fairness information to infer the quality of their relationships with the authority. The results of an experiment (Study 1) demonstrated that both affect‐based trust and cognition‐based trust mediated the procedural justice–perceived legitimacy relationship. Moreover, a field study (Study 2) showed that affect‐based trust mediated the relationship between procedural justice and perceived legitimacy primarily among individuals with high group identification whereas cognition‐based trust mediated this relationship primarily among those with low group identification.     

好奇影响灵感产生的现象与机制:认知与情绪双加工路径

当前我国经济正在从要素驱动,投资驱动转向创新驱动, 如何促进和持续创新的问题引起了学界和企业的广泛关注.现有研究发现好奇和灵感是创新的重要阶段, 灵感具有独立的心理结构和不同的过程, 又受到意识情绪的影响.研究拟从灵感产生的认知和情绪的双加工视角出发, 深入揭示灵感产生现象的本质特点和规律, 阐明好奇影响灵感的行为和脑机制.研究成果不仅可为创新的理论发展提供崭新视角,也可为企业员工和创业者创新能力的培养提供参考.     

On motivational influences,moving beyond valence,and integrating dimensional and discrete views of emotion

ABSTRACT

The field of cognition and emotion has grown considerably over the past 30 years, with an increased emphasis on the relationships between emotional and motivational components and how they contribute to basic perceptual, cognitive, and neural processes. For instance, research has revealed that emotion often influences these processes via emotion’s relationship with motivational dimensions, as when positive emotions low versus high in approach motivational intensity have different influences on attentional and other cognitive processes. Research has also revealed that motivational direction (approach vs. withdrawal) and affective valence (positive vs. negative) are not as closely related as once was theorised; that is, positive affect is not inevitably associated with approach motivation and negative affect is not inevitably associated with withdrawal motivation. These and other lines of research with anger have suggested that the field needs to move beyond a focus on affective valence and it needs to consider an integration of dimensional and discrete models of emotion. The article also includes some suggestions for improving methods of measuring and inducing emotions and some recommendations for future researchers.     

Application of signature strengths at work: A dual-level analysis

ABSTRACT

Each individual possesses character strengths, the most significant of which are classified as signature strengths. With a sample of 164 individuals who were employed at least part-time in a variety of industries, we examined application of signature strengths and well-being both between-persons (global) and within-persons (daily). Global application of signature strengths was associated with global job satisfaction and strain; however, no significant mediation effects on intent to turnover were found. We also found that daily variations in application of signature strengths were related to daily job satisfaction and strain. Common method bias associated with trait positive and negative affect differed by level of analysis: At the between-person (global) level, trait affect produced substantial inflation of estimates, but at the within-person (daily) level, inflation was negligible. The results suggest the importance of daily opportunities to apply signature strengths and of accounting for variance attributable to trait affect in between-person analyses.     

Culture,morality, and the effect of prosocial behavior motivation on positive affect

We investigated the effect of culture, moral discourse, and motivation to engage in prosocial behavior on benefactors’ positive affect. Participants from three cultures (Japan, Romania, and the United States) responded to scenarios in which they could perform small acts of kindness for different targets. A stronger relationship between agentic and obligated motivation to perform acts of kindness, as well as between obligated motivation and positive affect, was observed for participants from Japan, and for individuals with higher endorsement of the Community Ethic. Agentic motivation to engage in prosocial behavior was related to benefactors’ positive affect, regardless of relationship type.     

To Belong or Not to Belong. Affective Self-Nationalization in Thailand

Through analyzing conflict narratives regarding Khao Phra Wihan, a territorial conflict important for nationalists in Thailand, this article aims to detangle how nationalization is experienced and performed on an individual level. In this article, the concept “affective self-nationalization” is proposed to analyze the emotional and embodied practices through which individuals fashion themselves into nationalized subjects. In Thailand, self-nationalization is instigated by the governing agency through repeated, regular, mandatory, public performances of loyalty through which individuals create the nation collectively. These performances create automatic feelings to the nation, establishes national others as fearsome, and rule through the basic human need of belonging. At the same time, individuals’ emotions shape the society through how they decide to perform nationalization. The concept of “affective self-nationalization” captures the connections between the official nationalizing program of “outside” society in a form of nationalist emotional socialization with individual experience of nationalizing.     

‘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.