Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-06-19DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00194-1
Angela Gaia F. Abatista, Florian Cova
{"title":"Are Self-transcendent Emotions One Big Family? An Empirical Taxonomy of Positive Self-transcendent Emotion Labels","authors":"Angela Gaia F. Abatista, Florian Cova","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00194-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00194-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the past decade, there has been a growing amount of research on so-called self-transcendent emotions, mainly in the domain of positive emotions. However, most candidate self-transcendent emotions (e.g., Awe, Gratitude, Being Moved, Wonder) have been studied in isolation, leaving the commonalities and the differences of their phenomenology unknown. In the present paper, we sought to identify the phenomenological nature of main families of self-transcendent emotions. We drew on two large datasets (<i>N</i><sub>1</sub> = 3,113; <i>N</i><sub>2</sub> = 1,443) in which participants had to recall an emotional episode or to watch emotional videos and had to report their emotions through a list of 40 emotion labels. Participants were also presented with a large list of items probing their cognitive appraisals, bodily feelings, and action tendencies. Using a principal component analysis, we identified three main dimensions of positive emotions: hedonic, social, and epistemic states. Candidate self-transcendent emotions were distributed across two dimensions, suggesting that at least two main different families of self-transcendent emotions should be distinguished. Our results also allowed us to identify self-reported cognitive appraisals, bodily feelings, and action tendencies characteristic of each family.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 4","pages":"731 - 743"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00194-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117222400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-06-12DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00193-2
Daniela Becker, Katharina Bernecker
{"title":"The Role of Hedonic Goal Pursuit in Self-Control and Self-Regulation: Is Pleasure the Problem or Part of the Solution?","authors":"Daniela Becker, Katharina Bernecker","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00193-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00193-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>This paper examines the role of hedonic goal pursuit in self-control and self-regulation. We argue that not all pursuit of immediate pleasure is problematic and that successful hedonic goal pursuit can be beneficial for long-term goal pursuit and for achieving positive self-regulatory outcomes, such as health and well-being. The following two key questions for future research are discussed: How can people’s positive affective experiences during hedonic goal pursuit be enhanced, and how exactly do those affective experiences contribute to self-regulatory outcomes? We also call for an intercultural perspective linking hedonic goal pursuit to self-regulatory outcomes at different levels. We suggest that understanding the cognitive, motivational, and affective mechanisms at play can help individuals reap the benefits of successful hedonic goal pursuit. Considering those potential benefits, hedonic goal pursuit should be studied more systematically. To achieve this, we argue for a stronger integration of affective science and self-control research.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 3","pages":"470 - 474"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00193-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41174868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-06-09DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00192-3
Rista C. Plate, Kristina Woodard, Seth D. Pollak
{"title":"Category Flexibility in Emotion Learning","authors":"Rista C. Plate, Kristina Woodard, Seth D. Pollak","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00192-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00192-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Learners flexibly update category boundaries to adjust to the range of experiences they encounter. However, little is known about whether the degree of flexibility is consistent across domains. We examined whether categorization of social input, specifically emotions, is afforded more flexibility as compared to other biological input. To address this question, children (6–12 years; 32 female, 37 male; 7 Hispanic or Latino, 62 not Hispanic or Latino; 8 Black or African American, 14 multiracial, 46 White, 1 selected “other”) categorized faces morphed from calm to upset and animals morphed from a horse to a cow across task phases that differed in the distribution of stimuli presented. Learners flexibly adjusted both emotion and animal category boundaries according to distributional information, yet children showed more flexibility when updating their category boundaries for emotions. These results provide support for the idea that children—who must adjust to the vast and varied emotional signals of their social partners—respond to social signals dynamically in order to make predictions about the internal states and future behaviors of others.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 4","pages":"722 - 730"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129749252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00189-y
Adrienne S. Bonar, Jennifer K. MacCormack, Mallory J. Feldman, Kristen A. Lindquist
{"title":"Examining the Role of Emotion Differentiation on Emotion and Cardiovascular Physiological Activity During Acute Stress","authors":"Adrienne S. Bonar, Jennifer K. MacCormack, Mallory J. Feldman, Kristen A. Lindquist","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00189-y","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00189-y","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Emotion differentiation (ED) — the tendency to experience one’s emotions with specificity — is a well-established predictor of adaptive responses to daily life stress. Yet, there is little research testing the role of ED in self-reported and physiological responses to an acute stressor. In the current study, we investigate the effects of negative emotion differentiation (NED) and positive emotion differentiation (PED) on participants’ self-reported emotions and cardiac-mediated sympathetic nervous system reactivity (i.e., pre-ejection period) in response to a stressful task. Healthy young adults enrolled in a two-session study. At an initial session, participants completed a modified experience sampling procedure (i.e., the Day Reconstruction Method). At session 2, 195 completed the Trier Social Stress Test while cardiac impedance was acquired throughout. Linear regressions demonstrated that higher NED, but not PED, was associated with experiencing less intense self-reported negative, high arousal emotions (e.g., irritated, panicky) during the stressor (<i>β</i> = − .15, <i>p</i> < .05) although people with higher NED also exhibited greater sympathetic reactivity (<i>β</i> = .16, <i>p</i> < .05). In exploratory analyses, we tested whether the effect of NED on self-reported stress was mediated by the tendency to make internally focus (or self-focused) attributions about performance on the task but did not find a significant indirect effect (<i>p</i> = .085). These results both complement prior work and provide a more complex picture of the role of NED in adaptive responses to stressful life events, suggesting that people with higher NED may experience their emotions as more manageable regardless of their level of physiological arousal.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 2","pages":"317 - 331"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00189-y.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9619528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-05-08DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00187-0
Yael H. Waizman, Anna E. Sedykin, João F. Guassi Moreira, Natalie M. Saragosa-Harris, Jennifer A. Silvers, Tara S. Peris
{"title":"Emotion Regulation Strategies and Beliefs About Emotions Predict Psychosocial Outcomes in Response to Multiple Stressors","authors":"Yael H. Waizman, Anna E. Sedykin, João F. Guassi Moreira, Natalie M. Saragosa-Harris, Jennifer A. Silvers, Tara S. Peris","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00187-0","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00187-0","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Emotion regulation (ER) strategies and beliefs about emotions (implicit theories of emotions; ITE) may shape psychosocial outcomes during turbulent times, including the transition to adulthood and college while encountering stressors. The normative stressors associated with these transitions were compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, providing a novel opportunity to examine how emerging adults (EAs) cope with sustained stressors. Stress exposures can heighten existing individual differences and serve as “turning points” that predict psychosocial trajectories. This pre-registered study (https://osf.io/k8mes) of 101 EAs (18–19 years old) examined whether ITE (believing emotions can change or not; incremental vs. entity beliefs) and ER strategy usage (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression usage) predicted changes in anxiety symptomatology and feelings of loneliness across five longitudinal assessments (across a 6-month period) before and during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic. On average, EAs’ anxiety decreased after the pandemic outbreak but returned to baseline over time, while loneliness remained relatively unchanged across time. ITE explained variance in anxiety across time over and above reappraisal use. Conversely, reappraisal use explained variance in loneliness over and above ITE. For both anxiety and loneliness, suppression use resulted in maladaptive psychosocial outcomes across time. Thus, interventions that target ER strategies and ITE may ameliorate risk and promote resilience in EAs who experience increased instability.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 2","pages":"275 - 290"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00187-0.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9613519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00188-z
Allon Vishkin, Maya Tamir
{"title":"Emotion Norms Are Unique","authors":"Allon Vishkin, Maya Tamir","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00188-z","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00188-z","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Emotion norms shape the pursuit, regulation, and experience of emotions, yet much about their nature remains unknown. Like other types of social norms, emotion norms reflect intersubjective consensus, vary in both content and strength, and benefit the well-being of people who adhere to them. However, we propose that emotion norms may also be a unique type of social norm. First, whereas social norms typically target behaviors, emotion norms can target both expressive behavior and subjective states. Second, whereas it may be possible to identify universally held social norms, norms for emotions may lack any universality. Finally, whereas social norms are typically stronger in more collectivist cultures, emotion norms appear to be stronger in more individualist cultures. For each of the potentially distinct features of emotion norms suggested above, we highlight new directions for future research.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 3","pages":"453 - 457"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00188-z.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41162329","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-05-02DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00186-1
Camille Saumure, Marie-Pier Plouffe-Demers, Daniel Fiset, Stéphanie Cormier, Ye Zhang, Dan Sun, Manni Feng, Feifan Luo, Miriam Kunz, Caroline Blais
{"title":"Differences Between East Asians and Westerners in the Mental Representations and Visual Information Extraction Involved in the Decoding of Pain Facial Expression Intensity","authors":"Camille Saumure, Marie-Pier Plouffe-Demers, Daniel Fiset, Stéphanie Cormier, Ye Zhang, Dan Sun, Manni Feng, Feifan Luo, Miriam Kunz, Caroline Blais","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00186-1","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00186-1","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Effectively communicating pain is crucial for human beings. Facial expressions are one of the most specific forms of behavior associated with pain, but the way culture shapes expectations about the intensity with which pain is typically facially conveyed, and the visual strategies deployed to decode pain intensity in facial expressions, is poorly understood. The present study used a data-driven approach to compare two cultures, namely East Asians and Westerners, with respect to their mental representations of pain facial expressions (experiment 1, <i>N</i>=60; experiment 2, <i>N</i>=74) and their visual information utilization during the discrimination of facial expressions of pain of different intensities (experiment 3; <i>N</i>=60). Results reveal that compared to Westerners, East Asians expect more intense pain expressions (experiments 1 and 2), need more signal, and do not rely as much as Westerners on core facial features of pain expressions to discriminate between pain intensities (experiment 3). Together, those findings suggest that cultural norms regarding socially accepted pain behaviors shape the expectations about pain facial expressions and decoding visual strategies. Furthermore, they highlight the complexity of emotional facial expressions and the importance of studying pain communication in multicultural settings.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 2","pages":"332 - 349"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00186-1.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9610390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-04-15DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00183-4
Olivia Jurkiewicz, C. Blair McGarrigle, Christopher Oveis
{"title":"How to Improve Others’ Emotions: Reappraise and be Responsive","authors":"Olivia Jurkiewicz, C. Blair McGarrigle, Christopher Oveis","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00183-4","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00183-4","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>People often try to improve others’ emotions. However, it is unclear which interpersonal emotion regulation strategies are most effective and why. In 121 candid dyadic conversations between undergraduate students via video conferencing, target participants recounted a stressful event to regulator participants. Three strategies used by regulators during these conversations to change targets’ emotions were obtained from the regulator after the conversation: extrinsic reappraisal, extrinsic suppression, and extrinsic acceptance. Perceived regulator responsiveness was obtained from targets to examine the social consequences of extrinsic emotion regulation and its mediating role in successful extrinsic emotion regulation. We found that regulators’ extrinsic reappraisal use was associated with improved target emotions measured across two distinct classes of outcomes: targets’ emotions during the conversation and targets’ perception that the regulator improved their emotions. Regulators’ extrinsic suppression and acceptance, in contrast, were not related with improved target emotions or perceptions of improvement. Instead, all extrinsic regulatory strategies were associated with improved targets’ emotions when mediated by targets’ perceptions of regulator responsiveness. Finally, observer-ratings of regulators’ extrinsic reappraisal and suppression use were found to be consistent with regulators’ self-ratings and follow the same pattern of results on the outcome measures. These findings provide insight into why the social regulation of emotions can succeed or fail and hold implications for interventions aimed at guiding people toward more successfully improving others’ emotions.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 2","pages":"233 - 247"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00183-4.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9607722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-04-14DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00185-2
Katie Hoemann, Yeasle Lee, Peter Kuppens, Maria Gendron, Ryan L. Boyd
{"title":"Emotional Granularity is Associated with Daily Experiential Diversity","authors":"Katie Hoemann, Yeasle Lee, Peter Kuppens, Maria Gendron, Ryan L. Boyd","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00185-2","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00185-2","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Emotional granularity is the ability to create differentiated and nuanced emotional experiences and is associated with positive health outcomes. Individual differences in granularity are hypothesized to reflect differences in emotion concepts, which are informed by prior experience and impact current and future experience. Greater variation in experience, then, should be related to the rich and diverse emotion concepts that support higher granularity. Using natural language processing methods, we analyzed descriptions of everyday events to estimate the diversity of contexts and activities encountered by participants. Across three studies varying in language (English, Dutch) and modality (written, spoken), we found that participants who referred to a more varied and balanced set of contexts and activities reported more differentiated and nuanced negative emotions. Experiential diversity was not consistently associated with granularity for positive emotions. We discuss the contents of daily life as a potential source and outcome of individual differences in emotion.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 2","pages":"291 - 306"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00185-2.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9619529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Affective sciencePub Date : 2023-03-28DOI: 10.1007/s42761-023-00184-3
Eric S. Kim, Judith T. Moskowitz, Laura D. Kubzansky
{"title":"Introduction to Special Issue: Interventions to Modify Psychological Well-Being and Population Health","authors":"Eric S. Kim, Judith T. Moskowitz, Laura D. Kubzansky","doi":"10.1007/s42761-023-00184-3","DOIUrl":"10.1007/s42761-023-00184-3","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Psychological ill-being is on the rise, with 1 in 5 Americans suffering from a mental disorder in any given year. Additional evidence demonstrates that psychological well-being has also decreased over time. These trends are particularly worrisome given the substantial and growing body of evidence demonstrating that psychological ill-being (e.g., depression, anxiety, anger) is associated with an elevated risk of developing chronic diseases and premature mortality, while aspects of psychological well-being (e.g., positive affect, sense of purpose and meaning, life satisfaction) are independently associated with improved physical health outcomes. An underexplored but promising approach to enhancing both psychological and physical health is through developing a set of tools that specifically target psychological well-being (often referred to as positive psychological interventions (PPIs) although many interventions developed outside the field of positive psychology also achieve these goals). Such interventions hold promise as a strategy for improving population health. However, critical knowledge gaps hold us back, and we have not yet developed a robust set of intervention strategies that can improve psychological well-being in meaningful, durable, and scalable ways that would also have downstream effects on physical health. The goal of this special issue is to help address these knowledge gaps by bringing together current conceptual frameworks, critical examination of key constructs, and novel empirical evidence needed to identify and examine interventions that can modify psychological well-being, particularly those that have the potential to be scaled at the population level and with durable effects.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":72119,"journal":{"name":"Affective science","volume":"4 1","pages":"1 - 9"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s42761-023-00184-3.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9672115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}