Showing papers in "Emotion in 2013"

Emotion regulation: Taking stock and moving forward.

Abstract: The field of emotion regulation has now come of age. However, enthusiasm for the topic continues to outstrip conceptual clarity. In this article, I review the state of the field. I do this by asking--and attempting to succinctly answer--10 fundamental questions concerning emotion regulation, ranging from what emotion regulation is, to why it matters, to how we can change it. I conclude by considering some of the challenges that confront this rapidly growing field.

Interpersonal emotion regulation.

Abstract: Contemporary emotion regulation research emphasizes intrapersonal processes such as cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, but people experiencing affect commonly choose not to go it alone. Instead, individuals often turn to others for help in shaping their affective lives. How and under what circumstances does such interpersonal regulation modulate emotional experience? Although scientists have examined allied phenomena such as social sharing, empathy, social support, and prosocial behavior for decades, there have been surprisingly few attempts to integrate these data into a single conceptual framework of interpersonal regulation. Here we propose such a framework. We first map a "space" differentiating classes of interpersonal regulation according to whether an individual uses an interpersonal regulatory episode to alter their own or another person's emotion. We then identify 2 types of processes--response-dependent and response-independent--that could support interpersonal regulation. This framework classifies an array of processes through which interpersonal contact fulfills regulatory goals. More broadly, it organizes diffuse, heretofore independent data on "pieces" of interpersonal regulation, and identifies growth points for this young and exciting research domain.

The regulation of negative and positive affect in daily life.

Abstract: Emotion regulation has primarily been studied either experimentally or by using retrospective trait questionnaires. Very few studies have investigated emotion regulation in the context in which it is usually deployed, namely, the complexity of everyday life. We address this in the current paper by reporting findings of two experience-sampling studies (Ns = 46 and 95) investigating the use of six emotion-regulation strategies (reflection, reappraisal, rumination, distraction, expressive suppression, and social sharing) and their associations with changes in positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) in daily life. Regarding the relative use of emotion-regulation strategies, a highly similar ordering was found across both studies with distraction being used more than sharing and reappraisal. While the use of all six strategies was positively correlated both within- and between-persons, different strategies were associated with distinct affective consequences: Suppression and rumination were associated with increases in NA and decreases in PA, whereas reflection was associated with increases in PA across both studies. Additionally, reappraisal, distraction, and social sharing were related to increases in PA in Study 2. Discussion focuses on how the current findings fit with theoretical models of emotion regulation and with previous evidence from experimental and retrospective studies.

Integrating and differentiating aspects of self-regulation: effortful control, executive functioning, and links to negative affectivity.

Abstract: Subdisciplines within psychology frequently examine self-regulation from different frameworks despite conceptually similar definitions of constructs. In the current study, similarities and differences between effortful control, based on the psychobiological model of temperament (Rothbart, Derryberry, & Posner, 1994), and executive functioning are examined and empirically tested in three studies (n = 509). Structural equation modeling indicated that effortful control and executive functioning are strongly associated and overlapping constructs (Study 1). Additionally, results indicated that effortful control is related to the executive function of updating/monitoring information in working memory, but not inhibition (Studies 2 and 3). Study 3 also demonstrates that better updating/monitoring information in working memory and better effortful control were uniquely linked to lower dispositional negative affect, whereas the executive function of low/poor inhibition was uniquely associated with an increased tendency to express negative affect. Furthermore, dispositional negative affect mediated the links between effortful control and, separately, the executive function of updating/monitoring information in working memory and the tendency to express negative affect. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed, and a potential framework for guiding future work directed at integrating and differentiating aspects of self-regulation is suggested.

Understanding the social effects of emotion regulation: The mediating role of authenticity for individual differences in suppression.

Abstract: Individuals differ in the strategies they use to regulate their emotions (e.g., suppression, reappraisal), and these regulatory strategies can differentially influence social outcomes. However, the mechanisms underlying these social effects remain to be specified. We examined one potential mediator that arises directly from emotion-regulatory effort (expression of positive emotion), and another mediator that does not involve emotion processes per se, but instead results from the link between regulation and self-processes (subjective inauthenticity). Across three studies, only inauthenticity mediated the link between habitual use of suppression and poor social functioning (lower relationship satisfaction, lower social support). These findings replicated across individuals socialized in Western and East Asian cultural contexts, younger and older adults, when predicting social functioning concurrently and a decade later, and even when broader adjustment was controlled. Thus, the social costs of suppression do not seem to be due to reduced positive emotion expression but rather the incongruence between inner-self and outer-behavior. Reappraisal was not consistently related to social functioning. Implications of these findings for emotion processes, self processes, and interpersonal relationships are discussed.

The social functions of the emotion of gratitude via expression.

Abstract: Recent theory posits that the emotion of gratitude uniquely functions to build a high-quality relationship between a grateful person and the target of his or her gratitude, that is, the person who performed a kind action (Algoe et al., 2008). Therefore, gratitude is a prime candidate for testing the dyadic question of whether one person's grateful emotion has consequences for the other half of the relational unit, the person who is the target of that gratitude. The current study tests the critical hypothesis that being the target of gratitude forecasts one's relational growth with the person who expresses gratitude. The study employed a novel behavioral task in which members of romantic relationships expressed gratitude to one another in a laboratory paradigm. As predicted, the target's greater perceptions of the expresser's responsiveness after the interaction significantly predicted improvements in relationship quality over 6 months. These effects were independent from perceptions of responsiveness following two other types of relationally important and emotionally evocative social interactions in the lab, suggesting the unique weight that gratitude carries in cultivating social bonds.

Happiness is best kept stable: positive emotion variability is associated with poorer psychological health.

Abstract: Positive emotion has been shown to be associated with adaptive outcomes in a number of domains, including psychological health. However, research has largely focused on overall levels of positive emotion with less attention paid to how variable versus stable it is across time. We thus examined the psychological health correlates of positive emotion variability versus stability across 2 distinct studies, populations, and scientifically validated approaches for quantifying variability in emotion across time. Study 1 used a daily experience approach in a U.S. community sample (N 244) to examine positive emotion variability across 2 weeks (macrolevel). Study 2 adopted a daily reconstruction method in a French adult sample (N 2,391) to examine variability within 1 day (microlevel). Greater macro- and microlevel variability in positive emotion was associated with worse psychological health, including lower well-being and life satisfaction and greater depression and anxiety (Study 1), and lower daily satisfaction, life satisfaction, and happiness (Study 2). Taken together, these findings support the notion that positive emotion variability plays an important and incremental role in psychological health above and beyond overall levels of happiness, and that too much variability might be maladaptive.

Validation of data-driven computational models of social perception of faces

Abstract: People rapidly form impressions from facial appearance, and these impressions affect social decisions. We argue that data-driven, computational models are the best available tools for identifying the source of such impressions. Here we validate seven computational models of social judgments of faces: attractiveness, competence, dominance, extroversion, likability, threat, and trustworthiness. The models manipulate both face shape and reflectance (i.e., cues such as pigmentation and skin smoothness). We show that human judgments track the models' predictions (Experiment 1) and that the models differentiate between different judgments, though this differentiation is constrained by the similarity of the models (Experiment 2). We also make the validated stimuli available for academic research: seven databases containing 25 identities manipulated in the respective model to take on seven different dimension values, ranging from -3 SD to +3 SD (175 stimuli in each database). Finally, we show how the computational models can be used to control for shared variance of the models. For example, even for highly correlated dimensions (e.g., dominance and threat), we can identify cues specific to each dimension and, consequently, generate faces that vary only on these cues.

Affect dynamics in relation to depressive symptoms: Variable, unstable or inert?

Abstract: Depression not only involves disturbances in prevailing affect, but also in how affect fluctuates over time. Yet, precisely which patterns of affect dynamics are associated with depressive symptoms remains unclear; depression has been linked with increased affective variability and instability, but also with greater resistance to affective change (inertia). In this paper, we argue that these paradoxical findings stem from a number of neglected methodological/analytical factors, which we address using a novel paradigm and analytic approach. Participants (N 99), preselected to represent a wide range of depressive symptoms, watched a series of emotional film clips and rated their affect at baseline and following each film clip. We also assessed participants’ affect in daily life over 1 week using experience sampling. When controlling for overlap between different measures of affect dynamics, depressive symptoms were independently associated with higher inertia of negative affect in the lab, and with greater negative affect variability both in the lab and in daily life. In contrast, depressive symptoms were not independently related to higher affective instability either in daily life or in the lab.

In search of meaningfulness: Nostalgia as an antidote to boredom.

Abstract: We formulated, tested, and supported, in 6 studies, a theoretical model according to which individuals use nostalgia as a way to reinject meaningfulness in their lives when they experience boredom. Studies 1-3 established that induced boredom causes increases in nostalgia when participants have the opportunity to revert to their past. Studies 4 and 5 examined search for meaning as a mediator of the effect of boredom on nostalgia. Specifically, Study 4 showed that search for meaning mediates the effect of state boredom on nostalgic memory content, whereas Study 5 demonstrated that search for meaning mediates the effect of dispositional boredom on dispositional nostalgia. Finally, Study 6 examined the meaning reestablishment potential of nostalgia during boredom: Nostalgia mediates the effect of boredom on sense of meaningfulness and presence of meaning in one's life. Nostalgia counteracts the meaninglessness that individuals experience when they are bored.

Individual differences in reappraisal effectiveness: the role of affective flexibility.

Abstract: The present study examined the relation between a specific type of executive control and cognitive emotion regulation. The authors propose that successful reappraisal is related to "affective flexibility": The ability to flexibly attend to and disengage from emotional aspects of a situation or a stimulus. A new affective task-switching paradigm that required participants to shift between categorizing positive and negative affective pictures according to emotional or nonemotional features was used to assess individual differences in affective flexibility. The results showed that greater affective flexibility (less switch costs) predicted the ability to use reappraisal to down-regulate emotions in response to a sad film clip. In particular, more efficient shifts toward the neutral aspects of negative pictures and toward the emotional aspects of positive pictures were found to predict reappraisal ability. The results imply that executive control of emotional material is a capacity that is closely associated with effective reappraisal.

An experimental study of emotion regulation during relationship conflict interactions: the moderating role of attachment orientations.

Abstract: Romantic couples (N = 127) engaged in a relationship conflict interaction during which their autonomic physiology, emotional experience, and emotional behavior were recorded. Couples were assigned randomly to one of two interventions, or to a control condition: In the affective suppression condition, one partner was instructed to refrain from expressing emotions. In the positive mindset condition, one partner was instructed to think about the positive aspects of the relationship. Results revealed that emotion regulation interventions influenced the physiology, emotional behavior, and emotional experience of both the manipulated person and his or her partner, who was oblivious to regulation manipulations. Specifically, suppression increased, and positive mindset decreased cardiovascular arousal and negative affect. These effects were generally exacerbated among those high on attachment anxiety and attenuated among those high on attachment avoidance. The results of this research corroborate and extend the Temporal Interpersonal Emotion Systems model (Butler, 2011) in the context of relationship conflict interactions.

The relations of ego-resiliency and emotion socialization to the development of empathy and prosocial behavior across early childhood.

Abstract: Empathy is an affective response that results from comprehension or apprehension of another’s emotional state or condition (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006); thus, it involves both a rudimentary (or higher) understanding of another’s emotion and vicarious sharing of it. Empathy emerges in basic form early in life (i.e., newborns’ reactive crying to another’s distress) and becomes more sophisticated in toddlerhood (Roth-Hanania, Davidov, & Zahn-Waxler, 2011; Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2009; Zahn-Waxler, Radke-Yarrow, Wagner, & Chapman, 1992), a period in which children increasingly become aware of others’ feelings and differing perspectives (Hoffman, 2000, 2007). The development of empathy has been linked to children’s growing social and cognitive skills such as emotion understanding, perspective taking, and self-awareness that provide them with an awareness of other people’s feelings and needs (Eisenberg et al., 2006; Hoffman, 2007). Researchers have focused mostly on cognitive skills as antecedents to empathic abilities in early childhood, whereas there is relatively little work on dispositional characteristics of toddlers and young preschoolers that predict empathic responding. In particular, how well children manage and recoup from stress—their ego-resiliency—could affect their responses to others’ emotional distress. However, relations between the trait of ego-resiliency and children’s dispositional empathy remain understudied, especially during early childhood. Also important, much of the work on parental socialization of empathy has pertained to parental disciplinary practices, whereas parental socialization of emotion has received limited attention (for a review, see Eisenberg et al., 2006; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Taylor, in press). Moreover, there are relatively few longitudinal studies of empathy so it is difficult to draw conclusions about the role of early socialization or dispositional characteristics in the development of empathy. Empathy is of interest to developmentalists because it sometimes appears to foster prosocial actions as well as concern for the well-being of others (i.e., sympathy; Eisenberg et al., 2006, in press), although empathic overarousal can result in an aversive, self-focused reaction labeled personal distress (see Batson, 1991; Eisenberg et al., 2006; Trommsdorff, Friedlmeier, & Mayer, 2007). There is a natural conceptual link between empathy and prosocial behavior—intentional behavior intended to benefit another (Eisenberg et al., 2006)—because the process of empathizing with others is expected to increase the likelihood of understanding another person’s feelings and responding in a sensitive manner. However, researchers have seldom examined the growth of empathy in relation to children’s later prosocial behavior. Furthermore, few researchers have examined mediation in regard to children’s empathy, and those that do typically assess mediators of empathy, not empathy as a mediator (for exceptions, see Krevans & Gibbs, 1996, and Padilla-Walker & Christensen, 2011, who found that empathy mediated the relations between parenting and prosocial behavior during early adolescence). Empathy has been found to mediate the relations between peer attachment and prosocial behavior in college students (Carlo, McGinley, Hayes, & Martinez, 2012) and the relation between social exclusion and prosocial behavior in adults (Twenge, Baumeister, DeWall, Ciarocco, & Bartels, 2007). Given these gaps in the literature, the present study had the following aims. First, we examined whether dispositional ego-resiliency and maternal socialization of emotions were early predictors of the development in children’s empathy across early childhood. Our second aim was to examine if empathy, including its initial level and change over time, mediated the relation between children’s dispositional ego-resiliency, as well as maternal emotion socialization behaviors, and children’s later prosocial behavior. Our final aim was to identify whether the growth of empathy predicted children’s prosocial behavior with their peers in later childhood.

Universal and culture-specific factors in the recognition and performance of musical affect expressions.

Abstract: We present a cross-cultural study on the performance and perception of affective expression in music. Professional bowed-string musicians from different musical traditions (Swedish folk music, Hindustani classical music, Japanese traditional music, and Western classical music) were instructed to perform short pieces of music to convey 11 emotions and related states to listeners. All musical stimuli were judged by Swedish, Indian, and Japanese participants in a balanced design, and a variety of acoustic and musical cues were extracted. Results first showed that the musicians' expressive intentions could be recognized with accuracy above chance both within and across musical cultures, but communication was, in general, more accurate for culturally familiar versus unfamiliar music, and for basic emotions versus nonbasic affective states. We further used a lens-model approach to describe the relations between the strategies that musicians use to convey various expressions and listeners' perceptions of the affective content of the music. Many acoustic and musical cues were similarly correlated with both the musicians' expressive intentions and the listeners' affective judgments across musical cultures, but the match between musicians' and listeners' uses of cues was better in within-cultural versus cross-cultural conditions. We conclude that affective expression in music may depend on a combination of universal and culture-specific factors.

Negative emotional experiences arouse rumination and affect working memory capacity.

Abstract: Following an emotional experience, individuals are confronted with the persistence of ruminative thoughts that disturb the undertaking of other activities. In the present study, we experimentally tested the idea that experiencing a negative emotion triggers a ruminative process that drains working memory (WM) resources normally devoted to other tasks. Undergraduate participants of high versus low WM capacity were administered the operation-word memory span test (OSPAN) as a measure of availability of WM resources preceding and following the presentation of negative emotional versus neutral material. Rumination was assessed immediately after the second OSPAN session and at a 24-hr delay. Results showed that both the individual'sWMcapacity and the emotional valence of the material influencedWM performance and the persistence of ruminative thoughts. Following the experimental induction, rumination mediated the relationship between the negative emotional state and the concomitant WM performance. Based on these results, we argue that ruminative processes deplete WM resources, making them less available for concurrent tasks; in addition, rumination tends to persist over time. These findings have implications for the theoretical modeling of the long-term effects of emotions in both daily life and clinical contexts. © 2013 American Psychological Association.

Faces and awareness: low-level, not emotional factors determine perceptual dominance.

Abstract: Threat-relevant stimuli such as fear faces are prioritized by the human visual system. Recent research suggests that this prioritization begins during unconscious processing: a specialized (possibly subcortical) pathway evaluates the threat relevance of visual input, resulting in preferential access to awareness for threat stimuli. Our data challenge this claim. We used a continuous flash suppression (CFS) paradigm to present emotional face stimuli outside of awareness. It has been shown using CFS that salient (e.g., high contrast) and recognizable stimuli (faces, words) become visible more quickly than less salient or less recognizable stimuli. We found that although fearful faces emerge from suppression faster than other faces, this was wholly explained by their low-level visual properties, rather than their emotional content. We conclude that, in the competition for visual awareness, the visual system prefers and promotes unconscious stimuli that are more “face-like,” but the emotional content of a face has no effect on stimulus salience

It felt fluent, and I liked it: subjective feeling of fluency rather than objective fluency determines liking.

Abstract: According to the processing-fluency explanation of aesthetics, more fluently processed stimuli are preferred (R. Reber, N. Schwarz, & P. Winkielman, 2004, Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver's processing experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, Vol. 8, pp. 364-382.). In this view, the subjective feeling of ease of processing is considered important, but this has not been directly tested in perceptual processing. In two experiments, we therefore objectively manipulated fluency (ease of processing) with subliminal perceptual priming (Study 1) and variations in presentation durations (Study 2). We assessed the impact of objective fluency on feelings of fluency and liking, as well as their interdependence. In line with the processing-fluency account, we found that objectively more fluent images were indeed judged as more fluent and were also liked more. Moreover, differences in liking were even stronger when data were analyzed according to felt fluency. These findings demonstrate that perceptual fluency is not only explicitly felt, it can also be reported and is an important determinant of liking.

Social status and anger expression: The cultural moderation hypothesis.

Abstract: Individuals with lower social status have been reported to express more anger, but this evidence comes mostly from Western cultures. Here, we used representative samples of American and Japanese adults and tested the hypothesis that the association between social status and anger expression depends on whether anger serves primarily to vent frustration, as in the United States, or to display authority, as in Japan. Consistent with the assumption that lower social standing is associated with greater frustration stemming from life adversities and blocked goals, Americans with lower social status expressed more anger, with the relationship mediated by the extent of frustration. In contrast, consistent with the assumption that higher social standing affords a privilege to display anger, Japanese with higher social status expressed more anger, with the relationship mediated by decision-making authority. As expected, anger expression was predicted by subjective social status among Americans and by objective social status among Japanese. Implications for the dynamic construction of anger and anger expression are discussed.

Positive and Negative Emotion Prospectively Predict Trajectories of Resilience and Distress Among High-Exposure Police Officers

Abstract: Responses to both potentially traumatic events and other significant life stressors have been shown to conform to discrete patterns of response such as resilience, anticipatory stress, initial distress with gradual recovery, and chronic distress. The etiology of these trajectories is still unclear. Individual differences in levels of negative and positive emotion are believed to play a role in determining risk and resilience following traumatic exposure. In the current investigation, we followed police officers prospectively from academy training through 48 months of active duty, assessing levels of distress every 12 months. Using latent class growth analysis, we identified 4 trajectories closely conforming to prototypical patterns. Furthermore, we found that lower levels of self-reported negative emotion during academy training prospectively predicted membership in the resilient trajectory compared with the more symptomatic trajectories following the initiation of active duty, whereas higher levels of positive emotion during academy training differentiated resilience from a trajectory that was equivalently low on distress during academy training but consistently grew in distress through 4 years of active duty. These findings emerging from a prospective longitudinal design provide evidence that resilience is predicted by both lower levels of negative emotion and higher levels of positive emotion prior to active duty stressor exposure.

If it makes you happy: engaging in kind acts increases positive affect in socially anxious individuals.

Abstract: Social anxiety is associated with low positive affect (PA), a factor that can significantly affect psychological well-being and adaptive functioning. Despite suggestions that individuals with high levels of social anxiety would benefit from PA enhancement, the feasibility of doing so remains an unanswered question. Accordingly, in the current study, individuals with high levels of social anxiety (N = 142) were randomly assigned to conditions designed to enhance PA (Kind Acts), reduce negative affect (NA; Behavioral Experiments), or a neutral control (Activity Monitoring). All participants engaged in the required activities for 4 weeks and completed prepost questionnaires measuring mood and social goals, as well as weekly email ratings of mood, anxiety, and social activities. Both the prepost and weekly mood ratings revealed that participants who engaged in kind acts displayed significant increases in PA that were sustained over the 4 weeks of the study. No significant changes in PA were observed in the other conditions. The increase in hedonic functioning was not due to differential compliance, frequency of social activities, or an indirect effect of NA reduction. In addition, participants who engaged in kind acts displayed an increase in relationship satisfaction and a decrease in social avoidance goals, whereas no significant changes in these variables were observed in the other conditions. This study is the first to demonstrate that positive affect can be increased in individuals with high levels of social anxiety and that PA enhancement strategies may result in wider social benefits. The role of PA in producing those benefits requires further study.

Multivariate pattern classification reveals autonomic and experiential representations of discrete emotions.

Abstract: Defining the structural organization of emotions is a central unresolved question in affective science. In particular, the extent to which autonomic nervous system activity signifies distinct affective states remains controversial. Most prior research on this topic has used univariate statistical approaches in attempts to classify emotions from psychophysiological data. In the present study, electrodermal, cardiac, respiratory, and gastric activity, as well as self-report measures were taken from healthy subjects during the experience of fear, anger, sadness, surprise, contentment, and amusement in response to film and music clips. Information pertaining to affective states present in these response patterns was analyzed using multivariate pattern classification techniques. Overall accuracy for classifying distinct affective states was 58.0% for autonomic measures and 88.2% for self-report measures, both of which were significantly above chance. Further, examining the error distribution of classifiers revealed that the dimensions of valence and arousal selectively contributed to decoding emotional states from self-report, whereas a categorical configuration of affective space was evident in both self-report and autonomic measures. Taken together, these findings extend recent multivariate approaches to study emotion and indicate that pattern classification tools may improve upon univariate approaches to reveal the underlying structure of emotional experience and physiological expression.

Time-Based Indicators of Emotional Complexity: Interrelations and Correlates

Abstract: Emotional complexity has been regarded as one correlate of adaptive emotion regulation in adulthood. One novel and potentially valuable approach to operationalizing emotional complexity is to use reports of emotions obtained repeatedly in real time, which can generate a number of potential time-based indicators of emotional complexity. It is not known, however, how these indicators relate to each other, to other measures of affective complexity, such as those derived from a cognitive-developmental view of emotional complexity, or to measures of adaptive functioning, such as well-being. A sample of 109 adults, aged 23 to 90 years, participated in an experience-sampling study and reported their negative and positive affect five times a day for one week. Based on these reports, we calculated nine different time-based indicators potentially reflecting emotional complexity. Analyses showed three major findings: First, the indicators showed a diverse pattern of interrelations suggestive of four distinct components of emotional complexity. Second, age was generally not related to time-based indicators of emotional complexity; however, older adults showed overall low variability in negative affect. Third, time-based indicators of emotional complexity were either unrelated or inversely related to measures of adaptive functioning; that is, these measures tended to predict a less adaptive profile, such as lower subjective and psychological well-being. In sum, time-based indicators of emotional complexity displayed a more complex and less beneficial picture than originally thought. In particular, variability in negative affect seems to indicate suboptimal adjustments. Future research would benefit from collecting empirical data for the interrelations and correlates of time-based indicators of emotional complexity in different contexts.

Cardiac Vagal Tone Predicts Attentional Engagement To and Disengagement From Fearful Faces

Abstract: The current research examines individual differences in flexible emotional attention. In two experiments, we investigated the relationship between individual differences in cardiac vagal tone and top-down and bottom-up processes associated with emotional attention. To help determine the role of cortical and subcortical mechanisms underlying top-down and bottom-up emotional attention, fearful faces at broad, high, and low spatial frequency were presented as cues that triggered either exogenous or endogenous orienting. Participants with lower heart rate variability (HRV) exhibited faster attentional engagement to low-spatial-frequency fearful faces at short stimulus-onset asynchronies, but showed delayed attentional disengagement from high-spatial-frequency fearful faces at long stimulus-onset asynchronies in contrast to participants with higher HRV. This research suggests that cardiac vagal tone is associated with more adaptive top-down and bottom-up modulation of emotional attention. Implications for various affective disorders, including depression, anxiety disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder, are discussed.

A negativity bias for ambiguous facial-expression valence during childhood: converging evidence from behavior and facial corrugator muscle responses.

Abstract: Interpretations of facial expressions with ambiguous valence, such as surprised (which can be perceived as having positive or negative valence), reveal individual differences in positivity-negativity biases. Negative interpretations are first and fast, but this initial negativity default can be overridden by regulatory control processes that result in positive interpretations. We tested the initial negativity hypothesis by examining positivity-negativity biases during development. We hypothesized that during childhood, the default negativity mode would be more evident than in adulthood and, as a group, children would show a negativity bias when processing ambiguous facial expressions. We examined ratings of two ambiguous expressions, surprised and neutral expressions, from childhood through adolescence and recorded facial corrugator muscle activity, a physiological index of negative appraisals. Surprised faces were rated as conveying clear negative affect by younger participants as indexed by fast RTs and negative ratings, and corrugator data showed a corresponding increase in activity to surprised faces. By adolescence, positive ratings of surprised faces became more frequent and RTs slowed, suggesting that surprised faces were perceived as having more ambiguous meaning. Accordingly, corrugator activity also decreased during adolescence. Neutral faces also produced negative ratings by children, but were also rated as conveying negative affect by older participants. Accordingly, neutral faces also elicited high corrugator activity that was similar to that elicited by negative expressions. These data show that early in life, ambiguous facial expressions are perceived as conveying negative meaning, adding support for an initial-negativity hypothesis.

The effect of the serotonin transporter polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) on empathic and self-conscious emotional reactivity.

Abstract: We examined the relationship between a functional polymorphism of the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) and individual differences in emotional reactivity in two laboratory studies. In Study 1, empathic responding and physiological reactivity to viewing films of others in distress were assessed in healthy adults in three age groups. In Study 2, emotional responding to watching oneself in an embarrassing situation was assessed in healthy adults and in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. In Study 1, participants with two short alleles of 5-HTTLPR reported more personal distress and showed higher levels of physiological responses in response to the films than participants with long alleles. In Study 2, participants with two short alleles reported more anger and amusement and displayed more emotional expressive behaviors in response to the embarrassing situation than participants with long alleles. These two findings from diverse samples of participants converge to indicate that individuals who are homozygous for the short allele variant of 5-HTTLPR have greater levels of emotional reactivity in two quite different socially embedded contexts.

Emotional faces in context: age differences in recognition accuracy and scanning patterns.

Abstract: Although age-related declines in facial expression recognition are well documented, previous research has relied mostly on isolated faces devoid of context. The authors investigated the effects of context on age differences in recognition of facial emotions and in visual scanning patterns of emotional faces. While their eye movements were monitored, younger and older participants viewed facial expressions (i.e., anger, disgust) in contexts that were emotionally congruent, incongruent, or neutral to the facial expression to be identified. Both age groups had the highest recognition rates of facial expressions in the congruent context, followed by the neutral context, and recognition rates in the incongruent context were the lowest. These context effects were more pronounced for older adults. Compared to younger adults, older adults exhibited a greater benefit from congruent contextual information, regardless of facial expression. Context also influenced the pattern of visual scanning characteristics of emotional faces in a similar manner across age groups. In addition, older adults initially attended more to context overall. Our data highlight the importance of considering the role of context in understanding emotion recognition in adulthood.

Approach behavior can mitigate predominately univalent negative attitudes: evidence regarding insects and spiders.

Abstract: Three experiments tested whether disliking of predominately univalently negative attitude objects could be reduced by a procedure pairing approach behaviors with subliminally presented images of the objects. Experiment 1 demonstrated that participants who approached images of insects rated insects less negatively than participants who did not approach insect pictures. Experiment 2 extended this effect to spiders and used an implicit measure of spider attitudes. Experiment 3 examined the consequences of an approach induction for affect during actual approach behavior in a sample of individuals with elevated levels of spider fear by using a Behavioral Approach Task. Fearful individuals who approached spider pictures reported less anxiety when encountering live spiders than participants who did not approach spider pictures. As such, the results provided evidence on explicit, implicit, and behavioral measures that negative and predominately univalent attitudes can be influenced by approach behaviors. Implications for attitude change interventions and potential contribution to the efficacy of exposure therapy are discussed.

Commitment to a purpose in life: an antidote to the suffering by individuals with social anxiety disorder.

Abstract: Recent acceptance- and mindfulness-based cognitive-behavioral interventions explicitly target the clarification and commitment to a purpose in life. Yet, scant empirical evidence exists on the value of purpose as a mechanism relevant to psychopathology or well-being. The present research explored daily (within-person) fluctuations in purposeful pursuits and well-being in a community sample of 84 adults with (n = 41) and without (n = 43) the generalized subtype of social anxiety disorder (SAD). After completing an idiographic measure of purpose in life, participants monitored their effort and progress toward this purpose, along with their well-being each day. Across 2 weeks of daily reports, we found that healthy controls reported increased self-esteem, meaning in life, positive emotions, and decreased negative emotions. People with SAD experienced substantial boosts in well-being indicators on days characterized by significant effort or progress toward their life purpose. We found no evidence for the reverse direction (with well-being boosting the amount of effort or progress that people with SAD devote to their purpose), and effects could not be attributed to comorbid mood or anxiety disorders. Results provide evidence for how commitment to a purpose in life enriches the daily existence of people with SAD. The current study supports principles that underlie what many clinicians are already doing with clients for SAD.

Role of self-control strength in the relation between anxiety and cognitive performance.

Abstract: In the present work, we examine the role of self-control resources within the relationship between anxiety and cognitive test performance. We argue that self-control is required for keeping attention away from anxiety-related worries, which would otherwise distract a person from performing on the test. In Study 1 (N = 67) and Study 2 (N = 96), we found that state anxiety was negatively related to performance of verbal learning and mental arithmetic if participants' self-control resources were depleted, but it was unrelated if participants' self-control was intact. In Study 3 (N = 99), the worry component of trait test anxiety was more strongly related to perceived distraction by worries while performing an arithmetic task for participants with depleted self-control resources than for nondepleted participants. Furthermore, distraction by worries showed to be responsible for suboptimal performance. The findings may help to clarify the anxiety-performance relationship and offer a novel approach for counteracting performance decrements associated with test anxiety.

A diffusion model account of the relationship between the emotional flanker task and rumination and depression.

Abstract: Although there exists a consensus that depression is characterized by preferential processing of negative information, empirical findings to support the association between depression and rumination on the one hand and selective attention for negative stimuli on the other hand have been elusive. We argue that one of the reasons for the inconsistent findings may be the use of aggregate measures of response times and accuracies to measure attentional bias. Diffusion model analysis allows to partial out the information processing component from other components that comprise the decision-making process. In this study, we applied a diffusion model to an emotional flanker task. Results revealed that when focusing on a negative target, both rumination and depression were associated with facilitated processing due to negative distracters, whereas only rumination was associated with less interference by positive distracters. After controlling for depression scores, rumination still predicted attentional bias for negative information, but depression scores were no longer predictive after controlling for rumination. Consistent with elusive findings in the literature, we did not find this pattern of results when using accuracy scores or mean response times. Our results suggest that rumination accounts for the attentional bias for negative information found in depression.