EmotionPub Date : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-03-31DOI: 10.1037/emo0001525
Maria Monroy, Vanessa K Castro, Regina Ebo, Dante D Dixson, Oliver P John, Dacher Keltner
{"title":"The role of emotion recognition in empathy.","authors":"Maria Monroy, Vanessa K Castro, Regina Ebo, Dante D Dixson, Oliver P John, Dacher Keltner","doi":"10.1037/emo0001525","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001525","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In the present investigation, we document the association between multimodal emotion recognition and state and trait empathy. We assessed participants' (<i>N</i> = 342) capacities for emotion recognition-across 13 emotions expressed in the face, voice, and body-as well as their state- and trait-like empathic tendencies. Emotion recognition accuracy predicted greater state-like empathic responses to targets' expressions of emotions, as evident in higher reports of emotion-specific shared emotion and sympathy. Emotion recognition accuracy also predicted validated self-report measures of trait-like empathy, providing further evidence for the critical role of emotion recognition in empathy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1704-1715"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143755168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EmotionPub Date : 2025-10-01Epub Date: 2025-04-24DOI: 10.1037/emo0001529
Jennifer L Howell, Kate Sweeny
{"title":"Information-management behavior during stressful waiting periods.","authors":"Jennifer L Howell, Kate Sweeny","doi":"10.1037/emo0001529","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001529","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In three longitudinal studies, we examined the relationship between worry about an outcome and information-management behavior-specifically seeking and avoiding information about that outcome-in the context of awaiting uncertain news. Study 1 examined a group of U.S. voters across the 4 weeks preceding the 2020 presidential election. Study 2 examined law graduates who completed the California bar exam during the 17 weeks between when they took the exam and when their results were posted online. Study 3 examined job candidates from a variety of academic fields from October to April as they searched for academic jobs. In all three studies, people who reported greater worry about the relevant outcome across the wait reported greater information seeking. Additionally, people were particularly likely to seek information at the times during the wait when they reported the most acute worry. Evidence for the relationship between worry and information avoidance during the wait was more mixed; we found only that people who worried more were more likely to avoid information generally (between-subjects effect) in Studies 1 and 2 and did not find evidence that people were more likely to avoid at times they were most worried (within-subjects effect). These findings suggest that information avoidance might not be the strategy of choice in response to worry during stressful waiting periods; instead, worry seems to be motivating the pursuit of (sometimes unhelpful) information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1774-1783"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144016971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring the potential of large language models to understand interpersonal emotion regulation strategies from narratives.","authors":"Belén López-Pérez, Yuhui Chen, Xiuhui Li, Shixing Cheng, Pooya Razavi","doi":"10.1037/emo0001528","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001528","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Interpersonal emotion regulation involves using diverse strategies to influence others' emotions, commonly assessed with questionnaires. However, this method may be less effective for individuals with limited literacy or introspection skills. To address this, recent studies have adopted narrative-based approaches, though these require time-intensive qualitative analysis. Given the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLM) for information classification, we evaluated the feasibility of using AI to categorize interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. We conducted two studies in which we compared AI performance against human coding in identifying regulation strategies from narrative data. In Study 1, with 2,824 responses, ChatGPT initially achieved Kappa values over .47. Refinements in prompts (i.e., coding instructions) led to improved consistency between ChatGPT and human coders (κ > .79). In Study 2, the refined prompts demonstrated comparable accuracy (κ > .76) when analyzing a new set of responses (<i>N</i> = 2090), using both ChatGPT and Claude. Additional evaluations of LLMs' performance using different accuracy metrics pointed to notable variability in LLM's capability when interpreting narratives across different emotions and regulatory strategies. These results point to the strengths and limitations of LLMs in classifying regulation strategies, and the importance of prompt engineering and validation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":"1653-1667"},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144051188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-29DOI: 10.1037/emo0001586
Michal Olszanowski, Aleksandra Tołopiło, Ursula Hess
{"title":"Smile and the world smiles (and trusts) with you: Happiness mimicry shapes first impressions.","authors":"Michal Olszanowski, Aleksandra Tołopiło, Ursula Hess","doi":"10.1037/emo0001586","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001586","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Numerous studies have shown that the processes underlying trait judgments can be influenced by concurrent affect processing. The present project explores the role of emotional mimicry in trait attribution. Across three experiments, we asked participants to assess social characteristics of faces expressing happiness, sadness, and anger. In Experiments 1 and 3, we used facial electromyography to predict participants' inferences about trustworthiness, confidence, and attractiveness (Experiment 1) or their behaviorally assessed trust by asking participants to share virtual points in a \"trust/investment game\" (Experiment 3). In Experiment 2, we tested the causal relationship between facial activity and trait judgments. Participants were asked to assess trustworthiness while performing facial movements that either enhanced or inhibited muscle activity during mimicry of given emotional expressions. The results indicate that mimicry of happiness not only predicts but is causally linked to perceptions of trustworthiness-the stronger the imitation, the more positive the assessments. The results of Experiments 1 and 3 show that increased sadness mimicry is associated with lower trust ratings, although the results of Experiment 2 do not support a causal relationship. Additionally, we confirmed previous observations that people are more likely to mimic affiliative displays (i.e., happiness and sadness) than antagonistic ones (i.e., anger), with happiness being the most likely to be mimicked. In summary, these studies provide evidence that facial mimicry modulates social trait inferences and underscores the functional role of mimicry in social interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145193271","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-29DOI: 10.1037/emo0001584
David de Segovia Vicente, Kyle Van Gaeveren, Stephen Murphy, Mariek M P Vanden Abeele
{"title":"Tapping into feelings: An experience sampling study examining the dynamics of smartphone-based emotion regulation and negative affect.","authors":"David de Segovia Vicente, Kyle Van Gaeveren, Stephen Murphy, Mariek M P Vanden Abeele","doi":"10.1037/emo0001584","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001584","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examines digital emotion regulation as a dynamic process, involving both processes of media selection and media effects. Using a large intensive-longitudinal data set with more than 50,000 experience sampling data points gathered from over 1,000 adults, we investigated cross-lagged associations between negative affect and two smartphone-based strategies for regulating negative emotions, namely emotion expression and avoidance. Results indicate that individuals are more likely to engage in both smartphone-based expression and avoidance following negative affect (i.e., media <i>selection</i>). However, we observed no meaningful effect of smartphone-based emotion regulation on subsequent negative affect (i.e., media <i>effects</i>). Additionally, we explored the person-specificity of these associations, showing that media selection effects vary meaningfully across individuals, while media effect associations do not. Finally, using passively sensed behavioral smartphone data, we found that smartphone-based emotion expression partially explained the association between negative affect and mobile communication. Similarly, smartphone-based avoidance partially explained the association between negative affect and social media use. Overall, these findings suggest that while individuals may turn to smartphone-based strategies such as negative emotion expression and avoidance in response to negative emotional states, clear evidence of their short-term effectiveness in reducing negative affect is still lacking. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145193267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-29DOI: 10.1037/emo0001585
Aya Uchida, Katharine H Greenaway, Sarah T O'Brien, Yasemin Erbaş, Maya Tamir, Elise K Kalokerinos
{"title":"Trait emotion differentiation is associated with more instrumental emotion regulation motives when people feel negative in daily life.","authors":"Aya Uchida, Katharine H Greenaway, Sarah T O'Brien, Yasemin Erbaş, Maya Tamir, Elise K Kalokerinos","doi":"10.1037/emo0001585","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001585","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emotion differentiation-the ability to precisely label emotions-reflects a nuanced understanding of one's emotional experiences. Researchers posit that this nuance may be associated with knowing how one can use their emotions. As a result, we hypothesize emotion differentiation may be linked with holding instrumental emotion regulation motives, which involve regulating emotions to attain their benefits beyond solely feeling better or worse. In this research, we tested whether trait emotion differentiation was associated with instrumental emotion regulation motives in daily life, (a) in general and (b) at times when people felt strong emotion. To test these links, we used two experience sampling data sets collected in 2020 in Australia (Study 1, <i>N</i> = 173; 50.3% White), and in 2016 in Belgium (Study 2, <i>N</i> = 104; 100% European). Contrary to our hypotheses, there was no direct association between trait emotion differentiation and instrumental motive use. However, as hypothesized, in both studies, trait emotion differentiation moderated the relationship between emotion intensity and instrumental motives, though only in the case of negative-not positive-emotion. This interaction was such that those higher in trait emotion differentiation endorsed fewer instrumental motives when emotion was less intense, but more instrumental motives when emotion was more intense. This pattern suggests that people high in trait emotion differentiation may endorse instrumental motives flexibly, by regulating their emotions instrumentally when they are more intense, but not when they are less intense. Our findings support the idea that trait negative emotion differentiation may help individuals channel their intense emotions in useful ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145193213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-22DOI: 10.1037/emo0001587
Shir Ginosar Yaari, Lisanne Pauw, Anne Milek, Yaakov Greenwald, Dana Katsoty, Katharine H Greenaway, Maya Tamir
{"title":"Do unto others: People use similar strategies to regulate their own emotions and the emotions of others.","authors":"Shir Ginosar Yaari, Lisanne Pauw, Anne Milek, Yaakov Greenwald, Dana Katsoty, Katharine H Greenaway, Maya Tamir","doi":"10.1037/emo0001587","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001587","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Do people use similar strategies to regulate their own emotions (i.e., intrapersonal or self-oriented emotion regulation) and to regulate the emotions of others (i.e., interpersonal or other-oriented emotion regulation)? By answering this question, we try to shed light on why people regulate the emotions of others the way they do. We reasoned that because people imagine themselves as the target when deciding how to regulate others' emotions (Ball et al., 2013), they would use similar emotion regulation strategies to regulate their own and targets' emotions (Hypothesis 1). People are more likely to imagine a target is similar to them, the better their relationship is with the target (e.g., Murray et al., 2002). Thus, we expected people who have better relationships with the target to use more similar emotion regulation strategies to regulate their own and the target's emotions (Hypothesis 2). To test these ideas, we ran a cross-cultural study (Study 1, <i>N</i><sub>participants</sub> = 3,960, 19 countries), a survey study on close relationships during wartime (Study 2, <i>N</i><sub>participants</sub> = 530) and an ecological momentary assessment study on close relationships in daily life (Study 3, <i>N</i><sub>participants</sub> = 136). Across all studies, we found that people used similar emotion regulation strategies to regulate their own emotions and the emotions of others. In Studies 2 and 3, we further found that people do so to a greater extent when they felt their relationship with the target was better. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145138708","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-22DOI: 10.1037/emo0001589
Ji Young Song, Jack W Klein, Young-Jae Cha, Sean Goldy, Haisu Sun, James Tisch, Brock Bastian
{"title":"From vastness to unity: Awe strengthens identity fusion.","authors":"Ji Young Song, Jack W Klein, Young-Jae Cha, Sean Goldy, Haisu Sun, James Tisch, Brock Bastian","doi":"10.1037/emo0001589","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001589","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Awe is theorized to serve a social function, enabling individuals to integrate into collaborative groups and engage in collective action. Across five studies (<i>N</i> = 1,124), we examined awe's role in promoting identity fusion-an apex form of group connection. Two cross-sectional studies (1a and 1b) revealed that dispositional awe predicted stronger identity fusion. Three subsequent experiments (Studies 2-5) demonstrated that awe experiences strengthened identity fusion, with analyses revealing that the small-self sense of \"vastness vis-à-vis the self\" provided a significant indirect pathway linking awe (vs. controls) to increased fusion. These effects replicated across varying awe manipulations (emotion recall and virtual reality), target groups (country, university, local community, and nature), and cultural contexts (Australian and American samples). Our findings suggest that awe primes a <i>readiness to fuse</i> with groups, creating an openness to deeper collective bonds. Importantly, rather than diminishing personal agency, awe appears to foster an interdependent alignment where personal and collective goals converge, motivating individuals to direct their capabilities toward shared goals through mutual strengthening between self and group. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-09-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145138763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-18DOI: 10.1037/emo0001588
Juyoung Kim, Grazyna Kochanska
{"title":"Transactional dynamics between parental responsiveness and child emotion dysregulation: A longitudinal study from infancy to early school age.","authors":"Juyoung Kim, Grazyna Kochanska","doi":"10.1037/emo0001588","DOIUrl":"10.1037/emo0001588","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Bidirectional influences between parenting and children's emotion regulation are well established, but developmental shifts in these dynamics and differences between mother- and father-child relationships are far from understood. We examined such bidirectional dynamics from infancy to early school age in 102 U.S. Midwestern community families (51 girls), using an autoregressive latent trajectory model that enabled us to distinguish within-dyad co-regulatory processes from traitlike stability across dyads. Parental responsiveness and child emotion (dys)regulation were coded from observed parent-child interactions at seven time points from 7 months to 6.5 years. Results demonstrated significant parent-to-child effects during toddlerhood in both mother- and father-child dyads, with higher parental responsiveness predicting better subsequent emotion regulation in children. However, child-to-parent effects were observed only in father-child dyads, such that children with poorer emotion regulation elicited more, and those with better emotion regulation elicited less paternal responsiveness at the later time point. These findings suggest fathers may adjust caregiving more flexibly, balancing recognition of children's emotional needs and of their growing autonomy, whereas maternal responsiveness may be less influenced by fluctuations in child emotion (dys)regulation. No significant bidirectional associations were observed in infancy or early school age. Findings suggest that bidirectional dynamics are developmentally fluid in early parent-child relationships and that, surprisingly, fathers may be more adept at calibrating their responsiveness based on children's regulatory needs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12448099/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145082167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
EmotionPub Date : 2025-09-15DOI: 10.1037/emo0001583
Nicholas J Kelley, Douglas J Angus, Tim Wildschut, Constantine Sedikides
{"title":"Nostalgia and the positive valence system.","authors":"Nicholas J Kelley, Douglas J Angus, Tim Wildschut, Constantine Sedikides","doi":"10.1037/emo0001583","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001583","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>According to the regulatory model of nostalgia, nostalgia activates the positive valence system to countermand negative emotionality. However, no research has systematically examined whether nostalgia influences the diverse manifestations of the positive valence system. We addressed this issue in two preregistered studies (Σ<i>N</i> = 543). Participants completed trait nostalgia scales and the Positive Valence System Scale, comprising the following seven constructs: reward valuation, reward expectancy, effort valuation, action selection, reward anticipation, initial reward responsiveness, and reward satiation. In both studies, trait nostalgia was positively associated with all positive valence system constructs. When nostalgia was experimentally induced (Study 2), it increased reward valuation, action selection, and initial responsiveness. The results clarify nostalgia's impact on the positive valence system and the implications of the regulatory model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":48417,"journal":{"name":"Emotion","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145065925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}