Emotion

What a relief! The pleasure of threat avoidance.
Relief, a pleasurable experience, is often triggered by successful threat avoidance. Although relief is regarded as the positive reinforcer for avoidance behavior, its rewarding nature remains to be demonstrated. In our study, 50 participants responded to cues associated with different magnitudes of monetary values or electrical stimuli. Successful responses to those cues resulted in monetary gains (i.e., rewards) or omissions of electrical stimulation (i.e., relief), followed by a pleasantness rating scale. We also measured physiological arousal via skin conductance. As expected, we found that for reward and relief similarly, higher magnitudes elicited more successful responses, higher pleasantness ratings, and higher skin conductance responses. Moreover, differential reward/relief response patterns predicted later choices between reward and relief cues. These findings indicate that relief induced by threat omissions is functionally equivalent to receiving a reward, confirming that relief is a positive reinforcer for threat avoidance behaviors, which provides a new theoretical perspective on the learning process of active threat avoidance. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Working life as a double-edged sword: Opposing changes in subjective well-being surrounding the transition to work and retirement.
The work role is crucial for one’s identity and subjective well-being. From a role enhancement perspective, subjective well-being might increase after the transition to work and decrease after retirement. From a role strain perspective, the opposite might be true. Thus, entering and leaving working life might have benefits and costs, leading to improvements in some but impairments in other well-being indicators. To test these assumptions, we examined short- and long-term changes in life satisfaction, happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger in the 5 years before and 5 years after the transition to work and retirement, respectively. Between 2007 and 2019, each facet of subjective well-being was repeatedly assessed in 2,720 (expectant) career starters and 2,007 (expectant) retirees from the German Socio-Economic-Panel Study. Multilevel analyses adjusted for time-dependent confounders indicated that young adults were more satisfied with their lives in (but not beyond) the first year of working life compared to before, which is in line with set-point theory. In the first 5 years of working life, career starters became happier but also angrier, supporting both the role enhancement and the role strain perspective. Older adults became less satisfied, less happy, sadder, and more anxious in the 5 years before retirement. However, in and after the first year of retirement, they were more satisfied, happier, less anxious, and less angry than before, supporting the role strain perspective. Our findings show that working life is a double-edged sword that influences individual well-being indicators in partially opposing ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
The interplay between music engagement and affect: A random-intercept cross-lagged panel analysis.
Engagement with music has the capacity to influence and be influenced by affective experiences. Although cross-sectional and experimental research provides evidence that music engagement is related to higher positive and lower negative affect, few studies have investigated the bidirectional nature of this relationship over time. The present longitudinal study, therefore, examined the interplay between passive and active music engagement and affect using random-intercept cross-lagged panel analysis. Over 8 weeks in 2022, 428 participants regularly engaging with music completed weekly online surveys on quantitative music engagement (i.e., time spent with music listening/music making), qualitative music engagement (i.e., use of music listening/music making for mood regulation) as well as positive and negative affect. Results revealed cross-lagged associations between music engagement and negative affect, but not positive affect: regarding quantitative music engagement, more time spent with music listening (but not music making) was related to less negative affect than usual at the following measurement. Results on qualitative music engagement showed that weeks with more negative affect than usual were followed by an increased use of music listening and music making for mood regulation. Our findings emphasize the bidirectional nature of the relationship between music engagement and affect corroborating the significant role of music engagement in affect regulation. Future research should replicate these findings with a more diverse sample regarding age, sex, ethnicity, education, and socioeconomic status. Additionally, further studies could examine individual and contextual factors and adequate measurement time points for further investigation of bidirectional affective processes involved in music engagement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Contextual variations in emotion polyregulation: How do regulatory goals shape the use and success of emotion regulation strategies in everyday life?
Emotion regulation strategies are frequently combined within one emotional episode, a phenomenon labeled emotion polyregulation. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of studies examining which regulatory strategies are commonly combined across different contexts and how effective these combinations are in everyday life. Targeting this research gap, the present ecological momentary assessment study modeled emotion polyregulation and its success for contexts of (a) downregulation, (b) upregulation, and (c) maintenance goals in N = 321 adults. The endorsement and success of 15 different emotion regulation strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation were measured 5 times a day for 7 days. Multilevel factor analyses revealed that individuals tend to combine different regulatory strategies depending on the activated regulatory goal: When examining downregulation, four factors best described the combined use of regulatory strategies: Situation Modification, Repetitive Processing, Emotional Avoidance, and Interpersonal Regulation. In contrast, three-factor models characterized emotion polyregulation for upregulation (Emotional Acceptance, Repetitive Processing, and Interpersonal Regulation) and maintenance goals (Unspecific Regulation, Emotional Acceptance, and Interpersonal Regulation). Moreover, multilevel structural equation modeling revealed that the success of emotion polyregulation is goal-dependent. While combining interpersonal and situation modification strategies was related to beneficial outcomes for downregulation goals, acceptance-based strategies were most strongly associated with emotion regulation success in situations of upregulation and maintenance. These results add to a more complex understanding of emotion regulation in daily life and highlight the necessity of broadening the focus of emotion regulation research to examine emotion polyregulation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Shining our humanity: The benefits of awe on self-humanity.
Attributing humanness to oneself (i.e., self-humanity) can be malleable and can lead to various crucial outcomes. Researchers have not investigated whether and how awe as a self-related emotion affects people’s perception of their own humanness. We proposed two competing hypotheses: awe impairs self-humanity via self-smallness, and awe promotes self-humanity via authentic-self pursuit. Across seven studies (N = 1539), we found that awe is positively related to (Studies 1 and 4) and predicts self-humanity (Studies 2a, 2b, 5, and 6). Moreover, this relationship was mediated by authentic-self pursuit (Studies 3–6) rather than self-smallness (Studies 5 and 6). The effect of awe on authentic-self pursuit and self-humanity held true among the general population (Studies 1–4 and 6) and for a disadvantaged group (i.e., blue-collar workers; Study 5). In addition, we demonstrated that the effect was not driven solely by positive emotions (Studies 1, 2b, and 6). These findings enrich the literature on awe and self-humanity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Sensitivity to basic emotional expressions and the emotion perception space in the absence of facial mimicry: The case of individuals with congenital facial palsy.
According to sensorimotor simulation models, recognition of another person’s emotion is achieved by recreating the motor production of the perceived facial expression in oneself. Therefore, congenital difficulties in the production of facial expressions may affect emotion processing. The present study assessed a sample (N = 11) of Moebius syndrome (MBS) patients and a matched control group (N = 33), using a highly sensitive emotion recognition task. Leveraging the uniqueness of MBS, which is characterized by congenital facial paralysis, the role of facial mimicry and sensorimotor simulation in creating precise embodied concepts of emotion categories was investigated. Particularly, the research focused on how MBS patients (both as a group and individually, compared to controls) perceived the intensity of primary emotions and how well they discriminated between these and secondary (i.e., blended) emotions. The results showed that MBS patients registered significantly lower intensities for sadness, fear, anger, and disgust. Furthermore, these emotions appeared closely clustered—and therefore confused with anger and surprise—in the multidimensional scaling map, which was used to qualitatively analyze the emotion perception space. Further analysis of each MBS participant showed a stronger tendency in most patients to perceive primary emotions as less intense, relative to controls. Thus, the findings provide evidence for a residual deficit in emotion processing in adults with MBS. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Emotional context and predictability in naturalistic reading aloud.
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported in Vol 24(3) of Emotion (see record 2024-72515-001). In the article (https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001298), Table 1 as originally reported contained an error with respect to participant demographics. Specifically, participants who had selected multiple categories for race/ethnicity were mistakenly assigned to only the first alphabetical category selected. Updates have been made in the Race/ethnicity section of Table 1, to change the heading “American Indian or Alaska Native” to “Multiple selected,” and to the relevant statistics under that heading as well as under the “Hispanic, Latino/a/x, or Spanish origin” and “Asian” headings. No inferential statistics are impacted by this correction, nor does it affect the results or conclusions of the article. All versions of this article have been corrected.] A robust experimental literature has found that word frequency and lexical valence contribute to visual word processing at the level of the individual word. Extensions of this literature to simplified sentences have essentially corroborated single-word findings, albeit with important influences of the unfolding discourse context, which may strengthen or attenuate single-word effects. This study sought to extend current knowledge one step further, beyond stand-alone sentences or sentence pairs, by investigating how word frequency and lexical valence, along with their interactions, influence oral reading performance for multisentence stimuli in a naturalistic context. Lexical features were averaged over short passages of text, which were presented to participants on-screen simultaneously, and performance was assessed as reading speed, in words per second. Overall, we find that the same patterns emerge for multisentence oral reading as in the prior literature: strong frequency effects that benefit higher-frequency content, a positivity bias that increases reading speed for more positive content, and an important interaction that disfavors relatively more negative (less positive), high-frequency content. We discuss these findings in light of possible interpretations based on associative connectivity in the mental lexicon, as well as oculomotor dynamics during naturalistic reading. Our data suggest that reading speed of multisentence texts is a viable alternative, and one that offers enhanced ecological validity, for investigations of visual word processing dynamics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Empathic concern motivates willingness to help in the absence of interdependence.
Previous research suggests that empathic concern selectively promotes motivation to help those with whom we typically have interdependent relationships, such as friends or siblings, rather than strangers or acquaintances. In a sample of U.S. participants (collected between 2018 and 2020), our studies not only confirmed the finding that empathic concern is directed somewhat more strongly toward interdependent relationship partners, but also showed cross-sectionally (Studies 1a–1b), and when manipulating target distress experimentally (Study 2), that empathic concern predicts higher willingness to help only when people perceive low interdependence in their relationship with the target. In Study 3, we manipulated perceived interdependence with an acquaintance via shared fate, and found that empathic concern only predicted helping motivation when we reduced shared fate, but not when we increased shared fate. These results suggest that when people perceive high interdependence in their relationships, shared fate is the driving force behind their desire to help, whereas when people perceive low interdependence with someone in need, empathic concern motivates them to help. A relationship-building perspective on empathic concern provides avenues for testing additional moderators, including those related to target-specific characteristics and culture and ecology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Correction to “Emotional context and predictability in naturalistic reading aloud” by Alexander and Buzzell (2023).
Reports an error in "Emotional context and predictability in naturalistic reading aloud" by Jessica M. Alexander and George A. Buzzell (Emotion, Advanced Online Publication, Sep 14, 2023, np). In the article (https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001298), Table 1 as originally reported contained an error with respect to participant demographics. Specifically, participants who had selected multiple categories for race/ethnicity were mistakenly assigned to only the first alphabetical category selected. Updates have been made in the Race/ethnicity section of Table 1, to change the heading “American Indian or Alaska Native” to “Multiple selected,” and to the relevant statistics under that heading as well as under the “Hispanic, Latino/a/x, or Spanish origin” and “Asian” headings. No inferential statistics are impacted by this correction, nor does it affect the results or conclusions of the article. All versions of this article have been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2024-08306-001.) A robust experimental literature has found that word frequency and lexical valence contribute to visual word processing at the level of the individual word. Extensions of this literature to simplified sentences have essentially corroborated single-word findings, albeit with important influences of the unfolding discourse context, which may strengthen or attenuate single-word effects. This study sought to extend current knowledge one step further, beyond stand-alone sentences or sentence pairs, by investigating how word frequency and lexical valence, along with their interactions, influence oral reading performance for multisentence stimuli in a naturalistic context. Lexical features were averaged over short passages of text, which were presented to participants on-screen simultaneously, and performance was assessed as reading speed, in words per second. Overall, we find that the same patterns emerge for multisentence oral reading as in the prior literature: strong frequency effects that benefit higher-frequency content, a positivity bias that increases reading speed for more positive content, and an important interaction that disfavors relatively more negative (less positive), high-frequency content. We discuss these findings in light of possible interpretations based on associative connectivity in the mental lexicon, as well as oculomotor dynamics during naturalistic reading. Our data suggest that reading speed of multisentence texts is a viable alternative, and one that offers enhanced ecological validity, for investigations of visual word processing dynamics. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Elasticity of emotions to multiple interpersonal transgressions.
After an interpersonal mishap—like blowing off plans with a friend, forgetting a spouse’s birthday, or falling behind on a group project—wrongdoers typically feel guilty for their misbehavior, and victims feel angry. These emotions are believed to possess reparative functions; their expression prevents future mistakes from reiterating. However, little research has examined people’s emotional reactions to mistakes that happen more than once. In seven preregistered studies, we assessed wrongdoers’ and victims’ emotions that arise after one transgression and again after another. Following two (or more) consecutive transgressions, wrongdoers felt guiltier, and victims felt angrier. However, from one transgression to the next, increases to anger were significantly greater than increases to guilt. Likewise, after transgression repair, anger decreased more than guilt did. In short, we found that anger is more elastic than guilt, which suggests a new perspective on emotions: The sensitivity to which emotions update in response to new circumstances. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Mother–child dyadic responses to children facing challenges: An examination across ethnicities.
The current study (a) examined ethnic differences in mothers’ and children’s responses to children’s performance in a challenging task, (b) tested the associations among children’s desire for assistance, maternal control, and children’s emotional responses to the challenge, and (c) explored whether these associations held across three ethnicities—Asian Americans (AA), Latinx Americans (LA), and European Americans (EA). Results showed that children’s emotional arousal significantly increased and emotional valence became significantly less positive over the course of children experiencing repeated challenges in front of their mothers. In terms of ethnic differences, LA mothers exhibited more control than EA mothers, but LA children responded less negatively to the challenging task than EA children. AA dyads did not significantly differ from LA or EA dyads on any maternal or child responses. However, regardless of ethnicity, stronger child desire for assistance was associated with greater maternal control and greater maternal control was associated with less emotional arousal and more positive child emotional valence. These findings suggest that, in a challenging context, maternal control is likely experienced by children as guidance that mitigates decreases in positive emotion. Our work has implications for interventions to encourage more emotionally responsive parental involvement with children in late childhood and early adolescence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
How do people use reappraisal? An investigation of selection frequency and affective outcomes of reappraisal tactics.
Although the effects of different emotion regulation strategies are well-documented, most studies to date have focused on the selection and implementation of broad strategies, while overlooking the selection and implementation of specific tactics to enact those strategies. The present research investigated the strategy of cognitive reappraisal and the differences in selection frequency and affective outcomes that are associated with the implementation of different reappraisal tactics to enact that strategy. Participants completed a laboratory task in which they were instructed to reappraise or not to reappraise negative images and reported on their use of specific reappraisal tactics for every trial. Using established reappraisal tactic coding, we assessed how people selected from among common tactics for each image (Study 1) and all tactics (Study 2) and implemented those tactics to reappraise negative images. We compared reappraisal tactic selection and implementation when used during instructed reappraisal versus during spontaneous reappraisal, in the nonreappraise condition. Results of both studies indicate that tactics were used more often when instructed to reappraise versus when spontaneously reappraising. Participants used some tactics (e.g., reality challenge) more frequently compared to the rest of the tactics in both conditions. Negative affect was lower following instructed versus spontaneous reappraisal. Some tactics (e.g., change current circumstances) were more effective at decreasing negative affect in both conditions. Knowing which reappraisal tactics are most frequently selected, and their affective outcomes when used when prompted or spontaneously, may help us better understand how to improve people’s ability to use reappraisal to achieve their emotional goals. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Negative emotions disrupt intentional synchronization during group sensorimotor interaction.
Emotions play a fundamental role in human interactions and trigger responses in physiological, psychological, and behavioral modalities. Interpersonal coordination often entails attunement between individuals in various modalities. Previous research has elucidated the mechanisms of interpersonal synchronization and the emotions aroused by joint action: cardiac activity aligns in disputing marital couples, spectators share enjoyment in observing live dance performances, and joint finger-tapping evokes positive emotions. However, little is known about the impact of emotions on intentional interpersonal synchronization. To address this problem, we conducted an experiment in 2022 asking 60 participants to engage in a three-way finger-tapping synchronization task. We systematically induced emotional states (positive, neutral, and negative) with social comparison feedback using success–failure manipulations. An analysis of behavior synchronization using the Kuramoto order parameter revealed that negative emotion induction significantly diminished time spent in synchrony compared to positive induction. Moreover, the results exposed incremental struggles in attaining higher levels of synchronization (Q2–Q3) after the induction of negative emotions. These outcomes further substantiate the necessity of integrating the indices of agents’ emotions into interpersonal synchronization and coordination models. We discuss the implications of this work for research on interpersonal emotion in joint action and applied outcomes in emotion-aware technologies and interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
From memory to motivation: Probing the relationship between episodic simulation, empathy, and helping intentions.
Research has documented a strong link between constructing episodic simulations—vivid imaginations of specific events—and empathy. To date, most studies have used episodic simulations of helping someone to facilitate affective empathy and promote helping intentions, but have not studied how episodic simulations of another’s distressing situation affect empathy. Moreover, affective empathy encompasses both personal distress (i.e., an egocentric experience of distress in response to another’s circumstances) and empathic concern (i.e., compassion for another), but we do not know how episodic simulations affect each component. To address these questions, we ran three experiments testing how different episodic simulations influenced personal distress and empathic concern, and thereby willingness to help. In Experiment 1 (N = 216), we found that participants who constructed episodic simulations of another’s situation reported increased personal distress (but not empathic concern) and increased helping intentions compared to a control group; additional analyses revealed that personal distress mediated the simulation effect on helping. Furthermore, in Experiment 2 (N = 213), we contrasted episodic simulation of helping versus the distressing scenario; we found no differences in personal distress or helping intentions, but simulating helping led to higher empathic concern. Experiment 3 (N = 571) included both simulation conditions and a control condition; we fully replicated our findings, additionally showing that simulating a helping interaction increased personal distress, empathic concern, and helping intentions relative to the control condition, which consisted of prior work. Taken together, our work illustrates how distinct forms of episodic simulation differentially guide empathic responding and highlights the importance of personal distress in motivating helping. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Physiological arousal underlies preferential access to visual awareness of fear-conditioned (and possibly disgust-conditioned) stimuli.
Fear and disgust have been associated with opposite influences on visual processing, even though both constitute negative emotions that motivate avoidance behavior and entail increased arousal. In the current study, we hypothesized that (a) homeostatic relevance modulates early stages of visual processing, (b) through widespread physiological responses, and that (c) the direction of these modulations depends on whether an emotion calls for immediate regulatory behavior or not. Specifically, we expected that increased arousal should facilitate the detection of fear-related stimuli, and inhibit the detection of disgust-related stimuli. These hypotheses were tested in two preregistered experiments (data collected in 2022, total N = 120, ethnically homogeneous Polish sample). Using a novel, response bias-free version of the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm, we examined localization and discrimination of fear- and disgust-conditioned stimuli at individually determined perceptual thresholds. Our first hypothesis was confirmed: fear-conditioned stimuli were detected and discriminated better than neutral stimuli, and the magnitude of conditioning-related perceptual preference was related to arousal during conditioning acquisition. In contrast with our second hypothesis, perceptual access to disgust-conditioned stimuli was not diminished. Exploratory analyses suggest that discrimination of disgust-conditioned stimuli was also enhanced, although these effects appeared weaker than those evoked by fear conditioning. The current study strengthens previous evidence for facilitated perception of threatening objects and shows for the first time that stimuli evoking disgust might also gain preferential access to awareness. The results imply that homeostatically relevant stimuli are prioritized by the visual system and that this preference is grounded in the underlying arousal levels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Feelings in words: Emotion word use and cardiovascular reactivity in marital interactions.
Putting feelings into words is often thought to be beneficial. Few studies, however, have examined associations between natural emotion word use and cardiovascular reactivity. This laboratory-based study examined emotion word use (i.e., from computerized text analysis) and cardiovascular reactivity (i.e., interbeat interval changes from baseline) across two interaction contexts (i.e., conflict and positive conversations) in 49 mixed-sex married couples (age: M = 43.11, SD = 9.20) from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. We focused on both frequency (i.e., relative proportion of emotion words) and diversity (i.e., relative proportion of unique emotion words) of emotion words. Data were collected between 2015 and 2017 and analyzed treating both partners and conversations as repeated measures, resulting in 196 observations overall (four per dyad). Findings showed that (a) when spouses used more negative emotion words (especially anger), they showed higher cardiovascular reactivity. This finding was robust when controlling for covariates; generalized across gender, interaction contexts, and socioeconomic status. Moreover, (b) when spouses used a more diverse negative emotion vocabulary, they showed higher cardiovascular reactivity, but this was not robust when controlling for negative emotion word frequency. Associations between (c) positive emotion word use and cardiovascular reactivity were not statistically significant. Verbalizing negative emotions thus seems to go along with higher cardiovascular reactivity, at least in the short term. Replication is needed across other relationship types, genders, and sexual orientations. These findings highlight emotion word use as an indicator of cardiovascular reactivity, which has implications for the identification of potential health risks that emerge during marital interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
What makes a word a good representative of the category of “emotion”? The role of feelings and interoception.
The words we use to describe emotions vary in terms of prototypicality; that is, some of these words may be more representative of the semantic category of emotion than others (e.g., anger refers more clearly to an emotion than boredom). Based on a multicomponential conception of emotions, the aim of the present study was to examine the contribution of several variables to emotion prototypicality. Some of those variables are related to the distinct components of emotions: evaluation, action, body expression, internal body sensations (interoception), and feelings. Other variables are related to the concreteness/abstractness distinction: sensory experience, social interaction, thought, and morality. We collected ratings for these variables for a large set of words (1,286) which varied in emotion prototypicality. A regression analysis revealed that the variables that most contributed to emotion prototypicality were feelings and interoception. Furthermore, a factor analysis identified two underlying factors: socioemotional polarity and emotional experience. The scores of each word in both factors were used to create a two-dimensional space and a density plot which provides relevant information about the organization of emotion concepts in memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Emotionally positive self-directed speech widens the cone of gaze.
The perception of another individual’s gaze direction is not a low-level, stimulus-driven visual process but a higher-level process that can be top-down modulated, for example, by emotion and theory of mind. The present study investigated the influence of directed (self vs. other) and emotional (positive vs. negative) speech on judging whether another individual’s gaze or an arrow is directed toward the self or not. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that participants perceived a wider range of gaze deviations as looking at them when the speech was directed to themselves versus others. Importantly, the emotion in speech also impacted gaze judgments, but only when the speech was related to the participants themselves: the gaze cone was greater for positive than for negative self-relevant speech. This pattern of results was observed regardless of whether the speech was task-relevant (Experiment 1) or task-irrelevant (Experiment 2). Additionally, the results from Experiment 3 showed that the directed and emotional information in the speech had no impact on the judgments of the direction of an arrow. These findings expand our knowledge of the interaction between the perception of emotions and gaze direction and emphasize the significance of self-relevance in modulating this interaction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
“Let’s go over it again”: Examining the intra- and interpersonal processes that perpetuate co-rumination in close relationships.
Co-rumination is an interpersonal emotion regulation strategy characterized by extensive, cyclical conversations regarding the causes and consequences of problems and associated negative emotions. Theory posits that over time, interpersonal benefits of co-rumination such as emotional intimacy reinforce the behavior, outweighing the resulting negative impacts on mental health. However, our understanding of how co-rumination is perpetuated within conversations is limited. This study (conducted in 2019–2020) aims to assess perceptions of partner co-rumination and responsiveness as factors that perpetuate co-rumination to better understand the intra- and interpersonal processes that influence how co-rumination unfolds within conversations. To do this, we utilized an observational paradigm with primarily White, female, young adult friendship dyads wherein one individual (the discloser) disclosed and discussed an extradyadic problem with a close friend (the responder). Using an empathic accuracy paradigm, participants reported their own and their partner’s co-rumination and responsiveness for every 30-s epoch. Results revealed biased estimations of partner co-rumination that may facilitate reciprocity of co-ruminative conversation within the dyad. Additionally, while greater perceptions of partner co-rumination were perceived as responsive by disclosers and elicited responsive behavior from responders, perceived partner responsiveness did not perpetuate co-rumination within the conversation. Together, these findings enhance our understanding of the intra- and interpersonal processes that influence how co-rumination unfolds within conversations between close friends, but they also draw attention to unanswered questions in the field regarding partner contributions to co-rumination, the nature of problems discussed, and generalizability of these findings as well as those of other extant co-rumination research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Evaluating dynamics in affect structure with latent Markov factor analysis.
In intensive longitudinal research, researchers typically consider the structure of affect to be stable across individuals and contexts. Based on an assumed theoretical structure (e.g., one bipolar or two separate positive and negative affect constructs), researchers create affect scores from items (e.g., sum or factor scores) and use them to examine the dynamics therein. However, researchers usually ignore that the affect structure itself is dynamic and varies across individuals and contexts. Understanding these dynamics provides valuable insights into individuals’ affective experiences. This study uses latent Markov factor analysis (LMFA) to study what affect structures underlie individuals’ responses, how individuals transition between structures, and whether their individual transition patterns differ. Moreover, we explore whether the intensity of negative events and the personality trait neuroticism relate to momentary transitions and individual differences in transition patterns, respectively. Applying LMFA to experience sampling data (N = 153; age: mean = 22; SD = 7.1; range = 17–66), we identified two affect structures—one with three and one with four dimensions. The main difference was the presence of negative emotionality, and the affect dimensions became more inversely related when the affect structure included negative emotionality. Moreover, we identified three latent subgroups that differed in their transition patterns. Higher negative event intensity increased the probability of adopting an affect structure with negative emotionality. However, neuroticism was unrelated to subgroup-membership. Summarized, we propose a way to incorporate contextual and individual differences in affect structure, contributing to advancing the theoretical basis of affect dynamics research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Affective forecasting as an adaptive learning process.
Theories propose that human affective forecasting is an adaptive learning process guided by prediction errors. Although this learning process can be formally described by a Kalman filter, human forecasts are suggested to be biased and computationally suboptimal. We compared the accuracy of human affective forecasts to statistical forecasts made using a Kalman filter and explored the differences between these two processes. Participants (from the general population) repeatedly rated current levels of affect and forecasted levels of affect that they would experience 2–3 hr later (Study 1, n = 62), 1 min later (Study 2a, n = 91), and 1–2 hr later (Study 2b, n = 87), in daily life or in experimental settings. Results showed that compared to statistical forecasts, the participants’ forecasts showed larger absolute errors in hour-long forecasting (dz = 0.42 and 0.30) but not in minute-long forecasting (dz = 0.17). Relative errors were also evaluated in each study, showing no differences in Studies 1 and 2b (hour-long forecasting in daily life) but more optimistic errors in participants’ than statistical forecasts in Study 2a (minute-long forecasting in an experimental setting). Across the three studies, participants exhibited a strong tendency to project their current affective experience onto a new forecast, and this may explain human-specific forecasting errors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Emotion language use in narratives of the 9/11 attacks predicts long-term memory.
Despite considerable cognitive neuroscience research demonstrating that emotions can influence the encoding and consolidation of memory, research has failed to demonstrate a relationship between self-reported ratings of emotions collected soon after a traumatic event and memory for the event over time. This secondary analysis of data from a multisite longitudinal study of memories of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, asked the question of whether emotional language use could predict memory over time. In the 2 weeks following the 9/11 attacks, participants (N = 691; Mage = 36.8; 72% identifying as male; 76% identifying as white) wrote narratives about how they learned of the attacks and the impact of the attacks on them. Language features of these narratives were extracted using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count program and used to predict three types of memory: (a) event memory accuracy, (b) flashbulb memory consistency, and (c) emotion memory consistency. These outcomes were assessed at the time of writing, 1, 3, and 10 years after the 9/11 attacks. Results of linear mixed-effects models indicate that greater use of negative emotion words in narratives predicts better event memory accuracy 3 and 10 years after the attacks and worse flashbulb memory consistency 10 years after the attacks. However, emotion word use does not predict emotion memory consistency across time. We also examine whether other exploratory linguistic predictors are associated with memory over time. These findings suggest that written language may serve as a potential early indicator of memory over time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Emotionally expressive interdependence in Latin America: Triangulating through a comparison of three cultural zones.
Evidence suggests that Latin Americans display elevated levels of emotional expressivity and positivity. Here, we tested whether Latin Americans possess a unique form of interdependence called expressive interdependence, characterized by the open expression of positive emotions related to social engagement (e.g., feelings of closeness to others). In Study 1, we compared Latin Americans from Chile and Mexico with European Americans in the United States, a group known to be highly independent. Latin Americans expressed positive socially engaging emotions, particularly in response to negative events affecting others, whereas European Americans favored positive socially disengaging emotions, such as pride, especially in response to personally favorable circumstances. Study 2 replicated these findings with another group of Latin Americans from Colombia and European Americans in the United States. Study 2 also included Japanese in Japan, who expressed positive emotions less than Latin and European Americans. However, Japanese displayed a higher tendency to express negative socially engaging emotions, such as guilt and shame, compared to both groups. Our data demonstrate that emotional expression patterns align with overarching ethos of interdependence in Latin America and Japan and independence among European Americans. However, Latin Americans and Japanese exhibited different styles of interdependence. Latin Americans were expressive of positive socially engaging emotions, whereas Japanese were less expressive overall. Moreover, when Japanese expressed emotions, they emphasized negative socially engaging emotions. Implications for theories of culture and emotion are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Social microclimates and well-being.
Emotional well-being has a known relationship with a person’s direct social ties, including friendships; but do ambient social and emotional features of the local community also play a role? This work takes advantage of university students’ assignment to different local networks—or “social microclimates”—to probe this question. Using Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression, we quantify the collective impact of individual, social network, and microclimate factors on the emotional well-being of a cohort of first-year college students. Results indicate that well-being tracks individual factors but also myriad social and microclimate factors, reflecting one’s peers and social surroundings. Students who belonged to emotionally stable and tight-knit microclimates (i.e., had emotionally stable friends or resided in densely connected residence halls) reported lower levels of psychological distress and higher levels of life satisfaction, even when controlling for factors such as personality and social network size. Although rarely discussed or acknowledged in the policies that create them, social microclimates are consequential to well-being, especially during life transitions. The effects of microclimate factors are small relative to some individual factors; however, they explain unique variance in well-being that is not directly captured by emotional stability or other individual factors. These findings are novel, but preliminary, and should be replicated in new samples and contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Integrating mindfulness into the extended process model of emotion regulation: The dual-mode model of mindful emotion regulation.
Extensive research has been conducted regarding how people manage their emotions. Within this research, there has been growing attention toward the role of mindfulness in emotion regulation. While prior reviews have discussed mindfulness in the context of emotion regulation, they have not provided a thorough integration using the prevailing models of emotion regulation or mindfulness. The present review discusses the Extended Process Model of Emotion Regulation and Monitoring and Acceptance Theory of mindfulness in order to propose a novel integrated framework, the Dual-mode Model of Mindful Emotion Regulation (D-MER). This model proposes two “modes” of mindfulness: Implementation and facilitation. Implementation posits that mindfulness skills can be used as emotion regulation strategies through attentional deployment and cognitive change. Facilitation posits that mindfulness as a state or trait affects emotion generation and regulation through effects on cognitive processes and positive or negative valence systems. Further, the D-MER posits that mindfulness experience can improve the efficiency of mindfulness-based emotion regulation strategies (implementation) while effects of mindfulness on emotion regulation processes become increasingly trait-like and automatic over time (facilitation). Empirical and theoretical support for this model are discussed, specific hypotheses to guide further research are provided, and clinical implications are presented. Use of this model may identify mechanisms underlying the interaction between mindfulness and emotion regulation which can be used in ongoing affective and clinical research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Perceived responses, capitalization, and daily gratitude: Do age and closeness matter?
Successful capitalization and feelings of gratitude are both dependent upon perceived responsiveness of a social partner, but they are understudied in combination and have yet to be studied jointly in a daily context. Taking a new approach to studying capitalization, the current study examines the effect of daily capitalization on momentary gratitude and investigates the role of the capitalizer’s typical perceived responses to capitalization attempts (PRCA) on daily gratitude and future capitalization attempts. Age and social closeness are studied as amplifiers, as older adults prioritize positive emotional experiences and it is more common to capitalize with closer others for whom the capitalizer’s good news is salient and who are thus motivated to provide support to the capitalizer. Participants (N = 290) aged 25–85 years completed a trait-level survey followed by ecological momentary assessment surveys (six per day) for 10 days. Results demonstrate that people experienced higher daily gratitude when capitalizing, especially when interacting with a social partner rated as high in closeness. Those who had higher trait active–constructive PRCA also experienced higher daily gratitude, with this effect strengthened among older adults. Perceived responses were also associated with more attempts to capitalize in daily life. This work suggests engaging in capitalization and perceiving regular enthusiastic and supportive responses to one’s capitalization attempts have daily emotional and behavioral benefits. Notably, regular enthusiastic responses to capitalization attempts may be a motivator for future attempts across adulthood, but it may be particularly likely to foster feelings of gratitude in old age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
Social dynamics and affect: Investigating within-person associations in daily life using experience sampling and mobile sensing.
Social interactions are crucial to affective well-being. Still, people vary interindividually and intraindividually in their social needs. Social need regulation theories state that mismatches between momentary social desire and actual social contact result in lowered affect, yet empirical knowledge about this dynamic regulation is limited. In a gender- and age-heterogenous sample, German-speaking participants (N = 306, 51% women, Mage = 39.41, range 18–80 years) answered up to 20 momentary questionnaires about social interactions and affect while mobile sensing tracked their conversations, calls, and app usage over 2 days. Combining preregistered and exploratory analyses, we investigated how momentary affect relates to social dynamics, focusing on two states of mismatch between social desire and social contact: social deprivation (i.e., being alone but desiring contact) and social oversatiation (i.e., being in contact but desiring to be alone). We used specification curve analyses to scrutinize the operationalization of these constructs. Social oversatiation was associated with decreased positive affect and increased negative affect. Social deprivation, however, was unrelated to affect. Exploratory multilevel models showed that a higher desire to be alone was consistently associated with decreased affective well-being, whereas a higher desire for social contact was related to increased affective well-being. Mobile sensing data revealed differential association patterns between affect and face-to-face versus digital communication. We discuss implications for social need regulation, related studies on voluntary solitude, and advantages of combining experience sampling and mobile sensing assessments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)
The effect of reward prediction errors on subjective affect depends on outcome valence and decision context.
The valence of an individual’s emotional response to an event is often thought to depend on their prior expectations for the event: better-than-expected outcomes produce positive affect and worse-than-expected outcomes produce negative affect. In recent years, this hypothesis has been instantiated within influential computational models of subjective affect that assume the valence of affect is driven by reward prediction errors. However, there remain a number of open questions regarding this association. In this project, we investigated the moderating effects of outcome valence and decision context (Experiment 1: free vs. forced choices; Experiment 2: trials with vs. trials without counterfactual feedback) on the effects of reward prediction errors on subjective affect. We conducted two online experiments (N = 300 in total) of general-population samples recruited via Prolific to complete a risky decision-making task with an embedded high-resolution sampling of subjective affect. Hierarchical Bayesian computational modeling revealed that both outcome amount and reward prediction errors influenced subjective affect, but that the effects of reward prediction errors were moderated by both outcome valence and decision context. Specifically, we found evidence that only negative reward prediction errors (worse-than-expected outcomes) influenced subjective affect, with no significant effect of positive reward prediction errors (better-than-expected outcomes). Moreover, these effects were only apparent on trials in which participants made a choice freely (but not on forced-choice trials) and when counterfactual feedback was absent (but not when counterfactual feedback was present). These results deepen our understanding of the effects of reward prediction errors on subjective affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

Emotion - Vol 24, Iss 3